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Political Scandals And Policy Creation, Keely Peterson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on political scandal and its effect on public policy creation. Using evidence from the Watergate, Iran Contra, Whitewater and Monica Lewinksy scandal, this study investigates the combined factors of political scandal, media and public opinion. This study hypothesizes a positive relationship between these combined factors and policy creation. In order to test the hypothesized relationship minor scandals were used for comparison throughout the study. Also content analysis, LexisNexis, and publications such as Congressional Quarterly were also used to gather the necessary research. The research shows that four out of the three major scandals researched supported the hypothesized …