Explaining Policymakers' Use of Policy Information

Abstract

Previous efforts to explain policymakers' limited are of policy rescarch gerieraly have not considered the opportunities and constraints presented by specific decision-making contexts; more specifically, this earlier research does not consider the different motivations of policymakers and their relative impact on use of policy information. This analysis of policy information use by a specific set of policymakers—Indiana state legislators—considers the relative importance of legislators' job-images compared to the importance of their basic worldview and personal attitudes and attributes. This article contains five parts. First, a general causal model of legislators' use of policy information consisting of four rival hypothesis is presented. Second, the definition and measurement of "policy information use" is discussed. Next, the two-communities theory is presented and the results of previous research are briefly reviewed. Fourth, legislators' objectives, job-images, and attributes considered in the causal model are defined and measured. The last section formulates and estimates a causal model of legislators' use of policy information.