POLIDES NOTES

Public Policy Not just written, also supposed to be practiced Its what public officials within government, and by extension, the citizens they represent, choose to do or not to do about public problems (Michael Kraft & Scott Furlong, 2007) Public Problems Conditions that the public perceives to be unacceptable and therefore requiring intervention Purposive Action The term policy refers to a purposive course of action that an individual or group consistently follows in dealing with a problem Policy Choice Depends on how the public defines the problem and the prevailing societal attitudes about private action in relation to the governments role Behavioural Repetitiveness A policy is a standing decision characterized by behavioural consistency and repetitiveness on the part of both those who make it and those who abide by it (Eulace and Prewitt, 1973) Who regulates? Policies are the instruments through which societies regulate themselves and attempt to channel human behaviour in acceptable directions Regulations and Practices Public policy is associated with formally approved policy goals and means, as well as the regulations and practices of government agencies that implement programs Level of Government Any level of government, whether national or local, may be involved in a particular policy effort because social problems, and the public demand for action on them, manifest themselves from the local to the national level Policy Outputs Formal actions that governments take to pursue their goals Policy Outcomes Effects that policy outputs have on society Politics Concerns the exercise of power in society or in specific decisions over public policy Why do policy analysis? Policy analysis is the use of reason and evidence to choose the best policy among the number of alternatives The Policy Context Public policy is affected by social and economic conditions, prevailing political values, the public mood at any given time, the structure of government, and national and local culture norms among other variables. Political Culture Refers to widely held values, beliefs, and attitudes, such as trust and confidence in government and the political process, or the lack thereof Market Failure Occurs when the private market is not efficient. Market failures fall into 4 types: existence of monopolies and oligopolies, externalities, information failures, and the inability to provide public or collective goods. Negative Externality Occurs when two parties interact in a market and, as a result of that interaction, a third party is harmed and does not get compensation Positive Externality The third party gains something from the two-party interaction and does not have to pay for it Information Failure To have perfect competition, willing buyers and sellers must have all the information needed to enter into a transaction or exchange Collective Goods A public or collective good is defined by two criteria: the ability to exclude someone from getting the good and the ability to jointly consume the good Toll Goods Can be jointly consumed, and exclusion is feasible. Obvious example is a utility such as electricity or cable services. One persons use of cable services does not preclude another persons use. Common Pool Resources

Goods that cant be jointly consumes and for which exclusion is not feasible. In the tragedy of commons, each individual seeks to maximize his/her use of the common pool resources without regard to their degradation or depletion because no one owns them. Pure Public Goods Can be jointly consumed and exclusion is not feasible. Would not be provided at all without government intervention because the private sector has no incentive to provide them (ex. national defense and public parks) Congress Acts on legislative proposals, appropriates money for all agencies, and oversees the operations of executive agencies Policy Gridlock Too much checking and not enough responsiveness Executive Executive agencies implement public policies in part by establishing rules and regulations under the discretion granted to them by Congress Judiciary The judiciary affects public policy through established precedent. The courts interpret constitutional and legislative provisions and settle disputes that arise as a result of executive agency decisions Separation of Powers Governing power is shared among the three branches of government The checks and balances built into a system of separated powers would ensure the no one branch would have enough power to threaten liberty Legislative Branch A bicameral system has two chambers, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate The two chambers differ in composition and operating style Committee System Each of the committees and subcommittees has specific jurisdiction over certain public and the executive agencies that administer them Each has staff that can bring experience and expertise to beat on law-making and an oversight and investigations of the executive agencies Bills introduced into either chamber are referred to a committee If the committee decides to move ahead on the legislation, it conducts public hearings to acquire information on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed law Executive branch officials and experts from academe, think tanks and interest groups may be invited to testify in committee hearings The committees submit reports on their findings and recommendations on the full chamber To become a law, a bill must pass both chambers in identical form and be signed by the president Executive Branch The executive branch is responsible for carrying out the laws enacted by congress Although presidents do not make laws, they are actively involved in agenda settings, policy formulation and adoption, and implementation Cabinet-level Departments The bureaucracy constitutes the bulk of the executive branch It includes all of the agencies and offices that fall under each of the cabinet departments and other offices and agencies whose mission is to develop and implement policy in specialized areas Each agency makes policy within its specialized area through the interpretation of legislative language and development of regulations that are essential to policy implementation Career officials have considerable authority to shape public policy, even though ultimate responsibility for policymaking rests with the presidents appointees as department secretaries Commissions Commission on Election Commission on Audit Civil Service Commission Office of the Ombudsman Common on Human Rights The Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) was created through RA 7640 approved by President Fidel Ramos in December 1992 The LEDAC was formed to constitute on effective advisory and consultative mechanism to ensure consistency in coordinating executive planning and congressional budgeting Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) Functions Determine and recommend socioeconomic development goals Provide policy advice to the president -

