Faculty of Law & Political science
Public Policy
First Iranian Web of Public
Policy
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مقالات فارسی(Up Dated) |
Population Change and Public
Policy
Concept Paper for a SSHRC
Strategic Research Cluster
Executive Summary
The proposal is to create a
cluster to study the challenges posed by demographic change in
advanced industrial
societies with a specific focus on
cluster will focus on
understanding the evolving demographics of Canadian society, and the
implications of population
change, for economic and social policy.
Virtually all wealthy
societies are now experiencing slow population growth while several are
already experiencing
population decline. Immigration is coming to play an increasingly
important role in many of
these societies. As a result, populations are both aging and become
more ethnically diverse.
Moreover, the growing importance of migration means that some
regions will continue to
grow while others may face significant decline
EVALUATING POLICY RESEARCH
Caroline Pestieau
December 2003
Executive Summary
This paper aims to advance
understanding of how to evaluate research undertaken to
influence public policy. It
adopts a broad understanding of public policy which includes
both discrete policy
decisions and the ways in which policy is developed. There are two
parts to the paper followed
by a summary.
Part 1 explores
expectations about the influence of research on policy. Why research
findings are not more often
used by policy-makers, and when and how they are used,
have both become fashionable
subjects of investigation in
investigators agree that it
is impossible to demonstrate a causal link between the
presentation of research
results and a policy decision. Yet most also agree that research
can play a very important
role in changing the way policy issues are understood and
addressed. This has been
called the ‘enlightenment’ role of research. The process it
follows and the time it
takes are unpredictable. A research institute or network can play
an enlightenment role by:
• Identifying and bringing
new issues to public attention;
• Reframing old issues in
new ways;
• Bringing different
stakeholders into the search for solutions; and
• Showing how other
countries or agencies have addressed similar issues.
Doing this means developing
new information, mining existing data, reviewing ideas and
proposals and bringing them
together to address new concerns or concerns which have
hitherto proved
intractable. The paper calls this function ‘problem definition’ and
suggests that it is the
most important contribution a policy research network can make.
Policy research networks
can play an important role in policy development but it will be
indirect, and how and when
it happens cannot be predicted. Policy-makers seldom signal
a need for research
findings in advance and it is too late to start research when the issue is
on the table. Hence a
network which wants to contribute to policy development takes a
risk in starting up a
research program. The risk is increased when the way in which it
defines the problem and
suggests framing a response challenges accepted wisdom. Yet
many observers see a need
to challenge accepted wisdom and established consultation
mechanisms. As the time
available to policy-makers to weigh up the issues and take their
decisions becomes shorter
and as the issues become more complex on the national and
international scenes and
the public more demanding, they are tempted to become risk
averse. They need help from
outside government in defining the issues and in formulating
empirically-based
solutions. Thus there is a real but latent demand for relevant research
results.
Evaluating Policy Research
| v
Part 2 asks how to evaluate
a policy network’s contribution to policy development in the
context of the findings of
Part 1. How does such a network add value? Comparing its
inputs of time and money
with its outputs of publications, speeches and meetings will not
answer the question.
Qualitative as well as quantitative methods examine the impact of
government programs with
increasing sophistication. Qualitative methods have the
advantage of looking at the
process of program delivery, including the learning that takes
place from both positive
and negative experiences, as well as its results. In the context of
the demand for government
accountability, the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Resultsbased
Management and
Accountability Framework attempts to link inputs with outcomes
as well as with outputs.
This approach is an improvement over conventional compliance
evaluation in assessing the
effectiveness of programs, but it does not provide a
satisfactory methodology
for identifying and observing outcomes in policy development.
The kinds of outcomes a
policy research institute or network hopes for are that policymakers
will:
• Take account of new
knowledge to modify their priorities and agendas;
• Consider different ways
of tackling persistent issues;
• Acknowledge the
importance of new issues being brought to their attention; and
• Look for ways to address
them. (This supposes willingness to learn from outside
experience, to accept new
interlocutors and to reconsider entrenched positions.)
While it is difficult to
observe such changes in behaviour as they happen, it is even more
difficult to relate them to
particular activities of a research network. Each policy decision
is influenced by a myriad
of inputs. It is usually impossible to find quantitative data
linking research results to
policy decisions. Qualitative data, including case studies and
interviews, can suggest
links but they are difficult to interpret and to accept as
representative. So
evaluations of policy networks often fall back on media citations or
success in fund-raising as
indicators of influence on policy-makers. But the citations have
been shown to be a poor
indicator of impact while the fundraising only tells us that the
network is maintaining its
existence not that it is attaining its mission.
The paper’s findings can be
summarized in a paradox. It is impossible to demonstrate a
causal link between policy
research and policy decisions yet policy research has a crucial
role to play in
institute’s or network’s
mission and objectives, relate these to its problem definition
activities and determine
indicators which show its presence in the policy-making
environment. These
indicators should, of course, be determined at the beginning of each
programming cycle. They
could include:
• The time that senior
officials and business leaders repeatedly devote to the network’s
activities;
• Signs of opposition from
decision-makers who feel threatened by different ways of
approaching familiar
problems; and
• Sustained willingness by
new groups of stakeholders to engage in policy discussions
facilitated by the network.
vi | Evaluating Policy
Research
As long as a think tank
produces quality research, such indicators will allow observers to
understand the network’s
contribution, and to infer its value added although they can
never quantify it.
Who Decides?
Government In the New
Millennium
Richard M. Bird,
Foreward
Public governance has been
a common theme in Canadian history
since the constitutional talks
that led to Confederation in 1867.
Debate continued over the
next century and a quarter on new
approaches to governance
including the Charter of Rights and the
amending formula
(incorporated in the Constitution Act of 1982)
and other exotic proposals
including new approaches to electing
members of Parliament,
voting by referendums and a Triple E
(elected, equal and
effective) Senate. Prime Minister Paul Martin
recently proposed
substantial parliamentary reform, giving backbench
MPs more power in committees,
for example, and during
the 2004 federal election
campaign, New Democratic Party leader
Jack Layton called for
proportional representation. Recently,
lead to significant
democratic reforms, while other provinces have
taken more modest steps
such as moving to fixed dates for elections.
Many of the recent efforts
at democratic change reflect a growing
dissatisfaction among
Canadians with our democratic institutions.
The federal election had a
turnout of little more than 60
percent of eligible voters
— one of the lowest in Canadian history.
This volume brings together
a number of leading experts who
examine various issues
related to “Who Decides”. The main theme
of the book is well-articulated
and skillfully presented in the introductory
essay by Editor Richard
Bird. People care about results,
not just the process of
getting to results. However, political institutions
and processes, from
bicameral legislatures, to voting systems
and decentralization of
expenditure and tax powers to provincial
and local communities, have
a major effect on the behaviour of
politicians and the outcome
that results from their conduct. It is
critical for Canadians to
understand how different political institutions
can affect policy.
I wish to thank Richard
Bird and Danielle Goldfarb for organizing
the conference that gave
rise to this volume, as well as the
excellent contributors to
both the conference and the volume. I am
especially indebted to
Stephen Jarislowsky whose passionate concern
about Canadian democracy
led to his support for the organization
of the conference and the
publication of its proceedings.
Also, my thanks for the
hard work taken on by the Institute’s Editor
Kevin Doyle, and assistant to
the editor and cover designer
Priscilla Burry, as well as
copy editors Lee d’Anjou and Barry Norris,
who undertook the sometimes
challenging task of getting the
volume published.
Theories of Governance and
New Public Management:
Links to Understanding
Welfare Policy Implementation
Jo Ann G. Ewalt
Department of Government
Eastern
Introduction
If Max Weber and Woodrow
Wilson were to suddenly appear on the landscape of
modern public
administration, normative theories in hand, it is likely they would be unable
to
recognize the field. The
comprehensive, functionally uniform, hierarchical organizations
governed by strong leaders
who are democratically responsible and staffed by neutrally
competent civil servants
who deliver services to citizens (Ostrom, 1973) – to the extent they ever
existed – are long gone.
They have been replaced by an ‘organizational society’ in which many
important services are
provided through multiorganizational programs. These programs are
essentially “interconnected
clusters of firms, governments, and associations which come together
within the framework of
these programs” (Hjern and Porter, 1981, pp. 212-213).
