SUMMARY POLICY ANALYSIS
PART 1: MACRO APPROACH
1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS AND THE POLICY SCIENCES
Public Policy
- Governments make Public Policy ≠ politics; polity
- Public policy analysis
o Academic discipline:
▪ Multi-disciplinary (economics, sociology, …)
▪ Multi-method
▪ Problem-oriented
▪ Mapping of contexts, alternatives, and effects
o Lerner & Lasswell: The Policy Sciences (1951) → policy sciences = “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”
1. Analysis of policy: descriptive (observer role), theoretical, policy sciences
→ academic policy analysis
2. Analysis for policy: applied, prescriptive (actors) → applied policy analysis
- Definitions of public policy (IMPORTANT!)
o Thomas Dye (1972): “Anything a government chooses to do or not to do”
o William Jenkins (1978): “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”
o 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”
Actors and institutions
- Power to make policy: elected politicians,
administrative officials
- Role as policy adviser/analyst/worker/… : political
parties and their study centers, interest groups, NGOs,
research organizations, academic institutes, think tanks,
mass media, voters/citizens/individuals, …
The policy cycle model
, - Advantages vs disadvantages:
Advantages Disadvantages
o Helps to reduce complexity o Policy is non-systematic, non-linear
o Mapping and clarifying the roles of o Idiosyncratic problem solving
actors, institutions, and ideas/interests o Stages compressed or skipped
o Causes and effects unclear
- Stages of the policy cycle:
o Lasswell (1965):
▪ First to come up with stages model, but important mistake: 6 and 7
should be switched
1. Intelligence: collecting + disseminating knowledge
2. Promotion: supporting selected alternatives
3. Prescription: decision for an alternative
4. Invocation: decision of rules of selected alternative
5. Application: implementation through the administration
6. Termination: ending the process
7. Appraisal: evaluation according to the initial goals
o Brewer (1974):
▪ Reversed order as compared to Lasswell’s model
1. Invention/initiation
2. Estimation
3. Selection
4. Implementation
5. Evaluation
6. Termination
- Public policy process: hourglass representation
o The more you get to the stage of decision-making, the fewer actors
(democratically elected); after decision-making more actors again for
implementation
o
2. POLICY CHANGE AND APPROACHES OF PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
Theories as lenses: “To someone with a hammer everything looks like a nail” (Mark Twain) →
depending on through which lens you are looking, you will see different things
Approaches of public policy analysis: dimensions:
- Unit of analysis
- Method/school of thought
,1. Public Choice
- What:
o Application of neo-classical economics
o Individuals act rationally, driven by individual utility maximization
o Self-interest of voters, politicians and administrative officials lead to increasing
state intervention, provision of goods and services
o Normative: less state, benefits of the market
- Elections:
o What drives politicians? → want to be voted in, and be re-elected; want to stay in
power (perks, salary, … for themselves and family members); depends on the
state of democracy how far they can pursue their self-interest
o What will politicians do to stay in power? → try to please voters (promises)
o What do officials who work in bureaucracy want? → big budgets at the expense of
others
o What do voters want? → “pocket book voting”: look if wallet got bigger or thinner
after elections
- Problems:
o Over-simplifying: policy is more complex than utility maximization
o Poor predictive capacity
o Underestimated impact of institutions on action
o Neo-liberal, not value-free perspective
o Many parties want to reduce power of the state, but parties are driven by re-
election (self-interest)
2. Welfare Economics
- Market failures → need for government action:
o Public goods (e.g. street lights)
o Natural monopolies (e.g. railway, electricity)
▪ Natural market barrier: state takes over industry because with no
competition firms can raise prices too high
o Imperfect/limited information (e.g. pharmaceuticals, banks)
o Externalities (e.g. air pollution : carbon credit system, low emission zones)
o Tragedy of the commons (e.g. fish stock depletion)
o Destructive competition (e.g. child labour in textile industry)
- Avoid government failure:
o Principal-agent theory
o Organizational displacement → shift of goals (ministers pursue their own goals
and not goals of public interest)
o Rising costs
o Derived externalities (governments that over-regulate society limit private initiative)
- Government considerations:
o Cost-benefit analysis:
▪ Financial estimation of negative/positive effects of an option
▪ Evaluation of social outcomes
o Pareto optimum
▪ Difficult to achieve in policy (always winners and losers)
▪ Kaldor-criterion → less strict than Pareto criterion: losers are allowed as
long as winners compensate the loss
▪ Non-financial costs (social, environmental, psychological, …)
, - When should government regulate?
