Measuring interest group agendas in regulatory proposals: a method and the case of US education policy

Journal article

Samuel Workman, Deven Carlson, Tracey Bark, & Elizabeth Bell
Interest Groups & Advocacy, 2022

Cite

APA Click to copy
Workman, S., Carlson, D., Bark, T., & & Elizabeth Bell. (2022). Measuring interest group agendas in regulatory proposals: a method and the case of US education policy. Interest Groups &Amp; Advocacy. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-021-00129-w

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Workman, Samuel, Deven Carlson, Tracey Bark, and & Elizabeth Bell. “Measuring Interest Group Agendas in Regulatory Proposals: a Method and the Case of US Education Policy.” Interest Groups & Advocacy (2022).

MLA Click to copy
Workman, Samuel, et al. “Measuring Interest Group Agendas in Regulatory Proposals: a Method and the Case of US Education Policy.” Interest Groups &Amp; Advocacy, 2022, doi:10.1057/s41309-021-00129-w.

BibTeX Click to copy

@article{samuel2022a,
  title = {Measuring interest group agendas in regulatory proposals: a method and the case of US education policy},
  year = {2022},
  journal = {Interest Groups & Advocacy},
  doi = {10.1057/s41309-021-00129-w},
  author = {Workman, Samuel and Carlson, Deven and Bark, Tracey and Bell, & Elizabeth}
}

We introduce a new way to measure interest group agendas and demonstrate an approach to extending the CAP topic coding scheme to policy domains at lower levels of analysis. We use public comments on regulatory proposals in US education policy to examine the topics contained in policy arguments. We map the education policy space using a data set of 493 comments and 5315 hand-coded comment paragraphs. A unique measurement model accounts for group and topic diversity and allows us to validate our approach. The findings have implications for measuring topic agendas in lower-level policy domains and understanding group coalitions and competition in education policy. We contribute to text-as-data approaches tracing policy change in the study of public policy. The findings suggest the relationship between issue attention observed by scholars and larger policy reform movements.