These implementation structures
operate within a notion of governance about which a
surprising level of
consensus has been reached. There is a pervasive, shared, global perception of
governance as a topic far
broader than ‘government’; the governance approach is seen as a “new
process of governing, or a
changed condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which
society is governed”
(Stoker, 1998, p. 17). Similarly, in the scholarship that has followed the
‘Reinventing Government’
themes of public effectiveness, much has been written of New Public
Management practices by
which governance theory is put into action (Mathiasen, 1996; Lynn,
1996, 1998; Terry, 1998;
Kelly, 1998; Peters and
In this complex, devolved
mode of service delivery, the unit of analysis for some students
of policy implementation is
the network of nonprofit organizations, private firms and
governments. As Milward and
Provan note, in policy arenas such as health, mental health, and
welfare, "...joint
production and having several degrees of separation between the source and the
Operationalizing political
analysis:
the Expected Utility
Stakeholder
Model and governance
reforms
Rigorous stakeholder analysis
tools like the Expected Utility Stakeholder Model can
help the World Bank factor
political realities into the design of operational programs.
N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 4
Public Sector
Changes in public sector
institutions and governance
systems in developing
countries may
be relatively easy to
achieve technically, but
very tough to implement
politically. Such
reforms create winners and
losers, so understanding
the political realities
that shape the
incentives of key
stakeholders in a given program
or policy is vital to
securing consensus—
and may mean the difference
between a
well-designed intervention
that mobilizes critical
support and a failed
initiative that alienates
crucial clients. This
realization has
increasingly become part of
mainstream
thinking at the World Bank
(Haggard and
Webb 1994; World Bank 1997,
2000). But
even if the importance of
politics is now recognized,
is there an operationally
useful way
of applying political
analysis?
Can Policy Making be
Evidence-Based?
DIRECTOR, POLICY PROGRAMME,
INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED HEALTH AND SOCIAL POLICY, KING’S COLLEGE
ABSTRACT
Ministers are always
calling for more evidence-based
interventions. Do they apply
the same criterion to their
own work of making policy?
Perhaps surprisingly, policy
making is not an
evidence-free zone. However, it is
important to understand the
ways in which policy
makers in different
situations will use information
differently, count
different kinds of information as
evidence, and so exercise
different styles of judgment.
KEY WORDS: EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY;
SOCIAL POLICY
Models, Facts, and the
Policy Process: The Political Ecology of Estimated Truth
John Leslie King and
Kenneth L. Kraemer
Center for Research on
Information Systems and
Organizations
(CRITO)
Abstract
In the past three decades,
models based on econometric information and
information from
participation in large governmental programs have become
important components of the
policy making process. It is likely that models based
on Geographic Information
Systems shall follow suit. There is temptation to
believe that models, by
providing superior factual guidance, significantly
transform the policy making
process. Experience to date suggests they do not, but
rather are swept up into
the process, and become part of it with all its strange
features. Previous work on
models in the policy process is recounted in this
paper. It shows that models
are most extensively used as weapons in political and
policy warfare, and it is
in these uses that they make their greatest contribution.
This "datawars"
perspective requires that models be used pluralistically from
different sides of the
policy perspective, and not as an "arbiter of truth" in the
center. GIS-based models
have particular characteristics that make them highly
likely to be incorporated in
policy making. The challenge to develop an effective
"datawars"
perspective on GIS-based model application is upon us, and
suggestions are provided to
help modelers deal with the challenge.
THE POLICY PROCESS:AN
OVERVIEW
Rebecca Sutton
Summary
The paper offers an
introduction to analysis of the policy process. It identifies and describes
theoretical approaches in political
science, sociology, anthropology, international relations and
management. It then reviews
five cross-cutting themes: (a) the dichotomy between policy-making
and implementation; (b) the
management of change; (c) the role of interest groups in the policy
process; (d) ownership of
the policy process; and (e) the narrowing of policy alternatives. The paper
concludes with a 21-point
check-list of ‘what makes policy happen’. A glossary of key terms is also
provided.
The key argument of the
paper is that a ‘linear model’ of policy-making, characterised by objective
analysis of options and
separation of policy from implementation, is inadequate. Instead, policy and
policy implementation are
best understood as a ‘chaos of purposes and accidents’. A combination of
concepts and tools from
different disciplines can be deployed to put some order into the chaos,
including policy
narratives, policy communities, discourse analysis, regime theory, change
management, and the role of
street-level bureaucrats in implementation.
Better Policy-Making
Helen Bullock
Juliet Mountford
Rebecca Stanley
INTRODUCTION
In November 2000, the
Centre for Management and Policy Studies
(CMPS) undertook a survey
of senior civil servants in all Ministerial
Departments. The purpose of
the survey was twofold. Firstly, to
obtain a wide range of
examples from across Government on new,
innovative and professional
approaches to policy-making; and
secondly to find out from
policy-makers what they considered to be
the main issues in
modernising the policy process, and what support
they wanted to facilitate
change.
We received over 130
examples of modern approaches to policymaking.
They provide a broad spectrum
of Government activity in a
range of different policy
areas, including initiatives in large and small
Departments.
This is the most
comprehensive survey that has ever been undertaken
on modern policy-making. It
provides up to date information on some
of the interesting
approaches that have been adopted by Departments,
but it does not provide a
representative picture of how far Departments
have modernised the policy
process or which features of modern
policy-making are most well
developed.
The report is based on the
findings to emerge from this survey, and is
made up of two parts. The
first part pulls together what policy-makers
felt to be the main issues
in modernising the policy-making process,
with their views on the
enablers of change. The second part highlights
some of the interesting
approaches being adopted by individual
Departments to progress the
modernisation agenda in policy-making.
Recommendations for the
Improvement of Policy Making Process in
Final Policy Paper
Katarina Staronova and
Katarina Mathernova,
Introduction:
Establishing principles,
institutions and procedures of good governance is one of the
greatest challenges facing
the countries of Central and
challenge includes the
development of professional policy making. . The concept of
‘good governance’ – not
readily translatable to most of the languages in the CEE region –
has become increasingly associated
with the capacity to develop and deliver public
policies based on
participatory principles as well as respecting the principles of
effectiveness and
efficiency. In other words, professional and high quality public policy
making is transparent and open
to broad societal participation but, at the same time,
addresses societal problems
timely and with a minimum waste of available resources.
Both of the authors focused
their research projects on the public policy process in the
Slovak republic. The research
project of the first author (Katarina Staronova) focuses on
the analysis of the policy
making process in
arrangements, the formal
and informal organization of the process, the division of the
responsibilities within the
central authorities, the availability of the incentive system and
analysis of the existing
outputs of the policy making process. The project also examines
the existing arrangements
in the developed democracies and recommendations prepared
by the international
organizations, such as the UNDP, World Bank, OECD, and the EU.
The ultimate goal of the
examination is to reveal potential areas for change in the public
policy process in
and would lead to a gradual
change of the policy making practice (and culture) into a
professional one, adhering
to the principles of good governance. The research project of
the second author (Katarina
Mathernova) analyzes the public policy and reform decision
making and legislative
processes in three concrete areas (case studies) and identifies the
main driving forces and
main impediments to reforms, including the capacity constraint
in policy making in the
state administration. This policy paper builds on and distills
lessons from the two
research papers.
The recommendations
contained in this paper are intended for decision makers in the
primarily on the changes
and amendments to the legislative process that constitutes a
central part of the formal
policy making process.
“Analysis of the Policy
Making Process in
Final Research Paper
by Katarina Staronova,
Introduction
In the past, the policy
formation and arbitration function of the central state apparatus
was weakly developed, at
the same time, the state bureaucracy was comprehensively
politicized. Against this background,
the key challenge of post-communist transformation
has been to
‘governmentalize’ the executive, i.e. to enforce the rule of law and to
professionalize the staff.
Public sector reform has, accordingly, centered on attempts to
concentrate law making and
enforcement.
At the same time, the new
global standards of governance are emerging. Citizens of
developed countries are
demanding better performance on the part of their governments,
and they are increasingly
aware of the costs of poor management and corruption. The
concern was raised by the
inability of governments to take a long-term view, being
instead absorbed in dealing
with day-to-day problems and current political difficulties.
Thus, the problem of
governance became central to the concerns of many national and
international bodies,
including the World Bank, OECD and EU.
Transportation models in
the policy-making process
Tools for Sustainable Livelihoods: Policy Analysis
Introduction
The document will begin by outlining the complex nature of the term
‘policy’ and the types of issues that policy analysis should aim to
interrogate. It discusses the ways in which a sustainable livelihoods approach
can add value to policy analysis, and why policy analysis should be central to
a livelihoods analysis. The different elements of a livelihoods analysis are
unpacked, and a range of methods suggested for gaining insight into them. Some
methodological difficulties that are likely to be encountered, due to the
broad, complex and political nature of policy are also outlined.
CULTURAL
INDUSTRIES AND CULTURAL POLICY
David
Hesmondhalgh
and Andy C.
Pratt
This article
analyses and contextualises a variety of relationships between the cultural
industries and
cultural
policy. A principal aim is to examine policies explicitly formulated as
cultural (or creative)
industries
policies. What lies behind such policies? How do they relate to other kinds of
cultural
policy,
including those more oriented towards media, communications, arts and heritage?
