Policy Analysis: studying public policy
Inhoudsopgave
Session 1: Introduction to Public Policy Analysis, Actors, Cycle model ........................................... 5
1. What is policy analysis? ......................................................................................................... 5
2. Public policy defined.............................................................................................................. 6
3. Methodological considerations for studying public policy ........................................................ 7
4. Actors and Institutions ........................................................................................................... 8
5. The policy cycle model........................................................................................................... 9
Session 2: Theoretical approaches of public policy analysis .......................................................... 12
1. Introduction .........................................................................................................................12
2. Public choice .......................................................................................................................14
3. Welfare economics...............................................................................................................16
A. Market failures .................................................................................................................. 16
B. Government failures ......................................................................................................... 18
C. When should the government intervene? ........................................................................... 19
4. Social structure and class theory ...........................................................................................19
5. Pluralism and neo-corporatism .............................................................................................21
A. Pluralism .......................................................................................................................... 22
B. Corporatism ..................................................................................................................... 23
6. Neo-institutionalism and statism ...........................................................................................24
A. Neo-institutionalism ......................................................................................................... 24
B. Statism............................................................................................................................. 25
7. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................26
8. GUEST LECTURE: Marine resources – tragedy of the commons ...............................................26
A. The Tragedy of the Commons ............................................................................................ 26
B. Why marine resources?..................................................................................................... 26
C. Why fisheries are hard to govern ........................................................................................ 26
D. Government intervention................................................................................................... 26
E. Summary .......................................................................................................................... 28
Session 3: Policy context, actors and institutions ......................................................................... 28
1. Institutions, ideas and actors in public policy .........................................................................28
2. Policy-making in the Liberal-Democratic Capitalist State ........................................................29
3. Political-economic structures and policy making ...................................................................29
4. Types of (political) actors ......................................................................................................30
1
, 5. Governmental and administrative power distribution in political systems ................................30
6. Domestic policy actors .........................................................................................................31
A. Political executive, government ......................................................................................... 32
B. Legislature, parliament ..................................................................................................... 32
C. The public......................................................................................................................... 33
D. Administrative officials, the bureaucracy ........................................................................... 34
E. Political parties ................................................................................................................. 35
F. Societal interest groups/ pressure groups .......................................................................... 36
G. Research Institutes, policy experts, think tanks .................................................................. 38
H. Mass media ...................................................................................................................... 39
7. The international system and public policy .............................................................................39
8. Policy subsystems and policy regimes ...................................................................................41
9. GUEST LECTURE: Policy advisory systems: the case of the Covid-19 crisis ..............................42
A. Institutions, actors and ideas ............................................................................................ 42
B. Policy sub-systems ........................................................................................................... 42
C. Policy advisory systems .................................................................................................... 43
D. Benefits and risks of expertise in decision-making .............................................................. 43
E. Experts during crises ......................................................................................................... 44
F. The Covid-19 crisis............................................................................................................ 44
Session 4: Policy instruments (and nudging) ................................................................................. 47
1. What’s the problems? How to solve it? ..................................................................................47
2. Traditional policy instruments ...............................................................................................48
A. NATO-model..................................................................................................................... 48
B. Types of policy instruments ............................................................................................... 49
C. Typology based on the level of intrusion ............................................................................. 49
3. Policy instrument choice: based on criteria ............................................................................55
4. Trends..................................................................................................................................55
5. Behavioural insights and ‘nudging’ .........................................................................................56
A. Behavioural sciences ........................................................................................................ 56
B. The human psyche ............................................................................................................ 57
C. The nudge narrative........................................................................................................... 58
Session 5: Problem definition and agenda-setting ......................................................................... 59
1. What is agenda-setting? ........................................................................................................59
2. The path of agenda-setting ....................................................................................................60
A. Issue initiation .................................................................................................................. 60
B. Issue articulation and framing ........................................................................................... 60
C. Issue expansion ................................................................................................................ 61
D. Agenda entrance............................................................................................................... 61
