Policy making at the margins

Abstract

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for many individuals whose knowledge, advice and support helped make this dissertation possible. My advisor Tracy Osborn inspired and guided me the past five years, encouraging me to see the bigger picture of this project. Not only was she an important anchor as I navigated grad school, but she deepened my passion for being a scholar. The members of my dissertation committee-Fred Boehmke, Rene Rocha, Julie Pacheco and Linda Kerber-provided invaluable feedback and insight. I learned volumes from coauthoring with them and feel privileged to have their considerable input on my work. I thank the department faculty for their mentorship, the Bose lunch crew for providing laughs and perspective, and my graduate school cohort for being my close companions. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my officemates, with whom I shared close quarters under pressing deadlines. I am thankful for my friends in Iowa City for providing respite from my work when I needed it most, and my Macalester friends who continue to be significant pillars of support. I especially thank my friend, NickNolte, for his confidence in me and for providing reminders of life outside of academia.One of my earliest memories is of me telling my childhood nanny that I was going to be a college professor when I grew up, just like my parents. I give deep thanks to Joe and Mary Jo Kreitzer, whose own careers as professors continue to inspire me, even more so than when I was a child. Finally, I thank my siblings David, Stacy, Kate, Tom and Sara for their support and welcomed distractions. ii ABSTRACT Scholars often argue that republican government works because elected representatives adopt policies favored by their constituents. Theoretically, this relationship is stronger with morality issues because such issues are technically simple, involve core values, and thus foster greater levels of citizen engagement. Since the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Casey and Webster, state legislatures have passed hundreds of policies that place cumulatively significant restrictions on women's access to abortion. The increasingly conservative nature of abortion policy might indicate an increasingly conservative electorate, but public opinion on abortion has remained stable since the 1970s with most Americans favoring legal abortion with some restrictions. This is the motivating question of my dissertation-why are states increasing abortion restrictions in the absence of public demand? Previous research on abortion policy in the states has generally focused on specific policies at specific years. Studying a single policy at discrete moments in time carries an implicit assumption that the determinants of policy are constant. In order to better state abortion conservatism, I comprehensively examine the formation of state abortion policy in the different stages of policymaking, across policy types, and over time.I find that the stages of the policy making process invokes different incentives for legislators, and as a result, the determinants of abortion...