Integrate regional development plans into the national development plans Study measures to improve implementation of official development assistance Assess effectiveness of implementation of the national development plan Integrate environmental principles and practices into the national development plan Integrate legislative agenda with the national development plan Recommend to the president and congress sources of revenues and measures to reduce unnecessary government expenditures Judicial Branch The major distinction between the judicial branch from the legislative and the executive is that the courts policymaking is reactive rather than proactive Unlike the legislative and executive branches which can initiate policy, the courts offer rulings an opinion only on cases brought to them Courts interpret the constitution, statutory language, administrative rules, regulations, executive orders, treaties, and prior court decisions regarded as precedent using prior court decisions to help make a current decision The policy language in these various documents may be ambiguous or vague, or new situations may arise that the architects of the language did not foresee Public Opinion Public opinion influences what elected officials try to do, especially on issues that are highly salient, or of great importance to voters Public opinion is what the public thinks about a particular issue or set of issues at any given point in time Usually expressed as the aggregate or sum of the individual attitudes and opinions of the adult population A typical survey or poll would have a random sample of 1,200 and a margin of error of plus/minus 3 Public participation Beyond answering polls or surveys, people can express their opinions through their political participation, which may include not just voting but attending meetings, writing or speaking to government officials, joining interest groups and backing referendums Interest Groups Organized interest groups are a major influence on public policy Most groups are involved in direct lobbying of policymakers, indirect or grassroots lobbying aimed at mobilizing the public Lobbying Groups lobby legislators by supplying information on their policy views or summaries of policy-related studies they have conducted They may testify in legislative committee hearings, meet with individual members or their staff, and urge their members and supporters to write or call legislators Groups also lobby executive branch agencies by submitting studies and recommendations during formal public comment periods on proposed regulation, as well as through frequent and informal communication with agency officials Issue Networks Policy making also occurs in less formal settings or venues and involves policy actors within particular issue areas, such as national defense, communications, agriculture, forestry or energy They used to be called iron triangles because of the supposed power of their three components: o Congressional subcommittees o Executive agency o Outside economic interest group (James Anderson, 2011: quote about public policy) Categories of Public Policy Constituent Policies these are policies formally and explicitly concerned with the establishment of government structure, with the establishment of rules for the conduct of government, of rules that distribute or divide power and jurisdictions within which present and future government policies might be made (ex. LGC) Distributive Policies these involve allocation of services or benefits to specific groups Regulatory Policies restrictions/limitations on behaviour of individuals or groups Approaches to Policy Analysis various ways political scientists go about doing policy analysis implicit/explicitly adopts a research strategy Research Styles

