Political Information in Bureaucratic Policymaking
Devin Judge-Lord
This dissertation examines the effects of public pressure campaigns on agency rulemaking, a technocratic policy process where “public participation” is usually limited to sophisticated lobbying but occasionally includes millions of people mobilized by public pressure campaigns. Public comment periods on proposed policies purport to provide democratic accountability. Yet theories of bureaucratic policymaking largely ignore the occasional bursts of civic engagement that generate the vast majority of public comments on proposed rules.
To whom it may concern:
I write to apply for the Kendall Fellowship in Understanding Scientist Activism and Movement Building. As a fourth-year doctoral candidate, the Fellowship would support the final year of my Ph.D. research and a year of post-doctoral research.
Research concept Political scientists have long studied how social movements influence elected officials, but we have much to learn about how activists and public pressure may influence bureaucratic policymaking and the role that tactics like mass-comment campaigns play in movement-building.