1.7 Public Policy
Samenvatting colleges
College 1
The policy cycle
Agenda setting: identification and selection of problems
Policy developments/making: proper policy making
Policy decision-making: deciding on course of action
Policy implementation: putting policy into practice
Policy evaluation: was the policy effective?
Four perspectives:
1. Constructivism/culturalism: ideas and language, about words and framing
2. Rationalism: knowledge and information
3. Political: power and interests, gaps in society
4. Institutionalism: institutions rules and regulations
Types of policy:
Regulatory policy: policies defining government control/rules in specific areas
Constitutional policy: to establish new institutional or organizational operations
(what can or can’t a parliament do
Distributive policy: distributing/allocating new recourses among actors (taxes)
Redistributive policy: distributing/allocating existing recourses among actors
Provisional policy: aimed at creating specific facilities/provisions
Societal perspectives on public policy
4 perspectives societal transformations:
1. The Risk Society
Post-industrialisation; environment big topic
New risks manifactured, self-created risks
Risks doesn’t stop at borders, so world risks
Very complex risks, lots of uncertainty, demands reflexivity
Public policy: politics at the level of policy subsystems to promote
reflexivity
2. The Network Society
Role of technology, globalization, growing connectedness
More interdependencies and complexity
Public policy: can politics respond to the network society?
3. The Liquid Society
Individualization, de-institutionalization
Freedom vs uncertainty
Paradox: individualization BUT cultural hypes (mass society)
, Public policy: Drifting voter and the growing role of the media, hyper
fragmentation in politics
Does the liquid society lead to a ‘drama democracy’?
4. The Hollow State (questionable if this is still relevant because recent issues
like Covid have actually provided more government control)
States are loosing control, loss of belief in rational societal steering by the
state
Shift from government to governance
- No monopoly of the state
- Interaction with other actors
- Decision taken together
Public policy: shifting policy and policy innovation and co-production of
policy
Four perspectives on the public policy process
Rationalism
Knowledge and information, problems can be measured
Politics spoil good policies: depoliticization
Having experts and expertise drive the approach
Political perspective:
Key role of power and conflict, symbolic and economic resources
Policymaking as an essentially political process; politics is everywhere
Ex: public health VS economic interests at time of Covid
Culturalism
Policymaking as social construction, key roles to stories, framing, narrating and
images or symbols
Media important role
Ex: narratives and alternative facts in Covid times
Institutionalism
Policies produce politics (not like political persp. But vice versa)
Path dependency: stick to existing rules
Formal and informal rules and structures
Ex: Covid as a test for the international system
College 2
Agenda setting
What becomes a policy problem? What causes problems to change agendas? In
what agenda is a topic pointed out? role of media, brings topic to wider
attention
Samenvatting colleges
College 1
The policy cycle
Agenda setting: identification and selection of problems
Policy developments/making: proper policy making
Policy decision-making: deciding on course of action
Policy implementation: putting policy into practice
Policy evaluation: was the policy effective?
Four perspectives:
1. Constructivism/culturalism: ideas and language, about words and framing
2. Rationalism: knowledge and information
3. Political: power and interests, gaps in society
4. Institutionalism: institutions rules and regulations
Types of policy:
Regulatory policy: policies defining government control/rules in specific areas
Constitutional policy: to establish new institutional or organizational operations
(what can or can’t a parliament do
Distributive policy: distributing/allocating new recourses among actors (taxes)
Redistributive policy: distributing/allocating existing recourses among actors
Provisional policy: aimed at creating specific facilities/provisions
Societal perspectives on public policy
4 perspectives societal transformations:
1. The Risk Society
Post-industrialisation; environment big topic
New risks manifactured, self-created risks
Risks doesn’t stop at borders, so world risks
Very complex risks, lots of uncertainty, demands reflexivity
Public policy: politics at the level of policy subsystems to promote
reflexivity
2. The Network Society
Role of technology, globalization, growing connectedness
More interdependencies and complexity
Public policy: can politics respond to the network society?
3. The Liquid Society
Individualization, de-institutionalization
Freedom vs uncertainty
Paradox: individualization BUT cultural hypes (mass society)
, Public policy: Drifting voter and the growing role of the media, hyper
fragmentation in politics
Does the liquid society lead to a ‘drama democracy’?
4. The Hollow State (questionable if this is still relevant because recent issues
like Covid have actually provided more government control)
States are loosing control, loss of belief in rational societal steering by the
state
Shift from government to governance
- No monopoly of the state
- Interaction with other actors
- Decision taken together
Public policy: shifting policy and policy innovation and co-production of
policy
Four perspectives on the public policy process
Rationalism
Knowledge and information, problems can be measured
Politics spoil good policies: depoliticization
Having experts and expertise drive the approach
Political perspective:
Key role of power and conflict, symbolic and economic resources
Policymaking as an essentially political process; politics is everywhere
Ex: public health VS economic interests at time of Covid
Culturalism
Policymaking as social construction, key roles to stories, framing, narrating and
images or symbols
Media important role
Ex: narratives and alternative facts in Covid times
Institutionalism
Policies produce politics (not like political persp. But vice versa)
Path dependency: stick to existing rules
Formal and informal rules and structures
Ex: Covid as a test for the international system
College 2
Agenda setting
What becomes a policy problem? What causes problems to change agendas? In
what agenda is a topic pointed out? role of media, brings topic to wider
attention
