Transcript The Water Dispute Between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia

Introduction – the policy process and the social sciences
 Foci of public policy – what we study; why and how we study it?
 Origins of public policy – contributions of various disciplines to its ideas
(e.g., economics, political science, sociology, planning, management).
 Challenges facing public policy – what we think we know, what we still
don’t know, & why it matters?
Foci of public policy – what we study, and how we study it
 Multi-disciplinary: every social science represented; and, increasingly relies on
operations research, mathematics/statistics, risk assessment, urban & regional
planning, computer science (e.g., Radin).
 Scientific: generate hypotheses based on large amounts of cases – not just anecdote;
compares/contrasts how polities formulate and implement policies so we can
understand why they work, or don’t work, the way they were intended. How far can
science take us? (e.g., Stone, Levin and Shapiro, Kingdon).
 Evaluative: tries to assess efficacy of processes and outcomes through dispassionate,
independent analysis. Hard to achieve – protagonists may disagree on policy goals;
effectiveness may be hard to measure; valid, reliable data may be hard to come by;
and, cause & effect may be difficult to establish (e.g., Bovens and T’hart).
 Normative: are there lessons we can learn regarding how to make policies better serve
the needs of society from how other countries design policies – e.g., economic
regulation, social welfare, health care, environment? (e.g., de Mesquita, Ellis, Pal and
Weaver).
Early origins of Public Policy
 Ancient Greeks – particularly Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) –
were concerned with understanding how polities advanced the welfare of their
citizens (i.e., justice).
 Principal question: how do different systems, and different types of leaders, treat their
citizens/advance their welfare?
 Charles-Louis de Secondât, baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) – postulated that
every polity must perform three functions: make, implement, adjudicate laws.
 These powers can be divided among different entities, or combined in one.
 The first is more democratic, enables wider-debate over policy and more accountability.
 Montesquieu drew ideas from John Locke (1632-1704) who first noted that European
monarchs combined legislative, executive, and fiduciary powers.
Significance of classical notions of public policy
Legislative – law or rule-making
function (Congress, State Assembly,
planning commission?)
Executive – administration &
enforcement of laws/rules
(President, governor, mayors?)
Judicial/fiduciary – resolve conflicts
regarding interpretation of laws, rules &
their applicability (courts, specialized
regulatory agencies, zoning boards?
• Functions can overlap (legislatures can sometimes enforce their own rules; executives can
sometimes make laws; courts often re-interpret intent of laws (e.g., civil rights).
• To the extent these functions are kept distinct, policy change is easier: there are more points of
access/accountability. When combined, access tends to be restricted.
19th Century Advancements
 The rise of sociology (1st modern social science) led to sophisticated ideas about
the role of power in policy process.
 Max Weber (1864-1920) and Auguste Comte (1798-1857) postulated that institutions
promote certain norms that shape individual behavior and constitute sources of power.
 These norms are found within interest groups and other non-governmental entities as
well as in governments.
 Behavior shaped by these norms fits predictable patterns, making it possible to predict
policy outcomes –i.e., why societies choose, or fail to choose, certain decisions; this is
empirically observable (Comte).
Norms, power and public policy
Physical power – coercion,
violence or its threat (law
enforcement, armed forces,
revolutionary movements).
Economic power – control or influence
on market forces to obtain a public
good (e.g., embargoes, boycotts,
consumption of goods, services)
Normative/spiritual power
– widely-shared moral
norms that legitimize
behavior (e.g., religion)
Legal power - formally
sanctioned laws & rules
(including treaties) formally
recognized by government.
Personal power –
charisma, ability to
persuade, special knack for
“good judgment” (e.g.,
leadership qualities).
Expert power – specialized
knowledge and insight into
problems: (e.g., policy
analysts, social scientists,
urban planners).
Norms and power – alternative views
 Institutions & individuals draw on multiple power sources: e.g., Robert Moses - 20th century
NYC planner who had enormous influence on urban policies (expert, legal, personal power).
 Institutions & individuals must operate within a set of norms – if they operate outside
these, their power may be challenged. Exception? Authoritarian polities & dictators.
 No single source of power grants a monopoly of authority –power “counteracts” power, and
all sources are affected by austerity (i.e., limits on resources).
 Many social sciences (e.g., economics, political science) often over-emphasize rational selfinterest in the exercise of power. Individuals & institutions often have non-self-interested
goals (e.g., community, altruism, charity, public interest – D. Stone).
20th Century - present
 Role of non-governmental organizations and their influence on policy began to be
explored: e.g., Robert Michels (1876-1936) – conceived of Iron law of oligarchy:
 In all formal organizations, power tends to be concentrated in the hands of a
few because most members lack political skill – yet want economic benefits.
