licy differences among states. Donald Haider-Markel writes that the media has been particularly important in triggering such action (i.e. Matthew Sheppard and Benjamin Smith), but the approaches the states have taken to deal with hate crimes has been highly indicative of their political culture. The media simply helps to make issues more salient and when salience is high, it is more likely that issues will gain priority on the political agenda. Implementation of social regulatory policy often depends on the voluntary compliance of state and local officials. Federal hate crime policy clearly fits this description. Given the voluntary nature of implementing federal social regulatory policy, therefore, local political conditions should largely determine implementation effort. Furthermore, Haider-Markel claims that social-regulatory policy is thought to arise out of factors in the political environment including the strength of the interest groups, party competition, issue salience, and bureaucratic strength (4). According to Elazar, the MPC favors a strong bureaucracy and is concerned with the issues that will especially affect the people. Haider-Markel claims that because hate crime policies are considered social regulatory policy, they seek to change behavior that is linked to a “normative debate concerning the morality of the individual actions and the subsequent consequences of those actions on the rest of society. Hate crimes are seen as damaging the “community” as well as the individual. “Social regulatory policies may largely arise out of political demands of citizens and interest groups, the motivations of politicians, and bureaucratic structure and behavior”. Again, this describes the political foundations of the MPC exactly. On the other hand we have the TPC which views bureaucracy negatively and rarely focuses on issues. These claims further fortify the correlation between Elazar’s poli...
