Policy Cycle and California Demographics

Vocabulary flashcards covering the five stages of the policy cycle, key public policy concepts, influential catalyst books, and California-specific lecture examples.

Problem Identification

Recognizing and defining a public issue that receives attention and prompts political action, where the way the problem is framed shapes which solutions appear reasonable.

Policy Formulation

Developing an appropriate, acceptable proposal to address a public problem.

Policy Adoption

Approving a proposal through voters or an authorized decision maker, such as a legislature.

Policy Implementation

Putting an adopted policy into effect through agencies, courts, and the public.

Policy Evaluation

Assessing whether a policy achieved its intended goals and what effects followed, including examining evidence, outcomes, and unintended consequences.

Incrementalism

Policy change through small steps rather than major shifts, connected to divided government, the filibuster, and the veto.

Focusing event

A dramatic event, such as 9/11, that rapidly draws attention to an issue and can trigger unusually fast or large policy change.

Sunset clause

A built-in expiration date that causes a law to end unless it is renewed.

Sunshine law

A law that concerns and promotes government transparency.

Unintended consequence

An outcome or effect that was not the policy's main goal.

Good politics vs. good policy

The distinction wherein a proposal may be popular or signal action while still requiring evidence that it actually solves the underlying problem.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

A book that helped galvanize abolitionist sentiment before the Civil War.

The Jungle

A book by Upton Sinclair that exposed conditions in meatpacking and helped build support for federal food safety laws during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency.

The Other America

A book that called attention to poverty and contributed to the policy climate behind the War on Poverty and Medicare.

Silent Spring

A book that helped launch the modern environmental movement.

The Population Bomb (1973)

A book that influenced public discussion of population growth and famine.

Megan's Law

A law requiring public notification about registered sex offenders, which shifted from early uneven and vague local notification to a centralized state website.

California's economic scale (lecture figure)

The lecture note stating that California's economy would rank fourth globally if it were a country, ahead of Japan.

Schwarzenegger veto memo

A veto memo sent to Assemblymember Mark Leno that reportedly spelled out "F U" through the first letters of its lines, illustrating political theater and personal friction.