E. Agenda entrance............................................................................................................... 62
3. The problematics of agenda-setting: issue-attention dynamics ...............................................62
A. Issue-attention in government and society ......................................................................... 62
2
, B. Problems versus conditions .............................................................................................. 62
C. Problem tractability .......................................................................................................... 62
D. Other dilemmas of policy problems ................................................................................... 63
4. The substance of agenda-setting: problem construction .........................................................63
5. Two theoretical lenses ..........................................................................................................64
A. Positivist-rational .............................................................................................................. 64
B. Constructivist-rational ...................................................................................................... 64
C. Objective construction: Convergene Theory & Political Bussiness Cycles ............................ 65
D. Subjective construction: ideas and discourses ................................................................... 66
E. The narrative structure of problem definition ...................................................................... 67
6. Actors in agenda-setting .......................................................................................................69
7. From problem definition to agenda setting to solutions ...........................................................70
8. Agenda-setting theories ........................................................................................................71
A. Kingdon’s agenda-setting theory ........................................................................................ 71
9. Exercise: global warming.......................................................................................................73
Session 6: Policy formulation ....................................................................................................... 74
1. Policy formulation ................................................................................................................74
2. Stages of policy formulation ..................................................................................................76
3. Procedural and substantive capacity limits ............................................................................77
4. Policy advice ........................................................................................................................79
5. Actors in policy formulation ...................................................................................................79
Session 7: Decision-making ........................................................................................................ 82
1. The decision-making stage ....................................................................................................82
2. Evidence and decision-making ..............................................................................................83
3. The nature of policy choices: negative, positive and non-decision ...........................................85
4. Actors in the decision-making process...................................................................................86
A. Executive, legislators, judges and administrative officials ................................................... 86
5. Decision-making models ......................................................................................................87
A. Rational models................................................................................................................ 87
B. Incremental model............................................................................................................ 89
C. Irrational model ................................................................................................................ 92
D. Alternative model.............................................................................................................. 93
Session 8: Policy-implementation ............................................................................................... 94
1. Implementation in the policy-cycle ........................................................................................94
2. Top-down and bottom-up......................................................................................................95
A. Top-down perspective ....................................................................................................... 95
B. Bottom-up perspective ..................................................................................................... 98
3
, 3. Implementation in theory and practice: a comparison ............................................................99
4. Synthesizing approaches .................................................................................................... 101
5. Images of organization and implementation failure ............................................................... 102
Session 9: Evaluation ................................................................................................................. 103
1. What is policy evaluation? ................................................................................................... 103
2. Definition ........................................................................................................................... 104
3. History ............................................................................................................................... 104
4. Positivist and post-positivist views ....................................................................................... 106
6. Forms of evaluation ............................................................................................................ 107
7. Actors in the policy evaluation process ................................................................................ 109
A. Internal evaluators .......................................................................................................... 109
B. External evaluators ......................................................................................................... 109
8. Types of policy evaluations.................................................................................................. 110
9. Evaluation techniques ........................................................................................................ 111
Session 10: After evaluation: Feedback and Learning .................................................................. 112
1. Policy cycle and the post-evaluation stage ........................................................................... 112
2. Policy feedback .................................................................................................................. 112
3. Policy change and policy termination................................................................................... 112
A. Policy continuation ......................................................................................................... 112
B. Policy change ................................................................................................................. 113
C. Policy termination ........................................................................................................... 114
4. Learning and policy ............................................................................................................. 116
A. Policy evaluation as policy learning.................................................................................. 116
B. Definitions ...................................................................................................................... 116
C. Learning and policy ......................................................................................................... 116
4
,Session 1: Introduction to Public Policy Analysis, Actors, Cycle model
1. What is policy analysis?
GOVERNMENTS MAKE PUBLIC POLICY =/= POLITICS OR POLITY
- Studying public policy
• Why are certain decisions taken at later times than others
• How do policy decisions add up into policy regimes or mixes? Are those decisions in
contrast incompatible or contradictory?
• Do decisions result in recognizable patterns or can we merely discern (quasi)random
accumulations of multiple decisions in the past?
• What actors are involved in public policies, what do these policy actors do, whay and
what difference do they make?
PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
- Analysis OF policy
• Descriptive
• Theoretical
• Policy sciences
• Academic policy analysis
- Analysis FOR policy
• Applied
• Prescriptive
• Applied Policy Analysis
- You can be a good analysist OF policy, without being a good analysist FOR policy, but not the
other way around
• You can be an academic policy analysist and stear clear of government involvement
• You first have tob e a good analysist OF policy before you can be one FOR policy
ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE
- Multi-disciplinary
- Multi-method
- Problem-oriented
- Mapping of context, alternative and effects
- Daniel Lerner & Harold Lasswell: The Policy Sciences (1951)
• The “policy sciences” are defined as “the disciplines concerned with explaining the
policy making and policy executing process, and with locating data and providing
interpretations which are relevant to the policy problems of a given period”
• The term “policy” is used “to designate the most important choices made either in
organized or private life”
5
, 2. Public policy defined
DEFINITIONS OF POLICY
- Scholars offer a wide range of interpretation to the concept of ‘public policy’
• Considerable areas of agreement (such as motives behind public-policy making and
process), BUT also a lot of disagreement
• => illustrated by difference in definition
THOMAS DYE (1972): PUBLIC POLICY IS “ANYTHING A GOVERNMENT CHOOSES TO DO OR NOT TO DO”
- Of course: too simple
• Makes it impossible to differentiate between trivial aspects and significant aspects of
government activity
- Importance of government being mentioned = asset
• Not only actor, but central to decision-making
o Private decisions by businesses, social groups, individuals are not in themselves
public policy
o BUT: non-governmental actors can influence policy decisions or the government
can sometimes even delegate the execution of policy to non-governmental
organisations (NGO’s)
• Only governments can make authoritative decisions on behalf of citizens, and can
legitimately sanction for noncompliance
o Government authority > imposing taxes, using violence
- The decision to NOT do something is also policy making
• A “negative” or “non-decision”, a government’s decision to do nothing and simply
maintain the status quo is just as much a policy decision as a choice to attempt to alter
some part of the status quo
• This does need to be deliberate: simply failing to address a problem that has not attaint a
position on the government’s radar is not considered a “non-decision”
- Public policy is a conscious choice by a government
• => an unintended consequence of policy should not be equated with public policy, but
rather be recognised as its unexpected by-product
WILLIAM JENKINS (1978): PUBLIC POLICY AS “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 DECISION SHOULD, IN
PRINCIPLE, BE WITHIN THE POWER OF THOSE ACTORS TO ACHIEVE”
- “set of interrelated decision”: more explicitly mentions the underlying process behind decision-
making
• Dye’s definition presumes this, but does not mention it => can be misconstrued as
limiting policy-making to a single choice opportunity and result
• More clearly show policy making as a dynamic process => problems are not addressed
with single decisions, but with a series of decisions that cumulatively contribute to an
outcome
o These interrelated decisions are often made by different individuals and agencies
within government => very complex policy-making process
6
, - Recognizes the boundaries to public policies because of a limitations in capacity to formulate
and execute this policy
• This can limit the options being considered and advance or undermine the success of
policy-making efforts
- Policy-making as goal-oriented behaviour
• A government will decide on a goal and then look for ways to achieve this goal
• Content of a policy decision: selection on a goals and means
• => important to understand both the goals and the means that a government chooses,
and how those are linked
• NOTE: two dimensions
o The technical: seeks to find an optimal relation between goals and tools
§ Part of policy design: most efficient way to reach goals
o The political: what constitutes a “policy problem”? What is an appropriate
solution?
§ => the “design” process is inevitably also political
- Includes other actors: more focus outside of government
JAMES ANDERSON (1975): “A PURPOSIVE COURSE OF ACTION FOLLOWED BY AN ACTOR OR SET OF
ACTORS IN DEALING WITH A PROBLEM OR MATTER OF CONCERN FOR THE POPULATION”
- Requires there to be matters that concern ALL of the population, which is often not the case
- Purposive course of action = series of actions that have a goal and is meant to be achieved by
certain means (= a summary of what Jenkins says)
- Problem = negative, with a sense of urgency (framing of problems is very important)
• Matter of concern = something that can be improved on, more subjective (what concerns
me, might not concern you)
• By making this distinction he chooses a side with social constructivism (a matter of
concern only becomes a problem, when it is made into a problem/ considered a
problem) => difference between objective and subjective
o Problems don’t get on the agenda by being objective issues, but by creating a
sense of urgency
3. Methodological considerations for studying public policy
PUBLIC POLICY CANNOT BE STUDIED, SIMPLY BY ANALYSING OFFICIAL RECORDS OF GOVERNMENT
- Policy-analysis tries to encompass the full process of policy making => of choices that are made
or not made and who influences those choices
- Important: array of societal actors involved in decision-making processes and their capacities for
influence and action
POLICY ANALYSIS VERSUS POLICY STUDIES
- Policy analysis: tends to pursue formal evaluation or estimation of “policy impacts” or outcomes
• By applying quantitive techniques, statistical interference,…
• Focuses mainly on policy outputs
- Policy studies: more focused on processes that created policy outputs
7
,DIVERSE ANALYTICAL COMMUNITIES WORKING ON PUBLIC POLICY
- Analysts working for the government or for groups directly affected by public policies tend to
focus their research on evaluation
• <= direct interest in condemning or condoning a policy
- Private think thanks and instates tend to focus most on the “practical” side of policy: the policy
outcomes or the instruments and techniques that generate those outcomes
- Academics have greater independence and usually no direct personal stake => tend to study
public policy more abstractly and take into account the entire policy process
• Consider many factors such as policy regimes, policy determinants, policy instruments,
policy content,…
BUT: ACADEMICS EMPLOY DIFFERENT FRAMEWORKS
- How they explain specific public policy outcomes is influenced by the frameworks they employ
and the aspects of policy-making that these frameworks emphasize or downplay
- Positivism
• A reasonably objective analysis of policy goals and outcomes is possible
• Based on standard social science methodologies for collecting data and analysing this to
determine causation and correlation
• This view on the nature of policy reality is often shared by policy analysts
- Post-positivism
• Embrace a more subjective, interpretative technique to better help them discern and
critique government aims, intentions and actions
• Often shared by adherents of policy studies
- The differences between these approaches should not be overstated, BUT will affect the choice
of analytical techniques and outcomes of the analysis
4. Actors and Institutions
