Summary, Public Policy, Extensive Summary of Chapter 1-3 PDF

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Chapter 1 Introduction  Why study public policy?In part 1 an overview of past efforts to understand public policy-making is outlined and state the different stages of the policy-making cycle that can be examined for valuable insights into policy process. We then move to consider the principal eleme...

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Chapter 1 Introduction  Why study public policy? In part 1 an overview of past efforts to understand public policy-making is outlined and state the different stages of the policy-making cycle that can be examined for valuable insights into policy process. We then move to consider the principal elements and patterns of policy dynamics that influence organizational and political behavior and lead to policy change before discussing the factors that entrench elements of inertia that yield policy stability. The greatest insights into policy contents and processes are produced through studying the interplay of three dimensions of engaging and resolving public problems. We look to the policy actors who interact to determine the content and process of public policy-making. We also explore the structures and institutions that serve to constrain and influence these actors’ efforts. And finally, we consider the sets of ideas and knowledge that inform their deliberations and actions. Chapter 2  Analytical dimensions: Actors, Institutions and Ideas Chapter 3  Conceptual elements: Subsystems, Regimes and Paradigms Analyzing policy dynamics is the focus of Part 2, which uses the model of a staged, sequential policy cycle to set out the basic steps through which policy processes unfold.  This form of policy cycle analysis sees public policy-making as a socio-political process involving successive stages from the articulation of public problems to the adoption and implementation of expected solution to them. It allows us to highlight the operative factors and forces at each distinct stage of the cycle; from agenda-setting, formulation, decision-making, and implementation to evaluation and then back through the same process once again in successive iterations of the cycle in an effort to improve upon policy outcomes. The cycle framework provides insights into policy-making dynamics by focusing on two interrelated temporal dimensions of that process. First, by differentiating each stage of the cycle, the distinctive impacts of actors, organizational structures, and dominant ideas on deliberation and action can be more clearly identified at any given point in time. Second, when these different ‘snapshots’ of activity in a particular policy stage are brought into focus, the relationship between actors, organizations, and ideas can become apparent across different stages of the policy cycle. Distinctive ways of making policy- known as a policy style or mode – and established patterns of outcomes, or policy regimes, can thus be identified. Part 3  Broad patterns of policy-making. Why are established styles of policy deliberation and regimes of delivering policy outcomes often difficult to change?

1.1 Public Policy Defined It is important to propose a working definition of public policy. As we have suggested, policymaking is fundamentally about constrained (beperkte) actors attempting to match policy goals with policy means in a process that can be characterized as ‘applied problem-solving’. This process of matching goals and means has two dimensions.

1. The technical dimension seeks to identify the optimal relationship between goals and tools, since some tools are better suited to address particular problems than others. 2. The political dimension; since not all actors typically agree on what constitutes a policy problem or an appropriate solution. The analysis of both problems and solutions is further constrained by the existing state of knowledge about social and economic problems, as well as policy actors’ ideas, norms, and principles with respect to what they consider to be appropriate courses of action to follow.  These ideational assumptions shape both their notions about what constitutes a problem as well as the kinds of policy actions that they feel are ‘feasible’ and ‘acceptable’ While there are substantial areas of agreement among the competing definitions of public policy, however, they also differ considerably in detail. Two examples of widely used definitions illustrate the diverse meanings ascribed to public policy by different authors, even when hey agree on the general pragmatic nature of policy-making and policy-making processes. 1) Thomas Dye (best known): offers a particularly succinct (bondig) formulation: ‘Anything a government chooses to do or not to do’ . Even though this is too simple, it has 3 merits (grondheid). 1. Dye’s definition specifies that the primary agent of public policy-making is a government. (so no decisions made by private businesses, interest groups etc) Governments enjoy a special role in public policy-making due to their unique ability to make authoritative decision on behalf of citizens, that is, ones backed up by sanctions for transgressors in the event of non-compliance. Hence when we talk about public policies we are always speaking about initiatives sanctioned by governments. 2. As Dye notes, public policy is, at its simplest, a choice made by government to undertake some course of action. A ‘negative’ or ‘non-decision’, that is, a governments decision to do nothing and simply maintain the current course of action or status quo is just as much a policy decision as a choice to attempt to alter some part of the status quo.  These negative decisions, just like positive decisions, must be deliberate. 3. Dye’s definition also highlights the fact that a pubic policy is a conscious choice of the government. That is, government actions and decisions often yield (opleveren) unintended consequences. Unless this subsequent activity or consequence was specifically anticipated and intended by the government, the unintended consequence of policy is not public policy but merely its unexpected by-product. 2) William Jenkins  ‘a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to achieve.’ This definition is helpful/significant in: content, presents policy-making as a dynamic process, it is a result of a set of interrelated actions and a government’s capacity to implement its decisions  In other words, governments rarely address problems with a single decision, as Dye’s definition might suggest. Instead, most policies involve a series of decisions that cumulatively contribute to an outcome.

