Means, Motives, and Opportunities: How Executives and Interest Groups Set Public Policy [Hardcover]

Illuminates how governors, motivated by political issues, shape budgets according to the opportunities interest groups provide them.This book uses policy stories and rigorous data analysis to illuminate the roles of executives and interest groups in shaping state budgets and their long-term trajectories. While executives have specific roles and powers in the process, interest groups ultimately provide opportunities for change in public policy.This book uses policy stories and rigorous data analysis to illuminate the roles of executives and interest groups in shaping state budgets and their long-term trajectories. While executives have specific roles and powers in the process, interest groups ultimately provide opportunities for change in public policy.Means, Motives, and Opportunities illuminates how states spend public money through the lens of governmental structure, executive power, and interest group competition. Christian Breunig and Chris Koski argue that policymaking is a function of not only policymakers' means (powers), but of their motives (issues) and opportunities (interest group competition) for change. Using over twenty-five years of data across all fifty US states, four in-depth case studies, and multiple examples of budget battles, the book describes a budget-making environment in which governors must balance the preferences of interest groups with their own, all while attempting to build a budget that roughly balances. While governors are uniquely powerful, the range of changes they can make is largely impacted by interest group competition. By showing how means, motives, and opportunities matter, the book shows how spending decisions at the state level influence nearly every aspect of American life.List of illustrations; List of tables; Acknowledgements; Part I. Setting Public Policy: 1. Explaining One Million Policy Stories; 2. Meeting at the Margins: Interests and Governors in Public Budgeting; Part II. Motives, Opportunities, and Means of Policyl#7