ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the role of politics and policy entrepreneurs in the crafting of policy inputs. It focuses on the institutions of politics that select policymakers, and on the organized activities of four kinds of policy entrepreneurs: business organizations, interest groups, think tanks, and the media. The history of American public policy inputs from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present is a story of the rise of public interest groups and the decline of political parties in the policymaking process. Politics involves the pursuit of power and the exercise of power over others. Policymaking, in contrast, is more focused on the mechanisms of governance. Politics in the United States is centered on the institution of elections. Political parties became the principal institutions for public welfare of the time. Today, the influence of the two major political parties on the public agenda is a mere shadow of what it was over a century ago.
