This document entails an extensive summary of all the readings of the course PPG. Both part 1 and part 2 are included. Due to this summary, I passed the course with a 7.5. Goodluck with studying!
Public Policy & Governance.
Public Policy. By Christoph Knill & Jale Tosun.
Chapter 1. Introduction.
Positive view.
Public policies (overheidsbeleid) are omnipresent in our daily lives. The study of
public policies seeks to understand the production and effects of public actions. It
highlights processes and decisions that define the outputs of a political system and
the broader effects resulting from such policy decisions.
So the core topics are policy outputs and policy effects. Their study generally
focuses on two fundamental issues:
1. Policy variations. Refers to the explanation of differences between public
policies.
2. Policy change. The central focus is on the explanation of stability and change.
What is public policy?
In political science, we generally find three major subject areas:
1. Polity (staatsinrichting). Refers to the institutional structures characterizing a
political system.
2. Politics. Concentrates on political processes.
3. Policy. Focuses on the content of policies.
-> All of these dimensions play an important role in explaining public policy.
The term ‘public policy’ can be defined as a course of action (or non-action) taken
by a government or legislature with regard to a particular issue. It is not possible to
specify a number of courses of action as defining a ‘public policy’.
Policy-making can be seen as problem-solving, but also as a means of exerting
power by one social group over another.
The term ‘policy’ is used for activities of very different scope:
1. It is often used to cover a whole range of different measures in a certain sector.
2. A similar approach is used to describe public activities in policy subfields.
3. Even within policy subfields, distinctive policy issues or targets can be identified.
4. Usage of the term refers to its connection with regulatory instruments. While
policy targets refer to what a legal act regulates, policy instruments define how
they are regulated.
-> Public policy can thus refer to different phenomena.
There are several theoretical perspectives on the evolution of public policies:
• Rationalist approach:
Sees policy-making as a process of problem-solving. Rather than seeking to
explain the policy process, it prescribes an ideal conception of how policy-making
should be. More a normative (how policies should evolve) than a positive
perspective (how policy can be explained) on policy-making.
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,• Incrementalist perspective: (incrementeel: aantal of kwaliteit toenemend)
Public policy is regarded as the political result of the interaction of various actors
possessing different types of information. It is rather a realistic than an ideal
description of how policy-makers come to their decisions.
• Radical view (garbage can model):
Assumes that usually the involved actors within an organization go through the
‘garbage’ first and look for a suitable solution.
Policy cycle: models the policy process as a series of political activities. It basically
consists of the following phases:
1. Problem definition and agenda-setting.
2. Policy formulation and adoption.
3. Implementation.
4. Evaluation (with the potential consequence of policy termination (beëindiging) or
reformulation)
Chapter 3. The Context for Policy-Making: Central Institutions and Actors.
We define ‘actors’ as (groups of) individuals who participate in policy processes and
whose preferences will ultimately determine the policy choice. We will regard
institutions as exogenous to actors, in this way, institutions determine the extent to
which actors can transform their preferences into public policy.
The most essential institutions of polities, which have important repercussions on
the process and output of policy:
• Constitutions and constitutional courts.
You can have rigid and flexible constitutions. Constitutions define the most basic
rules of the game in any political system by structuring and restricting the
exercise of government power. In most polities, the constitution is protected by a
supreme or constitutional court.
-> Horizontal power separation: Executive, Legislative, Judiciary.
-> Vertical power separation: National level, subnational level.
• Division of powers.
The power of a state is divided over three branches.
1. Executive: in charge of implementing public policy and has the authority to
administer (beheren) the bureaucracy. (government)
2. Legislative: the branch of government endowed with the competency to make
legislation (parliament). In most systems the legislative assembly consists of two
houses: a lower and upper house.
3. Judiciary: composed of the various levels of courts that interpret and apply the
law and resolve disputes emerging among private and public actors.
• Electoral institutions and party systems.
The two most basic types of electoral systems are:
1. Majoritarian systems: only one candidate can be chosen and the one who
receives the highest number of votes is awarded the seat. Winner takes it all.
