Public Policy and Governance:
Public policy introduction:
Polity: institutional structures characterizing a political system.
Politics: political processes (party political cleavages, voting behaviour in legislative
bodies).
Public policy = course of action taken by government/legislature with regard to a
particular issue. Refers to actions of actors, and governments actions focus on
issues. Policies centre stage: analysis outputs of political system (decisions,
measures, programmes, strategies and courses of action adapted by the
government or the legislative body.
Policy making = problem solving, exerting power by social group over another.
Policy: cover range of different measures in a certain sector (environment).
Or
Describe public activities in policy subfields (water, air, climate change).
Or
Within policy subfields policy issues/targets (clean air: pollution, urban air quality).
Or
Connection with regulatory instruments (how targets are regulated).
Rationalist approach: ideal conception of how policies should develop. Process of
problem solving, how should be organised and evolve to achieve optimal solutions to
policy problems.
Incrementalistic perspective: in reality ideal is hardly matched. Description of how
policy makers arrive at their decisions (limited information, cognitive restrictions and
limited time).
Garbage can model: public policies often reveal opposite pattern to that envisaged
by rationalist models. Involved actors go through garbage to look for suitable
solution. Solutions are independent from problems, maybe both with different
participants.
Decisions are outcomes of several independent streams of events.
Today’s policies influence future = knock on effects: budgetary constraints, economic
globalization limits, digitalization (more information available).
Should we choose a policy that is already made and implemented or one that’s not
implemented or done yet?
Policy Paradox 1: The market and the polis
Polis: model political society.
Market: social system in which individuals pursue their own welfare by exchanging
things with others whenever trades are mutually beneficial. Participant compete for
scarce resources to maximize self-interest.
- Robin Crusoe society: tropical island swap coconuts & sea animals.
Polis needs community: collective will & effort.
- Distinction between political & cultural community.
, - Political: people live under same rules & structure of governance, includes
different communities.
- Cultural: community shares culture & draw identities from shared language,
history & traditions.
- Mutual aid: a good people create collectively to protect each other and the
community. Holds individuals together as a community.
- Altruïsm: acting in order to benefit others rather than oneself (volunteering,
treating sick).
o Hobbes: behind altruism is self-interest.
- Public interest: individual interests in common, individual’s goals for community
may conflict with own interest.
- Commons problems are about the combination of self-interest with public interest.
Ideas are shaped by education, persuasion and socialization.
- Bandwagon effect: vote for the lead because you want to be on the winning team.
- Cooperation: politics involves seeking allies and cooperating with them to
compete with opponents.
- Loyalty, influence, cooperation, groups, information, commons problems, public
interest, passion.
- Groups: build blocks of polis.
o Belong to organisations & institutions: shapes interests and opinions,
depend on them.
o Policymaking is about how (to represent/groups formed).
o Decisions in polis are collective.
- Information is incomplete, used as strategy.
- Passion: resources are scarce. Laws of passion: in polis matters behave more
like emotions than physical matter. Political resources enlarged or enhanced
through use.
o Market ignores resource expansion through exercise, use, practice &
expression.
Polis:
1. Community (multiple) with ideas, images, will & effort apart from individual goals
& behaviour.
2. Members: altruïsm and self-interest.
3. Public interest whose meaning people fight about and act upon.
4. Most problems are commons problems.
5. Influence is pervasive, boundary with coercion not clear.
6. Cooperation is as important as competition.
7. Loyalty is the norm.
8. Groups/organizations are building blocks of polis.
9. Information is interpretive, incomplete & strategic.
10. Governed by laws of passion and laws of matter.
College 1:
- Positivist: focus on facts and proof, bounded rationality limitations information
accessible and can process limited information, actors behave according to self-
interest, institutional constraints: path dependency, rules made in past influence
present and policymaking in limited space. Importance of resources (money,
, time, effort), technocratic aspects prevail; basing yourself on facts/numbers, rely
on scientific expertise and interested in causality.
