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Summary Studying Public Policy, Michael Howlett, complete

Research Design (Universiteit Leiden)

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1
Policy making: actors attempting to match policy goals with policy means in a process that can be
characterized as applied problem solving. Identifying problems and matching solutions to them
involves articulating policy goals through deliberations and discourses and using policy tools in an
attempt to attain those goals.

Process of matching goals and mean has two dimensions:

-Technical dimension: seeks to identify the optimal relationship between goals and tool
-Political: since not all actors typically agree on what constitutes a policy problem or an appropriate
solution

Jenkins: Defined public policy: 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.

Jenkins presents policy making as a dynamic process and public policy is a result of set of interrelated
decisions that cumulatively contribute to an outcome & a government capacity to implement its
decisions is also a significant component of public policy (6) & public policy making is a goal oriented
behaviour (7)

-Objective analysis of public policy goals: subject can be explored with standard social science
methodologies for collecting data and analyzing them (positivist view) (8)
-Subjective/post positivist techniques: examining the way decision makers assumptions about human
behaviour influence their decisions to use certain policy techniques

-Policy analysis: formal evaluation or estimation on policy impacts or outcomes using quantative
techniques. Focuses almost exclusively on the effect on policy outputs and little about the policy
processes that created those outputs (8)
-Policy studies: broader in scope, examining not just individual programs and their effects but also
their causes and presuppositions and the processes that led to their adoption. (8)

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

Lasswell: the policy science: simplifying public policy making by breaking the process down into a
number of discrete stages (10)> views policy making in pragmatic terms. 7 stages: intelligence,
promotion, prescription, invocation, application, termination, appraisal. Focuses on decision making
within government.

Errors: It assumed policy making was limited to a small number of officials &placing policy appraisal
after termination (11).

Brewer: simpler version: invention, estimation, selection, implementation, evaluation, termination.

Brewer’s view introduced the notion of the policy process as an ongoing cycle (11).

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Policy Cycle, relationship to applied problem solving and policy cycle actor hourglass (12)

Applied problem solving Stages in Policy Cycle Key Actors involved

Problem recognition Agenda Setting Policy Universe
Proposal of solution Policy formulation Policy subsystem
Choice of solution Decision making Governement decision makers
Putting solutions into effect Policy implementation Policy subsystem

Monitoring results Policy evaluation Policy universe

Advantages model (13):

-It facilitates an understanding of a multi dimensional process by disaggregating the complexity of
the process into any number of stages and sub stages
-The approach can be used at all socio-legal or spatial levels of policy making

Disadvantages model (14):

-It can be misinterpreted as suggesting that policy makers go about solving public problems in a very
systematic way and more or less linear fashion
-Unclear at which level and with what unit of government the policy cycle model should be used
-The model lacks any notion of causation

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2 Evolution of policy sciences

Policy science was expected to replace traditional political studies, integrating the study of political
theory and political practise without falling into the sterility of normal, legal studies (18).

Lasswell: three approaches that would set it apart from earlier approaches (18/19):
-Multi disciplinary (embrace the work and findings of economics, law, politics)
-Problem solving (strictly to the canon of relevance orienting itself towards the solution of problems)
-Explicitly normative (not the guise of scientific objectivity but should recognize the impossibility of
separating goals and means or values and techniques)

Methods of analysis:
-Deductive: understanding is developed in largely on the basis of applying general presuppositions,
concepts or principles to specific phenomena.
-Inductive: less grounded in predetermined principles and apply inductive methods that develop
generalizations only on the basis of careful observation of empirical phenomena (20)

Public policy: a practical discipline whose explicit purpose is to advise policy makers on how best to
address public problems. The vast majority of formal analyses rely on ideas and techniques drawn
from economics (21).

Approaches to public policy analysis:

-Positivists approaches to policy analysis
Applying principles from welfare economics to public problems. Welfare economics is based on that
individuals, through market mechanism, should be expected to make most social decisions. The
market is the most efficient mechanism for allocating society resources. But the markets do not work
properly under all circumstances> Market failures

Market failure occurs when:

-public goods: pure private goods, common pool goods, toll goods, public goods
-natural monopoly (telecommunications, railway)
-imperfect information
-externalities (production costs are not borne by producers but passed on to others outside the
production process)
-tragedy of commons (when common pool resources are exploited without a replacement to
maintain them for future use)
-destructive competition (when aggressive competition between firms causes negative side effects
on workers and society)

Welfare economist argue that governments have a responsibility to try to correct market failures
because society will be left with sub optimal social outcomes. Government should first determine if a
market failure is causing a social problem

Policy problems are technical issues that can be addressed effectively once the right solution is found
through rigorous technical analysis (29). Rational/modern focused on the quantification of economic
costs and benefits (30).

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-Post positivist approaches:

post positivist are bound mainly by their common purpose of generating usable policy analysis
through reliance on political and social analysis of public problems and policy making processes and
outcomes. They believe that positivist empirical analysis needs to be combined with post positivist
normative analysis because the two are inseparable. Policy goals and means are products of constant
conflict and negotiation among policy makers guided by their values and interests and shaped by a
variety of contingent circumstances. They find positivist analysis lacking in comprehending reality and
arguing it promotes top down bureaucratic policy management (27).

They stand for: bureaucracy, acces to information for all parties, persuasion through argumentation,
combining empirical and normative analyses methods at two levels:
Micro – study focuses on issues concerning the actual program in place
Macro – abstract goals and contexts, does the policy goal contribute value for the society as a whole

Emphasis on participation and democratic decision making, sensitive towards the messy realities of
the public policy process (29). Concerned with the social construction of policy problems (30).

Limitations: the lack of accepted criteria for evaluating competing arguments. The losers may be the
most active in such process >gain from the status quo (30).

Level of analysis:
1. Public choice – Individual
Rationality: individual political actors are guided by self interest in choosing a course of action that
will be to their best advantage. The policy process is a variety of political actors engage in
competitive rent seeking behaviour. Each actor uses the state to capture some portion of the social
surplus.
Result: political business cycle: democratic government are acting in a perceptual campaign mode.
Challenge is to construct a political order that will channel the self serving behaviour of participants
towards the common goods.