Internal and external structural constraints on policy-making make its analysis much more complicated than might be assumed from Dye’s definition. Jenkins also introduces the idea of public policy-making as goal-oriented behavior since, in his definition, public policies are decisions taken by governments that define a goal and set out a means to achieve it. Methodological implications for studying public policy There are also methodological obligations that arise when studying public policy. Public policies extend beyond the record of formal investigation and official decisions to encompass the real of potential choices, or choices not made. The analysis of such choices necessarily involves considering the array of state and societal actors involved in decision-making processes and their capacities for influence and action. It is important to understand in more general terms why a state adopted the policy it did? Sometimes a government may announce the reasons behind a decision, however, it is also common for a government not to give any reason for making a decision. How analysts explain specific public policy outcomes, is influenced by the frameworks they employ and the aspects of policy-making these frameworks emphasize or downplay. These models and techniques orient analysts towards either two broad approaches: 1. Those who believe that reasonably objective analysis of policy goals and outcomes is possible and that these subjects can be explored with standard social science methodologies for collecting data and analyzing them.  Positivist view (evaluating policy outcomes and understanding, e.g., why a policy was not implemented as intended and failed? Or why it may have succeeded despite poor implementation?) 2. Embrace more subjective interpretive or ‘post-positivist’ techniques. Although the differences between positive and post-positivist approaches should not be overstated, they serve to underscore how orientations towards policy-making as a social phenomenon can affect analytical techniques and outcomes. This difference in methods and approaches to policy-making underlies the oft-noted distinction drawn between 1. policy analysis and 2. policy studies. 1. Policy analysis  tends to concentrate on the formal evaluation or estimation of ‘policy impacts’ or outcomes, usually by using quantitative techniques such as cost-benefit analysis or risk assessment and management. Involves the assessment of the direct and indirect effects of specific policies. This approach focuses almost exclusively on the effects of policy outputs, however, and says very little about the policy processes that created those outputs. 2. Policy studies  are broader in scope, examining not just individual programs and their effects, but also their causes en presuppositions and the processes that led to their adoption. B. Guy and Frances Castles often argued that both the policy content and form of public policy-making vary according to the nature of a political system, and the types of links decision makers have with society.

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Another element of policy studies literature has sought to identify causal variables in public policy-making, which are sometimes referred to as ‘policy determinants’. Yet another strand of the policy studies literature focuses on the analysis of policy content as a predictor of policy processes. In this approach, problems are expected to be deal with in different fashion depending on whether they are primarily regulatory, distributive, redistributive or constitutive in character.  Theodore Lowi argued ‘Policy may determine politics’ not the other way around. In a similar vein, James Q. Wilson argued that ‘the degree of concentration of costs and benefits imposed on political actors by a particular policy shapes the type of policy processes that will accompany it. Lester Salamon  argued that focusing on the nature of the policy tools or instruments governments have at their disposal to implement public polies is therefore the best mode of analysis for understanding public policy.

Analysts working for governments and for groups directly affected by public policies tend to focus their research on  policy evaluation Private think-tanks and research institutes usually enjoy more autonomy, but they remain interested in the practical side of policy and tend to concentrate either on policy outcomes or on the instruments and techniques that generate those outcomes. The policy cycle framework: An applied problem-solving model of the policy process Policy outcomes are seen as being shaped by the structures within which these actors operate and the ideas they hold - forces that also have affected earlier policies and related decision in previous iterations of policy-making processes. Historically, as we have seen one of the most popular means of simplifying public policymaking for analytical purposes has been to think of I as a process, that is, as a set of interrelated stages through which policy issues and deliberations flow in a more or less sequential fashion from inputs (problems) to outputs (policies). Harold Lasswell, one of the pioneers and promoters of what he termed ‘ the policy science’ first broached the idea of simplifying public policy-making by breaking the process down into a number of discrete stages.  Policy Cycle This model views policy-making in essentially pragmatic terms, as the embodiment of efforts to improve the human condition through harnessing reason to guide human activities, in this care, in the process of governing.  Improvements are not, however, a matter of forcing reality to fit within the confines of a theory. Rather, theory and practice reinforce each other as theory is fine-tuned in the light of practice, while practice is altered by the application of theory. The policy cycle, therefore, goes beyond merely input and output stages, but also extends to monitoring and evaluative activities once outputs have emerged. Lawell divided the policy process into seven stages, which, in his view, described not only how public policies were actually made but also how they should be made: 1. Intelligence (intelligence gathering  collection of info by policy-makers)