- Constructivist: not one truth, fact or proof. Policy is paradoxical. Problems
subject multiple conflict interpretations. Strategic different interpretated by actors.
All aspects of policy are subject to debate. Information is never complete,
strategy. Self-interest and altruïsm co-exist. Interpretations more powerful then
facts.
College 2:
Public: something opposed to private. Can be physical, can be a social category
(movement), can be a concern or can be an opinion.
Dewey: public = those affected by indirect consequences of transactions necessary
to have those consequences systematically cared for.
Transaction: mutual and reciprocal influence of individuals on each other.
Public problems: effect all of us, can’t deal with it alone need of a bigger
organization.
Commons problems: where public & private interest oppose each other in polis.
Where 2 public interests collide (climate goals, offshore wind park).
Polity: institutional elements of political system that define what polis is about
(constitutions, rule of law, electoral systems).
Politics: Birkland: focus competition over resources (what) at others expense (who)
and nature of political power (how).
Policy: Birkland: oriented to a problem, policy made on public’s behalf, oriented to a
goal or desired state. Ultimately made by governments, matter of implementation
(done by public actors) and what government chooses to do or not to do. Policy is
statement by government, at whatever level of what it intends to do about a public
problem.
Statement: various forms of expression.
K&T: policy is a course of action (or of non-action) taken by the
government/legislature with regard to a particular issue.
Rational perspective: state clear goals, analyse all possible means on cost-benefits
to reach your goals and pick efficient one.
Critize: individuals have limited capacity for processing information, goals
often not clarified actors just act and policy making not neatly ordered process.
Incremental perspective:
- Policy makers have bounded rationality: limited process information.
- Look at limited new information.
- Make small adjustments, not strike regulations down.
- Seems to work for relatively simple existing policy problems.
- Criticism: hard to notice incremental changes & doesn’t charge whole.
Garbage can perspective:
- Policymaking: partial, fluid, chaotic, anarchic, incomplete.
- Preferences are not held but revealed through action, often not realized and not
aware of preferences because problem is new.
Public policy introduction:
Polity: institutional structures characterizing a political system.
Politics: political processes (party political cleavages, voting behaviour in legislative
bodies).
Public policy = course of action taken by government/legislature with regard to a
particular issue. Refers to actions of actors, and governments actions focus on
issues. Policies centre stage: analysis outputs of political system (decisions,
measures, programmes, strategies and courses of action adapted by the
government or the legislative body.
Policy making = problem solving, exerting power by social group over another.
Policy: cover range of different measures in a certain sector (environment).
Or
Describe public activities in policy subfields (water, air, climate change).
Or
Within policy subfields policy issues/targets (clean air: pollution, urban air quality).
Or
Connection with regulatory instruments (how targets are regulated).
Rationalist approach: ideal conception of how policies should develop. Process of
problem solving, how should be organised and evolve to achieve optimal solutions to
policy problems.
Incrementalistic perspective: in reality ideal is hardly matched. Description of how
policy makers arrive at their decisions (limited information, cognitive restrictions and
limited time).
Garbage can model: public policies often reveal opposite pattern to that envisaged
by rationalist models. Involved actors go through garbage to look for suitable
solution. Solutions are independent from problems, maybe both with different
participants.
Decisions are outcomes of several independent streams of events.
Today’s policies influence future = knock on effects: budgetary constraints, economic
globalization limits, digitalization (more information available).
Should we choose a policy that is already made and implemented or one that’s not
implemented or done yet?
Policy Paradox 1: The market and the polis
Polis: model political society.
Market: social system in which individuals pursue their own welfare by exchanging
things with others whenever trades are mutually beneficial. Participant compete for
scarce resources to maximize self-interest.
- Robin Crusoe society: tropical island swap coconuts & sea animals.
Polis needs community: collective will & effort.
- Distinction between political & cultural community.
, - Political: people live under same rules & structure of governance, includes
different communities.
- Cultural: community shares culture & draw identities from shared language,
history & traditions.
