Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:08:59.638Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conditional Bureaucratic Discretion and State Welfare Diffusion under AFDC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Srinivas Parinandi
Srinivas Parinandi*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
*
Srinivas Parinandi, University of Michigan, 5700 Haven Hall, 505 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Email: cparinan@umich.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I evaluate whether a state's level of bureaucratic discretionary authority with respect to welfare policy makes that state more or less likely to participate in policy diffusion with other states that share similar levels of bureaucratic discretionary authority. Using data on levels of access to welfare services in the late Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) era (1976–90), I find that bureaucrats across states who are granted high-discretionary authority engage in policy diffusion with one another. Diffusion based on similarity in discretionary authority is more pronounced when bureaucrats possess high compared with no discretion and does not occur when bureaucrats possess low discretion. Moreover, diffusion between high-discretion bureaucrats operates concurrently with geographic- and economic-driven forms of diffusion that have been well documented in the policy diffusion literature. Results demonstrate that a state's choice of how much discretion to give bureaucrats can open or close channels of diffusion that are available to policymakers in that state.

Keywords

state/localfederalismlegislative behaviorlegislative politicsbureaucracyexecutive politicsspatial analysisquantitative methodsmethodologywelfare policypublic policy
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 244 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allard, Scott, and Danziger, Sheldon. 2000. “Welfare Magnets: Myth or Reality?” Journal of Politics 62(2): 350–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Michael. 2005. “Welfare and the Multifaceted Decision to Move.” American Political Science Review 99(1): 125–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Michael, and Rom, Mark. 2004. “A Wider Race? Interstate Competition across Health and Welfare Programs.” Journal of Politics 66(2): 326–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Frances, and Berry, William. 1990. “State Lottery Adoptions As Policy Innovations: An Event History Analysis.” American Political Science Review 84(2): 395–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, William, and Baybeck, Brady. 2005. “Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to Test Theories of Interstate Influence and Geographic Diffusion in Public Policy Making.” American Political Science Review 99:505–19.Google Scholar
Berry, William, Fording, Richard, and Hanson, Russell. 2003. “Reassessing the ‘Race to the Bottom’ in State Welfare Policy.” Journal of Politics 65(2): 327–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Case Anne, James Hines Jr, and Rosen, Harvey. 1994. “Copycatting: Fiscal Policies of States and Their Neighbors.” NBER Working Paper No. w3032, http://ssrn.com/abstract=232066 (accessed March 17, 2013).Google Scholar
Epstein, David, and O'Halloran, Sharyn. 1999. Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Approach to Policy Making under Separate Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzese, Robert, and Hays, Jude. 2007. “Spatial Econometric Models of Cross-Sectional Interdependence in Political Science Panel and Time-Series-Cross-Section Data.” Political Analysis 15:140–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzese, Robert, and Hays, Jude. 2008. “Interdependence in Comparative Politics: Substance, Theory, Empirics, Substance.” Comparative Political Studies 41(4–5): 742–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Anti-Poverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Virginia. 1973. “Innovation in the States: A Diffusion Study.” American Political Science Review 67(4): 1174–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossback, Lawrence, Nicholson-Crotty, Sean, and Peterson, David. 2004. “Ideology and Learning in Policy Diffusion.” American Politics Research 32:521–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hays, Jude, Kachi, Aya, and Franzese, Robert. 2010. “A Spatial Model Incorporating Dynamic, Endogenous Network Interdependence: A Political Science Application.” Statistical Methodology 7:406–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, John, and Shipan, Charles. 2002. Deliberate Discretion? The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karch, Andrew. 2006. Democratic Laboratories: Policy Diffusion among the American States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Pacheco, Julianna. 2012. “The Social Contagion Model: Exploring the Role of Public Opinion on the Diffusion of Antismoking Legislation across the American States.” Journal of Politics 74(1): 187–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Paul, and Rom, Mark. 1990. Welfare Magnets: A New Case for a National Standard. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Rabe, Barry. 2006. “Race to the Top: The Expanding Role of U.S. State Renewable Portfolio Standards.” Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Arlington, 1–36.Google Scholar
Rom, Mark, Peterson, Paul, and Scheve, Kenneth. 1998. “Interstate Competition and Welfare Policy.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 28(3): 17–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teodoro, Manuel. 2009. “Bureaucratic Job Mobility and the Diffusion of Innovations.” American Journal of Political Science 53(1): 175–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volden, Craig. 2002a. “Delegating Power to Bureaucracies: Evidence from the States.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 18(1): 187–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volden, Craig. 2002b. “The Politics of Competitive Federalism: A Race to the Bottom in Welfare Benefits?” American Journal of Political Science 46(2): 352–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volden, Craig. 2006. “States As Policy Laboratories: Emulating Success in the Children's Health Insurance Program.” American Journal of Political Science 50(2): 294–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volden, Craig, Ting, Michael, and Carpenter, Daniel. 2008. “A Formal Model of Learning and Policy Diffusion.” American Political Science Review 102(3): 319–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Jack. 1969. “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States.” American Political Science Review 63(3): 880–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winkler, Anne. 1993. “AFDC-UP, Two-Parent Families, and the Family Support Act of 1988: Evidence from the 1990 CPS and the 1987 NSFH.” Discussion Paper No. 1013-93, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar