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Summary Public Policy in Action, ISBN: 9781781004609 Public Policy Making
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PUBLIC POLICY MAKINGSummary
Chapter 1: Politics and policies in a changing world
Politics refers to the way a community tries to deal with a number of questions and challenges . This
balancing act requires a system to organize collective decision-making. In western societies this is
embedded in the constitutional democracy. This has been given additional weight because it’s based
on the Rule of Law » every actor must have a legal basis. Formal rules specify the conditions under
which this process takes place, but more informal rules – which refer to the decision-making
practices – do this too. If the process follows specific (in)formal rules, the decisions made are
considered binding for society as a whole, legitimate and authoritative.
‘Who gets what, when and how’ implies that not every wish can be satisfied » context of scarcity.
Priorities have to be formulated, which complicates the collective decision-making process. A
political decision can thus be seen as a codification of the balance between specific values that can
be considered an appropriate way of dealing with a specific societal challenge. So: politics is the way
in which societies deal with the balancing and allocation of values that is necessary to deal with
challenges that a society as a political community is confronted with.
There are 3 allocation arrangements: 1) State: coordination is based on the (legal) authority that
resides in the state. There are several reasons to choose the state: a) A market is very good at
satisfying individual needs, but fails when it has to satisfy collective needs and provide goods or
services which are available for everybody. b) Market failure due to the misuse of power exists. c)
There are external effects that could harm of help (specific groups in) society. The state could
intervene to help avoid negative effects, but it can also help the production of positive effects. 2)
Market: coordination is based on the price mechanism; competition is important. 3) Community:
coordination is based on the trust that members of this community have in each other. This trust
reflects the social capital in the commu-nity » social capital = the strength of social networks in a
community, the reciprocities that the members of a community have and the way in which they
values these reciprocities. The allocation arrangements can also be mixed in order to make use of the
strengths of each one.
Policies are as a more or less structured set of means and resources that are used to influence specific
societal developments and to solve problems in a desired or planned way. Political decision-making is
focused on the formulation of politics which give direction on how to achieve specific, but
interrelated, goals. These goals are the expression of a political consensus in which different values
are being balan-ced against each other. Policies are the result of multiple decisions taken by sets of
actors, who have all kinds of links with other organization » policy network or community. It can be
argued that politics sets off the goals, thereby having the deliberate intention to influence specific
societal challenges » intended policy making. In other cases, policy programs emerge from the
complex interactions between a number of relevant stakeholders which lead to outcomes in which
specific patterns can be distinguished » emergent policy making. The role of politics is twofold in this
case. 1) Politics is just one of the relevant stakeholders. 2) Politics tries to codify the emerging
consensus regarding the appropriateness of a specific set of actions in a policy program.
Policy programs generate different processes » policy cycle; this cycle consists of a number of phases
that build upon each other: 1) agenda setting, 2) policy development, 3) policy decision-making, 4)
policy implementation, 5) policy evaluation. A policy program is a specific structured way in which a
government tries to intervene (= a steering act) in society. The ability to intervene is based on the
problem solving capacity of government, but this capacity and the resources needed are dispersed
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,among many actors. An effective intervention implies that it’s important that these resources have to
be exchanged and shared among the involved actors » the governance challenge. It draws attention
to the shift from state-centric government, to more complex forms of governance which involves
problem solving strategies in multi-actor networks and in multiple ways. Key assumptions behind the
governance concept are: a) government is not an entity but a conglomerate of actors, b) government
isn’t the only actor which tries to influence societal problems, c) government interventions generate
continuing interactions between all kinds of actors within several societal domains and at different
levels that try to influence the shaping of policy processes, d) the governance capacity of each actor
refers to the problem solving capacity of each actor, which depends on his ability to mobilize and
combine relevant resources in a structured way to achieve specific policy goals or to address specific
societal challenges. Different types of public policies can be distinguished: a) distributive policies, b)
constitutional policies, c) regulatory policies, d) provisional policies, e) stimulating policies.
