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>>Prof. Frank R. Baumgartner: Punctuated equilibrium theory comes out of the study of evolution and biology,

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and Brian Jones and I used it.

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Other people have used it, but we developed a book where we used it as the

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guiding framework or the guiding theory for our explanation of policy change,

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and that was a book that we published in 1993.

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And we were interested in analyzing over long periods of time,

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so for example maybe 40 or 50 years,

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of policy change why were certain policies for generations at a time stable,

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and people thought that maybe they were immovable;

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for example, smoking and tobacco policy in the United States.

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The tobacco industry was often seen as the single most influential lobby in America,

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that it would never be taken down because it

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had so many connections to farmers and tax receipts that the government got,

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and it was a huge export commodity for the US,

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and so people thought that that was an example

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like they think of the National Rifle Association

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now as the most influential interest group in American politics.

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But all of a sudden, finally things flipped on the tobacco industry,

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and the prevailing understanding of tobacco went from being glamourous to being catastrophic.

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And so today throughout the world,

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at least the Western world, we see policies that are much more anti-tobacco,

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and that was the once upon time that was unimaginable.

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So our book was published in ‘93,

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and that’s what it really focused on – how could

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we explain the unexpected shifts in the political fortunes of major American industries.

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Well, students should use many theories,

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but I think our theory is of interest because

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it poses as a question something that other people sometimes take for granted,

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which is why are certain industries powerful,

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and what is the basis of their power.

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And we propose that there’s really two bases of power,

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one is an institutional structure.

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So supporting government agencies that promote a certain industry and with smoking,

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you can think of that as once upon a time it

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was the Department of Agriculture in the United States;

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or with nuclear power in the 1950s and 1960s,

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it was very powerfully supported by its regulatory agency.

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There’s any number of these industries.

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But the other side of the equation and the other

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part of the supporting system is a very powerful supporting idea,

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what we called in our first book the policy image,

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but which people often refer to as the frame or the issue definition.

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And when that policy image is associated with things like patriotism,

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or economic growth, or entrepreneurialism,

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the American way of life, glamour,

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like cigarettes, then that combination of a very powerful supporting

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image and an institutional structure that prohibits or inhibits the participation of critics,

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then that can be a very powerful thing.

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On the other hand, those things can crumble almost as quickly as

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they were created because once the policy image

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begins to change and people start to take a critical

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view of something that they used to look at very favorably,

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then the political calculus changes,

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and people who were not previously involved in the issue demand a seat at the table,

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and that’s what we saw in the cases of – well,

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in the cases that we studied.

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We saw that they were able to be attacked successfully

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[br]even though 10 years previously they were considered to be extremely powerful.