there are three basic research styles: o policy analysis o policy research o applied social science research Policy Analysis Cook, Vaupel: policy analysis refers to a staff memorandum on a narrowly defined problem Such an analysis would take from days or weeks to prepare The methods are basic collection techniques including the compilation of readings and the synthesis of many ideas into a coherent course of action Policy Research Refers to a monograph on a broad problem, such as energy deregulation policies This might take a year or more to prepare The methods used might include decision analysis, cost-benefit analysis, system analysis, or other sophisticated techniques Applied Social Science Research This refers to a scholarly assessment of the effects of a policy intervention on some narrowly defined set of outcomes such as analysing the effects of seat belts on traffic fatalities Techniques might be quantitative such as multiple regression or qualitative such as a case study Approaches Policy Process Approach Aims to identify stages in the policy process and analyse the determinants of each particular stage In this approach, societal problems are first recognized as an issue for action, and then policies are adopted, implemented by agency officials, evaluated, and finally terminated or changed on the basis of their success or lack of it Some aspects of the policy cycle have been more heavily studies than others (ex. policy formulation), whereas others are just beginning to be further developed (ex. policy change) John Kingdons work on agenda setting has provided a rich explanation of the central determinants of this phase Substantive Approach Many policy scientists become substantive specialists in a particular area. For example, they might analyse the determinants of environmental policy formulation , implementation or change Other become educational policy specialists, health-care policy specialists, energy policy specialists, crime policy specialists or welfare policy specialists Logical Positivist Approach Often called behavioural or scientific approach, advocates the use of deductively derived theories, models, hypothesis testing, hard data, the comparative method, and rigorous statistical analysis Working from an explicit theory of policy behaviour and testing hypothesis derived from theory Political Economic Approach Sometimes called Public Choice Approach Is primarily based on economic theories of politics in which human nature assumed to be rational or motivated by purely personal gain Assumes that people pursue their own fixed weighted preferences regardless of collective outcomes An example: principle agent model (Terry Moe, etc.) Much of what transpires in governing involves the efforts of political principals (ex. selected offcials, central government) to control the behaviour of their agents (bureaucrats and local governments) Faced with a divergence of values between principals and their agents and an info asymmetry that advantages the agent, political principle seek tools that will allow them to more closely monitor and control the actions of their agents Critics argue that humans are also altruistic (not just rational or selfish) and are thus also motivated to serve the public or collective interest Phenomenological Approach Also called Naturalistic or Post-Positivist approach Argues that analysts need to adopt a respect for the disciplined employment of sound intuition, itself born of experience not reducible to models, hypotheses, and quantification Methodologically, these analysts treat each piece of social phenomenon as a unique event, with ethnographic and other qualitative indices becoming permanent Participatory Approach Associated with Peter de Leon et al. Involves a greater inclusion of the interests, values of the various stakeholders in the policy-decision making process

Would involve extensive open hearings with a broad range of concerned citizens, in which these hearings would be structured in such a way as to prompt individuals, interest groups, and agency officials to contribute to policy design and redesign Normative Approach Also called Prescriptive Approach Seeks to define a desirable end state, and argue that this prescription is both desirable and attainable Some examples of this type of policy analysis would be the works of Henry Kissinger, etc. Ideological Approach Although not all policy analysts explicitly adopt a liberal or conservative point of view, they almost always have such a view embedded somewhere in their policy analysis Thomas Sowell calls these ideological approaches visions Historical Approach Only by examining public policies from the standpoint of a longer period of time can analysts gain a more complete perspective about patterns that exist in the making of public policy

