Summary Policy Analysis

Policy Analysis: Sessions:
Session 1: Introduction, the development of public policy analysis and the policy sciences:
“Governments make public policy”
Public policy analysis ≠ politics ≠ polity
 Politics: processes and institutions of the acquisition of political power
 Polity: political system as a whole and political subject in there
But public policy is a very political process
The public policy will reflect on the activities by the government
Questions to deal with in policy analysis:
 Why are certain policy decisions taken at certain points of time and not others?
F.e.: Corona Pandemic: different policies in different countries
 How do individual decisions add up and work together in policy regimes, mixes or are they
incompatible and contradictory?
 Explaining why they are how they are and how they came about, and explain
contradictions in policy
 Do multiple decisions result in recognizable patterns of policymaking and policy content, or
just in random or quasi-random accumulations of past decisions?
F.e.: Belgium: more consensus between actors to make policy, in the UK or US: the winner
takes it all
Lasswell: founding father of political analysis

Cesare Borgia:
 A very skilled leader
 Machiavelli was influenced by him to advise and to analyze leaders
Angela Merkel:
 Handing over of an analysis of certain policy domain
 These pictures ask attention for analysis for policy
Analysis for policy: the analysis is used in policy making, prescriptive and applied
 Advice
 Recommendations
 Solutions
 Suggestions
Analysis of policy: more scholarly, academic and theoretical
 Why policy is made, what difference it makes, which actors, the role of power
 what we do in this class (we are not designing solutions)
Often analysis for policy and analysis of policy together

Policy as a rational plan, different from politics and polity  F.e.: Statecraft, wisdom, …
‘Beleid’: to command, government, administration
Now beleid mostly means the activities of government, administration, and action
 activities of government
 action of a specific organization

 indication of a desired situation
 indication of a plan
 indication of effects

Anderson:
 Concerns
 Problems: more objective

,Session 2: Theoretical approaches of public policy analysis:

INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVITY STRUCTURE

DEDUCTIVE Public choice Social structure or Neo-
class analysis institutionalism
INDUCTIVE Welfare Pluralism or Neo- Statism
economics corporatism
Public choice:
 Neo-classical economics
 Rational action and individuality utility maximisation
 Self-interests of voters, politicians
 Normative: less state benefits of the market

EXCLUSIVITY EXHAUSTIVENESS


HIGH LOW



HIGH Private good (e.g. foods) Toll good (e.g. highways)

LOW Common-Pool good (e.g. fish in ocean) Public good (e.g. street lightning)




Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgpqdOUm6Hc
 Explain overfishing as one type of market failure, that is a tragedy of the commons.
 Common pasture land?  We all and none of us own the oceans
 There is no cost or sanction  But big consequences: economic and environmental tragedy
 Climate change impacts
 A lot of plastic
 Explain three examples of ways in which governments can limit access to resources of the sea.
o Fishing license
o International Seabed Authority and requesting a contract
o Transparency: commission  Review the application  Exploration contracts
 To put an estimate on the percentage of fish stock overfishing.
o 45% of the planet
 Give three examples of narratives of decline specific to the overuse of resources of the sea.
o Electricity for the whole society  Potentially income source
o Cure for diseases
o Small parts, garden  Cloning it  Redevelopment
 Give 3 examples of common goods in the oceans.
o The ocean itself  More oxygen / air
o Source of food
o Source of trade

, Session 3: Policy context, actors and institutions;
Agency:
 Individuals: welfare
 Economics: public choice
 Collectivises: pluralism and corporatism
Structure:
 Neo-institutionalism
 The state: statism
 Marxism
Institutions:
Blum and Schubert:
- (Political) institutions as…
- …systems of rules
- …long-term geared problem-solving
- ...enclosing mutual expectations
- ...granting power and limiting power
- ...facilitating collective decision-making
Individual and complex actors:
 Elected Politicians:
 Executive: government  Power resources
 Information and fiscal means
 Massa media (privileged access)
 Permanent support through the administration
 Legislative: parliament
 Control government
 Party discipline, committees
 Policy problems:
 Technical expertise
 Confidentiality
 Symbolic
 Administrative Officials: ambtenaren
 Civil/public servants
 FOURTH POWER
 Discretional
 Specialists and expertise
 Closeness of policy processes
 Political Parties:
 Boundary actors between state and society
 They select: indirect influence
 Nixon-goes-to-China-Thesis:
This refers to the ability of a politician with an unassailable
(onaantastbare) reputation among their supporters for representing and
defending their values to take actions that would draw their criticism and
even opposition if they had been taken by someone without those
credentials.
 Research Institutes:
 Government
 Academic, Think Tanks
 With a certain agenda
 Interest Groups:
 Knowledge and (exclusive) information on practice
 Political and organisational resources
 Different bases of power
 Companies and business associations: