Evaluative perceptions of policy conflicts: Are issues getting better, worse, or staying the same?

Some policy conflicts flare up and down, becoming resolved relatively quickly. Other policy conflicts endure, sometimes for years, decades, or longer. During these enduring policy conflicts, policy actors (i.e., a term used to describe those politically engaged) regularly evaluate the status of the varied dimensions of the policy conflict, judging whether these dimensions are getting worse, better, or staying the same. Yet, while our knowledge about policy conflict, either directly or indirectly studied, continues to ramify theoretically and empirically, unknowns remain about how these policy actors evaluate their circumstances. This paper answers two questions: What patterns occur in policy actor evaluations of issues surrounding a policy conflict in two time periods? What factors explain these patterns? We answer these questions using two policy actor surveys administered in 2015 and 2017 of oil and gas development in Colorado, USA. Using these two surveys, we analyze and compare responses to questions of policy actors in panel and non-panel samples. The questions target ten pertinent issues related to the policy conflict and ask policy actors to assess whether these issues are getting worse, better, or staying the same. The findings are threefold. First, we find more stability than instability in their evaluations and variation across different evaluation measures. Second, we find their normative positions in favor or opposition to oil and gas development associate significantly with their evaluation perceptions. Third, what change occurs in the evaluation perceptions link to shifting perceptions of threats, problems, and benefits and risks associated with oil and gas development. This paper confirms ongoing theoretical arguments about the stickiness of positions on issues related to policy conflict and the normative lenses imposed on evaluating policy-related success and failures. In other words, people make sense of a policy conflict to reinforce their normative orientation, amplified by perceptions of threats. We conclude with a broader challenge in developing knowledge about how policy actors participate and perceive their policy conflicts.