2. Promotion (of particular options by those involved in making the policy decision) 3. Prescription (policy-makers prescribe a course of action) 4. Invocation (the prescribed course of action is invoked alongside a set of sanctions to penalize those who fail to comply with these prescriptions) 5. Application (the policy is then applied by the courts and the bureaucracy and runs its course until it is terminated or canceled; see below) 6. Termination ^ 7. Appraisal (the results of the policy are appraised or evaluated against the original aims and goals) This early model had shortcomings: it focused on decision-making within government and had little to say about external influences. + its placing of policy appraisal after termination, since policies would logically be evaluated prior to being wound down rather than afterwards. Lasswell’s formulation formed the basis for many other models. Typical of these was a simpler version of the policy cycle developed by Gary Brewer  policy process is composed of only six stages: 1. Invention/initiation 2. Estimation 3. Selection 4. Implementation 5. Evaluation 6. Termination Brewer’s version of the policy process improved on Lasswell’s pioneering work by expanding beyond the confines of government in exploring how problems are recognized. + it introduced the notion of the policy process as an ongoing cycle. Brewer’s insights inspired several other version of the policy cycle to be developed in de late 1970, the best known of which were set out in textbooks by Charles O. Jones, and James Anderson. In the works of Brewer, Jones, and others the operative principle behind the notion of the policy cycle is the logic of applied problem solving, even though this logic remains implicit. The stages in applied problem solving and the corresponding stages in the policy process are depicted in figure 1.1 blz 12. The model, which will be used throughout the book forms the basis for separate chapters is: Stages in Policy Cycle 1. Agenda-setting 2. Policy formulation 3. Decision-making 4. Policy implementation 5. Policy evaluation This model is also useful because it helps clarify the different, though interactive, roles played in the process by policy actors, institutions and ideas. 1. In this view, agenda-setting is a stage in which virtually any policy actors might be involved in decrying problems and demanding government action. These policy actors  called Policy Universe

2. Formulation, only a subset of the policy universe, the policy subsystem, is involved in discussing options to deal with problems recognized as requiring some government action. 3. when a decision is being taken on one or more, or none, of these option to implement, the number of actors is reduced even further, to only the subset of the policy subsystem composed of authoritative government decision-makers. 4. Once implementation begins, however, the number of actors increases once again to the relevant subsystem and then, finally with the evaluation of the results of that implementation, expands once again to encompass the entire policy universe. Zie schema blz 13 The policy cycle model has advantages and disadvantages: Advantage  1. It facilitates an understanding of a multi-dimensional process by disaggregating the complexity of the process into any number of stages and sub-stages, each of which can be investigated alone or in terms of its relationship to any or all the other stages of the cycle. 2. The approach can be used at all socio-legal or spatial levels of policy making. 3. This model permits examination of the intertwined role of all actors, ideas and institutions involved in policy creation, not just those governmental agencies formally charged with the task. Principle disadvantage: 1. It can be misinterpreted as suggesting that policy-makers go about solving public problems in a very systematic and more or less linear fashion.  Often there is no linear progression of policy-making as implied by the model. 2. It is unclear exactly at which level and with what unit of government the policy cycle model should be used. 3. The model in itself lacks any notion of causation. 4. It does not say anything at all about the content of a policy. A better model is needed and is set out in part 2 of the book.

Chapter 2: Understanding Public Policy: Theoretical Approaches

Peter DeLeon Policy studies have a long history and a short past The actions of government have been a focus of much examination over the centuries, but their systematic analysis using the conceptual framework of policy science dates back less than 6 decades. In the short period that the discipline has existed, policy sciences have been characterized by a large number of overlapping, yet distinct, perspectives. Evolution of the Policy Sciences (See page 17!) Policy science emerged in North America and Europe following WW2 students of politics searched for new understandings of the relationship between governments + citizens that could better explain the growth of public-sector activity involved in creating ambitious economic + social programs. Before this era studies of political life tended to focus on either normative and moral dimensions of governing, or on how specific legal- and political institutions functioned. At the one hand of the analytical spectrum scholars concerned with the normative and moral dimensions of government studied the texts of political philosophy to seek insights into the purpose of governing + the activities that those in power should undertake if their citizens were to attain the good life.  These inquiries generated a rich discussion of the nature of society., the role of the state and the rights + responsibilities of citizens and governments. However the gap between prescriptive political theory + the political practices of modern states that emerged between the 2 world wars led many to search for another method of examining politics one that would reconcile political theory and practice. Not through the analysis of what government officials was said was being done in the public sector, but rather by the systematic evaluation of outputs and outcomes generated by actual government programs. At the other end of the spectrum scholars interested in the institutions of government had been conducting detailed empirical examinations of legislatures, courts and bureaucracies while ignoring the normative aspects of these institutions. In this context of change and reassessment, several new approaches to studying politics appeared. Some focused on the micro level of human behavior, others concentrated on the characteristics of national societies and cultures, still others focused on the nature of national and global political systems. Only the policy science perspective can claim an unbroken chain of theoretical development that has not been challenged by the ones who disagreed who were previously besotted with the approach. Contemporary studies in public policy retain the intellectual vitality of those who originated the approach focus is not so much on structure of governments or the behavior of political actors, or what governments should/ought to do BUT on what governments actually do. This approach focuses on the development of generalizations and laws about public policies and public policy-making policy science.  pioneered by Harold Lasswell policy science was expected to replace traditional political studies, integrating the study of political theory and political practice without falling into the sterility of formal, legal studies. Lasswell  policy science has 3 distinct characteristics that would set it apart from earlier approaches: (See page 18+19!) ...