The first
section asks
how the cultural industries became such an important idea in cultural policy,
when
those industries
had been largely invisible in traditional (arts- and heritage-based) policy for
many
decades. What
changed and what drove the major changes? In the second section, we look at a
number of
problems and conceptual tensions arising from the new importance of the
cultural industries
in
contemporary public policy, including problems concerning definition and scope,
and the
accurate
mapping of the sector, but also tensions surrounding the insertion of
commercial and
industrial
culture into cultural policy regimes characterised by legacies of romanticism
and idealism.
We also look
at problems surrounding the academic division of labour in this area of study.
We
conclude by
summarising some of the main contemporary challenges facing cultural policy and
cultural
policy studies with regard to the cultural industries. The piece also serves to
introduce the
contributions
to a special issue of International Journal of Cultural Policy on the
cultural industries
and cultural
policy.
KEYWORDS
cultural industries; cultural policy
What future for European
cultural policy?
Summary of Debates
A seminar jointly organised
by Friends of Europe
and Eurocinema
with the support of
the French Ministry of
European Affairs
and the Culture 2000
Programme of the European Union
in co-operation with
Vivendi Universal
Paris, Centre des Conférences Internationales Kléber
Recent international
debates, particularly on the controversial concept of
“cultural exception”, have
highlighted a number of sensitive issues as well as
the importance of
terminology and the key role played by collective
imagination in a continent
characterised by a wide variety of languages and
cultures.
“We must protect cultural
diversity firmly,” stated the French Minister of
European Affairs, Pierre
Moscovici, during the opening session of the seminar.
He went on to say that,
while a broad consensus exists in the EU on the
principles of cultural
diversity and cultural freedom (confirmed in Nice by the
EU Charter of Fundamental
Rights), the question of the best methods to
achieve these goals is
still wide open, which makes it difficult to translate these
principles into EU policy.
“To assign subsidies is not
enough,” remarked several participants, pointing out
that the present
instruments can only serve, at best, to conduct a rearguard
action in defence of
European culture. The real challenge for
become more open to the
world, to access a universal dimension by enhancing
the value of its cultural
diversity.
Cultural Policies in
Danielle Cliche
European Research
Institution for Comparative
Cultural Policy and the
Arts
Abstract
The process to collect
information and data on national cultural policies in
almost 30 years ago: with a
first special series of cultural policy profiles commissioned by
UNESCO in the early 70s.
Documents prepared for and following European and
international conferences
(Oslo 1976, Mexico 1982) should also be mentioned. Since then,
there has been a myriad of
activities to produce more comprehensive information on cultural
policies. Expert meetings
have been held, transnational working groups set up, thematic
country profiles produced,
handbooks or directories published and cultural policy newsletters
circulated by various
public and private actors throughout
A more systematic approach
was introduced by the Council of Europe in 1985 via its
National Cultural Policy
Review Programme including expert evaluations. This exercise has
produced a wealth of
information over 17 years. At the end of the 1990s, it was felt
desirable to establish a
parallel and dynamic activity which would ensure that policy-makers,
researchers and
documentalists had access to the most up to date information on cultural
policies in order to better
inform their decisions, conduct comparative analyses and maintain
their collections. In 1998,
the Council of Europe, ERICarts and a network of national
partners embarked on an
adventure to take up this challenge; the result being "Cultural
Policies in
The purpose of this paper
will be to present the overall approach and methods taken to
realise what has become one
of the largest e-content projects on cultural policies in the
world and which has created
a new "community of practice" for cultural policy experts in
into the overall
methodological grid inspiring the future development of indicators. Plans for
the development of a
monitoring function for the Compendium will be outlined.
Expertise and the Policy
Cycle
Dr. Jack Barkenbus
Experts can, and often do, play an important
role in environmental decision-making. An understanding of
this role, however, must be based firmly in
the political mileau in which decisions are made. Moreover, a
review of the role of expertise in decision
making is enhanced when it is viewed across the entire policy
spectrum and not just at one particular
point. The purpose of this write-up is to briefly elucidate the role of
expertise (defined broadly as specialized
knowledge and experience) in decision making across the policy
cycle. As such it provides a “mapping”
context or jumping-off point from which to launch further
investigation of the decision-making
process.
Political scientists devoted to public
policy issues have, since the early 1970s, used a fairly common
heuristic framework to provide conceptual
grounding for public-policy analysis. This framework consists
of discrete phases or stages associated with
the policy process (
have identified as many as seven stages in
the policy process, but the most conventional rendering cites only
four. The stages are usually arranged
sequentially, as depicted below, and include a feedback loop.
The Question of Interest
Group Influence
ANDREAS DU} R Politics,
DIRK DE BIEvVRE Political Science,
Introduction
Interest groups are a major channel through which citizens can express
their opinions to decision-makers. Their participation in
policymaking
may improve decision-making processes by supporting policies that are in
line with citizen preferences and blocking policies that solely reflect
the
interests of the governing elite. At the same time, however, intense
interest group pressures may make it difficult for policy-makers to
implement the most efficient policies since such policies often impose
costs on parts of the public. Competition among interest groups over the
distribution of economic gains may also slow down the rate of economic
growth. Finally, if some groups constantly win, interest
group politics may undermine the legitimacy of electorally accountable
decision making in a democracy.
Social Science Researchand
Public Policy: Narrowing the Divide
Meredith Edwards
Introduction
ublic policy as a discipline and as an area
of practice is heavily contested.
Definitions and approaches vary, and for our
purposes we take the
position that public policy addresses
societal problems and is about ‘what
governments do, why they do it and what
difference it makes’.2 To study public
policy is to attempt to formulate answers to
these questions, and that includes
attempting to understand the various processes
by which policy is developed.
Definitions of research also vary, depending
on the purpose at hand. Of
particular relevance here is the definition
used by Diane Stone, who considers
research:
..…as a codified, scholarly and professional
mode of knowledge
production that has its prime institutional
loci in universities, policy
analysis units of government departments or
international organisations
and private research institutes and produced
by academics, think-tank
experts and development professionals.3
Scholarly research is not the only – or
perhaps even the primary – source of
evidence available to policy-makers.
‘Evidence-based’ policy, or even
‘evidence-aware’ policy,4 will draw on
broader sources than the above
definition implies. In the context of its
agenda for modernising government, the
UK Cabinet Office has stated:
Good quality policy making depends on high
quality information, derived
from a variety of sources: expert knowledge;
existing domestic and
international research; existing statistics;
stakeholder consultation;
evaluation of previous policies; new
research, if appropriate; or
secondary sources, including the internet.
To be effective as possible,
evidence needs to be provided by, and/or be
interpreted by, experts in
the field working closely with policy
makers.5
Notwithstanding the critical importance of
engaging a wide range of
stakeholders and citizens in the policy
process, the main concern here is the
role of scholarly research findings in that
process. Consideration of the
literature available concerning the
relationship between such research (with a
focus on the social sciences) and public
policy and its processes, can suggest
directions to assist the best use of
research in developing public policy.
The next section of this paper addresses the
dimension of the problem
confronting policy makers and researchers as
they search for ways to address
the shortcomings in the research–policy
relationship. Different conceptions of
the research-policy dynamic are examined.
Next, a policy ‘framework’ in
practice is considered, including a case
study example of how research and
researchers have been used to good effect at
various stages in the policy
process. Finally, elements of the
research-policy nexus are brought together
by articulating lessons and more specific
suggestions, drawing on some
international experiences.
THE CASE FOR INCREASED
TAXATION
Michael Keating
Introduction
The great American jurist, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, is reputed to have said, ‘I
like to pay taxes. In this way I buy
civilisation.’ The contrast with the present
public debate about taxation in
have never been popular, but as the United
Kingdom Commission on Taxation
and Citizenship (2000) has noted, today they
are usually described in terms
that make them seem fundamentally illegitimate.
For example, taxation is
typically referred to as the ‘tax burden’,
as if by definition it represents an
unwarranted load that would be better
lightened.
In reality taxation reflects our mutual
obligation to one another as citizens.
Taxation underpins an inclusive society and
is an efficient way of paying for
those services that enrich society and are
collectively consumed. Moreover,
many of the services paid for by taxation
add to our quality of life and are a
natural way to spend our incomes as they
increase through economic growth.
We have, however, become increasingly
schizophrenic, wanting increased
access to more and better services on the
one hand and less taxation on the
other. Unfortunately the link between
taxation and citizenship has been broken.
The result is a lop-sided debate about
taxation, with governments under
constant pressure to promise lower taxes
with little regard for the
consequences. In the end these promises are
frequently exposed as hollow,
and public cynicism about the political
process further increases.