2. Systems of proportional representation: the basic idea is to give each party
the same share of seats as it won votes.
Four types of party systems:
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,1. Dominant-party system. One large party dominates all others over long
periods.
2. Two-party system. Two equally strong parties dominate the party-system.
3. Multiparty system. Remarkable variation in the number and size of the parties.
4. Bipolar system. Combines elements of the two- and multi-party systems. None
of the parties has the majority, the difference is that the parties form relatively
stable electoral alliances.
Operations operating in an international context are classified either supranational
or intergovernmental organizations. A supranational organization has powers that
its member states do not have because they have delegated a limited amount of
their sovereignty to it. An intergovernmental organization also consists of member
states, but they remain independent and engage in voluntary cooperation and
coordination.
Supra-national, means over the nations: a supranational organization is over and
beyond the authority of states. It expresses its own will
Actors are characterized by their capabilities. And actors can be characterized by
the way they perceive a particular social problem. In addition, actors can be
distinguished according to whether they are public (acting on behalf of the state) or
private (acting on behalf of their own preferences):
1. Public actors.
• The executive: the executive consists of the head of government and the
ministers who form the cabinet.
• The legislature: Legislature fulfills three principal tasks:
1. Provide legitimacy for the political system.
2. Legislatures have control and oversight over functions.
3. They legislate.
• The judiciary: mainly refers to the constitutional courts. The judiciary affects
public policy with ‘self-limitation’ and ‘corrective revision’. The judiciary can also
affect public policy by acting as agenda setter.
• The bureaucracy: implements public policy. Bureaucrats can be appointed with
use of the ‘spoils system’, based on political loyalty or with the use of the
meritocratic system. There were three main characteristics needed to make the
bureaucracy effective for the government:
1. Personnel stability. The attracting and maintaining of qualified bureaucrats.
2. Organization. Organizing bureaucracies by their functional speciality.
3. Procedure. Having a high degree of standardization of decision-making and the
application of rules.
• Political parties: political parties perform four core tasks:
1. Coordinating.
2. Conducting electoral campaigns.
3. Structuring competition.
4. Representing.
2. Private actors.
• Interest groups: organizations that make policy suggestions to governments in
order to bring public policies more in line with the interests of their members. We
can distinguish between private and public interest groups.
• Experts: individuals or groups of individuals that can have an impact on policy-
making on grounds of the information they supply to policy-makers.
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, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision making. By Deborah Stone.
Constructivist view.
Introduction: Why This Book?
A paradox violates the most elementary principle of logic: something cannot be two
different things at once. A paradox is just such an impossible situation, and political
life is full of them.
Examples are:
• Winning is losing and losing is winning.
• Demonstration - debate or assault?
• Enemies or Allies?
• Are low prices good or bad?
Rationality project: the project of making public policy rational rests on three
pillars:
1. A model of reasoning.
2. A model of society.
3. A model of policy making.
The model of reasoning is rational decision making. In this model decisions are
made in steps:
1. Identify objectives.
2. Identify alternative courses of action for achieving objectives.
3. Predict the possible consequences of each alternative.
4. Evaluate the possible consequences of each alternative.
5. Select the alternative that maximizes the attainment of objectives.
-> The rational decision-making model ignores our emotional feelings and moral
institutions.
PART I POLITICS.
Chapter 1. The Market and the Polis.
A theory of policy politics must start with a model of political society:
Polis: the Greek word for city-state.
• In building a model of political society, it is helpful to use a market model. A
market can simply be defined as a social system in which individuals pursue their
own welfare by exchanging things with others whenever trade’s mutually
beneficial. Participants in a market compete with each other for scarce resources.
In the market model, individuals only act to maximize their own self-interest. Self-
interest means their own welfare.
• Because politics and policy can only happen in communities, community must be
the starting point of our polis. Public policy is about communities trying to achieve
something as communities. A model of the polis must assume collective will and
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