ACTORS
POWER TO MAKE ROLE AS A POLICY
- Elected politicians POLICY ADVISER/ ANALYST/
- Administrative officials WORKER
- Political parties, and their study centers
…
- Interest groups, NGOs
- Research organisations, academic institutes, think tanks As stakeholer/ as target
- Mass media group
- (voters/citizens/individuals)
…
Capable/ not to
influence pm
8
, 5. The policy cycle model
PUBLIC POLICY IS A PROCESS, AND A VERY COMPLICATED ONE
- = a complex phenomenon consisting of numerous decisions made by individuals and
organisations inside government, while these decisions are influenced by others operating within
and outside of the sate
- Policy outcomes are also shaped by the structures within which these actors operate
- => procedural and substantive complexity is considerable
POLICY CYCLE MODEL
- Helps reduce the complexity, make it more visual
- => for analytical purposes, policy making is
considered to be a process consisting of interrelated
stages in which policy issues flow in a less or more
sequential fashion from inputs to outputs
LASSWELL WAS THE FIRST TO COME UP WITH THE CYCLE
- In his early work, he first broached the idea of
breaking down the process of policy making into a number of discrete stages
- Mistake by Lasswell: termination has to come before appraisal (and often policy does not get
terminated)
- Pragmatic approach to policy making: based on learning
• Policy makers struggle through incremental trial-and-error process of choosing policy,
monitoring its results, amending their action in subsequent policy-making rounds while
pursuing their goals or modified ones
• Goes beyond merely input and output but includes monitoring and evaluative activities
- Some limitations:
• Says little about external influences on the state
• Mistake by Lasswell: termination has to come before appraisal (and often policy does
not get terminated)
- Highly influential model: managed the complexity of studying public policy, by allowing each
stage to be isolated and examined before putting the process back together to ascertain the
whole picture
=> SIMPLER VERSION BY BREWER
- Invention or initiation: stage where a problem is first being sensed
• => ill-conceived definitions of the problems and suggested solution
- Estimation: calculation of risks, costs, benefits,… associated with the solutions raised in the
earliest stage
• Both technical evaluation and normative evaluation
• => narrow the range of plausible choices by excluding unfeasible options
• => ranking remaining options based on desirability
- Selection: adopting or rejecting some combination of the solutions remaining after the previous
stage
- Implementation
- Evaluation: evaluating the results of the entire process
9
, - Termination: terminating the policy according to the conclusions reached at the evaluation stage
- Improvements:
• Expands beyond the confines of government by exploring how problems are recognised
• Clarifies the terminology for describing each stage of the process
• Introduces the notion of the policy process as an ongoing cycle
o Most policies do not have a fixed life cycle
o => policies recur, in slightly different guises, as one policy succeeds another
with minor or major modification
- => inspired many more versions of this model
Lasswell, 1965 Brewer, 1974
1. Intelligence: collecting + disseminating 1. Invention/initiation
knowledge 2. Estimation
2. Promotion: supporting selected 3. Selection
alternatives 4. Implementation
3. Prescription: decision for an alternative 5. Evaluation
4. Invocation: decision of rules of 6. Termination
selected alternative
5. Application: implementation through
the administration
= reversed order as compared to Lasswell’s
6. Termination: ending the process
model
7. Appraisal: evaluation according to the
initial goals
LOGIC OF APPLIED PROBLEM SOLVING
- = the principle justifying the focus on the policy cycle (implicit in these models)
- 1. Agenda setting:
• The process in which problems come to the attention of governments
- 2. Policy formulation:
• How policy options are formulated within government
- 3. Decision-making:
• Process by which governments adopt a particular course of action or non-action
- 4. Policy implementation:
• How governments put policy into effect
- 5. Policy evaluation:
• The processes by which results of policies are monitored and judged, both by state and
societal actors
- This model helps clarify the different, though interactive, roles played in the process by policy
actors, institutions and ideas
• Agenda setting: any actor can be involved in decrying problems and demanding
government action (= the policy universe)
• Formulation: only the policy subsystem is involved in discussing options
10
Inhoudsopgave
Session 1: Introduction to Public Policy Analysis, Actors, Cycle model ........................................... 5
1. What is policy analysis? ......................................................................................................... 5
2. Public policy defined.............................................................................................................. 6
3. Methodological considerations for studying public policy ........................................................ 7
4. Actors and Institutions ........................................................................................................... 8
5. The policy cycle model........................................................................................................... 9
Session 2: Theoretical approaches of public policy analysis .......................................................... 12
1. Introduction .........................................................................................................................12
2. Public choice .......................................................................................................................14
3. Welfare economics...............................................................................................................16
A. Market failures .................................................................................................................. 16
B. Government failures ......................................................................................................... 18
C. When should the government intervene? ........................................................................... 19
4. Social structure and class theory ...........................................................................................19
5. Pluralism and neo-corporatism .............................................................................................21
A. Pluralism .......................................................................................................................... 22
B. Corporatism ..................................................................................................................... 23
6. Neo-institutionalism and statism ...........................................................................................24
A. Neo-institutionalism ......................................................................................................... 24
B. Statism............................................................................................................................. 25
7. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................26
8. GUEST LECTURE: Marine resources – tragedy of the commons ...............................................26
A. The Tragedy of the Commons ............................................................................................ 26
