Final Exam POLI 357 Intro to Public Policy Analysis

Question 1

Policy Instruments/Tools

Answer 1

Substance of Policy Formulation

• involves questions f how best to solve a policy problem
• tools/governing instruments are defined as the actual means or devices that gvt’s employ to implement policies

Question 2

Taxonomies of Instruments

Answer 2

• based on categories of governing resources used
  1. Nodality (information
  2. Authority (legal power)
  3. Treasure (resources)
  4. Organization

Question 3

Nodality

Answer 3

• taxonomy of policy instruments
• use of information at the disposal of government
• public info campaigns for indirect inducement
• exhortation/susation to influence behavior
• benchmarking and performance indicators for policy learning
• commissions and inquiries. temporal bodies formed on an ad hoc basis.

Question 4

Authority Based

Answer 4

• taxonomy of policy instruments
• command control- good for immediate crisis/action
• can have unintended consequences, cannot deal with individuals, voluntary action may be limited.
• delegated/self-regulated: still mandatory
• advisory committees: more long term or permanent. differs from commissions

Question 5

Treasure Based

Answer 5

-taxonomy of policy instruments
-relies on financial resources and government ability to raise ad distribute funds
-financial transfers
-incentives and disincentives
-subsidies: grants, tax incentives and loans.
Grants: expenditures made in support of a cause or end worthy in itself.
Tax Incentive: remission of taxes in some form
Loans: from government at an interest rate below the market rate.
-easy to establish and administer. politically acceptable. continuing financial incentive and effective in inducing or encouraging behavior. flexible
-need precise information, undesirable in times of crisis.
Financial Disincentives: taxes (legally prescribed compulsory payment to government by person/firm). user charge (price imposed by government on certain behaviors that those undertaking must pay)

Question 6

Organization Based

Answer 6

• taxonomy of policy instruments
• direct provision: involves direct action by public sector. bureaucratic action
• public enterprises (state owned enterprises/crown corporations, parastatal organizations) : provisions of goods/services to produce and sell. totally or partially owned by the state but enjoys some form of autonomy

Pros: services that private sector is unwilling to provide. generate profit, add to revenue
Cons: difficult to manage. ineffective, ineffectiveness passed on to consumer.

• quangos: quasi-autonomous non government organization. self organizing entities, government license provided. government delegates expensive and controversial policy areas
• Partnership (public-private): hybrid form of market and government reorganization. organization not owned by government.
• Family, Community, Voluntary Organization: government relies on these to serve policy goals. little involvement. voluntary performance.
• Market Creations: entails government relying on market organizations.
• Government Reorganizations: gvt seeks to affect the policy process by reorganizing the structures and processes through which it performs a function.

Question 7

Nature of Policy Alternatives and Types of Changes

Answer 7

• has to do with the extent to which policy makers propose solutions to problems that depart from the status quo.
  1. Abstract policy goals
  2. Concrete program specification
  3. Basic policy instrument type
  4. Alteration of existing instrument components

Question 8

Policy Adoption

Answer 8

-policy decision making
-development and expression (policy statement) or intent by authoritative decisions makers to undertake a particular course of action or inaction
-approval of one, several or non of the options or alternatives from the policy formulation as an official course of actions to resolved identified problem. formal/informal statements of intent
action: alters status quo. positive. deliberate choice
inaction: deliberate choice to maintain status quo. negative.
non decision: options to deviate from status quo are not considered at agenda setting or formulation. may never be identified in the policy deliberation. does not move on to implementation

Question 9

Actors in Policy Adoption

Answer 9

• policy subsystem: number of actors involved in decision making process reduces substantially
• only auth decision makers: those who have the authority to make binding legal decision. formal state officials, judges, government officials (cabinet and bureaucracy, legislators)
• virtually all non state actors excluded only engage in lobbying. encourage/coerce

Question 10

Constraints on Policy Adoption

Answer 10

• institutional constraints such as the constitution.
• ideas/paradigms
• prevailing social, economic and political conditions