Exhaustiveness
High Low
Private good (e.g. food) Toll good (e.g. highways)
High → if there are no market failures: no → public goods that you put a price
intervention on
Common-pool good (e.g. fish, Public good (e.g. street lights, clean
Exclusivity
wildlife) air)
Low → should be regulated (permits, → often goods produced by
quota, …) government, so intervention is
important
3. Social Structure and Class Analysis
- What:
o Orthodox Marxism → 2 groups: haves – have nots
▪ Infrastructure: economic foundation of society → forces of production
(e.g. labour, technology, …) + relations of production (e.g. property
ownership)
▪ Superstructure: institutions, ideas, and culture built on top of the
economic base (politics, law, religion, education, ideology, …)
→ infrastructure determines superstructure
o All policies serve the interest of the capital
o The State as an instrument of Class Rule (instrumentalist view)
o In Orthodox Marxism: the state under capitalism is not neutral → it functions as
an instrument of the bourgeoisie (class that owns means of production)
- Problems:
o Over-simplification and strongly deductive
o No clear definition of class (not only determined by economic class)
o Problems with differentiation between base and superstructure
o Economic determinism
o Newer class studies but no longer Marxist (e.g. The Three Worlds of Welfare
Capitalism)
o From social class perspective:
▪ Policymakers are often drawn from elite social backgrounds
▪ Political parties depend on capitalist financing
▪ Economic constraints (investment strikes, capital flight) limit policy
choices
▪ Structural inequalities in society are reproduced by policies
o Thus, even well-intentioned leaders operate within structural constraints
imposed by capitalism
4. Pluralism and Neo-Corporatism
- Look at role of groups in society → (interest)groups as basic unit of analysis
- Pluralism:
o Idea: every group has some impact on policymaking
o Central role of many interest groups
o Overlapping, fluid membership
o Little attention for power differences ( neo-pluralism)
o But: limited application, role of state unclear
PART 1: MACRO APPROACH
1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS AND THE POLICY SCIENCES
Public Policy
- Governments make Public Policy ≠ politics; polity
- Public policy analysis
o Academic discipline:
▪ Multi-disciplinary (economics, sociology, …)
▪ Multi-method
▪ Problem-oriented
▪ Mapping of contexts, alternatives, and effects
o Lerner & Lasswell: The Policy Sciences (1951) → policy sciences = “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”
1. Analysis of policy: descriptive (observer role), theoretical, policy sciences
→ academic policy analysis
2. Analysis for policy: applied, prescriptive (actors) → applied policy analysis
- Definitions of public policy (IMPORTANT!)
o Thomas Dye (1972): “Anything a government chooses to do or not to do”
o William Jenkins (1978): “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”
o 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”
Actors and institutions
- Power to make policy: elected politicians,
administrative officials
- Role as policy adviser/analyst/worker/… : political
parties and their study centers, interest groups, NGOs,
research organizations, academic institutes, think tanks,
mass media, voters/citizens/individuals, …
The policy cycle model
, - Advantages vs disadvantages:
Advantages Disadvantages
o Helps to reduce complexity o Policy is non-systematic, non-linear
o Mapping and clarifying the roles of o Idiosyncratic problem solving
actors, institutions, and ideas/interests o Stages compressed or skipped
o Causes and effects unclear
- Stages of the policy cycle:
o Lasswell (1965):
▪ First to come up with stages model, but important mistake: 6 and 7
should be switched
1. Intelligence: collecting + disseminating knowledge
2. Promotion: supporting selected alternatives
3. Prescription: decision for an alternative
4. Invocation: decision of rules of selected alternative
5. Application: implementation through the administration
6. Termination: ending the process
7. Appraisal: evaluation according to the initial goals
o Brewer (1974):
▪ Reversed order as compared to Lasswell’s model
1. Invention/initiation
2. Estimation
3. Selection
4. Implementation
5. Evaluation
6. Termination
- Public policy process: hourglass representation
o The more you get to the stage of decision-making, the fewer actors
(democratically elected); after decision-making more actors again for
implementation
o
2. POLICY CHANGE AND APPROACHES OF PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
Theories as lenses: “To someone with a hammer everything looks like a nail” (Mark Twain) →
