Morality Policies

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Comunicación y Gerencia

• Morality Policies

Wilson, Chapter 11    Meier, Kenneth J. 1999.
Sex, Drugs, Rock, and Roll A Theory of Morality
Politics. Policy Studies Journal 27(4)
681-695.    CQ Researcher, Chapter 5 (Stem Cell
Research)
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What are Morality Policies?

• Morality policies are characterized as
• a debate over first principles core values
• where at least one group involved has portrayed
  the policy issue as one of morality or sin
• and used moral arguments to support its policy
  position
• (Meier Mooney Haider-Markel Smith and others)

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Examples of Morality Policy Issues

• Abortion
• Pornography
• Gay rights/marriage
• Drugs/Alcohol
• Death Penalty
• Gambling
• Assisted Suicide
• School Prayer
• Prostitution

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Two Types of Morality Policies

• Sin policies
• Redistributive Morality Policies
• Each policy type leads to a distinctive politics
  and policy outcomes

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Sin Policies

• Policies addressing behaviors which relatively
  few people are willing to
• admit to engaging in
• Defend (policy debate is one-sided)
• Drug use
• Pornography
• Prostitution, strip clubs, etc.
• Gambling

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Explaining Legislative Adoptions

• Assumption 1 The (true) demand for sin is
  characterized by heterogeneous preferences.

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Explaining Legislative Adoptions

• Assumption 2 In terms of sin, the correlation
  between public behavior and private behavior is
  less than perfect.

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Explaining Legislative Adoptions

• Lessons
• Elected officials will overestimate the demand
  for policies designed to regulate sin
• Anti-sin policies are adopted in an environment
  in which there is little reasoned (and
  politically meaningful) debate

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Explaining Bureaucratic Behavior
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Explaining Bureaucratic Behavior

• Implementing agencies (law enforcement) will
  inevitably support stronger enforcement of
  anti-sin policies
• Perception of consumption of sin (overestimate)
• Maximization of organizational resources

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Explaining Policy Outcomes

• Policies restricting sin are inevitably doomed to
  have limited effectiveness

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The Transformation from Sin Politics to
Redistributive Politics

• Sin Politics The behavior being regulated is
  socially constructed as sin
• No significant political challenge
• But issues are multidimensional and therefore can
  be framed in multiple ways
• When opponents of sin policies can successfully
  reframe the debate (away from sin), the
  politics of sin can be transformed into the
  politics of redistribution (a redistribution of
  values)

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Redistributive Morality Policies

• Abortion
• Gay/Lesbian rights
• Etc.

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Redistributive Morality Policies

• Characteristics
• debate over first principles (core values/belief
  system) Costs/Benefits high for many
• technically simple
• highly salient to the general public
• higher than normal level of citizen participation
• Compromise is difficult, if not impossible to
  achieve

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The Evolution of Abortion Policy

• 1800s - state-level restrictions
• therapeutic abortions justified based on health
  of mother
• 1900s
• new technology made childbirth safer
• Doctors began to work more in hospitals
  (supervision) more tenuous legal position
• American Law Institutes model code (1959)
• Allowed abortion under 3 conditions
• rape/incest, physical/mental defects, life of
  mother
• the start of modern abortion regulation
• Change in debate from medical to moral
• Sherri Finkbine case (1962) (thalidomide)
• single-issue groups

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The Evolution of Abortion Policy

• Source Mooney and Lee, American Journal of
  Political Science, 1995 (Vol. 39 599-627)

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Evaluating the Impact of (Overturning) Roe vs.
Wade

• What would happen to the abortion rate?

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Evaluating the Impact of (Overturning) Roe vs.
Wade

• What would happen to the abortion rate?
• Some women would still get abortions
• Illegal abortions?
• Interstate travel states as abortion magnets?
• Some women would not get abortions
• Consequences?

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