Lektion 13: Public policy making Flashcards
What are policies? - Policy
Policies are the outputs of the political system – can be laws, regulations, rules.
What are the main characteristics of policy-making?
3 features:
- policy making occurs in presence of multiple constrains
- policy making involves the existence of various policy processes – governments compete
- these policy processes form an infinite cycle of decisions and policies.
Given these characteristics it is convenient to conceive of policy-making as a process model, which is also often labelled policy cycle.
What is the policy cycle?
A model that models the policy process as a series of political activities, consisting of
- agenda setting
- policy formulation
- policy adoption
- implementation
- evaluation
What is “a policy window”?
The result of the convergence of the three streams is the opening of a policy window, which allows advocates of a certain issue to put it on the policy agenda.
What is the garbage can model? (Skraldespands model)
It emphasizes the relevance of chance and therefore qualifies the view that agenda setting represents rational behaviour.
What type of actors sets the policy agenda?
- public officials
- bureaucracy
- mass media
- interest groups
What does policy formulation involve?
Involves the definition, discussion, acceptance or rejection of feasible courses of action for coping with policy problems.
Policy formulation deals with: elaboration of alternatives of action
and has a Dominant role of executives
What does policy adoption refer to?
It depends on two sets of factors:
- the set of feasible policies can be reduced by the necessity to build majorities, party affiliation, constituence interests, public opinion, deference and decision rules.
- The second set of factors refers to the allocation of competencies between the actors involved in policy-making.
- policy adoption refers to the formal acceptance of policy
FRA SLIDE: - Decision-making within and between government bodies - Public opinion major factor - Institutional veto power relevant - Divided government - Bicameralism - Coalition / minority governments - Neo-corporatism " Well-known efficiency-representation trade-off
What about implementation?
It is the explicit objective of implementation research to open the “black box” between policy formulation and policy outcomes.
Three generic categories:
1. top-down models – primarily emphasize the ability of policy-makers to produce unequivocal policy objectives and control the implementation process.
- butom-up models – regard local bureaucrats as the central actors in policy delivery and view implementation as negotiation processes within networks.
- hybrid models – integrate elements of both previously mentioned models and other theoretical models
FRA SLIDE: ! Less prominent in comparative politics ! Conversion into practice ! Possible gap between intentions and practice (‘drift’) ! Bureaucracies as main actors ! Drift depends on type of policy ! …and role of sub-national units
What is Policy evaluation:
- purely formal evaluations
- client satisfaction evaluation
- outcome evaluation
- cost benefit evaluation
- evaluation of long-term consequences.
Policy evaluation provides a feedback loop which enables decision-makers to draw lessons from each particular policy in operation
FRA SLIDE:
! Important element
! Termination or continued existence?
! Thorough evaluation often not desired
! Rarely according to scientific standards
! Feedback loop: new or remaining problems?
! Typical problem: path dependence
What is the role of political institutions in policy-making?
As policy interventions in democratic systems originate in electoral systems, is it the most essential formal institution when scrutinizing policy-making.
What kind of systems are there we can distinguish between?
- plurality-majority systems – in which the elected candidates get more votes than any other (UK)
- proportional representation – in which seats are allocated according to a formula that seeks to ensure proportionality (Germany) → alle bliver repræsenteret.
- mixed systems - that combines plurality-majority with proportional representation aspects.
What is the role of cognitive and normative frames?
The concepts of normative and cognitive frames are crucial for explaining how actors understand and interpret policy-making situations.
Cognitive frames refer to the schemes through which actors view and interpret the world.
Normative frames are about values and attitudes that shape the actors view of the world.
What does policy diffusion mean?
Is generally defined as the socially mediated spread of policies across and within political systems, including communication and influence processes which operate both on and within populations of adopters.
What is policy transfer?
Described as processes by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies administrative arrangements, institutions, and ideas in another political system.