depending on through which lens you are looking, you will see different things
Approaches of public policy analysis: dimensions:
- Unit of analysis
- Method/school of thought
,1. Public Choice
- What:
o Application of neo-classical economics
o Individuals act rationally, driven by individual utility maximization
o Self-interest of voters, politicians and administrative officials lead to increasing
state intervention, provision of goods and services
o Normative: less state, benefits of the market
- Elections:
o What drives politicians? → want to be voted in, and be re-elected; want to stay in
power (perks, salary, … for themselves and family members); depends on the
state of democracy how far they can pursue their self-interest
o What will politicians do to stay in power? → try to please voters (promises)
o What do officials who work in bureaucracy want? → big budgets at the expense of
others
o What do voters want? → “pocket book voting”: look if wallet got bigger or thinner
after elections
- Problems:
o Over-simplifying: policy is more complex than utility maximization
o Poor predictive capacity
o Underestimated impact of institutions on action
o Neo-liberal, not value-free perspective
o Many parties want to reduce power of the state, but parties are driven by re-
election (self-interest)
2. Welfare Economics
- Market failures → need for government action:
o Public goods (e.g. street lights)
o Natural monopolies (e.g. railway, electricity)
▪ Natural market barrier: state takes over industry because with no
competition firms can raise prices too high
o Imperfect/limited information (e.g. pharmaceuticals, banks)
o Externalities (e.g. air pollution : carbon credit system, low emission zones)
o Tragedy of the commons (e.g. fish stock depletion)
o Destructive competition (e.g. child labour in textile industry)
- Avoid government failure:
o Principal-agent theory
o Organizational displacement → shift of goals (ministers pursue their own goals
and not goals of public interest)
o Rising costs
o Derived externalities (governments that over-regulate society limit private initiative)
- Government considerations:
o Cost-benefit analysis:
▪ Financial estimation of negative/positive effects of an option
▪ Evaluation of social outcomes
o Pareto optimum
▪ Difficult to achieve in policy (always winners and losers)
▪ Kaldor-criterion → less strict than Pareto criterion: losers are allowed as
long as winners compensate the loss
▪ Non-financial costs (social, environmental, psychological, …)
, - When should government regulate?
Exhaustiveness
High Low
Private good (e.g. food) Toll good (e.g. highways)
High → if there are no market failures: no → public goods that you put a price
intervention on
Common-pool good (e.g. fish, Public good (e.g. street lights, clean
Exclusivity
wildlife) air)
Low → should be regulated (permits, → often goods produced by
quota, …) government, so intervention is
important
3. Social Structure and Class Analysis
- What:
o Orthodox Marxism → 2 groups: haves – have nots
▪ Infrastructure: economic foundation of society → forces of production
(e.g. labour, technology, …) + relations of production (e.g. property
ownership)
▪ Superstructure: institutions, ideas, and culture built on top of the
economic base (politics, law, religion, education, ideology, …)
→ infrastructure determines superstructure
o All policies serve the interest of the capital
o The State as an instrument of Class Rule (instrumentalist view)
o In Orthodox Marxism: the state under capitalism is not neutral → it functions as
an instrument of the bourgeoisie (class that owns means of production)
- Problems:
o Over-simplification and strongly deductive
o No clear definition of class (not only determined by economic class)
o Problems with differentiation between base and superstructure
o Economic determinism
o Newer class studies but no longer Marxist (e.g. The Three Worlds of Welfare
Capitalism)
o From social class perspective:
▪ Policymakers are often drawn from elite social backgrounds
▪ Political parties depend on capitalist financing
▪ Economic constraints (investment strikes, capital flight) limit policy
choices
▪ Structural inequalities in society are reproduced by policies
o Thus, even well-intentioned leaders operate within structural constraints
imposed by capitalism
4. Pluralism and Neo-Corporatism
- Look at role of groups in society → (interest)groups as basic unit of analysis
- Pluralism:
o Idea: every group has some impact on policymaking
o Central role of many interest groups
o Overlapping, fluid membership
o Little attention for power differences ( neo-pluralism)
o But: limited application, role of state unclear
