Shakuntala Balusu
Research Mentor(s): Devin Judge-Lord
Mentor Department:
Authors:
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 98
Abstract
Systematic study of the impact of advocacy work, whether it’s individual complaints and pleas to elected officials or lobbying on behalf of a nonprofit organization, has proven difficult. Coalitions of organizations and individuals are thought to be crucial to policy change, especially when it comes to legislation and proposed policies. However, the impact of advocacy is difficult to study. How effective are these efforts? This project analyzes comments from various groups on proposed policies and qualitatively codes them in order to determine if they were able to achieve the changes that they desired in the final policy. By comparing organizations’ comments to the text of the draft and final policy, we are able to record various factors, such as the organization’s ask and their position on the proposed policy in order to determine the effectiveness of their comments. The results vary from rule to rule and from administration to administration, but my particular work on new regulations of biomedical toxins and agents shows that advocacy campaigns have a substantial impact. These findings have implications for advocacy campaigns and could either support or question the need for these organizations’ work. If these comments prove largely ineffective in influencing policy, it may be necessary to shift efforts away from these strategies and explore alternative avenues for change. Ultimately, especially in an increasingly polarized political climate, it is crucial to analyze this work in order to determine the best path to creating policy change.
