COMPLETE SOLUTION!!
public policy Answer - -Government action designed to address the demands
of a set of citizens to resolve a social issue
-Policy adoption and implementation process
-Why specific policies are pursued and why others are not
-How well do government actions fit citizen demands
four competing methods of policymaking Answer - -Elite theory
-Group theory
-Institutional theory
-Rational choice theory
elite theory Answer - -Experts or elites dominate policy development
-Societal business, cultural and government leaders
-Issue Networks
-Public Opinion: less influential
-Occurs more for complicated issues
§But assumptions are problematic; difficult to prove
,group theory Answer - -§Public policy is dominated by interest groups
-Continuously Struggling
-Counterbalance each other
-Shape policy through incremental change
advocacy coalition framework Answer - -Competing alliances of policy actors
from different public and private institutions at all levels
institutional theory Answer - -Institutions are the procedures and rules that
are followed
-Structures the behavior of organizations and political actors
-These structures and rules can empower or obstruct policymaking
federalism (competing interests) Answer - -Nation; state; local
-National and state possess constitutions
-Different goals and policy preferences
Executive and Legislative Competition (competing interests) Answer - -
Executive: president, governor, mayor
-Legislative: two houses (at the national and state level)
-Goals and policy preferences often vary between branches
-Often, varying goals and preferences between members of legislative
judiciary (competing interests) Answer - -National, State and Local all possess
an array or criminal, civil and administrative courts
-Prosecute violations of executive and legislative
,rational choice theory Answer - -An economic model
-Policy decisions made by self-interested individual policy actors
-Politician: re-election implications
-Public: public behavior (e.g., gas tax hike)
-People make rational choices to protect self-interests
-Useful to predict implications of policy alternatives
gilens and page findings (2014) Answer - -Multivariate analysis indicates that
economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have
substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent
influence.
-The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite
Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of
Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism."
branham, soroka, wiezien (2017) Answer - -counter argument to gilens and
page
-reexamine Gilens and Page's own data and find that the rich matter, but that
inequalities in policy representation across income groups are limited
the policy making process Answer - -Proposed by Harold Laswell (1951)
-A heuristic demonstrating the pathways by which policies are identified,
proposed, evaluated, implemented and terminated
, 7 stages
-Problem and Solution Identification
-Agenda Setting
-Policy Formulation
-Alternative Formulation
-Policy Selection and Adoption
-Policy Implementation
-Policy Evaluation
step 1 of the policy making process Answer - -problem and solution
identification
-How do social issues become defined as social problems?
-Once social issues have been defined as social problems how are solutions to
those problems identified?
-Stakeholders
Those who are affected by a policy problem
-Policy Demands
The demands exerted by stakeholders on the political actors
-Credible Action
-The mechanism by which demands pressure leaders
-Who gets what is determined by pressure
-That said, 'collective action problems' exist among stakeholders