The Local Roots of Federal Policy Change: Transportation in the 1990s

Abstract

Although allegedly "all politics is local," studies of policy changes in the United States tend to emphasize national political cleavages, national issue-attention cycles, and inside-the-Beltway approaches to issue networks. We argue that more accurate and complete explanations of national policy changes require a broader consideration of problem definition and issue framing at the local level, as well as intergovernmental political pressures. Using hearing testimony, media coverage, and other data, we test this proposition by examining alterations to U.S. transportation policy in the 1990s. The reauthorizations of the federal transportation law in 1991 and 1998, which shifted considerable discretion away from states and toward previously weak metropolitan planning organizations, are typically viewed as major victories for mass transit and environmentalists. Our analysis suggests that a conventional explanation focusing on national factors like public opinion, interest group involvement, and Congressional membership provides less leverage in accounting for these substantive and procedural policy shifts than an explanation centered on local and intergovernmental factors.