CHAPTER 1: STUDYING PUBLIC POLICY: WHY AND HOW
Public Policy Defined
Public policy is everywhere, but hard to define, it has diverse meaning ascribed
to it (although they share the fundamental motives of policy-making and the
processes behind it)
Thomas Dye: public policy as “anything a government chooses to do or
not to do”
= simple because can contain every governmental activity = generality: so
no distinction between trivial and significant aspects
BUT merits:
Primary agent = government (excludes: private decisions), it makes
authoritative decisions on behalf of citizens, so also legitimate
sanctions
Though: non-governmental actors influence governments’ policy
decisions + government sometimes delegate implementation NGO’s
(e.g. medical profession proposes solutions to prevent long cancer)
IF government adopts and enforces this constitutes public policy
It involves a choice: do something or not (made by elected
politicians and other government officials)
So also: negative or non-decisions (= do nothing and maintain the
status quo/the course of action)
The decisions must be deliberate! e.g. deciding not to increase
taxes
It’s a conscious choice by government
Though they often lead to unintended consequences (e.g. regulate
tobacco consumption turns into a black market) but can’t be seen as
public policy (it’s an unexpected by product)
= public policy as an applied problem solving process
Dye shows: need to examine deliberate government decisions
The next definition: adds additional layers of complexity to separate the trivial
from the significant
William Jenkins: 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 decisions
should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to achieve”
-> his points (that were implicit in Dye’s):
Set of interrelated decisions (vs. Dye: as if a single choice
opportunity/result -> so does not say explicitly there’s an underlying
process)
Dynamic process + do not address problems with a single decision
= series of decisions! Often made by different individuals and
agencies (much more complex than Dye) (e.g. health policy:
decisions on facilities, certifying personnel, financing health care
provision)
He recognizes (Dye less): government’s capacity to formulate and
implement which influences public policy making and is a major
, consideration in assessing the types of actions governments
consider
He recognizes (Dye doesn’t) : limitations on the ability to think and
act can constrain the decision options being considered (e.g. lack of
financial, informational resources)
So: understanding their actions requires detailed awareness of the
limits and opportunities provided by international agreements,
treaties and conventions
Dye is more like: any decision is as likely as any other
-> goal oriented behaviour, so the content of a policy decision is composed
of the selection of goals and means
So: this view raises the importance of ideas and knowledge in influencing
policy-making and how these goals are linked to policy tools and
instruments => understanding of appropriateness of potential solutions,
while choices made about tools affect the likelihood of whether of not
programs can achieve them
Matching goals and means has 2 dimensions:
Technical: seeks to identify an optimal relationship between goals and
tools (some are better suited to address the core causes) and often treated
as an instance of policy design
- but rarely agreement on what constitutes a policy problem or appropriate
solution => SO this makes the design process Political
The analysis of problems and solutions is constrained by knowledge about
social problems, policy actors’ ideas, norms… with respect to what they
consider to be appropriate of action to follow!
These ideational and knowledge-based assumptions shape both actors’
understanding about what constitutes a problem and the kind of policy actions
that feel acceptable!
Methodological considerations for studying public policy
These definitions raise methodological concerns when studying public policy:
1) PP cannot be studied by analysing official records (laws, acts, reports),
because PP’s extend beyond the record of formal investigation and official
decisions -> it involves considering the array of state and societal actors
involved and their capacities to influence, it’s constrained by actors,
structures, ideas at any given social/political point in time
Also: looking at decisions and describing government policy would be
easier than to understand why a state adopts the policy e.g. they don’t
give reasons, fake reasons – so find out why some other option was not
chosen
This complexity => distinction:
1. Policy analysis: pursue formal evaluation or estimation of policy impacts
or outcomes, via quantitative techniques etc. => measure the direct and
indirect effects of specific polices and explore the links between the policy
and the outcome e.g. social change – it’s not about the process that
created these outputs
, 2. Policy studies: broader, examines individual programs and their effects,
but also: causes, presuppositions, processes that led to the adoption e.g.
