The politics of problems versus solutions: Policymaking and grandstanding in congressional hearings
研究美国国会听证中，议员在讨论新问题时的作秀行为比讨论解决方案时更常见，且问题解决认知和作秀动机因政策议题而异，有助于理解当代美国政策制定中“信息政治”的兴起。
Abstract Several theories of policy change posit that the politics of defining and prioritizing problems differs from the politics of devising and selecting solutions. The former involves simplifying through heuristics like indicators and ideology while the latter incorporates policy analysis and expertise to a greater degree. By employing two large datasets of U.S. congressional hearings to analyze policymakers' behavior of sending political messages, which we call “grandstanding,” we offer two findings. First, consistent with our hypotheses, grandstanding is more prevalent when committees are focused on new and emerging problems than when committees examine proposed alternatives or the implementation of existing policies. Second, the cognitive dynamics of problem solving and the incentives to grandstand vary depending on policy issues considered in hearings. Our analysis helps put dissatisfaction with contemporary U.S. policymaking in context: a rise in “messaging politics” derives at least in part from an increased focus on contesting the problem space in agenda‐setting venues.