Complexity, resources and text borrowing in state legislatures.
Do states copy or reinvent language from complex policies as they diffuse, and does this depend on legislative resources? We argue that states will more frequently reinvent more complex policies, but that states with high-resource legislatures will reinvent more than their low-resource counterparts...
| Published in: | Journal of Public Policy Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. 752 - 776 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Cambridge University Press
Dec2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=153564604&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 153564604 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0143814X 41E jtl: Journal of Public Policy issn: 0143814X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2021 vid: 41 iid: 4 pid: 15979 pub: Cambridge University Press artinfo: ui: 153564604 10.1017/S0143814X20000252 ppf: 752 ppct: 24 formats: tig: atl: Complexity, resources and text borrowing in state legislatures. aug: au: Hansen, Eric R. Jansa, Joshua M. affil: Department of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago 60660, USA Department of Political Science, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater 74078, USA su: Legislative bodies Diffusion processes Policy diffusion sug: subj: Legislative bodies Legislative Bodies Diffusion processes Policy diffusion keyword: diffusion legislative professionalism reinvention state politics text analysis diffusion legislative professionalism reinvention state politics text analysis ab: Do states copy or reinvent language from complex policies as they diffuse, and does this depend on legislative resources? We argue that states will more frequently reinvent more complex policies, but that states with high-resource legislatures will reinvent more than their low-resource counterparts for more complex policies. We test the theory using the bill texts from 18 policies that diffused across the 50 states from 1983 to 2014, measuring reinvention and complexity using text analysis tools. In line with expectations, we find that complex policies are reinvented more than simple policies and that high-resource legislatures reinvent bills more than low-resource legislatures on average. However, we also find that low-resource legislatures reinvent complex policies at about the same rate as high-resource legislatures. The results indicate that even legislatures with limited resources work to adapt complex policies during the diffusion process. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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