looking at organizational features of political systems and the link with
type of policies
- policy content and form of policy making vary to nature of a political
system and the link decision makers have with civil society
- looking at policy determinants e.g. PP determined by macro-level factors
or micro-level behaviour
- policy content as predictor of policy processes: the nature of a problem
and the solutions devised will determine how policy is processed by the
system (whether they’re regulatory, distributive, redistributive,
constitutive) = “policy may determine politics”
these different literatures are a result of diverse analytical communities
working on Public policy
- Governments are involved
- Analysts work for NGO’s e.g. labour unions, corporations, religious orders,
think tanks, research institutes
Analysts working for governments and groups directly affected by polices
focus on policy evaluation (actual impact on client organisation), private think
tanks and institutes more autonomy = interested in practical side so mostly
outcomes, or instruments or techniques
Academics: independence and have no personal stake (unless when
corking within an ideological stance) => examine more abstractly, so about
theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues via policy studies: entire policy
process
How they explain outcomes is influenced by their frameworks, so these
models and techniques orient analysts to the following approaches:
1. objective analysis is possible, can be explored with standard social
sciences methodologies and study correlation, causation etc. = positivist
= learn to evaluate policy outcomes and processes and why something
was not implemented => mostly policy analysts have this view
2. subjective, interpretive = post-positivist e.g. examining the way
decision-makers’ assumptions about human behaviour influence their
decisions to use certain policy implementation techniques or how gender,
ethnic, social prejudices and biases affect
=> these approaches affect the choice of analytical techniques and the
outcome of analysis!
They share the disquiet that: developments in co-creation of public facts have
breached established norms of democracy and expertise and undermined both
approaches!
ongoing transgression of evidence and expertise (in many countries) =>
threatens governmental institutions that undergird democratic politics and
successful policy making AND positivist need for accurate and uncontested data
AND post-positivist desire to move public policy in the direction where biases can
be removed or minimised (but not strengthened!)
, => such as populist regimes: they undermine the public acceptance of expertise
(e.g. criticism leads to negative imago of scientists) and the willingness to defer
to facts and evidence => it served as a tool to negate policy efforts such as
climate change remediation towards denial of it and immigrant scapegoating
DEVASTATING for (post-)positivist scholars promoting greater evidence-based
policy-making and the question raises: can rigorous policy analysis survive this
challenge (such as with other threats)
individual level: credibility of professional analysts who incorporate
alternative facts into policy assessments => others adopt this
misinformation intentionally to press the priority of their claims on
government actions => when this reaches a critical mass, then the
integrity of policy-making institutions an be diminished e.g. fascist regimes
learn to navigate these troubled waters!
The Policy Cycle Framework: A Problem-Solving Model of the Policy
Process
Public policy is a process, consisting of numerous decisions, many individuals,
organisations, decisions influenced by others operating withing an outside of the
state
Outcomes are shaped by structures in which actors operate and their ideas =>
many analytical challenges! To simplify the analysis of public policy making:
See it as specific kind of process consisting of interrelated stages through which
policy issues flow in a rather sequential fashion from inputs (problem recognition)
to outputs (policies) = policy cycle
History:
1) Lasswell: first one who broke the process down into a number of discrete
stages (he’s the pioneer of ‘policy science) => policy-making in pragmatic
terms: efforts to improve human condition => these improvements are not
a matter of forcing reality to fit BUT: theory and practice reinforce each
other: theory is fine-tuned in the light of practice, while practice is altered
by the application of theory
= based on learning + pragmatic approach
Policy development is a process of policy learning: policy-makers struggle
with incremental trial-and-error process of choosing a policy, monitoring its
results, and then amending their action in subsequent policy-making
Policy cycle goes beyond input and output stages => monitoring and
evaluative activities!
