The Role of Ideas in Evaluating and Addressing Hydraulic Fracturing Regulations

Many policy scholars have promoted and studied the influence of paradigms and ideas on politics and policy (Béland, 2009, 2010; Blyth, 2001; Campbell, 1998; Goldstein & Keohane, 1993; Hall, 1993; Jacobs, 2009; Parsons, 2002). The study of ideas is based on the observation that most political debates involve arguments about which actions to take and how these actions correspond to outcomes. Set within a dominant paradigm or competing paradigms, such arguments are ideational as participants depend on reasoning, utilize concepts, apply their values, and examine evidence about alternative policy options (John, 2012). In this chapter, we examine the effect of different types of ideas on the evaluation of current regulatory policy as well as the perception of future policy proposals.