The idea that events should change policy is appealing. After each incident of gun violence in the U.S., someone retells Australia’s story. Twelve days after a mass shooting there in 1996, the legislature took up anti-gun measures, including a buyback program and various restrictions on the types of guns that could be sold. But in the U.S., gun control policy has often appeared impossible to pass at the federal level: A common response after Las Vegas seemed to be, “If nothing changed after Sandy Hook, nothing will change now.” Does public opinion — and, as a result, the policy process — actually respond to events? Let’s look at a few schools of thought in political science and public policy. [...]
Major events that dominate the news — such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill — have the potential to alter how the public thinks about an issue (what scholars call “frames”). Because of their ability to shift public opinion, these moments can help interest groups mobilize and pressure elected officials for change. After the Exxon Valdez spill, for example, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. After the Sept. 11 attacks, we saw the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, which strengthened the power of the federal government to investigate perceived terrorist activity, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. [...]
Although events may dominate the news, that’s not the same thing as changing how citizens and policy-makers think and talk about them. As Thomas Birkland wrote in a study of the event’s impact, “September 11 only threw open the window of opportunity for policy change based, in large part, on preexisting ideas.” For example, the Department of Homeland Security was not a brand new idea when it was formed after Sept. 11; lawmakers had been debating for several years about how to coordinate counterterrorism efforts. In other words, the attacks brought terrorism to the top of the priority list, but they didn’t introduce new ways of thinking about how to prevent terrorism. [...]
In both cases, attitude and policy change has come not from a major event that changes people’s understanding of a topic, but rather from more long-term structural changes in society as a whole that result in a gradual reframing of the issues at hand.
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