Question 11

Models of Policy Adoption List

Answer 11

1. Rational Model
2. Incremental Model
3. Mixed Scanning Model
4. Garbage Can Model
5. Decision Accretion

Question 12

Rational Model

Answer 12

• decision making = tech process.
• cost-benefit. benefit maximization
• involves an attempt to pursue strategy that would max the expected outcomes of their choices.
• max utility form limited resources.
• scientific mode of assessment.
• best option, preferable to show how decisions ought to be taken to assure maximum results.
• presumes sequential activities leading to decision:
  1. Goal Setting 2. Developing Alternatives: strategies of achieving goals, different options 3. Risk Analysis: cost benefit, consequences and probability of consequences occurring. 4. Selection.
• ordered gathering of info allowing best alternative identified or selected.
• neutral and technical application of problem solving

Question 13

Limitation to Rational Model

Answer 13

• information and time
• difficult to always know consequences in advance so difficult to assess true cost and benefit
• efficiency might be affected by changing circumstances or contexts

Question 14

Incremental Model

Answer 14

• response to rational model limitations
• less technical and more political. analysis plays a small role
• bargaining, negotiation and compromise. interaction between self interested key decision makers.
• political agreements and learning through trial and error. -what is politically feasible rather than what is technically feasible.
• decisions are only marginally different that existing ones
• policies are developed through successive limited comparisons w/earlier decisions.
• best describes practice of decision making in gvts in reality.
• why incrementalism? : bargaining requires distribution of limited resources among participants. easier to continue existing pattern of distribution rather than try to negotiate redistribution that would required under radically new proposal. standard operating procedures of bureaucracies promote continuation of existing practices.

Question 15

Limitations of Incremental Model

Answer 15

• difficult to determining an increment or what alters the status quo. a substantive v.s incremental change.
• decisions that significantly alter status quo do occur frequently
• difficult to apply in non stable environments

Question 16

Mixed Scanning Model

Answer 16

-result of bridging gap left by previous models
-descriptive and prescriptive approach
-constructive synthesis of rational and incremental
-optimal decisions results from a cursory search (scanning) for alternatives followed by a detailed probe of the most promising alternatives
2 Stages:
1. pre-decisional stage
assessing problem and framing it.
incremental analysis
2. analytical stage
carefully assining
rational analysis
Limitations: not clear how it differs from the rational or incremental models

Question 17

Garbage Can Model

Answer 17

-decision making lacks rationality
-decisions made in ad hoc and haphazard, unpredictable fashion. limited time and problem preferences.
-ambiguous and unpredictable: lacks intentionality, comprehension of problems and predictability of relations among actors.
-goals and causal relationships are unknown to policy makers
-what makes it on to the agenda depends on salient problems, available solutions and political circumstances
Limitations: applicable in fragmented and permeable institutional structures where participation is pluralistic and fluid. coalitions often temporary and ad hoc.

Question 18

Decision Accretion Model

Answer 18

-policy decision not taken in a brisk and clear cut style in a single institutional setting or in a single point in time.
-decisions are taken piecemeal (gradually and in part) in different institutions by many actors w/out overall plan or conscious deliberation.
-actors don’t know they’re making policy
-stresses importance of multiple arenas and multiple rounds, multiple locations and venues with distinct sets of actors, rules, procedures, ability
-each actor performs a small step in a larger process, seemingly small consequences that over time foreclose alternative courses of action and limit range of possibilities
Limitations: not really applicable to real life. at systemic stage, people know the issues can’t say actors don’t know

Question 19

Policy Implementation

Answer 19

• effort, knowledge, resources that translate policy decisions into action
• funding allocated, personnel assigned, rules/procedures developed.

Question 20

Policy Universe

Answer 20

• implementation is expensive, multiyear effort
• continued funding neither permanent nor guaranteed
• continual negotiation and discussion w/in and between political and admin actors.
• bureaucrats are the most significant actors, civil and public servants and administrative officials. different agencies/different levels with particular interests, ambitions, traditions
• institutions in policy implementation provide the legal authority. (legislature, exec and judiciary)

Question 21

Top Down Approach

Answer 21

• Theory of Implementation First Generation
• explores how implementing officials keep to original intent of policy makers (SR. politicians and officials)
• starts with government decisions, extent to which administrators carry out or fail to carry out decisions. reasons underlying extent of implementation.

Question 22

Bottom Up Approach

Answer 22

• Theory of Implementation Second Generation
• examines actions of those affected by engaging in implementation of policy
• focuses on lower level officials and members of public directly involved in policy implementation process.
• stresses adaptive behavior of bureaucrats seeking to attain and sustain the means to achieve policy goals on the ground.