Shortcomings:
-Theory is based on an oversimplification of human psychology and behaviour
-The theory has poor predictive capacity
-The theory is explicitly normative
Public theory seeks, in effect, to promote a particular vision of orthodox liberalism that would
advance markets where ever possible and severely restrict the scope for government activity without
any empirical justification for doing so (35).

2. Class analysis – Collectivity

Middle ground, they accord primacy to collective entities the organized interests and associations
that seek to influence policy agendas, policy options and policy outputs. Several types:
-Marxism – policy making was seen as serving the interest of capital (37)
-Pluralism – interest groups are the political actors that matter most in shaping public policy. Politics
is the process by which various competing interests and groups are reconciled. Public policies are
thus a result of competition and collaboration among groups working to further their members
collective interests (38). Groups exist to represent their respective members interests with

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membership being voluntary and groups associating freely without state interference (41).
Overlapping memberships in groups. Not all groups are equally influential or have equal access to the
government.
Government role is unclear (39).Government is a referee in the group struggle.

3. Corporatism
Groups are not free forming, voluntary or competitive. Not autonomous: they depend on the state
for recognition and support. Two problems endemic to pluralism: its neglect of the role of the state
in group formations and activities and its failure to recognize institutionalized patterns of
relationships between the state and groups (42).

Public policy is shaped by interaction between the state and groups. Public policy formation would
take form in bargaining and negotiations between and among the state and relevant groups.

Shortcomings:
-the theory does little to further our understanding of public policy processes
-the theory does not contain a clear notion of even its own fundamental unit of analysis (interest
group)
-the theory is vague about the relative significance or different groups in politics

4. Neo institutionalism
Explain the full range of social behaviour and organizational activity behind policy making. They use a
form of actor centred institutionalism: emphasizes the autonomy of political institutions from the
society in which they exist. They seek how rules, norms, symbols affect political behaviour (44).

5. Statism
Second kind of inductive institutional approach to policy making that addresses both neo
institutionalist and the pluralist corporatist class.

In search of the theoretical frameworks to make sense of policy we can find three elements (48):
-actors
-ideas
-structures

Marxism and Pluralism build on group and class theory

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3 The policy context: wat heeft invloed op policy making?

Two meta institutions democracy and capitalism inform the structures within which the public policy
process unfolds in the most modern societies.

Hallmark of capitalism is that ownership of production inputs is largely in private hands, state has
exclusive right to decide on the use of those means of production (53).
Critical failure of capitalism: the need for firms to make profits in order for both producers and the
economy as a whole to survive.

Business and firms attempt to influence governments directly and through their membership in
various forms of business associations among the many interests groups found in capitalist societies,
enjoy an unmatched capacity to affect public policy (54).

Liberalism: refers to a set of more or less well organized and institutionalized beliefs and practices
that serve to maintain and promotes capitalism. Liberalism is centred on the assumption of the
primacy of the individual in society. A good society is one that guarantees individuals freedom to
pursue their interest and realize their potential>> through the market (55).

Individuals pursue their interest in according to their own abilities and preferences. Liberals see
exchange in the marketplace as benefiting everyone who engages in it. This links liberalism closely to
capitalism (as a system market based exchange based on individual property rights (55).

Supplementary/residual state: the state should only undertake actions that market cannot perform
Corrective state: the state can act in a variety of other areas of market activity to correct the host
micro or macro level market failures.
Liberal thinking under theorize the state and public policy making because it tends to threaten the
markets and individual freedoms.

Democracy: is based on the principle of the secret ballot and majority rule, those who do not own
the means of production can, in principle, exercise their numerical superiority in elections to vote in
governments that will use state authority to alter the adverse effects of capitalist ownership of the
means of production (57).

Democracy = collective rights

Liberalism = individual rights

Democracy complicates policy making and implementation tasks in a capitalist society because its
presence means policy makers can no longer concentrate on serving only state interests and the
interests of their business allies in accordance with the tenets of a pure liberal policy paradigm (58).

Capitalist democracy (both liberalism & democracy): to make and implement policies effectively in a
capitalist democracy the state needs to be well organized and supported by prominent actors.
Complex relationships with prominent actors: fragmentation within and among prominent social
groups strengthens the states level of policy autonomy and undermines its policy capacity (58).

Societies with encompassing groups internalize much of the cost of inefficient policies and
accordingly have an incentive to redistribute to economic growth and to the interests of society as a
whole (59).

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Narrow interests groups promotes competition among groups that pressure the state to serve their
members interests only (59).

Embedded autonomy: Most desirable situation for the state is for both state and society to be strong
with close partnership, maximizing and balancing state policy capacity and autonomy (59).

Political systems have a crucial impact on state policy capacity and on how states make and
implement policies and their outcomes: federal and unity (59).

Unitary: clear chain of command or hierarchy linking the different levels of government together in a
super-ordinate relationship reduces the complexity of multi level governance and policy making
Federal: the existence of at least two autonomous levels or order of government within a country.
The two levels are not bound together in a superordinate relationship but enjoy more or less
complete discretion in matters under their jurisdiction and guaranteed by the constitution (59).

Federalism makes public policy making a long and often rancorous affair as the different
governments wrangle over jurisdictional issues or are involved in extensive intergovernmental
negotiations or constitutional litigation (60).

Another variable affecting policy making is the link between the executive, legislature and judiciary
provided under a country’s constitution: parliamentary (policy making is centralized in the executive
which enables governments to take action) & presidential systems (divisions of powers promotes
difficulties for policy makers) (60).

Domestic policy actors (61):

-Elected politicians. Members of the executive and legislators.
-Executive: The authority to make and implement policy. The executive processes a range of
resources that strengthens its position>control over information, fiscal recourses, acces to media, the
bureaucracy to its disposal to provide advice and to carry out its preferences (62).

