Summary // ‘Understanding Public Policy: theories and issues’ // Paul Cairney
Foreword
In this summary, I have tried to capture the essence of each chapter without digressing to much into
details. I mostly focused on explaining the core meaning of every theory and the concepts involved.
I’ve left out some of the discussions on how different theories contradict or complement each other,
because this summary would get too lengthy.
All central concepts (in the book these are placed in small boxes) I indicate with capital letters and an
= - sign. For example:
‘SECTORS = broad policy areas, such as economic, foreign, agriculture, health and education.’
In some places, I translate a word to Dutch (for all my fellow Dutch students 😊).
Hopefully this summary will help you to get a practical overview!
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, Summary // ‘Understanding Public Policy: theories and issues’ // Paul Cairney
1. Introduction: Theories and Issues
The aim of this chapter is to identify the key themes that run throughout the public policy literature,
and the book as a whole.
Why do we study public policy?
We study public policy because we want to know why particular decisions are made. For example:
why did so many governments decide to ‘bail out’ the banks, rather than let them fold, after the
economic crisis in 2008? Why did president Obama pursue healthcare reforms in 2009?
We study theories of public policy because we recognize that there are many different answers to
these questions. These answers are based on different perspectives:
- We can focus on individual policy makers, examining how they analyze and understand
policy problems. We can consider their beliefs and how receptive they are to particular ideas
and approaches to the problem
- We can focus on institutions and rules that policy makers follow
- We can identify powerful groups that influence how policies are made
- We can focus on the socio-economic context and consider the pressures that governments
fase when making policy
- Or we can focus on all five of these factors.
Most contemporary accounts try to explain policy decisions by focusing on one factor or by
combining and understanding of these factors into a single theory. However, there is no single
unifying theory in public policy.
The aim of this book is to outline major theories of public policy and explore how we can combine
their insights when seeking to explain the policy process.
The general approach
Public policy is difficult to study, because it’s complex, messy and ofter appears to be unpredictable.
The idea of a single process is a simplification. We find that there are multiple policy processes:
- Behavior of policy makers
- The problems they face
- The actors they meet
- The results of their decisions often vary by region, political system, over time and from policy
issue to issue.
That’s why much of the literature uses the case study method, just to make sense of very specific
events. However, there are ways to make sense of the process as a whole:
Step 1: define public policy, define types of public policy
Step 2: decide how to make a study of policymaking more manageable
- Treat the policy process as a cycle: agenda setting; formulation; legitimation;
implementation; evaluation
- Consider a policymaking ideal (comprehensive rationality), in which a policymaker has a
perfect ability to produce, research and introduce her policy preferences
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, Summary // ‘Understanding Public Policy: theories and issues’ // Paul Cairney
The modern history of policy studies literature involves taking these approaches as the starting point,
and considering how best to supplement or replacet hem with other theories. The main aim of this
book is to identify these theories, explain how they work and assess their value.
Each chapter has four key ingredients:
1) Description of a key theory for public policy
2) Identification of the questions that the theory seeks to answer.
3) Consideration of the value of the theory in different circumstances
4) Exploration how the key themes and issues raised by the theory relate to concerns raised in
other chapters.
Theories of public policy: from the old to the new?
PUBLIC POLICY = the sum total of government action, from signals of intent tot he final outcomes.
THEORY = a set of analytical principles designed to structure our observation and explanation of the
world.
PRESCRIPTIVE / NORMATIVE = relating to how things should be
DESCRIPTIVE = relating to how things are
IDEAL-TYPE = an abstract idea used to highlight certain hypothetical features of an organization or
action.
Old
The way we study public policy has changed since the post-war period. Two forms of policy analysis
became the main focus: the policy cycle and ‘comprehensive rationality’. While earlier accounts
took these as ideals to aspire to (prescriptive/normative), they are now more likely to be treated as
an ideal-type or useful departure point.
Fewer and fewer books begin with a discussion of comprehensive rationality and fewer authors
structure their books around the cycle metaphor. The policy cycle is now generally used as an
organizing framework for the study of policy.
New
The phrase most used is ‘bounded rationality’, which Simon (1957) used to describe a process in
which people or organizations use decision-making short-cuts, rather than comprehensive analysis,
and seek satisfactory, rather than ‘optimal’ solutions to policy problems.
Lindblom (1959) gave us the theory of incrementalism, as a descriptive and prescriptive alternative
to comprehensive rationality.
Other issues now deserving the most attention: new institutionalism; rational choice; multiple
streams; punctuated equilibrium; advocacy coalitions; policy transfer; socio-economic factors; policy
networks (and multi-level governance); and the role of power and ideas.
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, Summary // ‘Understanding Public Policy: theories and issues’ // Paul Cairney
CONCEPTS CHAPTER 1
POLICY CONDITIONS = refers tot he nature or structure of the policy environment and hence the
specific problems that policymakers face. Relevant contextual factors include a political system’s size,
demographic structure, economy and mass behaviour.
STRUCTURE = a set of parts put together in a particular way to form a whole. More importantly, the
implications are: (a) that a structure is relatively fixed and difficult but not impossible to break down
and (b) it influences the decisions that actors make. Examples include economic structures and
institutional rules.
AGENCY = refers tot he ability of an actor to act to realize its goals. The implication is that this is
intentional action based on an actor’s thought process and ability to choose (rather than determined
by the structure of the decision-making environment).
SECTORS = broad policy areas, such as economic, foreign, agriculture, health and education.
SUB-SECTORS = specific policy issues or niches within sectors, such as (within agriculture) seed potato
regulations or growth hormones in dairy production.
Conclusion
The most basic question we ask ourselves when studying public policy is: what do we want to know?
The answer is that we want to know:
- What policy is
- What policy measures (maatregelen) exist
- What measures have been taken
- How to best make sense of what has happened
- What are the most useful theories of public policy and what happens when you combine
them
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