-> 7 stages! (intelligence, promotion, prescription, invocation, application,
termination, appraisal)
But: was focused on decision making within government, little about external
influences on the state as if pursued by small number of officials
But: appraisal after termination: logically policies are evaluated prior to being
wound down than after
Good thing: 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
Public Policy Defined
Public policy is everywhere, but hard to define, it has diverse meaning ascribed
to it (although they share the fundamental motives of policy-making and the
processes behind it)
Thomas Dye: public policy as “anything a government chooses to do or
not to do”
= simple because can contain every governmental activity = generality: so
no distinction between trivial and significant aspects
BUT merits:
Primary agent = government (excludes: private decisions), it makes
authoritative decisions on behalf of citizens, so also legitimate
sanctions
Though: non-governmental actors influence governments’ policy
decisions + government sometimes delegate implementation NGO’s
(e.g. medical profession proposes solutions to prevent long cancer)
IF government adopts and enforces this constitutes public policy
It involves a choice: do something or not (made by elected
politicians and other government officials)
So also: negative or non-decisions (= do nothing and maintain the
status quo/the course of action)
The decisions must be deliberate! e.g. deciding not to increase
taxes
It’s a conscious choice by government
Though they often lead to unintended consequences (e.g. regulate
tobacco consumption turns into a black market) but can’t be seen as
public policy (it’s an unexpected by product)
= public policy as an applied problem solving process
Dye shows: need to examine deliberate government decisions
The next definition: adds additional layers of complexity to separate the trivial
from the significant
William Jenkins: 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 decisions
should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to achieve”
-> his points (that were implicit in Dye’s):
Set of interrelated decisions (vs. Dye: as if a single choice
opportunity/result -> so does not say explicitly there’s an underlying
process)
Dynamic process + do not address problems with a single decision
= series of decisions! Often made by different individuals and
agencies (much more complex than Dye) (e.g. health policy:
decisions on facilities, certifying personnel, financing health care
provision)
He recognizes (Dye less): government’s capacity to formulate and
implement which influences public policy making and is a major
, consideration in assessing the types of actions governments
consider
He recognizes (Dye doesn’t) : limitations on the ability to think and
act can constrain the decision options being considered (e.g. lack of
financial, informational resources)
So: understanding their actions requires detailed awareness of the
limits and opportunities provided by international agreements,
treaties and conventions
Dye is more like: any decision is as likely as any other
-> goal oriented behaviour, so the content of a policy decision is composed
of the selection of goals and means
So: this view raises the importance of ideas and knowledge in influencing
policy-making and how these goals are linked to policy tools and
instruments => understanding of appropriateness of potential solutions,
while choices made about tools affect the likelihood of whether of not
programs can achieve them
Matching goals and means has 2 dimensions:
Technical: seeks to identify an optimal relationship between goals and
tools (some are better suited to address the core causes) and often treated
as an instance of policy design
- but rarely agreement on what constitutes a policy problem or appropriate
solution => SO this makes the design process Political
The analysis of problems and solutions is constrained by knowledge about
social problems, policy actors’ ideas, norms… with respect to what they
consider to be appropriate of action to follow!
These ideational and knowledge-based assumptions shape both actors’
understanding about what constitutes a problem and the kind of policy actions
that feel acceptable!
Methodological considerations for studying public policy
These definitions raise methodological concerns when studying public policy:
1) PP cannot be studied by analysing official records (laws, acts, reports),
because PP’s extend beyond the record of formal investigation and official
decisions -> it involves considering the array of state and societal actors
involved and their capacities to influence, it’s constrained by actors,
structures, ideas at any given social/political point in time
Also: looking at decisions and describing government policy would be
easier than to understand why a state adopts the policy e.g. they don’t
give reasons, fake reasons – so find out why some other option was not
chosen
This complexity => distinction:
1. Policy analysis: pursue formal evaluation or estimation of policy impacts
or outcomes, via quantitative techniques etc. => measure the direct and
indirect effects of specific polices and explore the links between the policy
and the outcome e.g. social change – it’s not about the process that
created these outputs
, 2. Policy studies: broader, examines individual programs and their effects,
but also: causes, presuppositions, processes that led to the adoption e.g.
