« [SSJ: 276] Single or Multiple Preferences? | Main | [SSJ: 278] Trade and Tech. Directory »

September 13, 1995

[SSJ: 277] Post-Oil Shock Politics and P-A Theory

From: Michael Thies
Posted Date: 1995/09/13

John Campbell asked for a cite to works that conceive the relationship between
burs and pols as a power struggle with, to quote myself loosely, "no
identifiable resources or rules..."

An example of what I have in mind is the stuff (e.g. Pempel??) that claims that
politicians began after the first Oil Shock to reverse the power asymmetry that
until then had favored the bureaucrats. P-A theory suggests that no such change
could have taken place without a prior, exogenous change in the parameters of
that relationship. If politicians had the authority to step in and affect policy
after 1973, they must have had it as well before 1973. The question, then is
changed from from "why are politicians more powerful than they used to be?" to "
"why are politicians exercising their authority more frequently, more visible,
and in different ways than before?"

The answer to this question is still not completely clear of course, but
subsequent discussions of changed political incentives due to the sudden
scarcity of resources, etc. suggest that observed behavioral changes need not
indicate anything about power shifts.

PS: Meg McKean's post should be required reading for all social scientists. Now,
why didn't I say that? Thanks for the post!

---------------------------------------------------------------- Michael F.
Thies Department of Political Science
(ph) 310-825-1976 UCLA -- Box 951472
(fax) 310-825-0778 405 Hilgard Avenue
thies[atx]nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472
----------------------------------------------------------------

Approved by ssjmod at 12:00 AM