Copy and Paste Lawmaking
Legislative Professionalism and Policy Reinvention in the States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6180236 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joshua M Jansa (0000-0003-0917-6128, Oklahoma State University, corresponding author), Eric R Hansen (0000-0001-5853-7888, Loyola University Chicago), Virginia H Gray, Virginia Gray (0000-0002-3914-0145, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 739-767 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Politics Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1532-673X • E-ISSN: 1552-3373 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1532673x18776628 |
| OpenAlex | W2805179595 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 58 |
| References cited | 43 |
Research on policy reinvention tends to focus on whether policies become more or less comprehensive over time while neglecting to explain copying policy language verbatim. We argue that the extent to which lawmakers reinvent policy depends on the resources available to them. Lawmakers serving in more professional state legislatures have greater capacity to reinvent policies. In contrast, lawmakers serving in less professional settings are more likely to copy policy language. As evidence, we gather bill texts of 12 policies that diffused across the 50 states between 1982 and 2014. Using cosine similarity scores to measure language copying, we find that less professional legislatures copy more text from previous adopters, and that the likeliest culprit is a lack of funding for staff assistance. The findings have implications for states’ ability to amend policies to suit their own citizens’ needs
Copying · Lawmaking · Legislature · Political science · Public policy · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Policy Transfer and Learning · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration
Do political donors have greater access to government officials? Evidence from a Foia field experiment with US municipalities
State Legislatures as Institutions
Growth and gaps
Copy, paste, legislate, succeed? The effect of policy plagiarism on policy success
Seis por meia dúzia? Análise das similaridades entre as normas de inovação dos Estados brasileiros
Social scientific research on the American West
Differentiated Institutionalization
Elite Socialization Diffusion
Regulations on gambling advertising in Europe
Comparison and driving factors of policy content reproduction across government tiers
Replication of central policy or local innovation
Policy responsiveness and institutions in a federal system
The dual nature of innovation in government
Learning from the neighbors
Top-down pressure and bottom-up responses
Disclosing Influence
Concurrent pressures of mass protests
Social Control Meets New Public Management
A Configurational Approach for Local‐Government Policy Reinvention
A Squire Index Update
Court Curbing Lower State Courts in the United States
From Policy Adoption to Practice
The Spread of Symbolic Policies
Multidimensional policy citation features
Why some states bring more laws to the gunfight
How does adoption behavior towards ICT policies affect digital divides? Evidence from Chinese prefecture-level cities
Ninety-Nine Chambers and the Development of Comparative Legislative Studies
Following neighbors or regional leaders? Unpacking the effect of geographic proximity in local climate policy diffusion
Model Legislation and the Diffusion of LGBTQ Policies
Resource Substitution
Measuring Policy Diffusion in Federal Systems
State preemption and affordable housing policy
Diffusion and Typology
Repeated Modifications in Policy Diffusion
Partisanship and Professionalization
The Source of the Legislative Professionalism Advantage
Why States Preempt City Ordinances
Explaining State Preemption of Local Laws
Policy and Political Learning
Laboratories of Bureaucracy
Model State Legislation and Intergovernmental Tensions over the Affordable Care Act, Common Core, and the Second Amendment
Descriptive Representation and Innovation in American Legislatures
Policy Innovation Adoption Across the Diffusion Life Course
Expertise and the Championing of Policy Innovations in State Legislatures
Linking policy design and policy diffusion to advance both theories
Who Are Your Neighbors? The Role of Ideology and Decline of Geographic Proximity in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations
The role of super interest groups in public policy diffusion
Courts-First Federalism
Model Bills, State Imitation, and the Political Safeguards of Federalism
Bicameralism Hinges on Legislative Professionalism
Multilevel policy textual learning in Chinese local environmental policies
Complexity, resources and text borrowing in state legislatures
From Diffusion to Diffuse-ability
Interests convergence in global human rights politics
Policy Reinvention and Diffusion
Policy reinvention in diffusion
The People's Intervention
The Proliferation of Criminal Background Check Laws in the United States
Democratic Laboratories
The Business of America is Lobbying
Policy Diffusion Dynamics in America
Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error
Beyond Ideology
Influences on Reinvention During the Diffusion of Innovations
Measuring State Legislative Professionalism
Should We Measure Professionalism with an Index? A Note on Theory and Practice in State Legislative Professionalism Research
Who Passes Business’s “Model Bills”? Policy Capacity and Corporate Influence in U.S. State Politics
Bottom‐Up Federalism
The Social Contagion Model
A Strategic Theory of Policy Diffusion via Intergovernmental Competition
Innovation and Reinvention in State Policymaking
State Policy Innovativeness Revisited
Four Ways We Can Improve Policy Diffusion Research
Approaches to Modeling the Adoption and Diffusion of Policies with Multiple Components
Interest Group Influence in Policy Diffusion Networks
Policy Diffusion as a Geographical Expansion of the Scope of Political Conflict
Content and Complexity in Policy Reinvention and Diffusion
Policy Diffusion and the Pro-innovation Bias
Modeling Regional Effects on State Policy Diffusion
Disentangling Diffusion
Legislative Professionalization and Membership Diversity in State Legislatures
The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures
Who Blinks First? Legislative Patience and Bargaining with Governors
Adoption, reinvention and amendment of renewable portfolio standards in the American states
Problems (and solutions) in the measurement of policy diffusion mechanisms
When the smoke clears
Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the American States, 1960-93
Legislative Morality in the American States
The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion
States as Policy Laboratories
Ideology and Professionalism
Interstate Professional Associations and the Diffusion of Policy Innovations
Ideology and Learning in Policy Diffusion
Persistent Policy Pathways
Using Geographic Information Systems to Study Interstate Competition
Innovation in the States
A Formal Model of Learning and Policy Diffusion
State Lottery Adoptions as Policy Innovations
The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States
Does Paying Politicians More Promote Economic Diversity in Legislatures
| Unique citing works | 58 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8,29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 53 |