Interestingly, resistance to taxation has
not always been a key determinant of
Australian public policy. During the 1960s
the outlays and receipts of all
Australian governments (Commonwealth and
State combined) rose fairly
continuously relative to GDP (Chart 1). But
government outlays spurted ahead
during the mid 1970s. Possibly as a reaction
to the speed of the accompanying
increase in taxation, ever since the Whitlam
Government Australian politics
has operated on the assumption that taxes
should never be increased and
preferably wound back. Thus the Fraser
Government was expected to reduce
taxation, and has been regularly criticised
for its failure ever since. The Hawke
Government committed itself to the ‘fiscal
trilogy’, which was intended to limit
the size of government by allowing no
further increase in the level of taxation
and expenditure. The Howard Government has
tried to keep taxation within a
ceiling ratio of taxation to GDP established
in 1996-97, combined with a target
of wiping out public debt, rather than
maximising the nation’s net worth.
Wages Policy in an Era of
Deepening Wage Inequality
Chris Briggs, John Buchanan
and Ian Watson
Introduction
as
this paper goes to press,
a major overhaul, an ‘industrial revolution’
in the words of the Sydney Morning Herald.1
The Howard government’s control of the
Senate from July 2005 is leading to sweeping
changes in the legislative framework
governing industrial relations in
Federal and State level.2 Not only will
these changes see attempts made to wind back
collective bargaining and union influence at
workplaces, but those workers outside the
bargaining sector will see major changes in
how their wages are set. For those currently
dependent on the Safety Net Adjustment (SNA)
Review conducted annually by the
Australian Industrial Relations Commission
(AIRC), the prospects are grim.
The government proposes establishing a ‘Fair
Pay Commission’ which will comprise five
members, including two academic economists,
a business representative and a union or
employee representative. Such a commission
is likely to be dominated by neo-liberal
thinking, an outlook which sees pay
increases automatically costing jobs. It is unlikely that
low paid workers can expect the kinds of
wage increases they have gained in recent years
to continue under such a regime. For those
workers outside the bargaining sector and
dependent on individual contracts (either
formal or informal), the growing reach of
commercial law principles, rather than
labour law principles, will also see them further
disadvantaged in the future.
In this paper we set out a framework for
wages policy in an era of deepening wage
inequality - the situation
was at the turn of the last century that
many of the industrial relations institutions and
principles which now stand on the edge of
dissolution were first established. We have
argued elsewhere that these institutions
have generally served
much unevenness in their outcomes.3 However,
the economic and labour market realities
which these institutions sought to regulate
have changed profoundly, particularly during
the last twenty years. We would argue that
in reacting to the sweeping changes which the
Howard government will unleash, we should
not look nostalgically backward. Rather, we
need to develop a framework which grapples
with these new realities, which recognises the true
worth of current and past institutions, and
which highlights the policy gaps that must still be
plugged.
We do not provide here a comprehensive
overview of wage determination in
an overview of economic policy more
generally. Rather, we aim to integrate a number of
disparate threads whose logic is often seen
in isolation. We draw the connections between
developments in commercial law and the wages
system, between the welfare-to-work debate
and low wages, and between life-cycle issues
and wage setting. Moreover, we also engage in a
modest amount of (philosophical)
‘under-labouring’ by clearing the terrain of some of its
confusing terminology and its anachronistic
dualisms - unhelpful dichotomies like ‘centralised
versus decentralised’ and ‘regulated versus
unregulated’. We propose a new concept -
coordinated flexibility - as one way of
moving forward in this area.
The Policy Making Process and Models
for Public Policy Analysis
Giovanni
E. Reyes
Graduate
Introduction
The main objective of this document is to present a summary
about two major topics: a) the process to formulate public policy
decisions, and b) the principal methods to evaluate the impact
and effects of a public policy. Both
areas constitute core aspects of public
policy analysis. Here I present their
major characteristics followed by a brief discussion concerning their social
implications and methodology.
The term government is consider here from a Weberian
perspective, that it is the main social institution which gives national social
units its coherence, representation, and a leading role. Its power is based either on a) tradition; or
b) on charismatic features of leaders; or c) on a law and rationalistic
basis. From this perspective, bureaucracy
plays an important role in being a fundamental part of the public sphere, and
its main "technostructural" column.
Bureaucratic power is mainly evident in the stages of implementing and
evaluating public policy. [1][1]
This document has three main parts. At the beginning we are going to focus on the
nature of public problems, how these
problems are different from the private sector problems, and what are their
main repercussions. A good understanding
of this section is pertinent to the comprehension of the next chapters, and
the main sections of this exposition.
The middle section is devoted to the discussion of the
process to formulate public policies.
Here it is important to keep in mind the influence from the real powers
in society, namely the business sector,
the international interest, and also some institutions, such as political
organizations, especial interest groups,
churches, universities, and the armed forces.
Complementary it is also important to be aware of the processes derived
from the formal powers in society, namely national officials which are elected
to represent society as a whole in a democratic nation.[2][2]
The final section will focus on the main methods to study
the impact from public policy decisions.
We do not expect to cover all the methods, but at least to present the
fundamental methodologies and their main features. References respect to the implementation
process for public policy making is presented at the end of this document. I will finish with a general presentation concerning
the methodology for a public policy analysis situation. In this last part the objective is to
synthesize the analytical aspects discussed in the other chapter of this
document.
Bounded
Rationality and political Science
Bryan
Jones
One
Size Does Not fit all: contingency Theory Approach to Policy-Making
Geneviève Bouchard (Institute for Research on
Public Policy)
Barbara
Wake Carroll (
A
paper presented a the CPSA meeting (Public administration section
The
work of managers, of scientists, of engineers, of lawyers--the work that steers
the course of society and its economic and governmental organizations--is largely
work of making decisions and solving problems. It is work of choosing issues
that require attention, setting goals, finding or designing suitable courses of
action, and evaluating and choosing among alternative actions. The first three
of these activities--fixing agendas, setting goals, and designing actions--are
usually called problem solving; the last, evaluating and choosing, is
usually called decision making. Nothing is more important for the
well-being of society than that this work be performed effectively, that we
address successfully the many problems requiring attention at the national
level (the budget and trade deficits, AIDS, national security, the mitigation
of earthquake damage), at the level of business organizations (product improvement,
efficiency of production, choice of investments), and at the level of our
individual lives (choosing a career or a school, buying a house).
The
abilities and skills that determine the quality of our decisions and problem
solutions are stored not only in more than 200 million human heads, but also in
tools and machines, and especially today in those machines we call computers.
This fund of brains and its attendant machines form the basis of our American
ingenuity, an ingenuity that has permitted
There
are no more promising or important targets for basic scientific research than
understanding how human minds, with and without the help of computers, solve
problems and make decisions effectively, and improving our problem-solving and
decision-making capabilities. In psychology, economics, mathematical
statistics, operations research, political science, artificial intelligence,
and cognitive science, major research gains have been made during the past half
century in understanding problem solving and decision making. The progress
already achieved holds forth the promise of exciting new advances that will
contribute substantially to our nation's capacity for dealing intelligently
with the range of issues, large and small, that confront us.
Much
of our existing knowledge about decision making and problem solving, derived
from this research, has already been put to use in a wide variety of
applications, including procedures used to assess drug safety, inventory
control methods for industry, the new expert systems that embody artificial
intelligence techniques, procedures for modeling energy and environmental
systems, and analyses of the stabilizing or destabilizing effects of
alternative defense strategies. (Application of the new inventory control
techniques, for example, has enabled American corporations to reduce their
inventories by hundreds of millions of dollars since World War II without
increasing the incidence of stockouts.) Some of the knowledge gained through
the research describes the ways in which people actually go about making
decisions and solving problems; some of it prescribes better methods, offering
advice for the improvement of the process.
Central
to the body of prescriptive knowledge about decision making has been the theory
of subjective expected utility (SEU), a sophisticated mathematical model of
choice that lies at the foundation of most contemporary economics, theoretical
statistics, and operations research. SEU theory defines the conditions of
perfect utility-maximizing rationality in a world of certainty or in a world in
which the probability distributions of all relevant variables can be provided
by the decision makers. (In spirit, it might be compared with a theory of ideal
gases or of frictionless bodies sliding down inclined planes in a vacuum.) SEU
theory deals only with decision making; it has nothing to say about how to
frame problems, set goals, or develop new alternatives
Engaging Citizens
Online for Better Policy-making
Introduction
Today, all OECD
Member countries recognise new information and communication technologies
(ICTs) to be powerful tools for enhancing citizen engagement in public
policy-making. Despite the limited experience to date, some initial lessons for
online citizen engagement in policy-making are emerging:
Technology is an
enabler not the solution. Integration with traditional, “offline” tools for access
to information, consultation and public participation in policy-making is
needed to make the most of ICTs.
The online
provision of information is an essential precondition for engagement, but
quantity does not mean quality. Active promotion and competent moderation are
key to effective online consultations.
