Patterns in the politics of drugs and tobacco: The Supreme Court and issue attention by policymakers and the press

Fogarty, B. J. and Monogan III, J. E. (2018) Patterns in the politics of drugs and tobacco: The Supreme Court and issue attention by policymakers and the press. Politics, 38(2), pp. 214-231. (doi: 10.1177/0263395716679673)

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated lasting effects of important Supreme Court decisions on issue attention in the national media. In this light, the Court has served as an important agenda setter. We significantly expand on these findings by arguing that these salient Court decisions can raise the perceived importance of political issues and induce heightened, short-term policy attention in the broader political system. Using measures of media attention, congressional policy actions, and presidential policy actions, we utilize dynamic vector autoregressive modelling to examine the Court’s impact on issue attention in the macro policy system regarding tobacco and drug policy. Overall, this study suggests that the Supreme Court’s most important decisions might significantly affect broader issue attention in the American political system.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Fogarty, Dr Brian
• Authors: Fogarty, B. J., and Monogan III, J. E.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Journal Name: Politics
• Publisher: SAGE
• ISSN: 0263 3957
• ISSN (Online): 1467-9256
• Published Online: 20 December 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Politics 38(2):214-231
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License