Public policy Flashcards
Role of cabinet
A clearing house (Ratification)
An information exchange (weekly meetings ensure ministers see the bigger picture and know what their colleagues are doing)
An arbiter (forum for resolution when government agencies disagree. Particularly important around the budget)
A coordinator (provides a coherent overall direction for government)
What is cost benefit analysis
The dollar terms of policy – how much will it cost? How much will we save?
The most economically efficient policy
Negatives of cost benefit
presents proof but based on many assumptions leading to false accuracy
Economic efficiency prioritised over equity
Problems in valuing non-economic goods
Complexity
Anti-democratic? Dominance of policy elites
Positive of cost benefit
Enables meaningful comparisons
Helps manage a program
Grounds policy in real world economics
Allows a view of whole benefits to society, not just some interest groups
Academically rigours
Can help meet legislative requirements
Four types of policy issues
Production issues
Distribution issues
Consumption issues
Identity issues
Production issues
creating economic wealth. Managing peaks and troughs. Macro-economic policy – GDP, External balance, price stability, unemployment
Distribution issues
Sharing and distributing the wealth earned
Consumption issues
How we organise our material life – environmental impact, quality of life
Identity issues
concerned with how a population defines itself as a nation
Ministerial accountability
Ministers are answerable to parliament and the people
Minsters are accountable whether done at their personal direction, with the assistance of personal staff or outsourced.
Ministers must give direct answers when asked by parliament to explain their actions
Open to questioning by parliamentary committees and all information about actions by or on behalf of the government which parliament and public has a right to know.
What is accountability
‘any mechanism that makes powerful institutions responsive to their publics’
Structured interaction
No single decision maker, range of participants
Does not assume that it is a collective effort to achieve shared goals – policy is a compromise
Government and stakeholders interact to produce policy (interest groups, public opinion, NGOs)
Not intentional, not rational, far more complex.
Policy outputs reflect a broader environment.
Horizontal
Authoritative choice
Intentional – Pursuing a specific government goal through identified resources
Structured – identifiable players and a recognised sequence (passage of a bill)
Political – expressing the electoral program of the executive
Authoritative – policy outcomes come from an authority
Rational and structured – you elected us to provide X and now we will do so
Policy in a vertical strand
Making decisions and testing consequences
Idealised view of how policy works
What are the four instruments
Exhortation
Incentives
Provision
Regulation
What is the role of parties
Ruling parties offer direction to government
Allows voters to choose between parties with different teams of leaders often with contrasting policies, this gives effect to liberal democracy
Parties are agents of political recruitment, preparing candidates for parliament
Devices of interest aggregation, they filter multitude of specific demands in packages of proposals
What is policy
Policy is the instrument of governance, the decisions that direct public resources in one direction but not another. It is the outcome of the competition between ideas, interests and ideologies that impels our political system.
What government do and with what consequences – Fenna definition
3 types of policy
Distributive (allocation of services or benefits to members of the community
Redistributive (the deliberate reallocation of wealth)
Regulatory (the regulation of individual or group behaviour
Australian system of government
A liberal democracy
Democracy – the people are collectively sovereign through periodic election. Government should be accountable and responsive to the people it governs.
Liberalism – concerned with the rights and freedoms of the individual. Limits on what government can do, even a democratic one.
Mix of presidential and Westminster
Powers of the PM
To hire and fire ministers
To set the agenda, structure and processes
Control machinery of government
Leadership of a disciplined party
Centralised control of access to media
Personal patronage
Advice from large bureaucratic machine
Parliament in Decline
Proportional voting system in senate – negotiating
In Australia system – tight party discipline (stifles debate?)
Few private members bill
Too much legislation (not enough time for financial scrutiny)
Politicisation of public service
Definition of globalism
It is the increasing integration of separate national economies via a burgeoning global market
Reasons why globalisation is seen as a threat to public policy
Public policy subordinate to economic concerns to maintain global market share
Necessitates privatisation of public policy
diminishes autonomy of nation state via convergence of states
Policy analysis framework
‘an applied endeavour which uses multiple methods of inquiry and argument to produce and transform policy relevant information that may be utilised in political settings to solve public problems’
Cost effectiveness
Rather than just $$ value find other metrics such as infant mortality rates, incarceration rates etc.
