Exam 1 Flashcards
Public policy
- Action and inaction
- “Government action or inaction to address social problems”
Example of public policy
Obama standing down on the Colorado weed legalization
Why public policy (and not private policy)
- There are a lot of social problems where fixing them does not generate profit
- Need government interaction
Market Failures definition
- A situation in which the government must get involved
- Where the allocation of goods and services are inefficient
4 types of market failures
- Monopolies
- Externalities/spillovers
- Informative failure
- Problem of “public goods”
Market failure: Describe monopolies
- One or several persons dominate the market
- Can control or manipulate the price of good
- Government must bust up corporations
Market failure: Describe Externalities
- (+/-)
- List positive and negative externalities
- Negative externality: 3rd party harmed by a transaction
- ex. Neighbor lets their yard go to shit and it lowers your property value
- Positive externality: 3rd party benefits from the transaction
- ex. business moves in, value of neighborhood goes up
Market failure: Describe Information failure/Information asymmetry
- When one party has more information than the other
- To have perfect competition, buyers and sellers must have full information
- But this is often not the case - sellers often times have more information than the buyers
Market failure: Describe Problem of “public good”
- The private market will not go near this because you cannot generate a profit
- Table!
Fill out the table for problem of public good
Fill out table for problem of public good
Rivalrous
I consume it, you cannot
Excludable
I can stop you from using it
Example of common pool resource
Study space on the quad
Example of private good
ISU coffee mug - walk into a store and buy it
Example of public good
public lecture in the one student center/telecast
Which goods will not be provided through private sector
public goods
Why would the private sector not provide a public good?
no profit
Essay: Policy capacity
- the ability of a govt to identify, assess, & respond to public problems
- All governments have a level of policy capacity.
Policy outputs
- formal action taken to pursue a goal
- affect on the social problem
Policy outcomes
- effects the actions have on society
- The effect it had on the social problem
Policy outputs & outcomes: Affordable Care Act
- Output: 1. individual mandate, 2. Medicaid expansion, 3. Regulation of private insurance - cost
- Outcomes: Fewer uninsured
REAL ID
Counter-terriorism for drivers license
- unfunded mandate - state opposition to it
Devolution
Federal government turns over policymaking power to states; fewer national mandates
- 1996 the federal government turned over welfare policy to the state
Five theories of policymaking
- Elite: What the elites want the elites get
- Group theory: More competitive (for every group there is a counter group) - nobody wins all the time
- Institutional theory: The rules of the game matter (how the rules of the game shape policy)
- Rational choice
- Systems theory
Formal policy actors in the U.S.
Power is shared by three branches of government at all levels:
- Executive - sign/vetoes “bully pulpit”
- Legislative - Passes legislation
- Judicial - Rules on constitutionality
Informal policy actors in the U.S.
- The public - public opinion
- Interest groups - More than one individual with shared attitudes or believes
- Interest networks - Sub-government or iron triangle
5 dimensions of public opinion
- Direction - Liberal or Conservative
- Cohesiveness - Unified or Polarized
- Salience - How important is the issue
- Intensity - How strongly is opinion held
- Stability - Has opinion recently flip-flopped
What is a theory
- A casual explanation for some phenomenon
- A “story” used to explain something
- Components: Dependent variable (effect) & Explanatory (cause)
Policy Process Model
- Problem definition & agenda setting
- Policy intervention
- Policy legitimation
- Policy implementation
- Policy Evaluation and change
CYCLICAL NOT LINEAR
Lowi Policy Typology
- The general ways policies dress a problem
1. Distributive policy: we all pay; we all gain
ex. Road improvements
2. Redistributive policy: Some pay; others gain
ex. Welfare policy
3. Regulatory policy: Government restriction of choice; practice
ex. Licensing of radio
How does bureaucracy make public policy?
Policy implementation done mostly by executive branch through regulations
