Preferences come from the most ubiquitous human activity: living with other people. Support for and opposition to different ways of life, the shared values legitimating social relations (here called cultures) are the generators of diverse preferences. After discussing why it is not helpful to conceive of interests as preferences or to dismiss preference formation as external to organized social life, I explain how people are able to develop many preferences from few clues by using their social relations to interrogate their environment. The social filter is the source of preferences. I then argue that culture is a more powerful construct than conceptual rivals: heuristics, schemas, ideologies. Two initial applications—to the ideology of the left-right distinctions and to perceptions of danger—test the claim that this theory of how individuals use political cultures to develop their preferences outperforms the alternatives.

Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation

POLITICS ACROSS GENERATIONS: FAMILY TRANSMISSION REEXAMINED M. Kent Jennings University of California, Santa Barbara Laura Stoker University of California, Berkeley Jake Bowers University of California, Berkeley Working Paper 2001-15 Working Papers published by the Institute of Governmental Studies provide quick dissemination of draft reports and papers, preliminary analysis, and papers with a limited audience. The objective is to assist authors in refining their ideas by circulating results and to stimulate discussion about public policy. Working Papers are reproduced unedited directly from the author’s page.

Politics Across Generations: Family Transmission Reexamined

Lessons for effective renewable electricity policy from Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES The Policy Sciences at the Cross-Roads Promoting the Policy Orientation: Lasswell in Context Public Policy, Social Science and the State: An Historical Perspective POLICY PROCESSES Theories of the Policy Cycle Agenda Setting in Public Policy Policy Formulation: Design and Tools Implementing Public Policy Do Policies Determine Politics? An Analysis of Lowi's Policy Typology POLICY POLITICS, ADVOCACY, AND EXPERTISE A Guide to the Advocacy Coalition Framework Policy Communities Policy Analysis and Think Tanks POLICY DECISION MAKING: RATIONALITY, NETWORKS, AND LEARNING. Rationality in Policy Decision-Making Rational Choice in Public Policy: The Theory in Critical Perspective Taking Stock of Policy Networks: Do They Matter? Theories of Policy Learning: Agency, Structure, and Change DELIBERATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: ARGUMENTATION, RHETORIC, AND NARRATIVES Deliberative Policy Analysis as Practical Reason: Integrating Empirical and Normative Arguments Rhetoric in Policy-Making: Between Logos, Ethos, and Pathos Narrative Policy Analysis COMPARATIVE, CULTURAL, AND ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES Comparative Public Policy Applied Cultural Theory: Tool for Policy Analysis Ethical Issues and Public Policy Public Policy and Democratic Citizenship: What Kinds of Citizenship Does Policy Promote? QUANTITATIVELY-ORIENTED POLICY METHODS Quantitative Methods for Policy Analysis The Use (and Misuse) of Survey Research in Policy Analysis Social Experiments and Public Policy Evaluation Research in Policy Analysis QUALITATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: INTERPRETATION, MEANING, AND CONTEXT Qualitative-Interpretive Methods in Policy Research Qualitative Research and Public Policy Interpretation and Intention in Policy Analysis Context Sensitive Policy Methods POLICY DECISION TECHNIQUES Cost-Benefit Analysis Environmental Impact Assessment: Between Bureaucratic Process and Social Learning. Technology Assessment as Policy Analysis: From Expert Advice to Participatory Approaches Public Policy Mediation: From Argument to Collaboration COUNTRY PERSPECTIVES Policy Analysis in Britain Evolution of Policy Analysis in the Netherlands Policy Analysis and Evaluation in Sweden: Discovering the Limits of the Rationalistic Paradigm Policy Analysis in Germany Policy Analysis in India Policy Analysis in Korea: From Economic Efficiency to Public Participation

Handbook of Public Policy Analysis Theory, Politics, and Methods

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Thinking about Strategic Culture

