Punctuated Equilibrium: An Introduction

Professor Frank R. Baumgartner (University of North Carolina) introduces you to the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET). You will find information about the books and projects he mentions in the clip on his website: http://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/books.htm

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

and Brian Jones and I used it.

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

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

and that was a book that we published in 1993.

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

so for example maybe 40 or 50 years,

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

and people thought that maybe they were immovable;

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

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

that it would never be taken down because it

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

and it was a huge export commodity for the US,

and so people thought that that was an example

like they think of the National Rifle Association

now as the most influential interest group in American politics.

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

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

And so today throughout the world,

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

and that was the once upon time that was unimaginable.

So our book was published in ‘93,

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

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

Well, students should use many theories,

but I think our theory is of interest because

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

which is why are certain industries powerful,

and what is the basis of their power.

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

one is an institutional structure.

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

you can think of that as once upon a time it

was the Department of Agriculture in the United States;

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

it was very powerfully supported by its regulatory agency.

There’s any number of these industries.

But the other side of the equation and the other

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

what we called in our first book the policy image,

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

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

or economic growth, or entrepreneurialism,

the American way of life, glamour,

like cigarettes, then that combination of a very powerful supporting

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

then that can be a very powerful thing.

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

they were created because once the policy image

begins to change and people start to take a critical

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

then the political calculus changes,

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

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

in the cases that we studied.

We saw that they were able to be attacked successfully

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