TESTING THEORIES OF STATE POLICY-MAKING - THE CASE OF AIR-QUALITY REGULATION

Comparative state policy studies have traditionally relied on one of t hree explanations of policy influence, classified here as the economic , political, and group influence models. Each of these traditional mod els, however, provides a narrow and biased representation of the polic y process. Moreover, the single-equation, multiple regression format m ost often used to operationalize these models can lead to misrepresent ations of the influences surrounding policy-making. In this article, a n integrated model of the policy process is developed and operationali zed as an alternative to these partial theories of state policy-making . Through theoretical discussion and empirical evaluation, this integr ated model is demonstrated as superior to the traditional models when analyzing the strength of state air pollution control