Problem detection in legislative oversight: an analysis of legislative committee agendas in the UK and US

Abstract

This paper outlines a dynamic problem-detection model of legislative oversight where legislative committees engage in information-gathering to identify emerging policy problems. It is argued that activities of legislative committees are responsive to indicators of problem status across a range of policy domains. This enables committees to react to problems before, or at least simultaneously to, citizens. Our analyses use a new dataset on the policy agenda of UK Parliamentary Select Committees in combination with directly comparable data on US Congressional hearings. Aggregate measures of problem status (e.g. GDP, crime rates) and public opinion on the 'most important problem' facing the country are used as independent variables. The comparison between a well-established and developing committee system offers insights into common dynamics across institutional contexts. The findings show that committee agendas in both the UK and US are responsive to problem status for the majority of issues.

Devolution is secondary: What drives Scottish secondary legislation?

“…Combined, these results indicate a bureaucratic agenda that responds to events or the problem status of issues functioning much like expert committees do in their own agendas (see Bevan et al 2019). While this practically matches with one of the goals of the ‘new politics’ that shared the reopening of the Scottish Parliament, the results also demonstrate a lack of responsiveness to public priorities consistent with previous work (see John et al 2011).…”

“…Only reserved issues areas, namely those not ‘devolved’ to the Scottish government, see an effect for UK‐level agendas. Overall, these findings suggest that the devolved Scottish government, at least on the bureaucratic level, may in fact function more like expert committees in other systems where measures of problem status drive the agenda (Bevan et al 2019). This suggests that practicalities and not party (faction) or public pressure, unlike what classic work would suggest (Madison 1787, The Federalist Papers , No.…”

“…What makes the Scottish bureaucracy somewhat unique is that responsiveness to problems is supposedly more in‐built and transparent with the idea of ‘new politics’. In a sense, Scottish government as a whole is intended to function more like legislative committees where concerns are over facts based on measures of problem status rather than pure politics driving policy (Bevan et al 2019). While the reality is more mixed, with clear changes in institutions and the process of governing having occurred (Arter 2004), actual changes to the culture of politics are far less evident (Mitchell 2000).…”

Problem Solving and the Demand for Expert Information in Congress

“…To measure the salience of policy problems, we use existing data in the percentage of respondents who named items coded into each major policy topic as the “Most Important Problem” facing America in open‐ended Gallup surveys from the Policy Agendas Project. These data have been used by numerous agenda‐setting scholars to measure changes in public concern across issues (Baumgartner and Jones 2015; Benefiel and Williams 2019; Bevan and Jennings 2014; Bevan, Jennings, and Pickup 2019; Fagan 2018; Froio, Bevan, and Jennings 2017; Jones and Baumgartner 2004; Jones, Larsen‐Price, and Wilkerson 2009). When policy problems become more salient, citizens are more likely to express concern about related issues when asked what is the most important problem facing their country.…”

Comparative Policy Agendas

“…These data underpin the book Policy Agendas in British Politics , which summarized our key findings on policy stability and instability-developing a theory of "focused adaptation" to explain patterns of policy change, characterized by structural breaks in time series of issue attention. Since ESRC-funding ended in 2012, the UK Project has continued updating several of the datasets and generating new data sources through collaborations, such as on UK party manifestos (Froio et al, 2016), reports of parliamentary select committees (Bevan et al, 2018), and statutory instruments (Bevan, 2015).…”