Question 23

Limitations of the Top Down Bottom Up Aproach

Answer 23

-assume decision makers provide clear goals and directors for implementation but in reality policy goals and directions are often vague, unclear and even contradictory bc gvt intentions can emerge from bargaining, accretion, and other processes

Question 24

Third Generation

Answer 24

Implementation Theory
Game Theory and Principal Agent theory
Policy Design Approach: Instrument Choice and Policy Mix

Question 25

Game Theory

Answer 25

Third Generation Implementation Theory
-adapted to public policy
-focus on behavioral discretion influences public policy implementation
-different levels of discretion lead to different implementation styles in specific sectors, issue areas and jurisdiction. use of coercion or persuasion.
Limitations:
-doesn’t account for different government branches and departments. says little about the effect of changes in social, economic, political and technical arenas, changes could affect interpretation of problem and prompt diff implementation. context on admin discretion.

Question 26

Principal Agent Theory

Answer 26

Third Generation Implementation Theory
-out of limitations of game theory
-policy makers are the principal and administrative are the agent
-depends on good will of the agent to advance his/her interests when not in interest of agent to do so.
-argues changing social, economic, tech and pol contexts of implementation affect administrator (agent) discretion.
Limitations:
-distortion. sometimes actions of implementors (agents) diverge from the interests of policy makers (principals) and distort the policy outcome.
-regulatory capture: tendency of agents over time to identify more with the needs of the regulated than the policy makers (principals).

Question 27

Policy Design Approach

Answer 27

Third Generation Implementation Theory

• Instrument Choice and Policy Mix
• instrument choice approach, selection of tools (policy instruments or governing instruments) for implementing public policies.
• stresses blend of different policy instruments to resolve policy problems.
• instruments are effective when closely and carefully related to policy goals. successful implementation, any new policy goals ad their corresponding tools carefully integrated with existing policies.
• new and old goals = logically related
• new and old instruments = consistent and not in conflict

Question 28

Substantive v.s Procedural Instruments

Answer 28

Substantive: instruments affect the policy output
Procedural: instruments affect policy process associated with the delivery of outputs

Question 29

Implementation Styles

Answer 29

depends on:

1. nature of problem
2. range of actors in subsystem
3. ideas actors have about problem resolution
4. resources at their disposal

Question 30

Policy Evaluation

Answer 30

• policy making as learning
• how a policy fared in action
• how effective in terms of perceived intention and results in the context of policy goals
• after evaluation, problem and solutions may be reconceptualized. cycle might swing back to an earlier state or status quo may be maintained and the policy may be terminated.
• various actors do the assessment.

Question 31

Positivists in Policy Evalutation

Answer 31

-Rationalist
-Evaluation as neutral, technical and thus bias free in determining success or failure of gvt.
-objective, systematic, empirical examination of effects of ongoing policies and programs on their target in terms of policy goals they were meant to achieve.
Limitations:
-goals are neither clear nor explicit. need subjective interpretation
-difficult to develop neutral (objective standards that are universally accepted).
-to gain partisan political advantage/reinforce ideological position, non state actors sometimes design evaluation in order to criticize existing policy.

Question 32

Post Positivists in Policy Evaluation

Answer 32

• evaluation as a political AND technical process.
• no definitive way o determining the correct mode of evaluation
• which interpretation prevails is determined by political conflicts and compromise among actors

Question 33

Policy Evaluation with Positivist and Post Positivist Combined

Answer 33

• stress education dynamic (policy learning)
• policy evaluation simulates policy makers and other policy actors
• argues actors involved participate in larger learning process, careful and deliberate assessment of how past stages affected the original goals adopted by gvt/means to implement
• enhances outcomes and public policy even if not noticed by actors

Question 34

Policy Learning

Answer 34

• intentional, progressive, with intended and unintended cognitive consequences of education that result from policy evaluation.
• public policy evaluation conceptualised as an iterative process of active learning about nature of policy problems and potential solutions.
• trial and error process, policy experimentation where repetition of mistakes is avoided in successive rounds. move ever closer towards achievement of desired goals.

Question 35

Social Learning

Answer 35

• analyze broader policy goals and their underlying ideas/paradigms or frames in which lesson drawing takes place.
• accompanied by changes in the thought process underlying a policy that may result in terminating the policy or drastically changing it in light of new conceptions or ideas.
• originates outside formal policy process and affects the capacity of policy makers

Question 36

External v.s Internal Policy Learning

Answer 36

external: deliberate adjustment of policy goals in light of past policy consequences. results in government response due to an external change in the policy environment.

