What gets on the political agenda?

What is legitimate for government to do? Is based upon

Shared political values

The weigh of custom and tradition

The impact of events

Changes in the way political elites think and talk about politics

The scope of legitimate government action is always increasing due to reliance on precedent

Groups – small groups demanding things of government

People only complain as things get better — "relative deprivation"

The courts – can force the hand of other branches of government.

Rulings can set public interest upon a particular topic, i.e. Roe v. Wade

The Senate – became incubator for policy in 1960s after the collapse of the one-party South.

Via gatekeeper function

Formative event – natural or human

Majoritarian Politics

Distributed costs, distributed benefits

i.e. social security, military

Formed not by interest groups but by applying to large groups of voters

Interest Group Politics

Concentrated costs, concentrated benefits

Fought only by organized interest groups

Client Politics

Concentrated benefits, distributed costs

Those who want to receive the benefits will lobby; since costs are distributed, those who pay them may be uneducated or indifferent.

Beneficiary is the client of the government

Includes

Pork-barrel projects

Results in logrolling –you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours

Entrepreneurial Politics

Society as a whole or some large part of it benefits from a policy that imposes substantial costs on some small, identifiable segment of society