B. Why marine resources?..................................................................................................... 26
C. Why fisheries are hard to govern ........................................................................................ 26
D. Government intervention................................................................................................... 26
E. Summary .......................................................................................................................... 28
Session 3: Policy context, actors and institutions ......................................................................... 28
1. Institutions, ideas and actors in public policy .........................................................................28
2. Policy-making in the Liberal-Democratic Capitalist State ........................................................29
3. Political-economic structures and policy making ...................................................................29
4. Types of (political) actors ......................................................................................................30
1
, 5. Governmental and administrative power distribution in political systems ................................30
6. Domestic policy actors .........................................................................................................31
A. Political executive, government ......................................................................................... 32
B. Legislature, parliament ..................................................................................................... 32
C. The public......................................................................................................................... 33
D. Administrative officials, the bureaucracy ........................................................................... 34
E. Political parties ................................................................................................................. 35
F. Societal interest groups/ pressure groups .......................................................................... 36
G. Research Institutes, policy experts, think tanks .................................................................. 38
H. Mass media ...................................................................................................................... 39
7. The international system and public policy .............................................................................39
8. Policy subsystems and policy regimes ...................................................................................41
9. GUEST LECTURE: Policy advisory systems: the case of the Covid-19 crisis ..............................42
A. Institutions, actors and ideas ............................................................................................ 42
B. Policy sub-systems ........................................................................................................... 42
C. Policy advisory systems .................................................................................................... 43
D. Benefits and risks of expertise in decision-making .............................................................. 43
E. Experts during crises ......................................................................................................... 44
F. The Covid-19 crisis............................................................................................................ 44
Session 4: Policy instruments (and nudging) ................................................................................. 47
1. What’s the problems? How to solve it? ..................................................................................47
2. Traditional policy instruments ...............................................................................................48
A. NATO-model..................................................................................................................... 48
B. Types of policy instruments ............................................................................................... 49
C. Typology based on the level of intrusion ............................................................................. 49
3. Policy instrument choice: based on criteria ............................................................................55
4. Trends..................................................................................................................................55
5. Behavioural insights and ‘nudging’ .........................................................................................56
A. Behavioural sciences ........................................................................................................ 56
B. The human psyche ............................................................................................................ 57
C. The nudge narrative........................................................................................................... 58
Session 5: Problem definition and agenda-setting ......................................................................... 59
1. What is agenda-setting? ........................................................................................................59
2. The path of agenda-setting ....................................................................................................60
A. Issue initiation .................................................................................................................. 60
B. Issue articulation and framing ........................................................................................... 60
C. Issue expansion ................................................................................................................ 61
D. Agenda entrance............................................................................................................... 61
E. Agenda entrance............................................................................................................... 62
3. The problematics of agenda-setting: issue-attention dynamics ...............................................62
A. Issue-attention in government and society ......................................................................... 62
2
, B. Problems versus conditions .............................................................................................. 62
C. Problem tractability .......................................................................................................... 62
D. Other dilemmas of policy problems ................................................................................... 63
4. The substance of agenda-setting: problem construction .........................................................63
5. Two theoretical lenses ..........................................................................................................64
A. Positivist-rational .............................................................................................................. 64
B. Constructivist-rational ...................................................................................................... 64
C. Objective construction: Convergene Theory & Political Bussiness Cycles ............................ 65
D. Subjective construction: ideas and discourses ................................................................... 66