The barriers to
greater online citizen engagement in policy-making are cultural, organisational
and constitutional not technological. Overcoming these challenges will require
greater efforts to raise awareness and capacity both within governments and
among citizens.
This Policy Brief highlights policy lessons from current experience
in OECD member countries and suggests 10 guiding principles for successful
online consultation. It builds on the results of an initial survey of OECD
Member countries published in Citizens as Partners (OECD, 2001) and a
set of country case studies collected in 2002. It does not deal with online
service delivery nor with ICT applications to elections (e.g. e-voting)
although some of the issues discussed here, such as providing information
online, may be relevant for both. Finally, it identifies five key challenges
for online citizen engagement in policy-making.
POLICY
INTEGRATION FOR COMPLEX POLICY PROBLEMS:
WHAT, WHY AND
HOW
Helen
Briassoulis, professor
Abstract
Contemporary policy
problems concern complex, cross-cutting socio-environmental
issues that,
combined with changing environmental, socio-economic and political
conditions and
the quest for sustainable development, place new demands on policy
making. The
principal problem is that the policy market does not provide a
satisfactory
supply of arrangements to meet this demand. Policies are often found to
overlap or be
in conflict and the policy system is unduly complicated, producing
inefficient or
even ineffective solutions and generating new problems. Policy
integration
(PI) comes as a potentially suitable answer to address this institutional
misfit and
facilitate the transition to sustainable development. The paper negotiates
selected
conceptual, theoretical, methodological and practical issues concerning
policy
integration with a special focus on complex policy problems, occasionally
using the
combat against desertification in Mediterranean Europe as an illustrative
example.
Although the discussion refers primarily to European Union policies, it is
relevant to
other spatial/organizational levels as well.
The first
section of the paper discusses the distinguishing characteristics of
contemporary
policy problems, drawing on complexity and institutionalist thinking,
sketches briefly
the changing context of policy making and the quest for sustainable
development,
and offers a brief account of desertification and the associated policy
needs. The
second section, drawing on the pertinent literature, attempts a
comprehensive
conceptual exploration of the notion of policy integration, proposes a
particular
conceptualization of PI and argues for the need for PI to handle complex
policy problems
especially at higher spatial/organizational levels such as the EU. The
third section
suggests a methodological framework to analyze PI holistically as well
as to serve as
a basis for the development of policy integration schemes. The last
section offers
preliminary ideas for the design of PI schemes and suggests future
research
directions.
Garbage Can Models:
Multiple Stream Theory
Overview
The "garbage can model" emerged as
part of a critique of rational and neo-rational
models of public administration, such as
those of Herbert Simon (Cohen, March, &
Olsen, 1972). Rather than portray
decision-making in public administration as a matter of
rational choice, John Kingdon and other
theorists in this school have described it as a
process characterized by organizational
anarchy. Organizations do not function like
computers solving optimization problems.
Rather they function like garbage cans into
which a mix of problems and possible
solutions are poured, with the precise mix
determining decision outcomes. The mix
reflects how many decision areas are handled
by the organization, how people have access
to the organization, the decision load of the
organization, and the
organization's level or resources, time, energy, and attention.
FOUNDATIONS AND PUBLIC
POLICYMAKING: A Conceptual Framework
James M. Ferris
Michael Mintrom
Executive Summary
A critical element of effective philanthropy
involves leveraging foundation assets − money,
knowledge and connections − for
solving public problems. In this vein, foundations face
opportunities to maximize their impact on
public problem solving by deploying the full range of
their assets to shape public policy. In
fact, as governmental decision making becomes
increasingly devolved and decentralized,
increasing opportunities have emerged for foundations
to engage the policymaking process.
Foundations can leverage their assets to
make a difference in policy areas of interest to them by:
• Funding activities that can potentially
have significant effects on public policy.
• Creating stores of knowledge that can
affect how others think about policy issues.
• Forging networks among individuals and
organizations, bringing their knowledge, resources,
and skills to bear on policy debates.
• Building good relations with influential
policymakers.
• Developing reputations as credible,
reliable policy players.
However, like all players in the
policymaking process, foundations can improve the chances of
attaining their goals by acting
strategically. This requires that foundations pursue forms of
policy engagement that are consistent with
their missions, within reach given their resources,
within the bounds of what is legally
possible, and meaningful in the context of the policymaking
landscape. Given the decision to engage
public policy, foundations face the challenge of
deciding where to engage the policy, how to
engage it, and how to deploy their assets.
Foundations have the potential to impact
public policy at a myriad of points. There are many
stages in the policymaking
process, from problem definition to agenda setting, and from policy
formulation to policy implementation and
evaluation. There are various venues for public
decision making, from ballot initiatives to
the legislative process, and from administrative rules
to judicial review. And, there are a variety
of jurisdictions in a federal system of government –
local, state, and national. Thus, foundations
pursuing particular policy goals make choices – if
not explicitly, then certainly implicitly –
concerning jurisdiction, venue, and stage. These
choices emerge from a set of feasible
options given the institutional structure of the policy
domain, e.g., schools, health, smart growth,
and organizational imperatives of each foundation.
As foundations work to determine where and
when to engage in public policymaking, they face
the additional challenge of determining what
forms of engagement would be most effective,
given their particular circumstances.
Foundations interested in public problem solving work to
understand problems and seek solutions.
However, the forms
of engagement noted above are correlated to
different levels of intensity and require different
levels of commitment. Foundations often fund
work of policy relevance, including policy
analyses, pilot programs, and technical
support. However, such activities alone are not likely to
have much impact. Foundations that intend to
shape public policy therefore need to consider
playing more active roles in influencing the
policy environment through the building of
knowledge and networks. Such actions can
help to raise the public profile of problems and
increase the chances that policymakers will
place them on the policy agenda. At times when
more active engagement in policymaking is
desired, foundations often use their positions within
policy networks to link with policymakers
directly.
Once choices are made over where and how to
engage the policy process, foundations then face
choices concerning how to deploy their
grantmaking assets: What should be funded? What form
should it take? To the extent that
foundation engagement is limited to funding policy-relevant
work, grantmaking tends to be programmatic
and limited in duration. In those instances in
which foundations are willing to commit to
efforts to shape the policy environment, their
grantmaking typically takes the form of
operating support and of longer duration grants. This
approach casts grantees as partners in the
enterprise of policy engagement. The most active role
for foundations involves choosing to engage
with policymakers themselves by directly devoting
resources to their own activities such as
convening policymakers and policy experts and
distributing reports.
Thus, foundation engagement with public
policy requires that foundations assess how such a role
will enable them to pursue their mission
given their asset base, programmatic focus, and
geographic scope. Given a decision to embrace
a role in public policy, foundations need to
determine where and how to engage the
process and shape their grantmaking activities so as to
achieve impact in the desired policy
efforts. Such efforts require foundations to accept a level of
risk and uncertainty since foundations are
but one of many influential outsiders, their efforts are
often pursued through nonprofit partners,
and there is a considerable amount of luck in getting
the various policy forces to align. But
foundations are not likely to realize big policy payoffs
unless they are willing to
take such calculated chances.
Governance: A Garbage Can
Perspective
B. Guy Peters
Abstract
As I worked through the revisions of this
paper I realized that I was to a great extent
returning to the dominant themes from one of
the first books I ever published. This was Can
Government Go Bankrupt?, written with Richard Rose
and published in 1978. That book and
this paper both deal with the authority of
governments and their capacity to govern. Dror
(2001) provides a very detailed analysis of
governance capacity, but much of that analysis
will actually come down to the presence of
legitimacy for the governing system, and the
capacity to use steering instruments
effectively to reach desired collective goals. The issues
to be raised in this paper are concentrated
primarily on governance questions at the level of
central governments and multi-level interactions,
rather than of the international system, but
much of the same logic of
sovereignty/authority is in operation.
A Model of Choice for
Public Policy
Bryan D. Jones
Frank R. Baumgartner
ABSTRACT
Punctuated equilibrium is supposed to be a
viable alternative to incrementalism, and, indeed,
the authors of the model have sometimes made
such claims. But punctuated equilibrium
was developed to explain change in policy
subsystems and does not serve as a complete
model of policy choice in the same way that
incrementalism has served. This article develops
a full-blown and viable model of choice for
public policy based on disproportionate
information processing. Its dynamics are
based in the allocation of political attention to policy
topics and the manner in which political
systems process information. The model leads
directly to outcomes that are consistent
with punctuated equilibrium and are not generally
consistent with incrementalism.
Incrementalism, however, may be deduced from the model
as a special case. The model is best tested
using stochastic process approaches.
