Beleidsdynamiek en Issuemanagement – Literatuur samenvatting
Relevante concepten zijn dikgedrukt.
College 1 | Inleiding beleidsdynamiek en issuemanagement
1. Hoppe, R. (2011). Analysing policy problems: a problem-structuring approach. In
The Governance of Problems: puzzling, powering and participation. (pp. 59-90)
Politics of meaning: politics as the collective attempt to control a polity’s shared response to
the adversities and opportunities of the human condition.
Social-constructivist approach: the conventions of language and its concepts and
symbolisms generate a social process of meaning giving or interpretation. These processes
are socially distributed, not of universal validity, but valid for special, albeit sometimes large,
groups or categories of people.
[Social-constructivist perspective] Politics: an attempt to control shared meaning.
- Politics becomes an arena for conflict over the concepts used in framing political
judgements on social problems, public policies and political leaders and enemies.
- Public policy: the privilege and capacity to authoritatively define the nature of
shared meanings in relevant policy language, texts, objects and artefacts.
- Agenda-setting: how to get issues, talked about in public opinion and public debate,
on or off the political and institutional agendas of political parties and Parliaments;
and how to move on to the policy or decision of agendas of departments or other
administrative agencies.
Issue typologies: this type of theorising and research attempts to connect policy substance
to policy process.
- Lowi claims a citizen’s proximity to state coercion is the most important characteristic
of politics Typology therefore focuses on coercive impacts of policy and policy
instruments on citizens and society; four types of policies:
o Regulative policies: governments have the highest and immediate coercive
impact on citizens’ lives or corporate conduct
Examples: rules against fraudulent advertising, or unfair competition
These policies define the relationship between politics and citizen in
direct hierarchical and affect every citizen equally
Therefore, according to Lowi, this regulation brings about an open
and truly public and pluralist-competitive kind of politics
o Constitution or system maintenance policies: the coercive impact is the
lowest, because here government coercion is remote and works only through
changing the environment of individual conduct, not the conduct itself.
Examples: organisational reforms or propaganda on birth control
o Distributive policies: in-between type: coercion is low, but works directly on
individual firms
1
, Examples: tariffs, subsidies for particular industries
According to Low, these policies mostly lead to a ‘privatised’, pork
barrel, closed and clientelist or patronage kind of politics.
As they distribute benefits to small, well-defined constituencies at
public cost.
o Redistributive policies: in-between type: coercion is immediate but pertains
to classes of people not individuals.
Examples: progressive income taxes, social security & other welfare
state programmes
These policies lead to a conflictual kind of politics between peak
associations of business and labour, mobilising groups along lines of
class.
Lowi’s typology suggests a preference for regulatory policies because they
lead to political processes in which interest groups and citizen participation
most closely approximate pluralist democratic ideals.
- Wilson’s typology is around the confrontation between government agencies and
interest groups, depending on a policy’s anticipated or perceived pattern of
allocation of benefits and costs.
o Client politics: when most or all of a policy’s benefits go to a small, identifiable
interest (business sector, profession, locality), but most or all costs are borne
by all taxpayers.
This policy will institutionalise a political arena where an agency is
confronted with one dominant interest group, which favours its goal.
o Entrepreneurial politics: the implementing agency has to fight a dominant
interest group hostile to its official goals.
Opposite to client politics
This type of policy politics is created by a policy that concentrates
costs (on an industry, locality, regions or a profession) but spreads
benefits over a large number of people.
o Interest group politics: when a policy generates both high per capita
concentrated costs and benefits.
Like in occupational health and safety regulation
The implementing agency can hold its own in this system because it is
‘sandwiched’ between rival interest groups strongly motivated to
organise in the conflict over its goals.
o Majoritarian politics: implementing agencies do not meet overt and
permanent opponents or proponents
This occurs in cases such as national defence, where the policy
appears to distribute widely dispersed benefits and impose widely
distributed costs.
Wilson believes that most policies enact clientelist and entrepreneurial
political environments, leading to ‘big government’ and overproduction of
goods and services through the public sector.
- Both issue typologies have been criticised on both neo-positivist and social-
constructivist counts:
o Neo-positivist position: issue typologies are hardly testable due to the
complicated nature and theoretical underspecification of concepts like policy,
2
Relevante concepten zijn dikgedrukt.