Question 37

Evidence Based Policy Making as Policy Learning

Answer 37

-effort to reform or restructure policy processes by prioritizing data based evidentiary decision making criteria over less formal/experiential assessment.
-minimize policy failures caused by mismatch between gvt expectations and actual conditions
-directed at reforming the policy process
-prioritizes data based evidence
-enhance efficiency by applying systematic evaluative rationality
-better learning to avoid past errors
Limitations: what constitutes evidence based policy making
-disagreement over analytical efforts actually result in better policies.

Question 38

Assessing the Success or Failure of a Policy

Answer 38

• difficult because hard to define, no fixed criteria, not applicable to every time and place.
• assessing policy outcomes with policy goals or expectations.
• can succeed and fail in numerous ways, be it the whole policy or just one program.
• can fail at any stage, substantive or procedurally

Question 39

Types of Evaluation

Answer 39

Administrative
Judiciary
Political
Depends on how evaluation is conducted and the actors effects

Question 40

Administrative Policy Evaluation Overview and Actors

Answer 40

• w/in government by specialized agencies
• efficient delivery of government services
• whether value for the money spent is achieved
• main goal is maximum efficiency with minimal societal cost.
• use formal evaluative sytems
• actors include financial, legal, political overseers that are attached to gvt departments such as specialized executive agencies, private consultants or the legislature.

Question 41

Process Evaluation

Answer 41

ADMIN

• examines organizational methods, rules, operating procedures used to deliver programs
• implementation broken in to discrete tasks that are evaluated and streamlined to increase efficiency.

Question 42

Types of Admin Eval List

Answer 42

process
effort (input)
performance (output)
efficiency
effectiveness

Question 43

Effort Evaluation

Answer 43

ADMIN
(Input) Evaluation
-quantity of program inputs in monetary costs
-amount of efforts gvt put in to achieve policy goals. budget allocations, personnel, office space etc.
-baseline date for subsequent admin eval.

Question 44

Performance Evaluation

Answer 44

ADMIN

(output) Evaluation
- program outputs, what policy producing regardless of the stated objectives
- produces data in form of performance measures used as inputs in to the efficiency and effectiveness evaluations

Question 45

Efficiency Evaluation

Answer 45

ADMIN

• costs of programs and judge if same amount and quality of outputs could be achieved efficiently at a lower cost.
• production streamlining
• based on input (effort) and output (performance) mostly by gvt hired external consultants

Question 46

Effectiveness Evaluation

Answer 46

ADMIN

• adequacy of performance evaluation
• most important to policy makers most useful type.
• question of is the program doing what it is supposed to do ** compared to the policy goals.
• do the policy goals need to be adjusted in light of program accomplishment.

Question 47

Limitations of Administrative Evaluation

Answer 47

• goals not clear/explicit
• one policy may have have a variety of objectives
• gvt reluctant to have failures publicized
• difficult to isolate and evaluate independent effect of different policies collectively directed towards social and economic problems
• difficult to evaluate unintended consequences

Question 48

Judicial Evaluation

Answer 48

• judicial review
• legal issues of government implementation
• examine constitutionality of the actual policy, the natural and justice of the development and the due process or administrative law of implementation
• carried out by the judiciary on own initiative or as the result of a case being filed by gvt agency.

Question 49

Political Evaluation

Answer 49

• more biased, carried out by non state actors. neither systematic nor technical in nature
• support/challenge not improvement of government policy
• inherently partisan, one sided and biased
• political parties and think tanks
• indirectly through voting, referendums and plebiscites

Question 50

Outcomes of Evaluation

Answer 50

• Policy Feedback: policy successful/unsuccessful only in some aspects, serves to feed policy back to some other stage to fix problems
• successful policy, status quo maintained
• certain aspects judged as unsuccessful, suggestions made for its reform.
• policy judged as a complete failure and needs to be terminated (ended)

Question 51

Policy Stability

Answer 51

• policies tend to persist because policy makers most reluctant to terminate policies
• terminations to overcome path dependencies/policy legacies. path dependencies are when a policy becomes locked in to a previous state of the system and direction of its dynamic. history matters. continuity over time. ex) moving location of school or hospital
• develop constituencies (=established beneficiaries) and become so institutionalized that their termination triggers a costly battle.