Incrementalism logically must yield a normal
distribution of outcomes, but disproportionate
information processing yields leptokurtic
outcomes. Adding institutional constraints only
makes the stochastic process implications
more severe. To support our arguments, we
present both static and dynamic simulations
of these processes. We also show that these
simulations are consistent
with observations of
Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes
AN INTERTEMPORAL TRANSACTIONS FRAMEWORK
Pablo T. Spiller, Ernesto Stein and Mariano
Tommasi
Policy economists’ natural
inclination is to emphasize policy recipes as ways to improve people’s
well-being, in developed and developing countries alike. The outcome of this effort in developing
countries, however, has often been disappointing. After thirty or more years of major reforms
throughout the developing world, only a handful of the then developing
countries have moved into, or are in the course to, join the first league. This project is based on the belief that the
potential of policy recipes depends on the quality of the policy-making process
onto which those recipes will be applied.
Thus, only through improvements in policy-making processes (or through a
better understanding of these processes when policies are designed) can we
expect sustainable improvements in public policies and in their impact on
development objectives.
What
determines a society’s capacity to adjust its policies in the face of changed
circumstances or in the face of the failure of previous policies? What determines the ability to sustain
policies long enough to create an environment of credibility and hence to
elicit the adequate responses from economic agents? More generally, what determines the capacity
to decide and instrument effective policies?
These are the types of questions that this project will try to address.
The purpose of this paper
is to develop a framework to analyze the way in which political institutions
affect policy outcomes. Within the
framework proposed here, the policymaking process plays a central role in the
link between political institutions and policy outcomes. Institutions do not affect outcomes directly,
but rather through their impact on the process by which policies are designed,
approved and implemented. We place
particular emphasis on the way in which some features of the process of making
policy in each country affect some characteristics of the resulting
policies. Those features of the
policymaking process are, in turn, traced back to their institutional
determinants.
BRAZILIAN POLICYMAKING:
WHICH MODEL FITS BEST
Silmara Cimbalista
Economical and Social Development
INTRODUCTION
This essay will review some methodological
studies about public policies and
discuss some authors to make good use of
classical models first elaborated in the
seventies.
These studies can be found in recent and
intense production of Anglo-Saxon
political science and they discuss the act
of public policymaking.
This is the principle point of this essay to
discuss and reflect on the process of
how to do make and implement public
policies independent of the kind of government.
Based in this main objective, the intention
of this paper is to show and reflect
on the interrelationships between agencies
and actors in the political system and process
i.e. how these external variables influence
the political process in government.
An important point to emphasize is how the
theories and concepts are focused
in this essay - the main intention is
eminently to obtain basis of empirical studies about
public policies to better understand how governments
make public policies and how
governments can fulfill the
expectations of their citizens.
The first part of this essay will point at
the basic concepts of politics and
public policies in order to subsidize and
provide the context for the whole study.
The second part will try to show some classic
and recent models of public
policies prioritizing basically the three
important phases around the public policy
process as follows: agenda; formulation and
implementation of public policies.
The third part will explore the Brazilian
political system, relating historical
perspectives, political representation,
structure, process and policy process
performance.
The last part of this essay will reflect on which
model of public policy well fits
the Brazilian political system and its
citizens.
This study does not have the goal of
proposing solutions for the Brazilian
political system, but to
supply and suggest alternatives and reflections about this subject.
PUBLIC SECTOR POLICYMAKING
Stuart Birks
Director of Centre for Public Policy Evaluation
This
paper investigates the nature of some aspects of the policymaking process. Questions
are raised as to the effectiveness of this process, taking examples from the
consultations and submissions process, with the associated analysis and use of
results, and methods of measuring outcomes. It relates closely to the issue of
the quality of policy advice and the level of debate. While examples come from
the social policy/family law area, they relate closely to economics in terms of
issues such as the measurement of outputs/outcomes, public choice and
expression of preferences, and the information required for unbiased policy
evaluation.
Public Management Policymaking in
Niels Ejersbo
Department of Political Science,
Carsten Greve,
Abstract:
This paper examines public management policymaking in
Value Rationality in Policy
Analysis
David Thacher
Assistant Professor of Public Policy and
Urban Planning
ABSTRACT
The policy analysis literature has
increasingly discussed how research and analysis
promote value rationality as well as
instrumental rationality. This paper argues that existing
discussions of value rationality in policy
analysis exhibit a bias towards abstraction in their
conception of ethical knowledge, and it
proposes an alternative conception that makes room for
neglected approaches to value rational
policy analysis. Drawing from the philosophical literature
about ethical reasoning, I argue that good
conceptions of policy goals are those that satisfy a test
of reflective equilibrium, in that they are
consistent with a wide range of firm convictions that
analysts and stakeholders have—not just the
abstract principles of political theory like justice,
liberty, and the rule of law that the policy
literature has emphasized, but also concrete judgments
about what should be done in particular
cases, as well as mid-level normative principles specific
to particular policy issues. This view
suggests that policy research can (and does) contribute to
value rationality not only through canonical
forms of moral and political philosophy but also
through the development and analysis of case
studies, as well as through engagement with
discourses of applied ethics.
Keywords:
Values, rationality, policy analysis
Inefficiency in Legislative Policy-Making: A
Dynamic Analysis
Marco Battaglini
Department of Economics
Abstract
This paper develops an infinite horizon model of
public spending and taxation in which policy decisions
are determined by legislative bargaining. The
policy space incorporates both productive and distributive
public spending and distortionary taxation. The
productive spending is investing in a public good that
benefits all citizens (e.g., national defense or air
quality) and the distributive spending is district-specific
transfers (e.g., pork barrel spending). Investment
in the public good creates a dynamic linkage across
policy-making periods. The analysis explores the
dynamics of legislative policy choices, focusing on the
e.ciency of the steady state level of taxation and
allocation of tax revenues. The model sheds new light
on the e.ciency of legislative policy-making and
has a number of novel positive implications.
The Question of Interest Group Influence
ANDREAS DU} R Politics,
DIRK DE BIEvVRE Political Science,
Introduction
Interest groups are a major channel through which
citizens can express
their opinions to decision-makers.. Their
participation in policymaking
may improve decision-making processes by supporting
policies that are in
line with citizen preferences and blocking policies
that solely reflect the
interests of the governing elite. At the same time,
however, intense
interest group pressures may make it difficult for
policy-makers to
implement the most efficient policies since such
policies often impose
costs on parts of the public. Competition among
interest groups over the
distribution of economic gains may also slow down
the rate of economic
growth .Finally, if some groups constantly win,
interest
group politics may undermine the legitimacy of
electorally accountable
decision making in a democracy.
A normative assessment of the role of interest
groups in democracies
thus crucially depends upon how much power interest
groups have, and
how power is distributed among different groups.
Moreover, an understanding
of the role of interest groups in the policymaking
process is
essential for explanations of policy outcomes.
Finally, analysts trying to
advise government on policies also have to be aware
of the power of
interest groups, as this factor determines the
political feasibility of
different suggestions. In short, research into
variations in influence across
groups and political systems is important for a
series of reasons.
Recognising this fact, political scientists have
long engaged in theoretical
debates on this issue.
Social Science Research and
Public Policy: Narrowing the Divide
Meredith Edwards
Introduction
public policy as a discipline and as an area of
practice is heavily contested.
Definitions and approaches vary, and for our
purposes we take the
position that public policy addresses societal
problems and is about ‘what
governments do, why they do it and what difference it
makes’.2 To study public
policy is to attempt to formulate answers to these
questions, and that includes
attempting to understand the various processes by
which policy is developed.
Definitions of research also vary, depending on the
purpose at hand. Of
particular relevance here is the definition used by
Diane Stone, who considers
research:
..…as a codified, scholarly and professional mode
of knowledge
production that has its prime institutional loci in
universities, policy
analysis units of government departments or
international organisations
and private research institutes and produced by
academics, think-tank
experts and development professionals.3
Scholarly research is not the only – or perhaps
even the primary – source of
evidence available to policy-makers.
‘Evidence-based’ policy, or even
‘evidence-aware’ policy,4 will draw on broader
sources than the above
definition implies. In the context of its agenda
for modernising government, the
UK Cabinet Office has stated:
Good quality policy making depends on high quality
information, derived
from a variety of sources: expert knowledge;
existing domestic and
international research; existing statistics;
stakeholder consultation;
evaluation of previous policies; new research, if
appropriate; or
secondary sources, including the internet. To be
effective as possible,
evidence needs to be provided by, and/or be
interpreted by, experts in
the field working closely with policy makers.5
Notwithstanding the critical importance of engaging
a wide range of
stakeholders and citizens in the policy process,
the main concern here is the
role of scholarly research findings in that
process. Consideration of the
literature available concerning the relationship
between such research (with a
focus on the social sciences) and public policy and
its processes, can suggest
directions to assist the best use of research in
developing public policy.
