R. Tatalovich et Bw. Daynes, THE LOWI PARADIGM, MORAL CONFLICT, AND COALITION-BUILDING - PRO-CHOICE VERSUS PROLIFE, Women & politics, 13(1), 1993, pp. 39-66
All organizations filing amicus briefs in 18 Supreme Court cases and t
estifying at 23 congressional hearings on abortion are classified to t
est these five hypotheses on coalition-building regarding moral confli
cts: (1) only interests directly affected will be activated; (2) singl
e-issue groups will dominate; (3) economic interests are not involved;
(4) coalition-building is more extensive by advocates of social chang
e; and (5) group conflict will focus primarily on the judicial branch.
All these hypotheses, extensions of the policy paradigm developed by
Theodore J. Lowi, were validated. It was also found that the pro-choic
e coalition has changed, with groups representing women the most impor
tant constituency today whereas in the 1970s the more salient organiza
tions were health care providers. And while both sides lobby the Court
more than Congress, abortion opponents devote more attention to the l
egislature, indicating that the ''institutional'' scope of conflict wi
ll shift between these policy arenas depending on the receptivity of e
ach branch to pro- or anti-abortion arguments. We suggest that policy
analysis would be enrichened by studying process variables (not simply
policy types) and that the critical variable is the ''political'' sco
pe of conflict as measured by the number, variety, and type of interes
t groups involved.