E. The narrative structure of problem definition ...................................................................... 67
6. Actors in agenda-setting .......................................................................................................69
7. From problem definition to agenda setting to solutions ...........................................................70
8. Agenda-setting theories ........................................................................................................71
A. Kingdon’s agenda-setting theory ........................................................................................ 71
9. Exercise: global warming.......................................................................................................73
Session 6: Policy formulation ....................................................................................................... 74
1. Policy formulation ................................................................................................................74
2. Stages of policy formulation ..................................................................................................76
3. Procedural and substantive capacity limits ............................................................................77
4. Policy advice ........................................................................................................................79
5. Actors in policy formulation ...................................................................................................79
Session 7: Decision-making ........................................................................................................ 82
1. The decision-making stage ....................................................................................................82
2. Evidence and decision-making ..............................................................................................83
3. The nature of policy choices: negative, positive and non-decision ...........................................85
4. Actors in the decision-making process...................................................................................86
A. Executive, legislators, judges and administrative officials ................................................... 86
5. Decision-making models ......................................................................................................87
A. Rational models................................................................................................................ 87
B. Incremental model............................................................................................................ 89
C. Irrational model ................................................................................................................ 92
D. Alternative model.............................................................................................................. 93
Session 8: Policy-implementation ............................................................................................... 94
1. Implementation in the policy-cycle ........................................................................................94
2. Top-down and bottom-up......................................................................................................95
A. Top-down perspective ....................................................................................................... 95
B. Bottom-up perspective ..................................................................................................... 98
3
, 3. Implementation in theory and practice: a comparison ............................................................99
4. Synthesizing approaches .................................................................................................... 101
5. Images of organization and implementation failure ............................................................... 102
Session 9: Evaluation ................................................................................................................. 103
1. What is policy evaluation? ................................................................................................... 103
2. Definition ........................................................................................................................... 104
3. History ............................................................................................................................... 104
4. Positivist and post-positivist views ....................................................................................... 106
6. Forms of evaluation ............................................................................................................ 107
7. Actors in the policy evaluation process ................................................................................ 109
A. Internal evaluators .......................................................................................................... 109
B. External evaluators ......................................................................................................... 109
8. Types of policy evaluations.................................................................................................. 110
9. Evaluation techniques ........................................................................................................ 111
Session 10: After evaluation: Feedback and Learning .................................................................. 112
1. Policy cycle and the post-evaluation stage ........................................................................... 112
2. Policy feedback .................................................................................................................. 112
3. Policy change and policy termination................................................................................... 112
A. Policy continuation ......................................................................................................... 112
B. Policy change ................................................................................................................. 113
C. Policy termination ........................................................................................................... 114
4. Learning and policy ............................................................................................................. 116
A. Policy evaluation as policy learning.................................................................................. 116
B. Definitions ...................................................................................................................... 116
C. Learning and policy ......................................................................................................... 116
4
,Session 1: Introduction to Public Policy Analysis, Actors, Cycle model
1. What is policy analysis?
GOVERNMENTS MAKE PUBLIC POLICY =/= POLITICS OR POLITY
- Studying public policy
• Why are certain decisions taken at later times than others
• How do policy decisions add up into policy regimes or mixes? Are those decisions in
contrast incompatible or contradictory?
• Do decisions result in recognizable patterns or can we merely discern (quasi)random
accumulations of multiple decisions in the past?
• What actors are involved in public policies, what do these policy actors do, whay and
what difference do they make?
PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
- Analysis OF policy
• Descriptive
• Theoretical
• Policy sciences
• Academic policy analysis
- Analysis FOR policy
• Applied
• Prescriptive
• Applied Policy Analysis
- You can be a good analysist OF policy, without being a good analysist FOR policy, but not the
other way around
• You can be an academic policy analysist and stear clear of government involvement
• You first have tob e a good analysist OF policy before you can be one FOR policy
ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE
- Multi-disciplinary
- Multi-method
- Problem-oriented
- Mapping of context, alternative and effects
- Daniel Lerner & Harold Lasswell: The Policy Sciences (1951)
• The “policy sciences” are defined as “the disciplines concerned with explaining the
policy making and policy executing process, and with locating data and providing
interpretations which are relevant to the policy problems of a given period”
• The term “policy” is used “to designate the most important choices made either in
organized or private life”
5
, 2. Public policy defined
DEFINITIONS OF POLICY
- Scholars offer a wide range of interpretation to the concept of ‘public policy’
• Considerable areas of agreement (such as motives behind public-policy making and
process), BUT also a lot of disagreement
• => illustrated by difference in definition
THOMAS DYE (1972): PUBLIC POLICY IS “ANYTHING A GOVERNMENT CHOOSES TO DO OR NOT TO DO”
- Of course: too simple
• Makes it impossible to differentiate between trivial aspects and significant aspects of
government activity
- Importance of government being mentioned = asset
• Not only actor, but central to decision-making
o Private decisions by businesses, social groups, individuals are not in themselves
public policy
o BUT: non-governmental actors can influence policy decisions or the government
can sometimes even delegate the execution of policy to non-governmental
organisations (NGO’s)
• Only governments can make authoritative decisions on behalf of citizens, and can
legitimately sanction for noncompliance
o Government authority > imposing taxes, using violence
- The decision to NOT do something is also policy making
• A “negative” or “non-decision”, a government’s decision to do nothing and simply
maintain the status quo is just as much a policy decision as a choice to attempt to alter
some part of the status quo
• This does need to be deliberate: simply failing to address a problem that has not attaint a
position on the government’s radar is not considered a “non-decision”
- Public policy is a conscious choice by a government
• => an unintended consequence of policy should not be equated with public policy, but
rather be recognised as its unexpected by-product
WILLIAM JENKINS (1978): PUBLIC POLICY AS “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 DECISION SHOULD, IN
PRINCIPLE, BE WITHIN THE POWER OF THOSE ACTORS TO ACHIEVE”
- “set of interrelated decision”: more explicitly mentions the underlying process behind decision-
making
• Dye’s definition presumes this, but does not mention it => can be misconstrued as
limiting policy-making to a single choice opportunity and result
• More clearly show policy making as a dynamic process => problems are not addressed
with single decisions, but with a series of decisions that cumulatively contribute to an
outcome
o These interrelated decisions are often made by different individuals and agencies
within government => very complex policy-making process
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, - Recognizes the boundaries to public policies because of a limitations in capacity to formulate
and execute this policy
• This can limit the options being considered and advance or undermine the success of
policy-making efforts
- Policy-making as goal-oriented behaviour
• A government will decide on a goal and then look for ways to achieve this goal
• Content of a policy decision: selection on a goals and means
• => important to understand both the goals and the means that a government chooses,
and how those are linked
• NOTE: two dimensions
o The technical: seeks to find an optimal relation between goals and tools
§ Part of policy design: most efficient way to reach goals
o The political: what constitutes a “policy problem”? What is an appropriate
solution?
§ => the “design” process is inevitably also political
- Includes other actors: more focus outside of government
JAMES ANDERSON (1975): “A PURPOSIVE COURSE OF ACTION FOLLOWED BY AN ACTOR OR SET OF
ACTORS IN DEALING WITH A PROBLEM OR MATTER OF CONCERN FOR THE POPULATION”
- Requires there to be matters that concern ALL of the population, which is often not the case
- Purposive course of action = series of actions that have a goal and is meant to be achieved by
certain means (= a summary of what Jenkins says)
- Problem = negative, with a sense of urgency (framing of problems is very important)
• Matter of concern = something that can be improved on, more subjective (what concerns
me, might not concern you)
• By making this distinction he chooses a side with social constructivism (a matter of
concern only becomes a problem, when it is made into a problem/ considered a
problem) => difference between objective and subjective
o Problems don’t get on the agenda by being objective issues, but by creating a
sense of urgency
3. Methodological considerations for studying public policy
PUBLIC POLICY CANNOT BE STUDIED, SIMPLY BY ANALYSING OFFICIAL RECORDS OF GOVERNMENT
- Policy-analysis tries to encompass the full process of policy making => of choices that are made
or not made and who influences those choices
- Important: array of societal actors involved in decision-making processes and their capacities for
influence and action
POLICY ANALYSIS VERSUS POLICY STUDIES
- Policy analysis: tends to pursue formal evaluation or estimation of “policy impacts” or outcomes
• By applying quantitive techniques, statistical interference,…
• Focuses mainly on policy outputs
- Policy studies: more focused on processes that created policy outputs
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,DIVERSE ANALYTICAL COMMUNITIES WORKING ON PUBLIC POLICY
- Analysts working for the government or for groups directly affected by public policies tend to
