2 - Meeting at the Margins

Summary

In this chapter, we first summarize literature in public policy process theory, political institutions, state politics, and interest groups. We leverage this scholarship to offer a detailed argument about state budgeting that proceeds in three steps. The first step is about how policy issues provide motives for action. The second step is about how the formation of interest groups around issues makes those issues more or less amenable to policy change. The third step is about how the institutional strength of the executive – in this case, a governor – provides the means to change policy given the interest group context surrounding issues. Our claim is that issues provide the motives, interest groups provide the opportunities, but the extent to which governors act on those opportunities depends on their means.