College 1 | Inleiding beleidsdynamiek en issuemanagement
1. Hoppe, R. (2011). Analysing policy problems: a problem-structuring approach. In
The Governance of Problems: puzzling, powering and participation. (pp. 59-90)
Politics of meaning: politics as the collective attempt to control a polity’s shared response to
the adversities and opportunities of the human condition.
Social-constructivist approach: the conventions of language and its concepts and
symbolisms generate a social process of meaning giving or interpretation. These processes
are socially distributed, not of universal validity, but valid for special, albeit sometimes large,
groups or categories of people.
[Social-constructivist perspective] Politics: an attempt to control shared meaning.
- Politics becomes an arena for conflict over the concepts used in framing political
judgements on social problems, public policies and political leaders and enemies.
- Public policy: the privilege and capacity to authoritatively define the nature of
shared meanings in relevant policy language, texts, objects and artefacts.
- Agenda-setting: how to get issues, talked about in public opinion and public debate,
on or off the political and institutional agendas of political parties and Parliaments;
and how to move on to the policy or decision of agendas of departments or other
administrative agencies.
Issue typologies: this type of theorising and research attempts to connect policy substance
to policy process.
- Lowi claims a citizen’s proximity to state coercion is the most important characteristic
of politics Typology therefore focuses on coercive impacts of policy and policy
instruments on citizens and society; four types of policies:
o Regulative policies: governments have the highest and immediate coercive
impact on citizens’ lives or corporate conduct
Examples: rules against fraudulent advertising, or unfair competition
These policies define the relationship between politics and citizen in
direct hierarchical and affect every citizen equally
Therefore, according to Lowi, this regulation brings about an open
and truly public and pluralist-competitive kind of politics
o Constitution or system maintenance policies: the coercive impact is the
lowest, because here government coercion is remote and works only through
changing the environment of individual conduct, not the conduct itself.
Examples: organisational reforms or propaganda on birth control
o Distributive policies: in-between type: coercion is low, but works directly on
individual firms
1
, Examples: tariffs, subsidies for particular industries
According to Low, these policies mostly lead to a ‘privatised’, pork
barrel, closed and clientelist or patronage kind of politics.
As they distribute benefits to small, well-defined constituencies at
public cost.
o Redistributive policies: in-between type: coercion is immediate but pertains
to classes of people not individuals.
Examples: progressive income taxes, social security & other welfare
state programmes
These policies lead to a conflictual kind of politics between peak
associations of business and labour, mobilising groups along lines of
class.
Lowi’s typology suggests a preference for regulatory policies because they
lead to political processes in which interest groups and citizen participation
most closely approximate pluralist democratic ideals.
- Wilson’s typology is around the confrontation between government agencies and
interest groups, depending on a policy’s anticipated or perceived pattern of
allocation of benefits and costs.
o Client politics: when most or all of a policy’s benefits go to a small, identifiable
interest (business sector, profession, locality), but most or all costs are borne
by all taxpayers.
This policy will institutionalise a political arena where an agency is
confronted with one dominant interest group, which favours its goal.
o Entrepreneurial politics: the implementing agency has to fight a dominant
interest group hostile to its official goals.
Opposite to client politics
This type of policy politics is created by a policy that concentrates
costs (on an industry, locality, regions or a profession) but spreads
benefits over a large number of people.
o Interest group politics: when a policy generates both high per capita
concentrated costs and benefits.
Like in occupational health and safety regulation
The implementing agency can hold its own in this system because it is
‘sandwiched’ between rival interest groups strongly motivated to
organise in the conflict over its goals.
o Majoritarian politics: implementing agencies do not meet overt and
permanent opponents or proponents
This occurs in cases such as national defence, where the policy
appears to distribute widely dispersed benefits and impose widely
distributed costs.
Wilson believes that most policies enact clientelist and entrepreneurial
political environments, leading to ‘big government’ and overproduction of
goods and services through the public sector.
- Both issue typologies have been criticised on both neo-positivist and social-
constructivist counts:
o Neo-positivist position: issue typologies are hardly testable due to the
complicated nature and theoretical underspecification of concepts like policy,
2