focus their research on evaluation
• <= direct interest in condemning or condoning a policy
- Private think thanks and instates tend to focus most on the “practical” side of policy: the policy
outcomes or the instruments and techniques that generate those outcomes
- Academics have greater independence and usually no direct personal stake => tend to study
public policy more abstractly and take into account the entire policy process
• Consider many factors such as policy regimes, policy determinants, policy instruments,
policy content,…
BUT: ACADEMICS EMPLOY DIFFERENT FRAMEWORKS
- How they explain specific public policy outcomes is influenced by the frameworks they employ
and the aspects of policy-making that these frameworks emphasize or downplay
- Positivism
• A reasonably objective analysis of policy goals and outcomes is possible
• Based on standard social science methodologies for collecting data and analysing this to
determine causation and correlation
• This view on the nature of policy reality is often shared by policy analysts
- Post-positivism
• Embrace a more subjective, interpretative technique to better help them discern and
critique government aims, intentions and actions
• Often shared by adherents of policy studies
- The differences between these approaches should not be overstated, BUT will affect the choice
of analytical techniques and outcomes of the analysis
4. Actors and Institutions
ACTORS
POWER TO MAKE ROLE AS A POLICY
- Elected politicians POLICY ADVISER/ ANALYST/
- Administrative officials WORKER
- Political parties, and their study centers
…
- Interest groups, NGOs
- Research organisations, academic institutes, think tanks As stakeholer/ as target
- Mass media group
- (voters/citizens/individuals)
…
Capable/ not to
influence pm
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, 5. The policy cycle model
PUBLIC POLICY IS A PROCESS, AND A VERY COMPLICATED ONE
- = a complex phenomenon consisting of numerous decisions made by individuals and
organisations inside government, while these decisions are influenced by others operating within
and outside of the sate
- Policy outcomes are also shaped by the structures within which these actors operate
- => procedural and substantive complexity is considerable
POLICY CYCLE MODEL
- Helps reduce the complexity, make it more visual
- => for analytical purposes, policy making is
considered to be a process consisting of interrelated
stages in which policy issues flow in a less or more
sequential fashion from inputs to outputs
LASSWELL WAS THE FIRST TO COME UP WITH THE CYCLE
- In his early work, he first broached the idea of
breaking down the process of policy making into a number of discrete stages
- Mistake by Lasswell: termination has to come before appraisal (and often policy does not get
terminated)
- Pragmatic approach to policy making: based on learning
• Policy makers struggle through incremental trial-and-error process of choosing policy,
monitoring its results, amending their action in subsequent policy-making rounds while
pursuing their goals or modified ones
• Goes beyond merely input and output but includes monitoring and evaluative activities
- Some limitations:
• Says little about external influences on the state
• Mistake by Lasswell: termination has to come before appraisal (and often policy does
not get terminated)
- Highly influential model: managed the complexity of studying public policy, by allowing each
stage to be isolated and examined before putting the process back together to ascertain the
whole picture
=> SIMPLER VERSION BY BREWER
- Invention or initiation: stage where a problem is first being sensed
• => ill-conceived definitions of the problems and suggested solution
- Estimation: calculation of risks, costs, benefits,… associated with the solutions raised in the
earliest stage
• Both technical evaluation and normative evaluation
• => narrow the range of plausible choices by excluding unfeasible options
• => ranking remaining options based on desirability
- Selection: adopting or rejecting some combination of the solutions remaining after the previous
stage
- Implementation
- Evaluation: evaluating the results of the entire process
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, - Termination: terminating the policy according to the conclusions reached at the evaluation stage
- Improvements:
• Expands beyond the confines of government by exploring how problems are recognised
• Clarifies the terminology for describing each stage of the process
• Introduces the notion of the policy process as an ongoing cycle
o Most policies do not have a fixed life cycle
o => policies recur, in slightly different guises, as one policy succeeds another
with minor or major modification
- => inspired many more versions of this model
Lasswell, 1965 Brewer, 1974
1. Intelligence: collecting + disseminating 1. Invention/initiation
knowledge 2. Estimation
2. Promotion: supporting selected 3. Selection
alternatives 4. Implementation
3. Prescription: decision for an alternative 5. Evaluation
4. Invocation: decision of rules of 6. Termination
selected alternative
5. Application: implementation through
the administration
= reversed order as compared to Lasswell’s
6. Termination: ending the process
model
7. Appraisal: evaluation according to the
initial goals
LOGIC OF APPLIED PROBLEM SOLVING
- = the principle justifying the focus on the policy cycle (implicit in these models)
- 1. Agenda setting:
• The process in which problems come to the attention of governments
- 2. Policy formulation:
• How policy options are formulated within government
- 3. Decision-making:
• Process by which governments adopt a particular course of action or non-action
- 4. Policy implementation:
• How governments put policy into effect
- 5. Policy evaluation:
• The processes by which results of policies are monitored and judged, both by state and
societal actors
- This model helps clarify the different, though interactive, roles played in the process by policy
actors, institutions and ideas
• Agenda setting: any actor can be involved in decrying problems and demanding
government action (= the policy universe)
• Formulation: only the policy subsystem is involved in discussing options
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