-Legislators: hold governments accountable to the public rather than to make policy. But the
performance of his function permits opportunities to influence policies (61). They are forums where
social problems are highlighted and policies to address them are demanded. In return they are able
to demand changes to the policies. However the nature of the problem affects the legislative
involvement (63). Legislation generally only play a small role in the policy process. In congressional or
republican systems, legislators play a much more influential role in policy progress (63).

The public (64):

The public plays a small direct role in the public policy process. The important role it to vote. Voting
offers the basic means of public participation in democratic politics to express their choice in
government. On the other hand the voters direct capacity to direct the course of policy usually
cannot be realized (64):
-Democracies delegate policy making to political representatives who are not required to heed
constituent preferences on every issue
-Most legislators participate very little in the policy process
-Candidates often do not run in elections on the basis of their policy platforms

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There is a simple, direct and linear relationship between policy making and public opinion. The public
input can often introduce real change to policy agendas (64).

Bureaucracy: Appointed officials dealing with public policy and administration(64).

Their function is to assist the executive and they are the keystone in the policy process and the
central figures in many policy subsystems. The bureaucracy powers are based on its command of a
wide range of policy resources:
-The law itself
-The bureaucracy have unmatched access to material resources
-The bureaucracy is a repository of a wide range of skills and expertise
-Modern bureaucracies have access to vast quantities of information about society
-The permanence of the bureaucracy often give it an edge over its nominal superiors (65)

The structure of the bureaucracy has the most effect on policy at the sectoral level (65)

Political parties:
Political parties can connect people and their government in ways that affect policy (67).
They tend to influence public policy indirectly through their role in staffing the executive and the
legislature. They can create movement on a given issue but cannot assure the direction it will lead.

Interest or pressure groups:

They advocate the economic interests or social values of their members and they can exert
considerable influence on policy (69).
One valuable resource they deploy is knowledge. Interests groups also possess other organizational
and political resources>financial contribution to campaigns. Their impact differs depending on:
-Size
-Peak association (working together with business or labour groups)
-Funds, with more funds they are capable of hiring more staff
-The structure of a state is also important (71)
-Most important! Internal organization of the unions (if fragmented less influence/collective action
is the principle tool for influence)

In democratic political systems information and power resources make interest groups key members
of political systems. This does not mean their interest will be accommodated (70).

Factors affecting the organizational strengths: historical factors/economic structure/labour

Think Tanks: Independent organization engaged in multidisciplinary research intended to influence

public policy>> Researchers who have theoretical and philosophical interest in public problems can
be translated into policy analysis (72).
Difference from academic researchers: they are more directed towards proposing practical solutions
to public problems. They target their research to thos politicians who may be favourable disposed to
the ideas being espoused (73).

Mass media: mass media are crucial role between state and society. But their direct role is sporadic
and marginal (74).

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The extent to which a state is able to assert its sovereignty depends on:
-The severity of international pressures and the nature of the issue in question (75).
International actors vary in their ability to influence domestic policies. One of the strongest recourses
determining their influence is whether an international regime facilitates their involvement (76).

-International regimes affect public policy by promoting certain options and constraining others.
They shape actors preferences and the ease with which they can be realized (76).

-The actors theoretical and practical expertise in a policy sector

-The nature of the national policy subsystems (greater fragmentations, greater influences)
-The state of the subsystem: coherent and in favour of external involvement?

Globalization/Internationalization: the influence off international system’s on domestic public policy

have increased greatly in recent time (77).
Internationalization effects: expanded the scope of policy spillovers/creating opportunities to learn
from each other/promotes new patterns of policy making (78).
Depending on economy and military power some countries are policy makers others are policy takers
(80).

The policy universe can be thought of as an encompassing aggregation of all possible international,
state, and social actors and institutions that directly or indirectly affect a specific policy area. The
actors and institutions found in each sector or issue are can be said to constitute a policy
subsystem (81).

Policy network: government regulators, decision makers and bankers who make government
policy (84).
Policy network two key variables in shaping and behaving policy networks: the number and type of
their membership and the question of whether state or societal members dominate their activities
and interactions (85).
Community types; depending on: dominant knowledge base & relatively distinct idea sets (84).

Policy regime can be seen to embody each of the salient characteristics of a policy context at a given
point in time. It can be thought of as combining a common set of policy ideas (policy paradigm) and a
common or typical set of policy actors and institutions organized around those ideas (policy
subsystem) (87).

When policy subsystems and paradigms are connected to appropriate stages of the policy cycle it is
possible to uncover how policy issues get on the agenda. Studying this will provide a snapshot and
the dynamics of policy stability and policy change (88).

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4 Agenda setting
Agenda setting is about the recognition of some subject as a problem inquiring further government
attention (92).

Problem recognition is not simply mechanical process of recognizing challenges and opportunities
but a sociological one in which the frames or sets of ideas within which government and non
governmental actors operate and think are of critical significance (93).

The objective construction of policy problems>the role of social conditions and structures
The structure of a nation’s economy determined the types of public policies adopted by the
government (94).

Converges thesis: suggests that as countries industrialize they tend to converge to the same policy
mix (94). Positive correlation between economic wealth and technical development> Economic
criteria were more significant than political ones in understanding why those public policies had
emerged.

In this view agenda setting is a virtually automatic process occurring as a result of the stresses and
strains placed on governments by industrialization and economic modernization. Issues addressed by
social actors and political manners don’t matter (94).

Resource dependency model: argued that industrialization creates a need for programs such as
social security as well as generating the economic resources to allow states to address this need (95).
In this view industrialization also creates a working class with a need for social security and the
political resources to exert pressure on the state to meet those needs.

The ideology of the government in power and the political threats are also important factors.

Reintegrate political and economic variables in a new political economy of public policy. Both
political and economic factors are important determinants of agenda setting and should be studies
together.

Subjective construction of policy problems: role of policy actors and paradigms (post positivist view)|
The problems that are the subject of agenda setting are considered to be constructed purely in the
realm of public and private ideas detached from economic conditions (96).