The network society (Manuell Castells): refers to the vital role that information and communication
play in modern society and the penetration of technologies that support the processing of this in all
domains of human activity » digitalization. There are several advantages: a) digital products can be
easily transported, b) digital products are flexible, which opens the possibility to re-use, refine and
manipulate rather easily, c) digitalization represents the capacity to integrate information and know-
ledge-based products, and the devices and infrastructures used to produce and exchange them. The
shift from information technologies toward communication and multimedia technologies and the
power that these new technologies represent is important. For governments digitalization is vital
because policy processes are heavily information and knowledge based. This also has an impact on
globalization » it’s no longer necessary to produce near the market place; production takes place
where it’s the cheapest. As a result of these scattered production and processes all kinds of flows
emerge: flows of goods, components, people, information and knowledge. This process radicalized
the already existing process of structural differentiation, which can be witnessed through 5 results
since the Industrial Revolution: 1) Specialization has led to an increasing degree of interdependency
which can be understood in terms of a network. 2) This degree of specialization has become
institutionalized, because we make use of highly specialized organizations. These organizations are
rather autonomous, but they’re also dependent on other organizations. As a result, the complexity
has grown into ‘orga-nized complexity’. 3) Due to the complexity which emerges from these
interdependencies, it’s rather difficult to intellectually grasp this complexity. Knowledge and
information is locked up in these rather autonomous highly specialized organizations » trapped in
bounded rationality. 4) As a result of this interdependency, exchange relationships exist. These are
defined in terms of flows. This idea of time sharing social processes means that increasingly activities
that are being fulfilled have a real-time nature » timeless time. 5) These flows come together in
specific nodes » here the necessary resources that are vital for the operation of these flows are
located. Between these nodes specialization occurs, which also leads to a hierarchal order in terms of
more or less importance. Disturbances in this node may have worldwide effects, and may affect the
functioning of other nodes. Nodes often happen in cities, since these provide the necessary
infrastructure and the facilities necessary to attract the people to make a node function. The network
society has people who benefit from it, but also people who are excluded. There are 2 types of
exclusion: 1) There are regions which aren’t connected to this global network society (North Korea,
parts of Africa). 2) In the core of the network society itself, spaces exist that aren’t connected to the
possibilities the network society offers (immigrants who tried to find work but couldn’t, these often
live in spaces together). The network society shows that the leading role we attach to politics to
govern our society is limited. Politics is primarily location-based. Globalization has created flows that
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,cross borders. These flows challenge the governance capacity of governments as well as the capacity
of politics to deal with these issues.
The liquid society (Bauman): our culture also changed. In our modern society a melting process takes
place, which accelerates the melting pot; as a result life becomes fluid. Melting is that our institutions
are losing their functions. This has a number of consequences: 1) People have been forced or have
been inspired to develop their own life courses. 2) Personal autonomy has increased through the
successful training and education of the mass population. 3) This freedom of choice has also become
possible because people saw their income substantially increase during the last 40 years, which
enables them to satisfy their own needs in more compelling ways. As a result of this emancipation
and liberalization process people not only acquired more objective freedom (given the formal rights
to choose and having the resources to choose); they also obtained more subjective freedom (they
experience more freedom). The ability to choose your own life has led to a variety of different
lifestyles. This process has increased the mobility in society; physically and socio-economically
(upward mobility increased). However, there are also influences on politics and policy making. 1) The
ability of people to form their own life leads to a situation in which people have increasing
expectations regarding the role of the government and the way in which government and politics
should facilitate this liquid and light life. 2) These increased possibilities and changes create
uncertainty and anxiety. Hence, we see that citizens expect that their life should be free of any risk.
3) In this world of unbridled but also anonymous opportunities and chances, there’s a risk that
people get lost. That’s why in the liquid and networked society identity is very important. This
identity is difficult to find, due to the diminishing role of institutions. That’s why there is a tendency
to re-establish an identity by returning to specific roots.. It’s also possible to create a specific identity
or to have multiple, by making use of the Internet. 4) People as voters will no longer vote according
to their values, norms and traditions or the societal group to which they belong. There are 2 other
important consequences: 1) The experience economy becomes increasingly important. Given that
people have more money to spend and have more autonomy in their choices, they have to be
seduced. Marketing experts try to anticipate this process of individuation with the creation of
experiences. These are memorable and personal which gives customers the idea that they’re buying
something unique. 2) The diminishing role that ideology plays in political life has led to a
development in which the visual aspect of politics has become more important » image-building. As
such the voter has increasingly become a drifting voter, who is seduced by the personal image that
politicians and policy makers want to push forward as being attractive and convincing, thereby
appealing to our emotions » mass media have become very important. As a result we see that media
logic plays a vital role in the way politics is being represented. 1) The media are more likely to report
on surprising and unexpected occurrences. 2) The complexity and ambiguity of these occurrences
can be reduced to simple, clear and consistent, almost binary occurrences (good vs. bad), which tend
to become personalized and dramatized. 3) The selective imaging created by this mechanism, is
increased by the tendency of the media to refer to each other in their coverage. As a result politics is
being perceived as an object of political marketing or political public relations, while at the same time
spin doctoring has become normal practice. This leads to the emergence of the drama democracy.
