Baumgartner and Jones. (1993). Agendas and Instablility in American Politics

Baumgartner, Frank R and Bryan D. Jones. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Economic interests v. Political Ideas
Entrenched economic intersts are often on the losing end
Agendas setting process: imploes no single equalibrium coulbe possible in politics and new isea make policy monopolies unstable in the long run.

Punctuated Equalibrium: longterm political stability punctuated by periods of volatile change that is short and rapid.
INCREMENTAL + RAPID CHANGE = PUNCTUATED EQUALIBRIUM

INCREMENTALISM (Lindlom 1959): Incrementalism purports that dramatic changes in the status quo are unlikely.
"When the system veers away from balance it corrects itself, always tending towards an equilibrium between the demands of democratically organized interests and policy outputs of government" (10).

BUT IN FACT, IT IS NOT INCREMENTAL
focusing events
chance occurances
public opinion campaigns
THESE ARE ALL INSTANCES OF PUNCTUATED EQUALIBRIUM




"In sum, the American political system is a mosiac of contiually reshaping systems of limited participation. SOme ares tring, others are weak; some are being created and others are being destroyed at any given moment. These processes ride a longer wave of secular change that favors some idea at some given particular times, and therefore some policy monopolies over others" (6).