On becoming a better policy scientist (Dror?) Gain historical and comparative perspectives Know policymaking realities Study own society in depth Take up grand and diverse policy issues Move into meta-policymaking Build up an appropriate philosophy of knowledge and action Broaden your methodology and experiences Multiply your disciplinary bases Be careful about your professional ethics Agenda Settings Where do public policy proposals come from? Why are some issues more likely to get onto the agenda than others? Why do decision-makers pay more attention to certain issues? An issue will get attention when: It has reached crisis proportions and can no longer be ignored It has reached particularity, in which the issue exemplifies and dramatizes a larger issue It has an emotive aspect or attracts media attention because of human network and interest angles It has wide impact It raises questions about power and legitimacy in society It is fashionable Why is agenda setting crucial? If an issue cannot be placed on the public or governmental agenda, it cannot be considered for action Problems must be recognized before a policy choice can be made What is agenda setting? list of subjects or problems to which government officials are paying some serious attention at any given time (Kingdon) It is a set of political controversies that will be viewed as falling within the range of legitimate concerns meriting the attention of the polity (Cobb & Elder) Process in which public officials learn about new problems, decide to give them their personal attention, and mobilize their organizations to respond to them (Nelson) Nature of Policy Problems May be defined as a condition or situation that produces needs or dissatisfaction on the part of people for which relief or redress is sought Some public problems are east to define and solve, others are more difficult to assess and diagnose As the understanding of a problem develops over time, the problem is often defined very differently For instance, policymakers are attempting to define environmental policies that are preventive rather than active in nature Systemic Agenda The systemic agenda consists of all the issues that might be subject to action These issues can include pseudo-issues, or issues discussed just to placate clientele groups but without any serious attempt to make policy choices

This is also referred to as the popular agenda which consists of all the issues under consideration by the mass public Institutional Agenda The institutional agenda is the set of issues explicitly up for active and serious consideration by decisionmaking bodies Also referred to as public agenda Types of Issues: Subject issues relatively broad Project issues specific project or locality New issues newly emergent Cyclical issues annual budget Recurrent issues re-emerged because of the seeming failure of previous policy choices Movement of issues in the agenda stream In the early 70s, the proposition was that the greater the size of the audience to which an issue may be appealed, the greater the likelihood that the issue will attain status on the systematic agenda and later move to the formal or institutional agenda -

Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.

Stages in Agenda Setting Process (Nelson) Issue recognition o Problem noticed, perceived to have potential for government action Issue adoption o To respond or not respond? Concern: whether government has legitimate responsibility on the issue Issue prioritization o Agenda re-ordered to accommodate new issue Issue maintenance o Issue stage of decision-making proposals are put forth to be considered Streams of information (Kingdon) Problem stream Policy stream Political stream Problem Stream How problems come to be recognized How conditions come to be defined as problems Brought to attention by systematic indicators, focusing events (crises, disasters), feedback from current problems Policy Stream Concerned with the generation of policy proposals (bill introductions, speeches, testimony, papers, conversations) Proposals are floated, come into contact, revised, combined, and floated again Must meet several criteria (technical feasibility, fit with dominant values and national mood, budgetary workability, political support or opposition) Political Stream Factors: o National mood swings o Administrative or legislative turnovers o Interest group pressure Intervening Variables Policy windows o Opportunities for pushing policies Policy entrepreneurs o Willing investors for pushing policies, pet proposals, responsible for attention + solution couple Non-decisions Certain stuff kept off agenda because of political or economic reasons Policy Formulation

Stage of policy process where there is identification and enactment of pertinent and acceptable courses of action Types of Policy Solutions Inducements o Can be + (tax credits or penalties) Rules o Mandated behaviour (regulations) Facts o Use of information to persuade groups to behave in a certain way (community right-to-know information) Rights o Give certain people rights and duties (civil rights legislation) Powers o Decision making body and specific powers Actors in Policy Formulation Government agencies o Most policy proposals are first developed by career bureaucrats (not Congress) The Presidency (and/or Executive Offices) o Presidential commissions, task forces, interagency committees, and other arrangements Interest Groups o Bargaining, negotiation, compromise Congress

