Complex System Behavior In Democratic Policy Theory
institutions , networks , contexts , and events as depicted in all of the current U . S . policy theories . This is accomplished by using a political path analysis approach focused on key political decision making factors as described in peer reviewed figures of the most promising theories of the US policy process . Key political decision-making factors in this path analysis are those primary political institutions like a legislature and overarching and primary factors like socioeconomic influences driving policy . Most theories have flow diagrams depicting the theory and this will be used . If a theory does not have a flow diagram , then the major themes of interactions will be used . This analysis does not cover methods of studying US policy theories that accompany these theories including rational choice , historical , sociological , and social constructivist but instead focuses on linkages between interactions in these theories . In this paper , I am not seeking to explain all that the current US policy theories explain . However , I am combining them through path analysis to shed light on questions typically ignored by the theories individually . From this conglomerate path analysis , I will then analyze overarching theoretical themes and elements of these consolidated US policy theories .
Conglomerated Model of U . S . Public Policy Theories
As indicated in Figure 3 , the conglomerated model of U . S . policy making is a much more nuanced version of the previous linear policy cycle models . Within this model are key policy issues , problems , or politics that capture the attention of public decision makers who occupy overlapping political institutions comprising judicial , executive , and legislative governmental structures and functions . This includes intergovernmental relations between a central national government and governmental subunits like states , provinces , districts , local governments , and so on . The primary focus of political decision-making is based on insider politics and advocacy in the halls-ofpower by interest groups who compete and compromise to make policy in a pluralistic manner . The result of this cooperation and competition in the political system results in government agencies implementing policy outputs or government actions by political institutions and between government institutions in the form of policy diffusion and institutional collective action ( Berry & Berry , 2014 ; Felock , 2013 ). From the policy outputs come policy outcomes or impacts of the policy that are then converted into policy feedback . Policy feedback may occur with input into policy issues or with input for political institutions .
An added feature of the conglomerate model of U . S . policy making is that it has been become highly balkanized since the 1990s ( Heikkila & Gerlak , 2013 ). Individual areas of the policy model have been focused on by groups of U . S . policy scholars ( Heikkila & Gerlak , 2013 ). for analysis and pronouncement of the necessity of a particular theory to describe the policy process . Contributing to this balkanization is that certain groups of policy scholars who support a particular theory have alternative methodologies comprising rational choice , historical , sociological , and social constructionist that provide differing approaches to explain the modern policy cycle theory .
Also , at the core of this conglomerated model is an insider-oriented system of interest groups that vie in the policy system for political advancement ( Heikkila & Gerlak , 2013 ). The basis of this policy system is a policy process that is implicitly and explicitly assumed to have some form of
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