- Mutual aid: a good people create collectively to protect each other and the
community. Holds individuals together as a community.
- Altruïsm: acting in order to benefit others rather than oneself (volunteering,
treating sick).
o Hobbes: behind altruism is self-interest.
- Public interest: individual interests in common, individual’s goals for community
may conflict with own interest.
- Commons problems are about the combination of self-interest with public interest.
Ideas are shaped by education, persuasion and socialization.
- Bandwagon effect: vote for the lead because you want to be on the winning team.
- Cooperation: politics involves seeking allies and cooperating with them to
compete with opponents.
- Loyalty, influence, cooperation, groups, information, commons problems, public
interest, passion.
- Groups: build blocks of polis.
o Belong to organisations & institutions: shapes interests and opinions,
depend on them.
o Policymaking is about how (to represent/groups formed).
o Decisions in polis are collective.
- Information is incomplete, used as strategy.
- Passion: resources are scarce. Laws of passion: in polis matters behave more
like emotions than physical matter. Political resources enlarged or enhanced
through use.
o Market ignores resource expansion through exercise, use, practice &
expression.
Polis:
1. Community (multiple) with ideas, images, will & effort apart from individual goals
& behaviour.
2. Members: altruïsm and self-interest.
3. Public interest whose meaning people fight about and act upon.
4. Most problems are commons problems.
5. Influence is pervasive, boundary with coercion not clear.
6. Cooperation is as important as competition.
7. Loyalty is the norm.
8. Groups/organizations are building blocks of polis.
9. Information is interpretive, incomplete & strategic.
10. Governed by laws of passion and laws of matter.
College 1:
- Positivist: focus on facts and proof, bounded rationality limitations information
accessible and can process limited information, actors behave according to self-
interest, institutional constraints: path dependency, rules made in past influence
present and policymaking in limited space. Importance of resources (money,
, time, effort), technocratic aspects prevail; basing yourself on facts/numbers, rely
on scientific expertise and interested in causality.
- Constructivist: not one truth, fact or proof. Policy is paradoxical. Problems
subject multiple conflict interpretations. Strategic different interpretated by actors.
All aspects of policy are subject to debate. Information is never complete,
strategy. Self-interest and altruïsm co-exist. Interpretations more powerful then
facts.
College 2:
Public: something opposed to private. Can be physical, can be a social category
(movement), can be a concern or can be an opinion.
Dewey: public = those affected by indirect consequences of transactions necessary
to have those consequences systematically cared for.
Transaction: mutual and reciprocal influence of individuals on each other.
Public problems: effect all of us, can’t deal with it alone need of a bigger
organization.
Commons problems: where public & private interest oppose each other in polis.
Where 2 public interests collide (climate goals, offshore wind park).
Polity: institutional elements of political system that define what polis is about
(constitutions, rule of law, electoral systems).
Politics: Birkland: focus competition over resources (what) at others expense (who)
and nature of political power (how).
Policy: Birkland: oriented to a problem, policy made on public’s behalf, oriented to a
goal or desired state. Ultimately made by governments, matter of implementation
(done by public actors) and what government chooses to do or not to do. Policy is
statement by government, at whatever level of what it intends to do about a public
problem.
Statement: various forms of expression.
K&T: policy is a course of action (or of non-action) taken by the
government/legislature with regard to a particular issue.
Rational perspective: state clear goals, analyse all possible means on cost-benefits
to reach your goals and pick efficient one.
Critize: individuals have limited capacity for processing information, goals
often not clarified actors just act and policy making not neatly ordered process.
Incremental perspective:
- Policy makers have bounded rationality: limited process information.
- Look at limited new information.
- Make small adjustments, not strike regulations down.
- Seems to work for relatively simple existing policy problems.
- Criticism: hard to notice incremental changes & doesn’t charge whole.
Garbage can perspective:
- Policymaking: partial, fluid, chaotic, anarchic, incomplete.
- Preferences are not held but revealed through action, often not realized and not
aware of preferences because problem is new.
