Paper 2
krisGG
readingkeypoints.pptxPublic policy analysis
Week 2 – Lecture
Week 2 - Learning goals
1. Examine key components to defining public problems
2. Examine the challenges currently faced by the public sector
3. Examine the institutions and agencies that implement public policy
4. Analyze the U.S. system of governance, fragmentation, and decentralization as it impacts public policy
5. Distinguish biases that exist in the information gathering and analysis process
6. Apply CIL techniques to student's problem and policy research.
7. Discuss and analyze the main themes for the week.
8. Summarize the key points from the course content/resources in paper assignment.
Barber – Why mayors should rule the world
Solutions to problems exist in local action which will move across the world. An important concept as globalization impacts local communities directly.
Need to change our political institutions to be able to respond to the problems.
Focus on the city – our homes – Mayors should rule the world engaging in global governance
See this disconnect today in the United States between urban areas/cities and the national political scene.
Institutions that bring the mayors together to solve problems – negotiation is different at the local level than at the national level and therefore the political culture
Brown – Wiring the Web for global good
The power of images that can now move across the world creating awareness and getting an issue on the agenda
Using globalization for good – a new form of media and news that can enhance democracy with people directly interacting and documenting what is occurring at the local level
Impacts across the globe but also locally
Bringing people together to make a new future
Bardach & Patashnik, pp. xi-xx
Policy making
Lives and well-being of large numbers of fellow citizens
Process and results of a policy analysis involve other parties and professionals
Today’s policy analysis
Program evaluation, design, management, public relations, planning, budgeting, etc.
The Eightfold Path
Define the problem
Assemble some evidence
Construct the alternatives
Select the criteria
Project the outcomes
Confront the trade-offs
Stop, focus, narrow, deepen, decide
Tell your story
Problem-Solving Process
A constantly changing process
Guidelines are practical – most are conceptual
Concepts are embedded in concrete particulars – you need be able to tell these part
Some steps might already be determined
Bardach & Patashnik, pp. 1-14
Step 1: Defining the problem
Think of deficit and excess
Make the definition evaluative
Using issue rhetoric – what is this?
Uncertainty is the problem that evaluation addresses
Quantify is possible
Diagnose conditions that cause problems
Risky conditions
Work on hypotheticals to a point
Identify latent opportunities
Avoid common pitfalls in problem definition
Defining the solution into the problem
Accepting too easily the causal claims implicit in diagnostic problem definitions
Iterate
Bardach and Patashnik, pp. 123-132
Handling a design problem
Developing the system and planning the bureaucratic change
Trail and error is an important part of the path – working constructively and trashing about
Simplify – quantifying the constraints and outcomes
Construct alternatives for a design that is flexible, powerful, robust, transitory, and least costly
Logic models to test assumptions
Design based on cases (individuals) or some other output (common goods)
Research for good ideas and solutions
Work with others – create team efforts
Focus on your objectives – project the outcomes – test if it will work
Strategize and reanalyze along the way
Bardach and Patashnik, Appendix A
Things governments do/how they get things done/Implementation
Taxes
Regulation
Subsidies and grants
Service provision
Agency budgets
Information
Structure of private rights
Framework of economic activity
Education and consultation
Financing and contracting
Bureaucratic and political reforms
Heineman, et al. Chapter 5: Individualism
Quick answers to difficult problems
Concerns of what have you done for me lately
Realignment of Political Parties and Policies
Future of political parties
Items to consider
Open primary
Changing attitudes
Ideas that make a person conservative, liberal, libertarian, populist
Impacts on the Policy Process
Understanding the electorate allows for a better understanding of the policy process
The differing ideas can lead to a watering down of the legislation
What Pal would consider either strong/weak policy v. strong/weak implementation.
Heineman, et al. Chapter 6: Policy Analysis and the Political Arena
Incrementalism and satisficing – Charles Lindblom
Can create a shortsighted, self-interested policy framework
Fits well in the American system of politics and decision making
Fragmentation
Particularly in Congress
1970s reform reduced the power of the committee chairman and increased power of subcommittees
1990s opened the committee meetings allowing lobbyists and interest groups to play a larger role
Stronger position of the parties under Gingrich
Fragmentation in the White House
Nominating the president
Work to control the bureaucracy
How did Nixon do it?
How did Reagan do it?
Loss of Fiscal Discipline
Gramm-Rudman bill (1985)
Strict timetable to eliminate the deficit by 1991
Shotgun feature
Supreme Court declared the automatic spending cut provisions illegal since they were controlled by Congress and not the president’s office
Pay as you go
Clinton reduced budget but hurt his party
Heineman, et al. Chapter 7 Policy Devolution and Policy Analysis
More concerned with the heavy hand of the federal government with tax and spend policies – people are less concerned with the centralized power of the federal government and national security.
Devolution of policy to the states from the federal government – through funding - a key part of the states’ rights discussion
What were the programs and the impacts of these programs under the following presidential administrations?
Nixon
Reagan
Has led to additional fragmentation
Heineman, et al. Chapter 7 Policy Devolution and Policy Analysis
Private Sector Analysis
With this devolution there has also been a growth of think tanks and other “outside” policy analysts
Examples
http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWc_p-VmK4
Some critiques
Limitations to the analysis based on the funding sources
What are the impacts of devolution on evaluation?
Heineman, et al. Chapter 8: Policy Analysis in the Judicial Process
Early 1900s to 1937
Strict constitutionalists
Sociological jurisprudence
Roscoe Pound and Dewey
Concern for the impacts of their decisions on human lives
Judicial activism starting in the 1950s
Racial desegregation, integration, and other social issues
Procedural changes to allow for cases that will be reviewed
Organized interests
Current issues with technological and scientific changes
Should the courts serve as mediators and policy-makers in cases that involve normative values?
Any final questions?