looking at organizational features of political systems and the link with
type of policies
- policy content and form of policy making vary to nature of a political
system and the link decision makers have with civil society
- looking at policy determinants e.g. PP determined by macro-level factors
or micro-level behaviour
- policy content as predictor of policy processes: the nature of a problem
and the solutions devised will determine how policy is processed by the
system (whether they’re regulatory, distributive, redistributive,
constitutive) = “policy may determine politics”
these different literatures are a result of diverse analytical communities
working on Public policy
- Governments are involved
- Analysts work for NGO’s e.g. labour unions, corporations, religious orders,
think tanks, research institutes
Analysts working for governments and groups directly affected by polices
focus on policy evaluation (actual impact on client organisation), private think
tanks and institutes more autonomy = interested in practical side so mostly
outcomes, or instruments or techniques
Academics: independence and have no personal stake (unless when
corking within an ideological stance) => examine more abstractly, so about
theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues via policy studies: entire policy
process
How they explain outcomes is influenced by their frameworks, so these
models and techniques orient analysts to the following approaches:
1. objective analysis is possible, can be explored with standard social
sciences methodologies and study correlation, causation etc. = positivist
= learn to evaluate policy outcomes and processes and why something
was not implemented => mostly policy analysts have this view
2. subjective, interpretive = post-positivist e.g. examining the way
decision-makers’ assumptions about human behaviour influence their
decisions to use certain policy implementation techniques or how gender,
ethnic, social prejudices and biases affect
=> these approaches affect the choice of analytical techniques and the
outcome of analysis!
They share the disquiet that: developments in co-creation of public facts have
breached established norms of democracy and expertise and undermined both
approaches!
ongoing transgression of evidence and expertise (in many countries) =>
threatens governmental institutions that undergird democratic politics and
successful policy making AND positivist need for accurate and uncontested data
AND post-positivist desire to move public policy in the direction where biases can
be removed or minimised (but not strengthened!)
, => such as populist regimes: they undermine the public acceptance of expertise
(e.g. criticism leads to negative imago of scientists) and the willingness to defer
to facts and evidence => it served as a tool to negate policy efforts such as
climate change remediation towards denial of it and immigrant scapegoating
DEVASTATING for (post-)positivist scholars promoting greater evidence-based
policy-making and the question raises: can rigorous policy analysis survive this
challenge (such as with other threats)
individual level: credibility of professional analysts who incorporate
alternative facts into policy assessments => others adopt this
misinformation intentionally to press the priority of their claims on
government actions => when this reaches a critical mass, then the
integrity of policy-making institutions an be diminished e.g. fascist regimes
learn to navigate these troubled waters!
The Policy Cycle Framework: A Problem-Solving Model of the Policy
Process
Public policy is a process, consisting of numerous decisions, many individuals,
organisations, decisions influenced by others operating withing an outside of the
state
Outcomes are shaped by structures in which actors operate and their ideas =>
many analytical challenges! To simplify the analysis of public policy making:
See it as specific kind of process consisting of interrelated stages through which
policy issues flow in a rather sequential fashion from inputs (problem recognition)
to outputs (policies) = policy cycle
History:
1) Lasswell: first one who broke the process down into a number of discrete
stages (he’s the pioneer of ‘policy science) => policy-making in pragmatic
terms: efforts to improve human condition => these improvements are not
a matter of forcing reality to fit BUT: theory and practice reinforce each
other: theory is fine-tuned in the light of practice, while practice is altered
by the application of theory
= based on learning + pragmatic approach
Policy development is a process of policy learning: policy-makers struggle
with incremental trial-and-error process of choosing a policy, monitoring its
results, and then amending their action in subsequent policy-making
Policy cycle goes beyond input and output stages => monitoring and
evaluative activities!
-> 7 stages! (intelligence, promotion, prescription, invocation, application,
termination, appraisal)
But: was focused on decision making within government, little about external
influences on the state as if pursued by small number of officials
But: appraisal after termination: logically policies are evaluated prior to being
wound down than after
Good thing: 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
