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 | The goal of the Pennsylvania Policy Database is to establish the first comprehensive state database modeled on the national Policy Agendas project created by political scientists Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones. We hope to have a fully functional, free, online database by the end of 2008 that will allow researchers, students, teachers, policy makers, and the general public to track and analyze policy in Pennsylvania through bills, statutes, appropriations, hearings, newspapers, opinion polls, executive orders, and court decisions. As with the national database, the Pennsylvania project will abstract and code these diverse records into more than 200 topic areas and restate the Commonwealth's expenditures in constant dollars and in categories that are reorganized to be consistent over time. Initially, the project will cover the years from 1979 to the present. This project has been funded by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Project funds directly support students helping to construct the database. No project funds are used to compensate faculty members overseeing the project or for university overhead costs. We believe the project can help correct a long-standing imbalance in both scholarship and public understanding. The state role in American public policy is under-studied in universities, under-reported by the news media, and not well understood by the general public. Scholars and the news media have paid far more attention to national and urban public policy, perhaps partly because many state capitals are remote from the main campuses of major universities and from major metropolitan news outlets. Our accessible, web-based database could help Pennsylvania students gain a deeper understanding of state issues and policy development. Scholars and students everywhere could use the compatible national and Pennsylvania databases to study the dynamics of policymaking in our federal system. State policymakers and analysts could use the database to gain a deeper and longer-range perspective on recurring problems and previously tried solutions. The increased accessibility of state government records and the increased exposure of graduate students to state government policy could help the state attract talented analysts who might otherwise not consider a career in state government. The project could help improve news coverage of state government by allowing journalists, particularly those not based in the Capitol, to more easily research state public policy issues and history via the internet. Finally, the database project is responsive to the public's increasing expectation that their government will make information about both policy and processes widely available in clear and easily accessible form. | |
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