Models of Policy-Making Rational-Comprehensive Model Confronted with given problem (that can be separated from or considered with other problems) Goals, values, or objectives are clarified and ranked Alternative policies are prepared Consequence investigation (cost and benefits) of each alternative Each alternative is calculated and compared Choose maximizing alternative Incremental Model Key assumptions: o Decision makers do not have predictive capability of consequence calculation o Decision makers accept legitimacy of previous policies o Sunk cost prevent serious consideration of alternatives o Incrementalism reduces conflict and is politically expedient o Characteristics of decision-makers are more incremental Steps o Selection of goals and empirical analyses of actions needed are intertwined, not separated o Consider only some, which differ only from existing policies o Only a limited number of consequences per alternative are evaluation o Problem continually redefined o No single best solution to problem o Essentially remedial, geared more to amelioration of present social imperfections (not future goals) Systems Model (Easton) Pluralist Model Interest groups compete for policy Elite Model Elites dominate policymaking because the general citizens are passive Groupthink Policymaking come from the same background/beliefs and just go along with others Garbage Can Model Assumption: decision making is irrational Actions are done first then justification to be accepted Structure to what was unstructured

Policy Implementation Administration of law in which various actors, organizations, procedures, and techniques work together to put adopted policies into effect Implementation as Process Consideration is made on how the decisions and actions made in pursuit of the policy We are bound by procedures What would it incorporate? Implementation as Output The extent to which policy goods are supported, such as the level of expenditures committed to a program or the number of sanctions applied for non-compliance Implementation as Outcome There has been a measureable change in the larger problem that was addressed by the program, law, or judicial decision Who implements policy? Bureaucracy Policy is generally implemented by administrative groups Legislature Their power over budget, nominations, and oversight review to control bureaucratic behaviour Either empower certain groups to sit at a regulatory table of mandate administrative procedures that limit discretion Executive Pres, gov, and other chief executives have to exert control over political subordiantes in the executive branch including mechanisms that centralize budget requests, review of agency rule-making, appointment of heads of departments, and use of executive to set policy orders Courts They interpret statues and administrative rules and regulations and they review admin. Decision brought before them Pressure groups Seek to influence the guidelines and regulation in a way that will benefit their cause Civil Society Orgs Often get involved in local boards and councils and serve as 3 rd party monitors in public service delivery Techniques of Policy Implementation Command and Control Approach Somehow coercive standard setting, inspections, and imposing sanction on violators who fail to comply with regulations Incentives/Market Approach Involved the use of tax credits, subsidies or other rewards to encourage private interests to comply Policy Evaluation Concerned with learning about the consequences of public policy Determine consequences by describing impact Judge success or failure of policy according to a set of standards or value criteria Focus (Differentiates policy evaluation from other types of analysis (ex. formulation)) Focus on policy results or consequences as opposed to policy characteristics or causes What is evaluated? Outputs o the impact of a policy is examined in relation to outputs such as funds, jobs, materials produced, and services delivered Performance o When analysing consequences, one is examining how the policy performed in relation to some states objective Outcome o Consequences are analysed where the policy is supposed to result in the improvement of a general condition in society Feedback o Includes the repercussions of a government action or statement on the policy-making system or on some policy-makers Types of Policy Evaluation Process Evaluation

Focuses on the means by which a program or policy is delivered t clients, or the way in which a program is implemented Impact Evaluation Did the program or policy produce the intended result on the target population? Policy Evaluation Concerned with the impact on original problem to which it is addressed Meta-evaluation Synthesis of evaluation research findings, commonalities among results, measures, and trends in the literature are examined

