The history of policies and policy outcomes in some civil rights domains in the United States is one of peaks and valleys. In some cases, the trends in policies and policy outcomes are not only non-monotonic, but have also defied national trends in attitudes about civil rights. Together, the non-monotonic trends and the disjunctures between policies and public opinion in some domains suggest a need to reconcile conventional theories of democratic representation with the implications of the agenda setting literature. How does public opinion affect civil rights policy and policy outcomes over time? What explains evolutionary differences across civil rights domains? Using qualitative analysis of statutory and case law and quantitative analysis of original large-N datasets, this dissertation explores the etiology of change in both civil rights policies, the legal instruments through which rights are articulated and enforced, and policy outcomes, the social and political conditions expected or designed to result from policies. I show that the relationship between public opinion and policy depends on which domain we examine; on whether we examine policies or policy outcomes; and on whether we define “public opinion” in terms of political values or political attitudes. These findings contribute to our understanding of the nature of political representation in the United States, and provide a foundation for future investigations into the link between public opinion and policy in other civil rights domains.
Blanding, David,
"Policy Infrastructure and the Politics of Civil Rights"
(2013).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0FJ2F4J