Politics is being portrayed as a theatre and politicians as the actors, while citizens are the watching,
rather passive audience that needs to be entertained. Entertainment is created by presen-ting policy
issues in terms of drama, in terms of a game that tries to stimulate our emotions » framing.
The risk society (Ulrich Beck): refers to the changing nature of the risks that society is confronted
with. Before the Industrial Revolution disasters were perceived as risks that go beyond the sphere of
influen-ce of mankind. They just happen, they’re inevitable and express the will of God. However,
since the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, disasters have been increasingly related to
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, the (un)intended outcomes that go back to a number of (non-)deliberate decisions that people,
organiza-tions or societies make. The modernization of society has created new risks, risks that are
made delibe-rate, because calculations have shown that the chance that such an event will occur is
acceptable. This type of risk calculation is justified by referring to the efficiency and efficacy gains.
The idea is that, when risks can be calculated, they can also be controlled. In doing so an illusion of
control is being fostered. As a result citizens have such high expectations regarding the effectiveness
of policies that they ask government to make, while governments suggest that by taking these
measures these risks are under control » safety illusion. This process leads to a situation in which no
real and open political and ethical debate exists regarding what risk we want to accept as a society,
which risks we don’t want to accept, what risks we really face and what we know about them. One
reason for this lacking debate is that we live in a truncated democracy, due to political influence of all
kinds of vested interests that economically benefit from the way risks are being defined. That’s why
it’s important to democratize the process of risk definition in societies. It’s important that a public
space is created in which alternative perspectives and alternative knowledge and information can be
shared. Modernization has created new risks: 1) The effects of the crisis that emerge from these new
risks are no longer restricted in time and place, 2) The effects of the risk sets in motion a whole chain
of other effects, 3) It’s quite difficult to answer the question of who is responsible for what. 4) It’s
quite impossible to compensate for involved costs.
The hollow state: the state as the dominant institution that primarily deals with challenges, has lost
its significance. It’s no longer the exclusive right of the state to provide the platforms on which the
authoritative allocation of values for society as a whole takes place » shift from government to gover-
nance, this challenges the governing monopoly of the state. 1) A vertical upward shift in which
compe-tences of the state have been transferred to international governing bodies. 2) A vertical
downward shift, in which competences of the state have been transferred to lower local and regional
authorities » decentralization. 3) A horizontal shift in favour of the judiciary. The jurisprudence
increasingly influ-ences the content of public policy. Also, citizens and interest groups increasingly go
to court when they are confronted with policies and policy decisions that don’t match their interest.
4) A horizontal shift toward companies that took over the production and distribution of services that
in essence have a pubic nature but are organized in a private way. 5) A horizontal shift toward society
and societal orga-nizations, thereby trying to mobilize the self-organization capacity that’s present in
society and socie-tal groups. 6) A horizontal shift toward the citizen as co-producer of policies or
services. From these shifts we can derive 4 conclusions: 1) What we see is that central government
has lost its significance, due to the upward, downward and horizontal shift in governance that favour
international, local and regional, and functional government. 2) We see a shift from the public
towards the private sector. As a result collective decision-making has been privatized, while at the
same time private decision-making has become more public. 3) Not only have the amount of
involved organizations or actors increased, but also interdependency between them has increased,
which adds to the complexity of governing. 4) As a result of these shifts ‘the sate is being hollowed
out’. This is also compensated for by the emer-gence of all kinds of new organizational but hybrid
arrangements in which public and private organiza-tions and actors collaborate. This implies that
hybridity is another essential aspect of the governing challenge. Not only has the power in society
shifted from the centre, it has even been split up.
Chapter 2: Four perspectives on the policy process
Rational approach
General Considers public policy as a means to solve societal problems. Information and
explanation knowledge play an important role in trying to understand what the problem is
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