Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Patterns: Hardrock Mining, Forestry, and Grazing Policy on United States Public Lands, 1870–1985

Abstract

From the mid–1800s through the mid–1980s, the federal government initiated programs to manage three types of resources on the lands that it controlled. The discovery of gold in California and elsewhere in the West prompted the first government policy in the 1860s. Debate over the nation's forests began in the 1870s, and a system of national forests to be managed by a federal Forest Service was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And in the 1930s, the government finally began to manage the lands no one wanted, its grazing lands. The federal government continues to be an active manager of national resources. Indeed, with control of nearly 30 percent of the nation's land, it is the largest land manager in the country.

Neopluralism

“…Stone (1989) has observed that the norms of political regimes affect the political agendas of cities, e.g., by legitimizing cooperation between African-American politicians and downtown business interests. Some policy domains can be said to have embedded norms about the proper role of government versus private interests, such as in determining the private use of public lands for grazing, forestry, and mining (Klyza 1994).…”