Conceptualizing State Policy Adoption and Diffusion

The policy filtering process: Understanding distinctive state responses to the National College Completion Agenda in the United States

“…Turning to research question 2, our analysis of interview and archival data underscored several state factors that contributed to the distinctive approaches taken by Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas towards the national college completion agenda. First, in line with previous literature (Hearn et al, 2017), variation across three broad state-level features emerged as central in guiding policy decision-making: 1) organization of the public postsecondary sector, 2) state political structures, and 3) state economic context. Besides these underlying distinctions among the case study states, respondents across states also suggested differing associations between the public postsecondary education sector and the state government, which is highlighted by an application of Olsen's (1988) state steering framework.…”

“…In examining the policy responses in Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, this study found four statelevel features that filtered the national completion goal into each state's distinct policy platforms: organization of the postsecondary sector, state political structures, factors of each state's economy, and the association between the state government and public postsecondary sector. Although some of these state characteristics have been discussed in previous research (Hearn et al, 2017;Perna & Finney, 2014), our study's focus on each state's broader college completion policy agenda, rather than a specific policy solution, provides added insights to the state higher education policy process.…”

“…SREB serves 16 states representing the Southern United States, thus holding the regional and consortial context constant. We then selected our specific cases through purposive sampling by considering differences across other state-level characteristics highlighted in previous research (Hearn et al, 2017), including: statewide higher education agency structure (consolidated vs. coordinating board), higher education degree attainment rate, formal powers of the governor, appointment mechanism of state higher education agency board and state higher education executive officer (SHEEO), and membership in Complete College America (CCA), which serves as a leading single-issue higher education policy organization advocating solutions to improve college completion and degree attainment. We specifically considered involvement in CCA as it has been discussed previously as an influential actor in the spread of policy solutions to improve college completion (Gándara et al, 2017;Tandberg & Hillman, 2014).…”

“…Previous research examining the state higher education policy process has noted the influential role of several broad groups of state-level characteristics that may play a role in a state's college completion agenda (Hearn, McLendon, & Linthicum, 2017;Perna & Finney, 2014). Demographics of the state citizenry (e.g., population size, average age, racial diversity, educational attainment) can influence whether policymakers consider a policy for adoption based on the potential outcomes and value-added to their state (Doyle, 2006;Heller, 2002;Tandberg & Ness, 2011).…”

Intrastate and Interstate Influences on the Introduction and Enactment of Campus Carry Legislation, 2004–2016

“…In this article, we examine how factors such as political ideology, interest group activity, active shooter incidents, and interstate policy diffusion influenced the introduction and enactment of campus carry legislation in state legislatures between 2004 and 2016. Focusing on bills aimed at permitting concealed weapons on campus, we examine how the state policy adoption and diffusion framework (Hearn et al, 2017) informs our understanding of campus carry legislative activity. Our panel data logistic regression results showed that active shooter incidents, the percentage of Republicans in state government, citizen political ideology, and policy diffusion influence the introduction of campus carry legislation, whereas survival analysis revealed that conservative citizen political ideology and anti-gun-control interests are positively related to the enactment of campus carry laws.…”