Three different are relevant to policy:

-World views or ideologies: helping people making sense of complex realities by identifying general
policy problems and the motivations of actors involved in politics and policy
-Principles beliefs and causal stories: constructing a story of what caused the policy problem. Policy
issues arise largely on their own within social discourses

Post positivist view: understanding agenda setting requires understanding how individuals and or
groups make demands for a policy that is responded to by government and vice versa. Policy
researches need identify the conditions under which these demands emerge and are articulated in
prevailing policy discourses (98).

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Pure positivist approach: emphasis on structures and institutions

Pure post positivist approach: emphasis on ideas (99).

Multi variable models of agenda setting:

-Funnel of causality: a model of policy formation that sought to capture the relationships among
social, institutional, ideational, political and economic conditions in the agenda setting process (99).

Pointed to the relations between the material and ideational variables that had been identified by
previous positivist and post positivist studies without bogging down in attempts to specify their exact
relationship or causal significance (greatest strength) (99).

-Issue attention cycle: public policy making often focussing on issues that momentarily capture public
attention and trigger demands for government action (100).

Models of agenda setting:

-Informal agenda/Systemic> discussion (meriting public attention)
-Formal agenda/Institutional> action (issues for serious political attention)

4 stages when moving from informal to formal agenda:

Initiated / Specified / Expanded / Enters

Cobb/Ross/Ross: 3 types of basic patterns for agenda setting associated with specific regime type:
-Outside initiation model: liberal pluralist societies
-Mobilization model: totalitarian model
-Inside initiation model: corporatist regimes
Cobb/Ross/Ross suggested that the type of agenda setting process is determined by the nature of
the political system (102/103).

Kingdon: Policy windows: model examining state and non state influences on agenda setting by
exploring the role played by policy entrepreneurs to bring issues onto government agendas. His
model suggested that policy windows open and close based on the dynamic interaction of political
institutions, policy actors, and the articulation of ideas in the form of proposed policy solutions (103).

Three variables streams interact: streams of problems/policies/politics

The three streams operate on different paths and pursue courses independent until specific points in
time or during policy windows when their paths intersect or bought together by the activities of
entrepreneurs linking problems/solutions/opportunities (103/104).

Policy windows occur out of crisis/accidents/elections/budget cycles

4 kinds of window types>>105
Key mechanism to provide stability in agenda setting is: policy monopoly (105).

Baumgartner & Jones: Key elements that differentiates modes of agenda setting revolves around the
manner in which subsystems gain the ability to control the interpretation of a problem and thus how
it is conceived and discussed. The image of a policy problem is significant (106).
Typical agenda setting modes>107

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5 Policy instruments and design

Generating options to the process of generating options on what to do about a public problem.
Policy options that might help to resolve issues and problems recognized at the agenda setting stage
are identified, refined and formalized. An assessment of policy options is conducted.

What type of regime exists in a given sector or issue area is of major significance in understanding
the dynamics of policy formulation, policy options, types of solutions and the kinds of instruments
selected to address them are largely a function of the nature and motivation of key actors arrayed in
policy subsystems and the ideas that they hold (137).

Formalizing course of action & means are proposed to resolve perceived societal needs. Exploring the
various options or alternative courses of action available for addressing a problem (110).

Defining and weighting the merits and risks of various options hence forms the substance of this
second stage of policy cycle (110). More characteristics of this phase page 110!

Harold Thomas: 4 phases of policy formation: appraisal (data and evidence are identified and
considered) / dialogue (facilitate communication between policy actors with different perspectives
on the issue and problem) / formulations (public officials weighting the evidence on various policy
options and advance to the ratification phase) / consolidation phase (policy actors have an
opportunity to provide more or less formal feedback on the recommended options) (111).

Policy makers face constrains when considering policy options:

-Substantive constrains: are innate to the nature of the problem itself. Address the problem in
indirect ways
-Procedural constraints: procedures involved in adopting an option or carrying it out. Can be defined
into Institutional (constitutional provisions, the nature of the organization, patterns of ideas and
beliefs that can prevent consideration of some options or promote others) or Tactical.

Policy tools/policy instruments/governing instruments: the actual means or devices that

governments make us of in implementing policies (114).

Taxonomies of policy instruments: governments use a variety of policy instruments to archieve a

relatively limited numbers of political ends.
Lowi typology: an encompassing model of how preferences for particular types of policy tools (four
cell matrix )(115).

Hood NATO model: All policy tools used one of four broad categories of governing resources (116).
These studies influenced by economics tended to focus on substantives instruments and less
attention to procedural counterparts (116).
Hood’s categories:
-Nodality or information based instruments (based on governmental personnel and authority):
Public information campaigns: (117)
Passive release of information. Government disseminate information with the expectation that
individuals and firms will change their behaviour in response to it (information shared in general or
particular targeted). There is no obligation on the public to behave in a particular manner.

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Exhortation:
Public effort (like public advertisements) is devoted to influencing the preferences and actions of
societal members rather than just informing the public with the hope that behaviour will
change>through agency spokesman (118).

Benchmarking and performance indicators:

A process oriented information gathering technique in the public sector, it enables structured
comparison and enhances the opportunity of policy learning by presenting relevant information in
ways that can generate policy insight (118).

Commissions and inquiries:

Employing temporary bodies to gather information about an issue (118).