Who does evaluation? Internal Evaluators Executive branch evaluations may be conducted by planning and evaluation units, regulatory bodies, advisory boards, commissions, and panels Advantage is that insiders will have the detailed knowledge of what is involved in delivering the policy or program 3 major disadvantages: o They may not have specialized skills for evaluation o Several different organizations may be involved in policy deliver, a complete evaluation cannot be obtained by examining results of the activity in one organization o May be affected by insiders unwillingness to make major changes in policy or program suggested by evaluation External Evaluators Private research organizations, public interest groups, and academic institutions Improves chance of change in the policy or program if the evaluator has involved the internal staff in discussions about objectives and effectiveness of the program or policy May have necessary skills that insiders lack Research Designs Pre-Experimental Designs One-shot case studies o Are intensive analyses of what happened in the course of implementing the policy, and after its implementation, to try to determine whether there was any change in behaviour or condition Before and After Studies Compare results at two points in time one before the program was implemented and the other sometimes after implementation True Experiments Involve the random selection of both control and experimental groups. These two groups are compared in terms of changes within each group before and after the introduction of the policy or program Problems in Evaluating Public Policy Objectives The policy objectives may be unclear There is the question of how the success of the objectives will be measures (defining success) Sometimes impacts from other policies or programs affect the policy or program under evaluation (side effects) Data problems where the information necessary to assess the impact of a policy or program may not be available Methodological Problems It is common for a single problem or single group of the population, to be the target of several programs with the same or related objectives Political Problems

Cost

Evaluation may be seen as a threat to the continuation of a policy or program in which a number of people have an important stake (side note: focken selfish.)

The costs involved in evaluation (Reference: Chapter 8, Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach) Policy Change and Termination - In these last two stages of the policy cycle, policies are reviewed, sometimes terminated, sometimes changed drastically, and then the entire cycle begins again as the policies are reformulated and re-implemented. The concept of policy change - Policy change refers to the replacement of an existing policy by another policy. Forms of policy change Incremental changes in existing policies; Enactment of new statutes in particular policy areas; Major shifts in public policy as a result of elections. Reasons for policy change The extent to which the original policy is judged to have solved the problem; The skill with which such policies are administered; The defects revealed during the policy implementation; The political power and awareness of concerned or affected groups; and Change in the conventional wisdom about how to address the problems (e.g. National Disaster Risk Reduction Act, Climate Change Act). Types of policy change Linear change This involved the direct replacement of one policy by another, or the simple change of an existing policy. Consolidation Some policy changes involve merging previous policies into a new single policies (Google: omnibus). Splitting Some agencies (and the policies they administer) are split into two or more individual components. Non-linear Some policy changes are complex and involve elements of other kinds of changes. Models of policy change The Cycle Thesis The evolution of public policy follows a patter in which a period of private remedies dies will be followed by a period of significant government intervention. The Backlash or ZigZag Thesis Policies that favour one group in one era are replaced by policies that favour another group in the next era. The Advocacy Coalition Framework Policy change is viewed both as the product of changes in system-wide events, such as socio-economic changes, and the efforts of competing advocacy coalitions within the subsystem to realize their core beliefs over time as they seek to increase their resource bases and to learn more about the policy problems of interest to them. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory Policy change is likely to occur when events challenge prevailing policy images and political actors are able to mobilize sufficient support for a new image on the national agenda (e.g. climate change policy). The concept of policy termination Sometimes policies or programs are not merely changed, but terminated. It is perhaps the most difficult phase of the policy cycle. Once started, policies, programs, and agencies have a life of their own with substantial momentum. Vested interests will fight to keep the program due to sunk costs. Types of Termination Functional Termination This type of termination refers to the termination of an entire area (e.g. privatization of garbage collection). Organizational Termination This type of termination refers to the elimination of an entire organization. Policy Termination

This type of termination refers to the elimination of a policy when the underlying theory or approach is no longer needed or believed to be correct. Program Termination This refers to the elimination of specific measures designed to implement a policy. Approaches to Termination Big Bang Approach This approach usually occurs with a single authoritative decision or one decisive stroke at a single point in time. Long Whimper Approach This type of termination comes through a long-term decline in the resources that sustain a policy or organization. Those who favour termination (Bardach) Oppositionists The oppositionists are those who dislike the policy or program because they feel that it is a bad policy. Economizers They favour termination as a means of reducing expenditure outlays. Reformers The reformers are those who see the termination as essential to the development of a substitute (new) policy, program, or organization that they believe will be more useful.