LIST OF PANELS

The proposed panel invites papers that address specific issues or nations as well as papers that adopt a comparative approach. In particular, we are interested in papers that address the dynamics of issue attention, agenda setting, problem definition, the role of institutions in information processing, policy feedback, the supply of information in political systems, those that examine or trace policy change over time, and papers addressing the scale of policy change. In addition to these substantive areas, we also welcome papers addressing the measurement and methodological issues associated with policy dynamics.

The disproportionate information processing perspective has proven useful in understanding the dynamics of policy change. In particular, its focus on information processing by political institutions has furthered our understanding of of the forces that shape both incremental and drastic policy change. The early development of the perspective focused on the influence of institutional friction and the ways in which it shaped how information is transformed to agenda and policy change, generating the classic slip-stick dynamics of Jones and Baumgartner (2005). Scholars have recently extended this approach into the areas of state and local politics, regulatory politics, institutional change, media framing and agenda setting, and institutional change. While the perspective has laid a solid foundation for understanding how institutions process information, the question remains as to the nature of the supply of information. How does information get generated in the political system? Further, what are the key factors influencing the nature of the supply of information? The more recent focus on the interplay of supply and processing raises interesting questions surrounding the adaptability and resilience of institutions and processes in the face of sometimes drastic oscillations in information and destabilizing policy change. What are the characteristics of systems, institutions, and processes that foster adaptability or rigidity in information processing?