Authority based policy instruments (based on governmental personnel and authority):

Command and control regulation (119):
Rule making or command and control regulation. Regulation is prescription by the government that
must be complied with by the intended targets. Failure will result in a penalty (119).
Regulation take different forms like laws, rules, standards, permits.
-Economic regulations: purpose has been to control specific aspects of the market economy
-Social regulations: are of more recent origin and refer to controls in matters of health/safety and
societal behaviour. Physical and moral well being

Advantages of regulation (120):

-the information needed to establish regulation is often less compared to other tools
-where the concerned activity is deemed entirely undesirable it is easier to establish regulations than
to devise ways of encouraging the production and distribution
-regulation allow for better co ordination of government efforts and planning because of the greater
predictability they entail
-their predictability makes them a more suitable instrument in times of crisis when an immediate
response is needed

Disadvantages of regulation (120):

-regulations set politically and hence quite often distort voluntary or private sector activities and can
promote economic inefficiencies
-regulations can inhibit innovation and technological progress
-regulations are inflexible and do not permit the consideration of individual circumstances resulting
in decisions and outcomes not intended by the regulation

Delegate or self regulation (121):

Governments allow non-governmental actors to regulate themselves.> self regulation. These
delegations can be explicit and direct. Major advantage: costs saving

Advisory committees (121):

Some formalized and permanent others informal and temporary. They advice governments on
particular ongoing issues areas such as economy, science and technology

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Treasure based policy instruments (based on financial resources and funds):

Subsidies: grants, tax incentives and loans (122):
Grant = treasure based instrument.
Taxes = deferrals, deductions, credits, exclusions, rates, contingent on some act.
This is appealing for governments:
-they are hidden in complex tax codes and so escape outside scrutiny
-no need for legislative budgetary approval
-their use is not constrained by availability of funds
-they are easier to administer and enforce because no special bureaucracy needs to be created to
administer them

Loans/Subsidies = from the government at an interest rate below the market rate are also a form of
subsidy. However the entire amount of the loan should not be treated as a subsidy, only the
difference between the interest charged and the market rate. Subsidy is used as a positive incentive.

Advantages subsidies (123):

-easy to establish
-flexible to administer
-subsidy may encourage innovation
-the costs of administering and enforcing subsidies may be low
-subsidies are politically more acceptable because the benefits are focused on a few

Disadvantages subsidies (123):

-their establishment through the formal budgetary process is difficult
-they must compete for funding with other government programs
-the costs of gathering information on how much subsidy would be required may be high
-subsidies work indirectly there is often a time lag before the desired effects are discernible
-causing a windfall for the recipients
-subsidies may be banned by international agreements

Thus: an inappropriate instrument to use in a time of crisis

Financial disincentives (124):

Tax: compulsory payment but also used as a policy instrument to induce a desired behaviour. Taxes
are used as a negative incentive to penalize an undesired behaviour (124).
A particular innovative use of a tax as a policy instrument is a user charge.

Advantages taxes and user charges (124):

-easy to establish from an administrative standpoint
-they provide continuing financial incentives to reduce undesirable activities
-user charges promotes innovation by motivating a search for cheaper alternatives
-they are flexible
-they are desirable on administrative grounds because the responsibility for reducing the target
activity is left to the individuals and firms

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Disadvantages taxes and user charges:

-they require precise and accurate information in order to set the correct level of taxes
-resources may be misallocated
-they are not effective in times of crisis when an immediate response is required
-they can involve cumbersome and possibly administration costs if their rates are not set properly

Advocacy, Interest group and think tank funding:

Advocacy funding: funding interest groups to become a policy force.
In some countries funding for interest groups tends to come from private sector actors (US)
In other countries the state plays a greater role, where the government wishes to see groups become
or become more active (Canada, Australia).

Organization based policy instruments (126):

Direct provision:
Government perform tasks itself, delivering goods and services directly through government
employees funded from the public treasury: national defence, policing, education etc.

Advantages direct provision (126):

-easy to establish because of low information requirements
-because of the large size of public agencies enables them to enlist established resources, skills and
information to offer cost-effective project delivery
-direct provision avoids many problems associated with indirect provision (discussion/negotiating)

Disadvantages direct provision (126):

-government cannot do everything the private sector can. Government must follow time consuming
budgeting
-political control over the agencies involved in providing goods and services promote political
meddling to strengthen a government re-election prospects
-they are not sufficiently cost conscious

Public enterprises/State owned enterprises:

Public enterprises that are owned by the state but still enjoy some degree of autonomy. No
definition. Three broad generalizations:
-they involve a large degree of public ownership (minimum of 51%)
-public enterprises entail some control over management by the government
-public enterprises sell goods and services

Advantages public enterprises:

-they are an efficient economic development tool in situations where a good or service necessary to
productive activity is not being provided by the private sector because of high costs low profits
-the information required to launch public enterprises is often lower than that required by other
means
-public enterprises can simplify public management of a policy domain if extensive regulation
already exists

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-profits from public enterprises may accrue to the public treasury

Disadvantages public enterprises (128):

-they are difficult to control
-public enterprises can be inefficient because continued losses do not result in bankruptcy
-many public enterprises exercise a monopoly that enables passing the cost on to the consumers

Quangos: quasi autonomous non government organizations:

Same characteristics as public enterprises but they are quasi independent. They enjoy a government
granted monopoly but this can be revoked at any time.

Advantage: off load expensive or controversial areas of government activity to local authorities.
Disadvantage: ability of government to control their activities are very indirect. Failure may cause
expenses, politically as well as financially.

Partnerships: A hybrid form of market and governmental reorganization

Partnerships to enhance the capacity and stability of private sector actors, usually NGO’s, which are
delegated minor government tasks in order to receive funding.

Family, Community and Voluntary Organizations (129):

The government may take measures to expand their role in ways that serve its policy goals. It entails
no or little government involvement (main characteristic). The desired task is performed on
voluntary basis. Voluntary organizations produce activities that are voluntary in the dual sense:
-free of state coercion
-free of economic constraints of profitability and the distribution of profits

Advantages Family, Community and Voluntary Organizations:

-efficient means of delivering most economic and social services
-cost efficient
-they offer flexibility and speed
-contributing to community spirit

Disadvantages Family, Community and Voluntary Organizations:

-lack of hierarchy demands considerable time and energy to keep them functioning
-inapplicable to many economic problems

Market creation (most important and contentious type of policy instrument) (130):
Market exist when there is scarcity and a demand for particular goods or services. Government
action is required to and to support market exchange. By securing the rights of buyers and sellers to
receive and exchange property through the establishment and maintenance of property rights and
contracts through the courts, police and quasi judicial systems of consumer and investor protection.

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Advantage market creation:

It is effective and efficient means of providing most private goods and can ensure that resources are
devoted only to those goods and services valued by the society. It also show competition, goods and
services are supplied to the lowest possible price (134).

