Oil and Wilderness in Alaska: Natural Resources, Environmental Protection, and National Policy Dynamics

6. Conclusion

6 Conclusion This book has examined three major cases of policy reform that match the patterns of policy change predicted by the punctuated equilibrium theory (Baumgartner and Jones 2009). In each case, an equilibrium period of incremental policy change was punctuated by a critical period of major policy reform. Each critical period was marked by heightened media and congressional attention supportive of reform and by the authorization of new institutional arrangements and policy images that established a major realignment of policy. The institutional arrangements and policy images established in each critical period have endured for decades in subsequent equilibrium periods, with enduring policy consequences. Each of the three critical periods of reform established institutional legacies that subsequently defined three parallel equilibrium periods. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act are the institutional legacies of the Alaska pipeline punctuation, together defining a continuing equilibrium in which oil development has come to dominate the economy of the state of Alaska and in which Alaska Natives have taken possession of large areas of Alaska (McBeath et al. 2008). The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and the North Slope oil industry complex are the enduring infrastructural legacies of the Alaska pipeline punctuation. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act is the institutional legacy of the Alaska lands conservation punctuation, a law defining a continuing equilibrium in which Alaska holds most of the total land areas in the national park, national wildlife refuge, and national wilderness preservation systems of 129 130 夝 Chapter 6 America (Andrus and Freemuth 2006). The institutional legacies of the Exxon Valdez oil spill punctuation include the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, new state laws, and new organizations designed to reduce the risk of marine oil pollution. These institutional legacies together define a third continuing equilibrium in which the safeguards against marine oil pollution in Alaska and the United States have been progressively reinforced. Therefore, the three critical periods examined in this study have created enduring institutional legacies (in the form of laws and organizations) and enduring policy consequences (in the form of oil infrastructures, protected natural areas, and oil pollution safeguards). A timeline of key events and punctuations examined in this book is provided in figure 6.1. While the evidence presented in this book supports the central predictions of the punctuated equilibrium theory of policy change, that same evidence does not provide comparable support for the central predictions of three alternative models of the policy process that differ significantly from the punctuated equilibrium theory in their portrayals of policy change over time. Each of these alternative models (policy incrementalism, issue-attention cycle, and policy erosion or reversal) describes important possible features of the policy process. However, the punctuated equilibrium theory more accurately depicts the policy reforms examined in this book than do these alternative models. These three alternative models of the policy process are examined next in the context of the evidence presented in this study. Policy incrementalism is a model of the policy process predicting a pattern of incremental policy change over time. Lindblom (1959) proposed that the limited capacity of administrators to foresee the consequences of policy change would lead to a pattern of policy incrementalism. For administrators, the potential consequences of policy alternatives would be most easily understood when those alternatives consisted of incremental adjustments to existing policies. These incremental policy alternatives could be readily compared with existing policies. In an effort to simplify the decision process and avoid major errors, administrators would focus their attention selectively on these incremental policy alternatives. A succession of incremental policy changes would allow administrators to progress gradually toward their goals without risking serious mistakes that might result from abrupt, radical policy shifts. Incremental adjustments to policy would therefore characterize the policy process, and the policy process would not contain fundamental realignments in policy (Lindblom 1959). This study finds three examples of fundamental policy realignments that do not match the predictions of the policy incrementalism model. The policy incrementalism model does not provide an accurate description of the critical periods of policy reform that authorized the building of the Alaska pipeline, the creation of a new system of conservation for Alaska Conclusion 夝 131 Figure 6.1. Timeline of Key Events and Punctuations Examined in This Book Year Event 1867 Alaska purchased by the United States from Russia. 1959 Alaska statehood. 1968 Alaska pipeline punctuation begins with the announcement of...