The next section of this paper addresses the
dimension of the problem
confronting policy makers and researchers as they search
for ways to address
Toward a French
entrepreneurial model for public policy
implementation.
Yannick Le Guern, Professor
in Advancia,
Abstract
In
poor results until an
entrepreneurial model of public policy implementation be developed.
This model is based on
process analysis, actor’s involvement in changes, and
construction of collective
entrepreneurial representations. The model’s originality comes
from its maieutics
dimension which allow politicians to avoid traditional resistances to
changes modifying the way
people see, think and act.
This model called
Processual Action Entrepreneuship Model (PAEM) allows to
understand sociological
relations of power, to anticipate potential conflicts due to
antagonist interests,
rationalities, purposes or attempts. It proposes actions to transcend
and avoid these problems,
developing a systemic entrepreneurial organization based on
autonomy, responsibility,
involvement, initiatives, management and steering committees.
We will analyse how this
model allows to reveal organizational and managerial
dysfunctions and how it
gives indications to introduce entrepreneurship in organizations,
in order to contribute to
the improvement of the organization’s global performance and
success of changes in a
social, durable and ethic perspective.
Keywords :
Processual analyze,
Entrepreneurship, Organization, Strategy, Public Policy
implementation.
Modeling
differences: An application of the logic
model of public policy analysis
Santa
falcone
Agenda-Setting Dynamics in
Stuart N. Soroka
Introduction
Public concern about
unemployment tracks the unemployment rate, whereas
the salience of
environmental issues or the public debt is only intermittently
related to real-world
conditions. Why do media, public, and policy agendas
move together on certain
issues but not on others? To what extent can such
trends be explained by
real-world factors? To what extent are they the product
of media effects, public
concern, or attention from policymakers? These
are the questions addressed
in this book.
An appreciation of the
different ways in which media, the public, and
policymakers interact is
central to our understanding of political systems.
These interactions do not
simply tell us something about politics – they are
politics. This book,
accordingly, focuses on these relationships. It represents
one effort to understand
(and model) the Canadian political system; in doing
so, it seeks to contribute
to our understanding of media influence on the
public and policymakers, of
the connection between the public and elected
officials, and of the way
in which everyday politics works in
elsewhere. Evidence
presented below suggests that a single, relatively simple
agenda-setting framework is a particularly
valuable (and considerably flexible)
tool for understanding the
day-to-day relationships between media,
the public, and
policymakers.
This book tells the story
of eight issues – AIDS, crime, debt/deficit, environment,
inflation, national unity,
taxes, and unemployment – in
from 1985 to 1995. In doing
so, it points to the value of using issues as a
unit of analysis; the
importance of drawing together work on media content,
public opinion change, and
public policymaking; and the strength of
an agenda-setting framework
in accomplishing both these objectives. To a
large extent, this work can
be regarded as a study into the value of an agendasetting
framework in investigating
media-public-policy relationships. It asserts
that, by using issues as
the unit of analysis, an agenda-setting framework
allows us to both merge
disparate fields of political science and empirically
map the structure of
political communications.
Cultural
policy
Robin
Trotter
Transportation
models in the policy-making process
Quantitative analysis and public policy making
c. m. Drury
Theatres of innovation:
Political communication
and contemporary public
policy
Dr. Michael Crozier
Department of Political
Science
INTRODUCTION
Over the last few decades
there has been decisive transformation in the modes of
political communication. In
the postwar era, the media, and especially television,
delivered political information
to a public that was assumed to be homogenous and
receptive. By contrast, in
contemporary society, the avenues of political
communication are
multiplying, and are aimed at audiences that are diverse,
complex and fragmented. The
new modes and means of communication have hailed,
among other things, a rapid
acceleration in the news cycle along with a
corresponding contraction
of political and journalistic timeframes. In addition,
developments in information
and communication technologies have created a global
reach that recasts the
character and dynamics of political and cultural environments.
This shift in political
communication has profound political and sociological effects.
Of particular significance
is the fact that ‘power relations among key message
providers and receivers are
being rearranged; the culture of political journalism is
being transformed; and
conventional meanings of “democracy” and “citizenship” are
being questioned and
rethought’ (Blumler & Kavanagh 1999:209).
A crucial part of this
process is the growing professionalization of political advocacy
and advice, as governments,
political parties, and political actors have become
engrossed by the imperative
of professional communication. The earlier focus was
simply on informing and persuading
the public. Now the prime emphasis is
concerned with managing the
media, media image and diverse audience
(constituency) sentiment.
As a consequence, political consultants and communication
professionals play an
integral role in the political calculus driving party competition.
The expanding role of
professional political communications in political processes
and the political system is
part of a far more profound trend in which the media has
become the space of
contemporary politics, rather than simply a medium (e.g.
Castells 2000, 2001;
Edwards 2001; Luhmann 2000; Meyer 2002). A critical dimension
of this larger trend is
that media logics begin to impinge on the political system and
its specific set of
operational rules. For instance, while political deliberation and
processes require time to
develop, media logic curtails time according to an
imperative of immediacy and
abbreviation, reducing issues and debate to discrete
discontinuous items that
are readily subject to fad opinion formation. Consequently,
the more politics is
absorbed into the space of media, the more political action is
legitimised via the rules
of the media system. In this scenario, political consultants
and professional
communicators are no longer backroom advisors but shift to centre
stage (Johnson 2001; Morris
1999). Consequently there is a widespread recognition
among government,
opposition parties, non-government organizations, pressure
groups, and business that
to participate effectively in the political game requires
professional media and
advocacy management (Novotny 2000).
Communities, Social Capital
and Public Policy: Literature Review
David Johnson, Bruce Headey
and Ben Jensen
Melbourne Institute of
Applied Economic and Social Research
The
Abstract
In this paper we explore
the meaning and relevance of community and social capital, working
mainly in economics though drawing
on other disciplines. Economic studies of community
have focussed in one of two
main areas, neighbourhood studies and regional economics. We
discuss the contributions
of both to understanding about communities.
In public discourse the
concept of social capital has emerged as a resonant measure of
community strength. Our
review suggests that is a slippery concept with ambivalent and
sometimes ambiguous
interpretation. Nevertheless it has been useful in suggesting guidelines
for development of public policy
in relation to community. The relationship between social
capital and the family,
education, ethnicity, democracy, health, happiness, crime and
economic performance are
considered in this working paper. International comparative data
is used to evaluate social
capital in
review suggest four
principles for measuring social capital; distinguish between structure and
content, specify the arena
or area of activity to which a measure applies, specify the level of
aggregation at which the
measure applies and assess the net benefit of social capital
empirically.
We explored policies for
strengthening community in
local area initiatives and
proposals at the national level are considered. Issues of governance
are discussed in relation
to the application of policy to communities and the review concludes
with some suggestions for
further research.
Policy Evaluation in the
Philip Davies PhD
Government Chief Social
Researcher’s Office
Abstract
The United Kingdom
Government uses a wide range of evaluation methods to ensure that
policies, programmes and
public services are planned and delivered as effectively and
efficiently as possible. A
major driving force for high quality policy evaluation in the
the Government’s commitment
to evidence-based policy making. This requires policy
makers, and those who
implement policies, to utilise the best available evidence from national
statistics, academic
research, economic theory, pilots, evaluations of past policies,
commissioned research and
systematic consultation with delivery agents. The Government’s
strategy for public
spending and taxation also provides the context within which policy
evaluation takes place in
the
The paper reviews the types
of evaluation that are used by the UK Government, including
impact evaluation,
implementation evaluation, economic evaluation, and the use of descriptive
and inductive statistics
for evaluation purposes. The use of Performance Management for the
allocation and
accountability of resources by the UK Government is described, as is the
machinery that has been developed
in the
The paper concludes by
considering the role of factors other than evidence and policy
evaluation in the
The Power of Why: Engaging
the Goal Paradox in Program Evaluation
Victor J. Friedman
Jay Rothman
The Aria Group, Inc.
Bill Withers
R&B, Inc.
Abstract:
Clearly defined and
measurable goals are commonly considered prerequisites for
effective evaluation. Goal
setting, however, presents a paradox to evaluators because it takes place
at the interface of
rationality and values. The objective of this article is to demonstrate a
method
for unlocking this paradox
by making goal setting a process of evaluating goals, not simply defining
them. Goals can be
evaluated by asking program stakeholders why their goals are important
to them. Systematic inquiry
into goals also prepares the ground for setting consensual goals that
express what stakeholders
really care about. This article describes the method, provides a case
illustration, offers
guidelines for practice, and discusses the method in the context of the
evaluation
literature on goals and
goal setting.
