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TWO HYPOTHESES ARE TESTED HERE: (1) A CONDIDATE WHO DOES NOT TAKE ISSUE STANDS WILL BE RATED MORE FAVORABLY BY POTENTIAL VOTERS THAN CANDIDATES WHO ANNOUNCE POSITIONS; AND (2) A CANDIDATE WHO ALWAYS TAKES POPULAR SIDE OF AN ISSUE WILL BE RATED MORE FAVORABLY THAN CANDIDATES WHO ADOPTED EITHER CONSISTENTLY LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE POSITIONS. HYPOTHESIS (1) WAS CONFIRMED; (2) IS MORE AMBIGUOUS

America's governing system is unique in the extent to which scientists and other outside experts participate in the policy process. This wide-ranging study traces the rise of scientists in the policy process and shows how outside experts interrelate with politicians and administrators to produce a unique and dynamic policy process. It also shows how the very openness of American government creates the potential for unusual conflicts of interest. Bruce L. R. Smith focuses on the experiences of agency and presidential-level advisory systems over the past several decades. He chronicles the special complexities and challenges resulting from the Federal Advisory Committee Act-the "open meeting" law-to provide a better understanding of the role of advisory committees and offers valuable lessons to guide their future use. He looks at science advice in the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Environmental Protection Agency; and then examines how science advisory mechanisms have worked at the White House. Rather than simply providing a description of structures and institutions, Smith shows the advisory systems in action--how advisory systems work or fail to work in practice. He analyzes how the advisers influence the policymaking process and affect the life of the agencies they serve. Smith concludes with an assessment of the relationship between science advice and American democracy. He explains that the widespread use of outside advisers clearly reflects America's preference for pluralism. By scrutinizing agency plans, goals, and operations, advisers and advisory committees serve a variety of functions and attempt to strike a balance between openness and citizen access to government and the need for discipline and sophisticated expertise in policymaking. At the root of the advisory process

Just after the close of World War II, America's political and scientific leaders reached an informal consensus on how science could best serve the nation and how government might best support science. The consensus lasted a generation before it broke under the pressures created by the Vietnam War. Since then the nation has struggled to reestablish shared beliefs about the means and goals of science policy. In American Science Policy Since World War II, author Bruce L. R. Smith makes sense of the break between science and government and identifies the patterns on postwar science affairs. He explains that what might otherwise seem to be a miscellaneous set of separate episodes actually constituted a continuing debate of national importance that was closely linked to broad political and economic trends. Smith's precise and unique analysis gives both the scholar and historian a better understanding of where we are and how we got there while casting a modest light on future policy directions.