IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v16y2004i2p149-190.html

Public Attention, Political Action: the Example of Environmental Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Newig

    (Institute of Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrück,Albrechtstr.28,Osnabrück,Germany jens.newig@usf.uni-osnabrueck.de)

Abstract

In this paper, a rational choice model of the dynamics of public attention to politically relevant issues is proposed, responding to the following research questions: When and why does public attention arise in the .rst place? Do ‘issue attention cycles’ really exist? What issues are likely to attain which degree of public attention? How can public attention be measured soundly? In which way does public attention in.uence regulatory action, and how, in turn, is public attention affected by political action? To this end, the paper sets off with a discussion of the concepts of ‘public’, ‘issue’, ‘attention’ and ‘cycle’. Key variables of the causal model include the acuteness/severity and accessibility/visibility of the issue at stake, as well as the ability to ‘solve’ the underlying problem. In an empirical study, several environmental issues and their corresponding regulation in Germany are examined in order to test the theoretical conjectures which could, for the most part, be empirically supported.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Newig, 2004. "Public Attention, Political Action: the Example of Environmental Regulation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 16(2), pages 149-190, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:16:y:2004:i:2:p:149-190
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463104043713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463104043713
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463104043713?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    2. Werner G³th, 2001. "How Ultimatum Offers Emerge: A Study in Bounded Rationality," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 18, pages 91-110.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    5. H. Igor Ansoff, 1980. "Strategic issue management," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(2), pages 131-148, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    2. James Alm & Carolyn J. Bourdeaux, 2013. "Applying Behavioral Economics to the Public Sector," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 206(3), pages 91-134, September.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    5. Claudio Balestri, 2014. "Political Organizations, Interest Groups and Citizens Engagement: An Integrated Model of Democracy," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 533-543, December.
    6. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    7. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2016. "Economic freedom and economic crises," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 11-23.
    8. Ginés de Rus & Javier Campos & Daniel Graham & M. Pilar Socorro & Jorge Valido, 2020. "Evaluación Económica de Proyectos y Políticas de Transporte: Metodología y Aplicaciones. Parte 1: Metodología para el análisis coste-beneficio de proyectos y políticas de transporte," Working Papers 2020-11, FEDEA.
    9. Martínez-Mora, Francisco & Puy, M. Socorro, 2014. "The determinants and electoral consequences of asymmetric preferences," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 85-97.
    10. Dmitri V. Vinogradov & Elena V. Shadrina, 2018. "Discouragement through incentives," Working Papers 2018-05, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    11. Gawel, Erik & Lehmann, Paul & Strunz, Sebastian & Heuson, Clemens, 2018. "Public Choice barriers to efficient climate adaptation – theoretical insights and lessons learned from German flood disasters," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 473-499, June.
    12. Weinberg, Joe, "undated". "Where’s the Pork?: The Political Economy of the US Farm Bill," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273867, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. repec:elg:eechap:15325_3 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-12, Resources for the Future.
    15. Coyne, Christopher J. & Goodman, Nathan & Quintas, André, 2025. "Ways of seeing the world: Legibility in alternative institutional settings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    16. Philip Grossman, 1988. "Government and economic growth: A non-linear relationship," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 193-200, February.
    17. Brian C. Albrecht & Joshua R. Hendrickson & Alexander William Salter, 2022. "Evolution, uncertainty, and the asymptotic efficiency of policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 169-188, July.
    18. Henrik Egbert & Teodor Sedlarski & Aleksandar B. Todorov, 2022. "Foundations of contemporary economics: George Stigler and the Chicago school of economics – on price theory and information economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 452-472.
    19. Gilles Grolleau & Deborah Peterson, 2015. "Biodiversity conservation through private initiative: the case of Earth Sanctuaries Ltd," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 293-312, October.
    20. Ivar Kolstad & Arne Wiig, 2016. "How do voters respond to information on self-serving elite behaviour? Evidence from a randomized survey experiment in Tanzania," CMI Working Papers 9, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    21. Gawel, Erik & Heuson, Clemens & Lehmann, Paul, 2012. "Efficient public adaptation to climate change: An investigation of drivers and barriers from a Public Choice perspective," UFZ Discussion Papers 14/2012, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:16:y:2004:i:2:p:149-190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.