Keywords: goal
setting; evaluating goals; values inquiry
POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN
POOR COUNTRIES
Jan-Erik Lane,
Svante Ersson,
ABSTRACT
During the 1990s several
alarming reports have been filed concerning policy failures in Third
World countries. They
indicate that globalisation and the structural adjustment policies of the
World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund have reduced the capacity of government
to conduct education and
social policies that counteract poverty. Here we suggest an
alternative explanation
focusing upon internal factors within a
there is the risk of a
poverty trap where a low level of economic output implies a low level of
human development. Second,
there is the danger of corruption, where political instability
dissipates any advances in
economic growth.
Strategy Content and
Organizational Performance: An Empirical Analysis
Rhys Andrews
George A .
Richard M .
Th is study presents the .
rst empirical test of the proposition
that strategy content is a
key determinant of
organizational performance
in the public sector. Strategy
content comprises two
dimensions: strategic stance (the
extent to which an
organization is a prospector, defender,
or reactor) and strategic
actions (the relative emphasis on
changes in markets,
services, revenues, external relationships,
and internal
characteristics). Data were drawn
from a multiple-informant
survey of 119 English local
authorities. Measures of
strategy content are included in
a multivariate model of
interauthority variations in
performance. Th e
statistical results show that strategy
content matters.
Organizational performance is positively
associated with a
prospector stance and negatively with a
reactor stance.
Furthermore, local authorities that seek
new markets for their
services are more likely to perform
well. Th ese results
suggest that measures of strategy
content must be included in
valid theoretical and
empirical models of
organizational performance in the
public sector.
What Direction Should the
Cluster Policy Take, Top-Down Implementation or
Bottom-Up Emergence?: The
Case of
Ana Colovic-Lamotte1 &
Emiko Tayanagi
Doctoral Student in
Management
Doctoral Student in Policy
Sciences
Abstract
In this paper we present a
study on how we can fill a gap between the topdown
governmental cluster policy
and the bottom-up emergence of the SMEs’ interfirm
networks. Such a gap has
become a serious problem for many countries and
regions struggling to
implement cluster policies as a new approach for the
economic growth. Practicing
both the review of the Cluster Plans designed by two
Japanese Ministries (METI
and MEXT) and the fieldwork within several
representative industrial
districts in
patterns and implications
within the new encounter between the implementation of
the top-down governmental
policy and the bottom-up emergence among the local
actors. The results of our
field study in the Japanese regions show various
“patterns” of local efforts
and some proactive phenomena emerging from their
independent standpoints or
unique interpretations of the top-down policy. Based on
the field study results and
the analysis of the cluster-related policies major
suggestions to the
policy-makers will be outlined.
Key words: Clusters,
Policy, Regions, Inter-firm networks, SMEs.
Bounded Rationality
Bryan D. Jones
Department of Political
Science
Abstract
Findings from behavioral
organization theory, behavioral decision theory, survey
research and experimental
economics leave no doubt about the failure of rational choice
as a descriptive model of human
behavior. But this does not mean that people and their
politics are irrational.
Bounded rationality asserts that decision-makers are intendedly
rational; that is, they are
goal-oriented and adaptive, but because of human cognitive and
emotional architecture,
they sometimes fail, occasionally in important decisions. Limits
on rational adaptation are
of two types: procedural limits, which are limits on how we go
about making decisions, and
substantive limits, which affect particular choices directly.
Rational analysis in
institutional contexts can serve as a standard for adaptive,
goal-oriented human
behavior. In relatively fixed task environments, such as asset
markets or elections, we
should be able to divide behavior into adaptive, goal-oriented
behavior (that is, rational
action) and behavior that is a consequence of processing limits,
and measure the deviation.
The extent of deviation is an empirical issue. These classes
are mutually exclusive and
exhaustive, and may be examined empirically in situations in
which actors make repeated
similar choices.
Policy Dynamics
Frank R. Baumgartner
Department of Political
Science
Bryan D. Jones
Department of Political
Science
Abstract
This paper presents the
theoretical introduction for a forthcoming edited book with the
same title. We review the
importance of a punctuated equilibrium view of the political system.
We note the importance of
negative feedback systems in inducing long periods of stability in
policy outcomes. We note
the fundamental linkage between these periods of stability and the
periodic punctuations that
arise from positive feedback systems when these come into operation.
We discuss the importance
of institutional design and institutional change in these processes.
Finally, we note the
importance of a complete view of politics. Both negative and positive
feedback systems are
fundamental to the nature of politics; they should be fundamental to our
theories of politics as
well.
Bringing Policy
Development to the Public and the Public to Policy Development
A Global
Concept paper
by the Internet Governance Project1
Introduction
This paper
proposes a Global Alliance for ICT as a successor to the UNICT Task Force.
It advances the
idea that the UN should take advantage of the experiences of the ICT
Task Force and
merge them with even more innovative efforts at developing broader
collaboration
in policy development. The Internet itself can be used to bring ICT
governance more
effectively to the public, and the public more effectively to ICT
governance.
The United
Nations Information and Communication Technologies (UNICT) Task Force
was an
innovation in multistakeholder governance. Moving beyond purely
intergovernmental
bodies, it developed a broader dialogue over the international policy
issues
surrounding information and communication technologies and the evolution of the
Information
Society. Since its formation in 2003, the Task Force gathered
representatives
of governments, non-governmental and civil society organizations,
corporations
and unaffiliated experts to “provide overall leadership to the United Nations
role in helping
to formulate strategies for the development of information and
communication technologies
and putting those technologies at the service of development
and, on the
basis of consultations with all stakeholders and Member States, forging a
strategic
partnership between the United Nations system, private industry and financing
trusts and
foundations, donors, governments and other relevant stakeholders in
accordance with
relevant United Nations resolutions.”2
Initially, the
Task Force was scheduled to go out of existence in 2004, but with the
incredible
demands of the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS),
its mandate has been extended through 2005. However, given the
innovative
structure of the Task Force and its concomitant work program, it is
appropriate to
stimulate a debate about successor organizations and processes. What
institutional
form should embody its important mandate after WSIS has concluded?
Public Policy and Public
Participation: Engaging Citizens and Community
in the Development of
Public Policy
Bruce L. Smith
BLSmith Groupwork Inc.
INTRODUCTION
During the past decade the
role of government has been steadily changing, with increasing
emphasis being placed on
setting overall direction through policy and planning, on engaging
stakeholders and citizens,
and sometimes on empowering stakeholders or partners to deliver
programs and services.
At the same time, the
environment for policy and planning has increased in complexity. The
ownership of issues is
often unclear, especially when more than one department and often more
than one level of
government are involved. Community is
also increasingly claiming ownership
of policy issues and
process.
Globalization and fiscal
resource limitations contribute to the confusion. In this complex
environment the demand for
good public policy development is steadily increasing, as must the
capacity of managers,
policy analysts, planners, and others involved in the design and delivery of
policies and programs.
Request Articles please note in your letter: Article No. 111
Local Government
Policy-Making Process
of
preface
This publication has been
written primarily for local officials and staff
in the state of
interest groups who
participate in local issues may also find this
publication useful. The
purposes of this publication are to describe the
local government policy-making
process, outline effective roles for
local officials, and to
provide practical tips to make the local policymaking
process more satisfying and
productive. Local policy-making
is complex, demanding the
very best of local officials. It is worth the
effort. The destiny of your
community – the fulfillment of its dreams
and aspirations – flow out
of the exercise of policy-making.
The policy-making process
weighs and balances public values. Often
there is no “right’ choice
or correct technical answer to the question
at hand. That is why
policy-making can be an adversarial process,
characterized by the clash
of competing and conflicting interests and
viewpoints rather than an
impartial, disinterested or “objective” search
for “correct” solutions for
policy problems. Because of these value
clashes, the policy-making
process can get emotional. However, it
does not have to be
rancorous. If you are a local official, you will be
more effective and
productive over the long-term if you respect the
viewpoints of others –
whether you agree with their position or not.
Take time to understand
your roles and responsibilities. Legislators,
for example, are most
effective if they focus on policy issues, not
administrative matters. And
chief executive officers such as mayors,
county executives and city
managers are most effective when they
recognize and support the
policy-making responsibilities of their local
councilmembers and
commissioners.
Request article: No.112
Governance networks,
democratic anchorage, and the
impact of national
political context1
Chris Skelcher, Erik-Hans
Klijn, Daniel Kübler, Navdeep Mathur,
Eva Sørensen and Helen
Sullivan2
ABSTRACT
Advances in understanding
of the democratic anchorage of governance networks require
carefully designed and
contextually grounded empirical analysis, in which pertinent
features of the context are
carried through into theory building. The literature on
governance networks tends
to use insights from empirical research as though they had
universal applicability.
Evidence from studies in Denmark, England, the
and
similarities in the
democratic milieu within which governance networks are located.
Four conjectures about the
relationship between governance networks and
representative democracy
are used heuristically to review the evidence. Conclusions are
drawn about the
implications for the next stage of theory building in this field.
Request Article :No.113
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