Policy development: development of a proposed course of action for dealing with a public

Public Policy Lecture 1 – Policy and Society Agenda setting: identification and selection of problems that need serious attention Policy development: development of a proposed course of action for dealing with a public problem Policy decision-making: deciding politics on the possible courses of actions by accepting the most appropriate proposal Policy implementation: application of the policy by one or more government organizations Policy evaluation: determining if the efforts that were made by the government were effective, and why and why not Politics: 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. 1 / 4

-Three allocation arrangements: the state (authority), the market (price mechanism) and the community (trust in each other) -Struggle, competition, persuasion, bargaining, negotiation and persuasion -A political decision can be seen as a codification of the balance between specific values that can be considered to be, as much as possible, an appropriate way of dealing with a specific societal challenge.Policies: structured set of means and resources that are used to influence specific societal developments and to solve problems in a desired or planned way.-Result of multiple decisions taken by sets of actors

Governance:

-Government is not an entity but a conglomerate of actors -Government is not the only actor which tries to influence societal problems -Government interventions generate continuing interactions between all kinds of public, semi-public and private actors within several societal domains and at different levels that try to influence the shaping of political processes -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 Policymaking is about constrained actors attempting to match policy goals with policy means in a process that can be characterized as ‘applied problem-solving’.-Technical dimension: seeks to identify the optimal relationship between goals and tools -Political dimension: not all actors typically agree on what constitutes a policy problem or an appropriate ‘solution’

Public policy problem:

-Discrepancy between the actual situation and the norm of how the situation should be in society What is public policy? (Dye vs. Jenkins in Howlett, 2009)

-Dye: anything a government chooses to do or not to do

oPrimary agent of public policy-making is a government oFundamental choice, this decision is made by elected politicians and other government officials oPublic policy is a conscious choice of a government -Jenkins: a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should be within the power of those actors to achieve oMost policies involve a series of decisions that cumulatively contribute to an outcome oGovernment’s capacity to implement its decisions is also significant -Gives direction how to achieve public goals with a selection of means and instruments 2 / 4

oExamples of public goals: security, equality, health, development, social

integration, etc.-Intentional collective action (by, with or without government) -An institution in the sociological sense (very broadly, not only politics but also

society): constraining as well as enabling social behaviour

Policy universe: all actors involved in a stage in the policy cycle

Policy subsystem: only those actors with sufficient knowledge of a problem area, or a resource at stake, to allow them to participate in the stage of the policy cycle

Government decision makers: elected officials, judges, or bureaucrats

What types of public policy are there?

-Constitutional policies: setting up new or reorganizing existing institutional

arrangements or establishing new organizations with special tasks

oExample: new ministries (e.g., ministry of migration and integration)

-Regulatory policies: policies that define government control/rules in specific cases

oExample: policies during pandemic (e.g., vaccinations)

-(Re-)distributive policies: distributing/allocating resources among actors

oExample: taxation, higher income means higher taxes

-Provisional policies: policies aimed at creating specific facilities or provisions

oExample: education, government provides education, dikes, sewerage

Stimulating policies: the creation of incentives that motivate actors to take specific decisions which are in line with the goals that policy makers had in mind oExample: use of subsidies to get industrial firms to improve the quality of their waste water or recycle their waste water Societal perspectives on public policy (Bekkers, Fenger, and Scholten H1-2) -Policies are situated in a societal context 3 / 4

oSocietal transformations like globalization, technological development, aging put new demands on public policy oFailure to adapt leads to policy failure -Four key transformations: Risk Society, Network Society, Liquid Society and Hollow State Risk society (by Ulrich Beck) -Modern societies are characterized by new risks: manufactured, calculated vs. old risks

oManufactured risks: risks that are produced by the modernization process,

particularly by innovative developments in science and technology

oCalculated risks: due to the use of advanced calculation models, risks can be

forecast and controlled

oExamples: Chornobyl or Fukushima nuclear plant disaster

-New risks oRisks do not stop at borders ‘world risk society’ oChain reactions oWho is responsible for what? (network of decision-makers and responsibilities) oImpossible to compensate for involved costs oComplex and uncertain oIrreversible (e.g., GMO: Genetic Modified Organism: when they are invented, it is very difficult to stop it) -Citizens have high expectations regarding the effectiveness of the policies that they ask government to make, while governments suggest that by taking these measures these risks are under control (creation of a safety utopia or a safety illusion) -Important to democratize the process of risk definition in societies -Public policy: politics at the level of policy subsystems to promote reflexivity Network society (by Manuel Castells) -Increasing importance of technology (ICT, transport) -Information technology as a revolutionary force: vital role for information and communication in modern society and the importance of information and knowledge in our economic life (production and distribution of goods and serviczes) -Digitalization: transporting information and knowledge in a speedy way and on a global level -Globalization oOutsourcing oInterdependency (network; in terms of countries being dependent on other countries to produce certain products) and complexity (organizations are autonomous but dependent on other organizations)

oExchange/coordination relationships: the material organization of time-

sharing practices that works through flows

oNodes: the concentration of sophisticated knowledge and expertise that is

necessary to operate and coordinate these flows oSpecialization in the production of goods and services on a global scale

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