In Search of the Issue-Attention Cycle

This article seeks to establish whether an issue-attention cycle of the type described by Downs for policy relating to the environment is typical of all policy areas in the United States. Downs introduced the concept of the issue-attention cycle based on his perception of the ecology issue rather than on a quantitative analysis of issue salience. This article uses changes in U.S. federal government organizations as an indicator of policy activity. Organizational activity within policy areas is indeed found to take a cyclical form, with the timing differing for different policy areas. It is, however, necessary to go beyond Downs's differentiation between policy attention and subsequent waning of political interest. Organizational initiation may be followed by a lack of any organizational activity, but it is more typically followed by periods of organizational succession (that is, replacement of the original initiations). The periods of highest organizational activity in a particular policy area are normally, but not universally, their periods of highest relative policy salience compared to total government organizational activity. Changes in organizational activity are related to changes in the salience of issues in public opinion. Peak periods of organizational activity occur either during the period of peak public concern with an issue or in the period immediately after that peak in public concern.