L'auteur evalue et critique les approches les plus recentes utilisees dans l'etude des politiques publiques et formule un cadre de reference pour la conduite future d'une telle etude. Apres avoir demontre les limites inherentes aux etudes de cas ainsi qu'aux approches fondees sur la prise de decision, lesquelles sont surtout axees sur des preoccupations propres soit a l'administration publique, soit a l'analyse des politiques (« policy analysis »), il suggere que l'etude des politiques doit tenir compte d'un eventail plus large de facteurs politiques et institutionnels qu'elle ne l'a fait jusqu'a present, de facon, notamment, a ce que la determination des politiques (« policy-making ») ne refere plus simplement au reglement des problemes (« problem-solving »), mais aussi a la competition et aux conflits qui les ont engendres.Selon l'auteur, l'etude comparative des politiques publiques devrait en premier lieu bien identifier l'etendue de l'action gouvernementale, les moyens dont le gouvernement dispose pour atteindre ses objectifs et la repartition des benefices et des couts resultant de ses activites. Un examen critique des divers modeles utilises pour expliquer ces trois dimensions lui permet de conclure que l'utilite de chacun des modeles est restreinte a des aspects bien particuliers des politiques publiques, si bien qu'aucun d'entre eux ne permet, a lui seul, d'en fournir une explication adequate.

Studying Public Policy

Elkins and Simeon are less specific than Almond (in chapter 1) and Ross (in chapter 3) about defining political culture. But by way of clarification, they provide us with a series of topics that political cultures routinely address. They are also careful to distinguish between a narrow conception of culture (e.g., certain mental predispositions) and the behaviors or political institutions (what other analysts sometimes call cultural artifacts) that may stem from them. More important, they alert us for the need to be careful in applying political culture theory to the explanation of social phenomena and warn us against unrealistic expectations. In the process, they produce several caveats.

A Cause in Search of Its Effect, or What Does Political Culture Explain?

Les cultures politiques regionales au CanadaDans le contexte canadien, le concept de « regionalisme » s'entend de bien des facons. La presente etude explore des dimensions peu connues de ce phenomene. Des donnees tirees de sondages effectues en 1965 et 1968 par John Meisel, il ressort d'importantes differences entre les electorats provinciaux concernant la participation, l'efficacite et la confiance politiques. Ces donnees, une fois transposees sur des echelles a l'aide de la technique de Guttman et de l'analyse factorielle, ont fait l'objet d'analyses de variance et de tableaux de contingence. Est alors apparu l'existence dans les provinces maritimes et parmi les populations francophones, de taux relativement peu eleves d'efficacite et de confiance politiques, alors que ces memes taux etaient beaucoup plus eleves dans les autres regions anglophones du pays comme la Colombie Britannique, l'Ontario et le Manitoba.De telles differences interprovinciales ne constituent cependant pas en elles-memes une preuve convaincante de l'existence de cultures politiques regionales puisque ces differences peuvent etre imputables aux diverses caracteristiques socio-economiques et demographiques qui influent sur les attitudes politiques. Il appert toutefois que, meme en controlant l'apport de ces diverses caracteristiques, les differences regionales se maintiennent. Bien plus, la nature des controles produit des resultats differents d'une region a une autre. Les auteurs en concluent qu'au dela des facteurs socio-economiques, il existe des cultures provinciates issues de l'experience historique et des traditions politiques particulieres a chaque province, phenomene dont ils tentent de degager les causes et les consequences.

Regional Political Cultures in Canada

Small worlds : provinces and parties in Canadian political life

The book's primary aim is to determine whether Canada and the United States have become more similar as their economies have become more integrated and their societies more diverse. The authors conclude that, although powerful economic and social pressures clearly constrain national governments and lead to convergence in some areas, distinctive cultural and political processes preserve room for distinctive national responses to important problems of the late twentieth century. Authors include Keith Banting, Paul Boothe (University of Alberta), Marsha Chandler (University of Toronto), George Hoberg, Robert Howse (University of Toronto), Christopher Manfredi (McGill University), George Perlin (Queen's University), Douglas Purvis (Queen's University), Richard Simeon, and Elaine Willis (consultant, Toronto).

Richard Simeon

Papers

Studying Public Policy

A Cause in Search of Its Effect, or What Does Political Culture Explain?

Regional Political Cultures in Canada

Small worlds : provinces and parties in Canadian political life

Degrees of freedom : Canada and the United States in a changing world