Disadvantage market creation (134):

The market can be inappropriate instrument:
-it cannot provide public goods, precisely the sort of things most public policies involve.
-also difficulties in providing toll goods and common pool goods due to difficulties involved in
charging consumers for these kinds of products
-highly inequitable instrument because it meets the needs only for the ones who can pay

A free market is therefore almost never used, it is usually accompanied by other instruments
The voluntarism of market is relative rather than absolute

Government use a variety of ways to affect market activities:

-Creating property/auction rights through government licensing schemes (Kyoto)

Advantage property/auction rights:

-it restricts the use of a specific goods while still making them available to those without alternative
-easy to conduct: fixes the maximum amount of good/services that should be permitted, fix a ceiling
and let the market do the rest
-flexible: allow the government to adjust the ceiling whenever they want
-it offers a certainty that only a fixed number of an activity occurs

Disadvantage property/auction rights:

-encourage speculation
-those who cannot buy the rights are forced to cheat
-auctions are equitable to the extent that they allocate resources according to the ability to pay not
the need

-Privatization of public enterprises: involving the signal that new firms will be able to enter into the
market formerly served by the state owned company allowing for the creation of a competitive
market for that particular good or service (132).
Contracting out government services: a more common form of privatization in Western countries.
The transfer of various kinds of goods and services formally provided in house by government
employees to outsourced private firms

-Vouchers: certificates that have a monetary value that consumers can use to acquire goods or
service (133). Common in war time>ration supplies. Promotes competition among suppliers.

-Government reorganization: creation of new agencies: accidently or as a by product (134)

Changes in structure or personnel
Disadvantages: expensive/time consuming/impact is dissipated (135)

Policy formation is about choosing from among these types of policy instruments.

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Hall: three different types of change (135)

-First order – change in which only the setting of policy instruments varied
-Second order – change in which change occurred in the basic types or categories of instruments
used to effect policy
-Third order – change in which the goals of policy were altered

Policy subsystem: responsible for policy formulation. The closeness of policy subsystems is an import
factor affecting the policy formulation process. Policy subsystem influences the policy formulation
process (137) and the entrance of new actors and new ideas (137).

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6 Decision Making
The decision making process is where one or more, or none, of the many options that have been
debated and examined is approved as an official course of action (139).

Decision making stage:

-is not a self constrained stage, nor is it synonymous with the entire public policy making process. It is
a specific stage rooted firmly in the previous stages of the policy cycle
-different kinds of results can occur from the process: positive, neutral, negative
-not a technical exercise but an inherently political process. It recognizes that it creates winners and
losers

The outcomes likely to emerge from the decision making stage depends: (142)
-on the operation of earlier stages in the cycle (which serve to filter out some policy options while
other proceed)
-on the exact configuration of decision making actors (their beliefs and the context in which they
work)
-the nature of the relevant subsystem
-kind of constrains under which decision makers operate

Actors in the decision making process: (140)

When it comes to decide on adopting a particular option, the relevant group of policy actors is
almost invariably restricted to those with the authority to make binding public decisions (small
group). It centres on those occupying formal offices in government (with voice and vote).

But other actors are still active during this stage: lobbying groups (more a voice than a vote)

The decision makers can not adopt whatever policy they wish: (140)
-the degree of freedom is circumscribed by a host of constraining rules and structures governing
political and administrative offices
-as well as by the sets of ideas, paradigms and the social, economic and political circumstances
(country’s constitution/mandates conferred on individual decision makers).
-decision makers must act within a specific set of laws and regulations governing their behaviour and
fields of competence

Legislature and judiciary greater role in Presidential systems

Decision making authority in the elected executive and the bureaucracy in Parliamentary systems

Standard operation procedure (141): rules, decisions and procedures set out at micro level

Rational model: asserted that public policy decision making was inherently a search for maximizing
solutions to complex problems in which policy policy-relevant information was gathered and then
used in a scientific mode of assessing policy options. It is rational because it prescribes procedures
for decision making that will lead every time to the choice of the most efficient possible means.

To aid economic analysis, the analysis of producer and consumer choices. Developing and expressing
a preference for one course of action over another. Decision makers would pursue a strategy that
would maximize the expected outcomes.

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Certain steps: P144!

Constant costs/benefits and probability of failure/success comparison

Limitations on rational model: time and information and cognitive capabilities (Simon)
Limitations studies by Simon:
-this form of decision making would maximize results only if all possible alternatives and the costs
were assessed before a decision was made
-it required that decision makers know the consequences of each decision in advance
-the same option can be efficient or inefficient depending on other and changing circumstances
-Unworkable in practise (150)

Hence it is impossible for decision makers to draw robust conclusions about which alternative is
superior as required for the rational model (145).
It would never maximize benefits over cost but would instead tend only to satisfy whatever criteria
decision makers had set for themselves (146).

Lindblom: Incremental model: public policy decision making is a less technical and more political
activity, in which analysis played a much smaller role in determining outcomes than did bargaining
and other forms of interaction and negotiation between key decision makers (143).

Steps on page 147!

Decision makers typically and should work through a process of continually building out from the
current situation, step by step and by small degrees. Decisions that arrive only marginally differ from
those that exist. The changes from the status quo in decision making is incremental (147).

Why not far from status quo?

-bargaining requires distributing limited resources among various participants
-the standard operating procedures of bureaucracies also tend to promote the continuation of
existing practices (148)

Lindblom critique: he argues that in most policy areas discussion of ends are inseparable from the
means to achieve them. The beneficial essence of incrementalism was to try to systematize decision-
making processes by stressing the need for political agreement and learning by trial and error, rather
than stumbling into random decisions without any strategy at all (148).