Question 52

Learning, Non Learning, Limited Learning

Answer 52

• Learning depends on the capacity or willingness of policy makers to absorb new info and nature of subsystem (whether it is open or closed).
• Non Learning: fail to undertake any evaluation
• Limited Learning: lessons of only very restricted scope are drawn from the evaluation process

Question 53

Learning , Subsystem, Capacity

Answer 53

High capacity civil service + open subsystem= social learning
High capacity civil service + closed subsystem= technical learning consideration of alternative means w/in same goal structure.
Low capacity civil service + closed subsystem= limited learning
Low capacity civil service + open subsystem= contested learning. actors draw dissimilar or partial conclusions from results.

Question 54

Policy Termination

Answer 54

policy change: minor modification to existing policy or fundamental transformation of policy

• fundamental to policy evaluation is impact on effecting policy change.
• purpose of evaluation is to change a policy when neccessary

Question 55

Outcomes of Policy Succession

Answer 55

1. Policy Feedback
   -new policies create new politics
   -outcomes of the policy process feed back into the policy environment alter context in which it was created
   -context includes: inst rules and operations, distribution of wealth and power, nature of ideas and interests, selection of personnel
   -Which stage the cycle swings back to depends on
   nature of feedback and types of actors involved
   -subsequent iterations of policy cycle build on existing framework and regime (same inst and actors) and follow same general configuration. not a new policy cycle.
2. Termination
   -end of policy and cycle
   -difficult because political consequences.

Question 56

Policy Style and Policy Regime

Answer 56

• pre-established ideological and institutional factors insulate policies from pressures for change.
• actors in the policy processes over time take on distinctive style which affects decisions, traditions and history that constrains and refines actions and concerns.
• Policy style: enduring nature of distinctive decision making style forming part of a larger policy regime that emerges over time as policy succession takes place.
• Policy Regime: need stability. persistence of fundamental policy components over long periods of time. processes and contents, actors, ideas, deliberations. common set of ideas, lasting governance arrangement (policy Mix), common process (style) and fixed actors (subsystem or monopoly).

Question 57

Types of Policy Change

Answer 57

Normal
-minor modification to existing policy
-new policies are layered on to existing ones
-incremental change collectively affect coherence and consistency of policy regime.
-‘new’ simply variation on existing bc actors inst ideas context tend to be stable or change very slowly.
Atypical
-substantial transformation of components of policy regime. mostly policy paradigms and style
-fundamental transformation of policies (ideas, inst, interests of actors or processes).
-propelled by policy failures resulting in confusion of goals, inconsistent use of tools and duplicate interests

Question 58

Dynamics of Atypical Policy Change

Answer 58

Layering
-new (instruments) added to existing without abandoning the previous ones. promotes incoherence.
Drift
-policy ends (goals) change while policy remains same. means inconsistence with new ends. ineffectiveness. old tools, new goals.
Conversion
-mix of policy means in order to meet goals.
new tools, old goals
Replacement or Redesign
-conscious effort is made to fundamentally restructure both means and ends of policy to make them coherent and consistent

Question 59

Sources of Atypical Policy Change

Answer 59

External
1. systemic perturbations (shock)
-changes in external conditions/crisis upset established policy routines. ex) War, natural disaster
2. policy (subsystem) spillover
-exogenous processes/activities in otherwise distinct subsystems transcend boundaries.
Internal
1. venue change
-strategies to pursue interests
-venue shifting = redefine policy issue or frame to change the location where policy deliberations occur
-issue framing or image manipulation, feedback to agenda setting stage
2.policy learning
-draw lessons from past policies
-intentional, progressive, cognitive.

Question 60

Punctuated Equilibrium

Answer 60

Normal + Atypical
changes are irregular, nonlinear
-stability over long periods of time interspersed with infrequent periods of substantial change
-change result of anomolies that build up between policy regime and reality it regulates causing crisis making it susceptible to exogenous forces
Stages:
-existing paradigm or subsystem breaks down
-conflicting ideas emerge and compete for dominance
-new set of ideas win over others, accepted by those with pwoer
-new policy regime institutionalized and gains legitimacy
-persists over time, becomes hegemonic, new policy regime established.