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20 J. Pub. L. 503 (1971)
Obscenity Law: A Public Policy Analysis

handle is hein.journals/emlj20 and id is 511 raw text is: OBSCENITY LAW: A PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS Martin Shapirot I. INTRODUCTION THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN DOMESTIC POLICY-MAKING, at least since the New Deal, has been innovation followed by supplementation. Policy and new programs have appeared nearly synonymous. It has been assumed that programs once initiated would be continued and expanded, and that the policy struggle would be waged over the tempo and scope of the expansion. To be sure in the last few years a new conservative coalition of politicians, social scientists, localists, and conservationists (in the broadest and most primitive sense of the word) have begun to challenge the liberal assumption that more is better. But even the Mies school of public policy (Less is more) has rarely proposed that the highways, housing projects, and schools we have built be torn down. Instead they usually argue that the goals of the traditional programs can be better met by new programs that funnel a greater proportion of new dollars and decisions into private or local channels, have a lesser impact on the urban and rural environment, and generally take fuller account of the risks of unanticipated consequences. While Mr. Moynihan may wish to dismantle the welfare program and Mr. Bickel the public schools, on the whole the new right too is oriented to new programs mixed with defenses of the status quo based either on the invisible hand or the confession that we don't know what else to do. Even this latter position (social science conservatism) tends to presuppose that it would be worth doing something if we knew what to do. All of this is preliminary to pointing out that the area of governmental policy toward obscene expression is a rather peculiar one-because for some years the principal thrust of the debate has not been about adopting new policies but whether or not to get rid of ones we have always had. Where policy and innovation are synonymous, the elements of policy-making tend to stand out clearly. Unless the real world problem were fairly clear and pressing, there would be no demand for innovation. The sources of the demands allow us to identify the interests involved. And the new proposals themselves suggest at least some of the alternatives available and something tB.A., U.C.L.A.; Ph.D., Harvard University; Professor of Government; Harvard University.

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