Critique incremental model:

-lacking any kind of goal orientation
-inherently conservative
-censured for representing decision making as undemocratic
-promotes short sight decisions> narrow analytical usefulness
-only appropriate in certain types of policy environments (150)

Etzioni’s Mixed scanning model: combining the rational and incremental into one constructive
synthesis (150).
Providing decision makers with a practical guide for optimal decision making. Decision making

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consisted in 2 stages: pre-decisional (assessing the problem and framing it with incremental analysis)
and an analytical phase (specific solutions could be more carefully assessed- rational way of
thinking).

Optimal decisions would occur out of constant scanning for alternatives. This would allow more
innovations than the incremental model.

Olsen & March: Garbage can model: decision making was highly ambiguous and unpredictable
process only distantly related to searching for means to achieve goals. Various problems and
solutions are dumped by participants. Goals are often unknown by policy makers. Actors simply
define goals and choose means as they go along in a policy process that is contingent and
unpredictable (152).

Weiss: the Decision Accretion model of decision making: multiple arenas and round of decision
making. Each person takes a small step in a large process with seemingly small consequences. But
over the course of time these many small steps foreclose alternative courses of action and limit the
range of the possible. Almost imperceptibly; a decision has been made (154).

Forrester: five distinct decision making styles associated with six key sets of conditions. The decision
making style and the type of decision made by decision makers would be expected to vary according
to issue and institutional contexts (155).

Forrester: the rational model can only work when the following criteria are met: The number of
agents had to be limited, the setting had to be simple, problem must be well defined, information
must be perfect, time must be available (156).

Five styles of decision making: Optimization, satisfycing, search, bargaining, organizational

Two variables can be used to construct an effective taxonomy of decision making styles:
-the cohesion of the policy subsystem involved in the decision
-the severity of the constraints that decision makers face in making their choices (157)
The decision making stage is affected by the nature of the subsystem involved and by the constraints
under which decision makers operate. A focus on these variables can help predict the outcome likely
to arise from the particular style of decision making adopted in the policy process in question.

Four types of decision making styles emerge from these 2 variables>page 158

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7 Policy implementation
Bureaucrats are the most significant actors in the policy implementation process (160).
Different bureaucratic agencies at various levels of government are usually involved in implementing
policy, each carrying particular interest, ambitions and traditions that affect the implementation
process and shapes its outcomes (160).

Policy subsystems become important contributors to implementation as their participants apply

knowledge and values to shaping the launch and evolution of programs implementing policy
decisions (160).

State officials remain an important force in the implementation stage, advisory and quasi
governmental agencies allow them to be joined by members of the relevant policy subsystem, as the
number and type of policy actors return to resembling those found at the formulation stage (162).

Other actors in the policy implementation fase:

- Laws and rules for implementation: common laws, statutory laws (acts), regulations (standards of
behaviour that must be met by target groups>command and control) (161).
-Administering policies: ministry of department/state owned enterprises/non profit organizations
-Organizations designed to perform specific tasks related to service delivery: independent regulatory
commissions>they develop the rules and regulations required for administration (162).
-Specialized advisory boards and commissions supplant public consultations

Target groups: groups whose behaviour is intended or expected to be altered by governmental

action>play a major role in the implementation process.

Various generations about policy implementation models:

First generation: a variety of managerial and organizational design principles which were expected to
generate an optimal match between political intent and administrative action (164).
Shortcomings: exclusive focus on senior politicians and officials who play a marginal role in day to
day implementation compared to lower level officials and members of the public

Second generation of implementation process:

-Top down approach: policy implementation is most successful as a top down process whose
mechanism ensured that implementing officials could do their job more effectively. Effectiveness was
defined as keeping to the original intent of the public officials who had ratified the policy
-Bottom up approach: carefully examined the actions of those affected by and engaged in the
implementation of a policy. The effectiveness was seen to arise from the adaptive behaviour of
street level bureaucrats seeking to attain and sustain the means to achieve policy goals on the
ground. Success and failure depended on the commitment and skills of the actors directly involved in
implementing programs(164)
Shortcoming: their common assumption that decision makers provide implementers with clear goals
and direction when in reality government intentions can emerge from bargaining, accretion and
other processes and thus result in often vague unclear of even contradictory goals and direction
(165)

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Third generation implementation theory:

Game theory: is a method to assess how behaviour discretion influences implementation (166)
Principal agent theory: administrative discretion is affected by the changing social, economic,
technological and political context of implementation. Placing politicians and administrators in a
particular kind of principal agent relationship. The dynamics of this relationship affects the tenor and
quality of their interactions and limits the ability of political principals to circumscribe effectively the
behaviour of their erstwhile agents (167)
This focus extended the insight of bottom up implementation studies (168)

Page 169-170 substantive and procedural policy instruments

Political factors are important for the choice to pick the right instrument (171)
Political science approach>page 172

Instrument choices, to be effective, must be closely and carefully related to policy goals, and that any
new goals and tools must also be carefully related to policy goals and that any new goals and tools
must also be carefully integrated with existing policies of implementation is to succeed (172)
Coherent & Consistent

Policy implementation involves more than just executing decisions; they endorse the notion that
policy implementation can only be meaningful understood and evaluated in terms of the existing
range of policy actors present in the policy subsystem, the kind of recourses, and the nature of the
problem they are trying to address and the ideas they have about how to go about addressing it, all
in the context of the policy regime in which they are working (173)

Model for basic instrument preferences>PAGE 175!!!:

-Governments with a high capacity for facing complex policy environments are able to use directive
procedural instruments
-Goverments with a low capacity for facing complex policy environments use instruments such as
information instruments

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8 Policy evaluation
Policy evaluation refers to the stage of the policy process at which is determined how a public policy
has actually fared in action. Evaluation of the means being employed and the objectives being served
(intentions & results) (178)

Nachmias: the objective systematic, empirical, examination of the effects ongoing policies and public
programs have on their targets in terms of the goals they meant to achieve. Positivist approach; it
should be objective/systematic/empirical (178)

But developing adequate and acceptable measures for evaluating policy is problematic (179)
Evaluating is an inherently political activity with a technical component (179)

Post positivist view on policy evaluation: policy learning: the dynamic that it can stimulate among
policy makers as well as others less directly involved in policy issues. It is conceived as an iterative
process of active learning about the nature of policy problems and the potential of various solutions
to address them (trial and error like policy making)