 Leaders exploit this tendency to have bargaining leverage against other
powerful organizations – e.g., labor unions vs. corporations, corporations vs.
government – survival or organization becomes paramount goal!
 Is it really an “inevitable” and immutable law?
Iron law of oligarchy – a 21st century perspective
How the Reform Movement Has Changed the Teamsters Union (TDU History
1976-1979)
Beginnings
In 1976 the Teamsters Union was in big trouble. Union leaders had allowed organized crime to infiltrate the highest
levels of the union. The mob was raiding members’ pension funds to build casinos in Las Vegas. Teamster officials
were taking payoffs from employers and selling out the members. “There is no jurisdiction of safety within our
ranks,” a Los Angeles Teamster said at the time, “and anyone who speaks with conviction shall be haunted by a
specter of fear.”
Teamsters for a Decent Contract.
It was in these difficult circumstances that a small group of freight Teamsters met in Chicago in late 1975 to talk
about the national freight contract being negotiated the following year. They drew up a list of contract demands
and made plans to print and distribute a brochure to freight workers and organize meetings around the country.
The group called itself Teamsters for a Decent Contract (TDC).
TDC distributed thousands of flyers to freight Teamsters, organized meetings in dozens of cities, and held a
demonstration in front of IBT headquarters in Washington, D.C. They demanded that Teamster President Frank
Fitzsimmons hold the line for a strong contract. The small group grew in numbers as freight workers responded to
their message.
20th Century – present (con.)
 Scientific concern with how policies come about– and why polities differ in the
way this occurs – is another theme of the modern era: influenced by revolution in
behavioral sciences.
 Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) David Easton (1917 – present) conceived of policy as an
kind of input-output system, emphasizing relationships between demands and supports
and role of “feedback” on modifying decisions.
 Gabriel Almond (1911-2002) and Sidney Verba (1932 – present): role of political culture
– impact of diverse values and attitudes that underlie supports and demands for the
state’s role in policy (e.g., health care, environment).
A contemporary schematic of the public-policy process
AGENDA SETTING
POLICY MAKING PHASE
Demands – poll results; election returns;
protests & demonstrations; interest group
lobbying
Supports – expressions of favorable
opinion; paying of taxes; loyalty to state &
its leaders
Policy
formulation/
law-making by
legislatures
Policy execution
– application/
enforcement by
bureaucracy
Feedback – reactions to policy decisions; evaluating
outcomes & determining if they are meeting original
expectations – including adjudication by courts of law
POLICY IMPLEMENTATION PHASE
Outputs – laws, rules,
regulations
Challenges facing students of public policy
 Measurement and comparability: how do we identify the factors that explain,
e.g., what makes a policy effective, or what constitutes civic engagement?
 Do concepts mean the same thing from country-to-country? E.g., what does “health
security” mean – protection against disease, insurance against economic calamity?
Preventing bio-terrorism?) This is important to ensure cross-cultural validity.
 Are data collected in one place generalizable to conditions in another? Data are often
unique to a specific society while others result from “global diffusion” of ideas (e.g.,
foreign trade, globalization of media, intellectual exchanges).
 Finally, comparability depends upon the use of common language: E.g., does North
Korea have interest groups? Not if you define them in the U.S. sense of “pressure
groups” or “lobbyists.”
Challenges (con.)
 Ability to develop theoretically-sound propositions: e.g., “in certain types of
political systems (e.g., planned economies, mature democracies, developing
nations), y is likely to result when x occurs.”
 Some feel that this is what public policy research should focus on because it can
advance our ability to predict, e.g., election outcomes, public opinion.
 In this context, validity refers to the extent to which an instrument actually measures
what it intends; reliability means the extent to which categories applied to crossnational expression constitutes “universals” or are “invariant.”
 CAUTION - all of this implies that the study of public policy can be reduced to linear
scientific propositions: it cannot!
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Public policies never “resolve” problems for all time – new problems and issues arise.
Social wants and needs evolve and change.
Many policies have unpredictable consequences.*
The unpredictability of public policy – a primer
 Many complex social problems have no definitive formulation – we call them “wicked
problems” because they are difficult to both describe and resolve (Rittel and Webber, 1973)
(e.g., alienation, breakdown of civility, apathy).
 Solutions to these problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad (e.g., choosing among
divergent risks – using pesticides on crops vs. risking famine; using air bags in cars carrying
small children).
 Solutions are a "one-shot operation;” there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error,
every attempt counts significantly (e.g., nuclear deterrence).
 We do not have enumerable (exhaustively describable) solutions, or well-described
permissible operations that may be incorporated into plans (i.e., problems are often nonlinear – climate change and its impact on the local environment).
 Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem; The choice
of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution (e.g., even if universal
health insurance increases costs to everyone, is it still the “right” thing to do?).