Hall: endogenous learning>>180

Heclo: exogenous learning>>180
They subscribe the same relationship between policy learning and policy change but differ in the way
they approach the issue

Evidence based policy making as policy learning:

it represent an effort to reform or restructure policy processes by prioritizing data based evidentiary
decision making criteria over less formal or more intuitive or experiential policy assessments in order
to avoid or minimize policy failures caused by a mismatch between government expectations and
actual on the ground conditions (181)
How>> through a process of theoretically informed empirical analysis consciously directed towards
promoting policy learning (182)

Failure can occur at any stage in the policy cycle and do not necessarily have their source in the same
stage (182)
Different types of evaluation can be done by different actors and can have different impacts on
subsequent policy deliberations and activities (183)

Success or failure is hard to determine: government intentions may be vague/labels such as success
and failure are relative and will be interpreted differently by different policy actors

Actors in the evaluation process:

-bureaucrats and politicians & non governmental member of policy subsystems (interest group/think
tanks)
-Policy analysts can have substantial impact on rounds of policy making because of the different roles
they can play in the evaluation process (by developing and apply measures/indicators to program
outputs) (184)
-Judiciary; review legislative and administrative actions

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Types of policy evaluation:

Administrative Evaluation:
Restricted to examining the efficient delivery of government services and attempting to determine
whether value for money is being achieved while still respecting principles of justice and democracy
(least possible cost & least burden on citizen) (185)
It requires precise information.
Administrative policy evaluation comes in five forms:
-Process evaluation: examine the organizational methods (rules and procedures) used to deliver
programs. The objective is to see if the process can be more efficient (streamlined)
-Effort evaluation: measures the quantity of program inputs (the effort the government put into to
accomplish their goal)
-Performance evaluation: examines the outputs. What is the policy producing
-Efficiency evaluation: attempts to assess a program’s cost and judge if the same amount and quality
could be achieved more efficiently (input and output evaluation are building blocks)
-Effectiveness evaluation/performance evaluation: find out if the program is doing what it supposed
to be doing. Performance of a program is compared to its intended goals to determine if the program
is meeting those goals>most useful for policy makers also the most difficult to undertake!

Judicial Evaluation:
Legal issues regarding to the manner in which government programs are implemented. Carried out
by the judiciary and are concerned with possible conflicts between government actions and
constitutional provisions of administrative conduct and individual rights (189)

Political Evaluation:
Not systematic nor technically sophisticated. Goal is to support or challenge a
policy>referendum/election time or consulting with members of relevant policy subsystems
(forum/public hearing)

Outcomes of policy evaluation (191):

-Continues when successful (the policy is feed back to other stage in the policy process)
-Reform because it is judged (the policy is feed back to other stage in the policy process)
-Terminated because of total failure (complete cessation of the policy cycle)

Non learning: failing to undertake any evaluations

Limited learning: occurs when lessons of only a very restricted scope are drawn from the evaluation
process (192)

Type of learning depends on the willingness of policy makers to absorb new information
Social learning: engagement and transmission of new ideas must be found in larger sets of the policy
universe

Two variables affect the potential for evaluations to lead to learning: (193)>>fig 8.1 Page 194!!
-the capacity of government in terms of the level of training, skills, of its employees
-the nature of the policy subsystem and its open or closed nature

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9 Patterns of policy change

The policy model greatest virtue is this empirical orientation, which enables the systematic
evaluation of the diverse factors driving public policy making at the various procedural stages.
Studying policy making using the policy cycle model highlights the dynamic nature of policy making
and helps to organize the otherwise difficult to grasp relations among actors, ideas, institutions and
instruments that explain these dynamics (199).

Feedback processes emerging from the policy evaluation stage of the cycle underscore and help to
explain the historical or path dependent nature of policy making in modern states (200)

Policy regime: can be seen to combine several of the concepts discussed in earlier chapters. It can be
thought of as integrating a common set of policy ideas (policy paradigm), a long lasting governance
arrangement (policy mix), a common or typical policy process (policy style) and fixed set of policy
actors (policy subsystem or policy monopoly) (201)

Policy styles, regimes, paradigms form and are maintained and how they change is important aspect
of the study of public policy

-Normal policy change: minor tinkering with policies and programs already in place, which results in
new policies being layered on top of existing ones>incremental method
Continuation of past policies and practises. Individually they do not affect the coherence and
consistency of the element of a politic regime but collectively they can affect the coherence and
consistency of the elements of a politic regime (202)

Policy stability through closed networks & policy monopolies in policy subsystems

-Atypical policy change: a deep change in the normal substance and process of policy making. It
involves a substantial transformation in the components of policy regimes including policy paradigms
and styles. Fundamental transformation of policy making and involves changes in basic sets of policy
ideas, institutions, interests and processes (202)

Thelen & Hacker: policy development can result in the following policy outcomes: (204)
-Layering: a process where new ends and means are simply added to existing ones without
abandoning the previous ones (promoting incoherence among policy end to policy means)
-Drift: occurs when policy ends change while policy means remain constant, making the means
inconsistent
-Conversion: a process in which there is an attempt to change the mix of policy means in order to
meet goals
-Policy redesign/replacement: effort to fundamentally restructure both the means and ends of policy
so that they are consistent and coherent in terms of their goals and means orientations

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Situation that lead to atypical policy change:

-Systematic perturbations: a term used to describe one of the oldest known forces that can trigger
atypical policy change. The principle mechanism by which change occurs is through the introduction
of new actors into policy processes (wars/disasters/elections) (205)

-Subsystem spillovers: refers to the exogenous change processes that occur when activities in
otherwise distinct subsystems transcend old boundaries and affect the structure or behaviour of
other subsystems

-Venue change: refers to changes in the strategies policy actors follow in pursuing their interests
-Policy learning: a relatively enduring alternation in policy results from policy makers and participants
learning from their own and others experiences with similar policies (206)

Punctuated equilibrium model>>208!

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