CHAPTER 13: Public Policy

Transcription

1 Lenz, Timothy O. and Mirya Holman American Government. University of Florida Orange Grove Press. Available online: og/items/2e74506d a2fb-b04504b885bd/1/ Note: I have shifted and condensed page sections, removing some subsections and renumbering the remaining subsections, but I have not changed the content of the text or the pagination.. Full text can be found at the web address noted above. CHAPTER 13: Public Policy 13.0 Public Policy The previous chapters looked at American politics and government from a systems perspective. The classic democratic systems theory describes public opinion as the primary determinant of public policy. The chapter on public opinion studied the demand stage of the political process: how individuals and organizations and elections call the government s attention to issues or conditions or problems. The chapters on congress, the presidency, and the courts examined how these government institutions make decisions. This chapter examines the response stages of the process, the types of public policies, and some of the issues related to social science evaluation of public policy. Figure 13: The Classic Systems Theory Public Opinion 13.1 What is Public Policy Government Decision making Process Public Policy A policy is an official position on an issue or a plan of action that is intended to achieve certain results. It includes official positions taken by a government body, a private sector organization, a corporation, or even an individual. The following are policies: A congressional statute that makes it a crime for individuals to provide material support for organizations that the government labels terrorist organizations. An executive order such as Don t Ask, Don t Tell that directs the Department of Defense not to ask members of the military whether they are gays. Workplace safety rules and regulations. Corporate marketing practices for advertising tobacco or alcohol products to children. A company s personnel employment practices for hiring, firing, and promotion. An interest group s position on the environment or crime or some other issue. The personnel practices of non-profit organizations. A church s budget priorities or community outreach. A university s academic integrity code. A professor s grading of student class work. Chapter 13: Public Policy 273

2 274 Chapter 13: Public Policy The term public policy refers to governmental programs, rules, and courses of action. Public policies are stated in statutes, regulations, judicial rulings, executive orders and executive agreements, and even budgets. The study of public policy includes the process of decision making (who makes decisions and how they are made), the substance of a policy (what the official position is), and the analysis of its impact (whether a policy is effective). Public policy is also an academic and professional discipline that is studied and practiced in academic institutions and think tanks. The professional association of public policy practitioners, researchers, scholars, and students is the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. The academic discipline of public policy includes a broad range of social science fields including political science, economics, sociology, and public administration. A government action is a public policy, but so is government inaction. A government decision not to take action on a matter such as global warming or health care or poverty is a public policy. The policy making process includes efforts to get the government to act (offensive strategies) and efforts to stop government action (defensive strategies). Gun control organizations lobby for gun control laws while the National Rifle Association lobbies against them or even for public policies that expand the right to keep, bear, and buy and sell arms. Public policy is divided into two spheres: domestic and foreign policy. Domestic policy includes programs that affect individuals and organizations within a country. It includes a broad range of official positions on issues such as the economy, criminal justice, education, health care, transportation, energy production and consumption, and the environment. Foreign policy concerns a country s relations with other countries. U.S. foreign policy includes the economic, technological, informational, military, health, trade, and environmental relations with other countries. Some public policies affect both domestic and foreign affairs. Immigration policy, international trade policy, and national security policy for instance affect both domestic and foreign affairs. In fact, globalism has blurred the distinctions between domestic policy is more like an endless game of Monopoly than a bicycle repair - Deborah Stone Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, page 261. and foreign policy in a broad range of public policies Policy Stages The policy process has six stages: identifying a problem, agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. Political efforts to influence public policy through education, lobbying, campaigning, campaign contributions, or other methods occur at all stages of the policy process.

3 Chapter 13: Public Policy Problem Recognition Problem definition and recognition is the first stagee of public policymaking. It is when individuals, interest groups, business interests, or even government officials consider something a problem that the government shouldd solve. The problem might be air pollution, taxes, inflation, food and drug safety, crime, or bad roads or bad schools. Defining a problem and recognizing thatt it is appropriate for government to address it is the first stage in the policy process Agenda Setting Agenda setting is the second stage. Agenda settingg is putting an issue, a condition, or a problem on the government s agenda for action. Itt is easy to get some issues on the government s to-do list. Maintaining safe streets, providing economic stability and prosperity, providing national security, and maintaining good public order are considered basic government responsibilities so it is usually not hard to get them on the government s agenda. Getting agreement on whatt policy to adopt is another matter, however. The increased number of mass shootings,, particularly at schools, has put gun violence on the government agenda but specific policy proposals remain controversial. Some issues are hard to get on the government s agenda becausee there is no agreement that they are issues that government should be involved with. Individuals and organizations may have to mount campaigns and lobbying efforts to get the government to pay attention to public transportation, health care, an unsafe street thatt needs some kind of traffic control device, or the need for a park or civic recreation center. Agenda setting is the process of transformingg a private matter into a public matter, making a private issue a public issue. It requires convincing people that an issue is

4 276 Chapter 13: Public Policy political and that the government should enact a public policy to address it. Is workplace safety a public issue? The answer often depends on whether a job is, or is perceived to be, dangerous. Subsections omitted Chapter 13: Public Policy a Global Warming Global warming is an especially interesting case study of agenda setting. Using data showing increases in temperature, scientists and environmental organizations have been lobbying the government to take actions to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming. Business groups and conservative organizations have been lobbying against such government action. The initial defensive strategy was to deny the existence of global warning. Opponents of government action argued that temperature increases were part of natural, long-term cycles of temperature fluctuations that sometimes resulted in ice ages and sometimes resulting in warm periods. As a result, global warming is an example of political science or more accurately politicized science. In fact, researchers worry that the politicization of global warming means that scientists cannot even use the term, that they will have to use the term climate change instead. This substitution of terms is Subsections omitted 278 Chapter 13: Public Policy similar to the way that the scientific theory of evolution became so political that science textbooks refer rather meekly to life forms change. The Yale Project on Climate Change is an organization that is committed to bridging science and society on the matter of global warming. It includes an examination of how public opinion about global warming changed in response to the organized efforts to challenge the science Policy Formulation The third stage of the policy process is policy formulation. Policy formulation is the government process of developing a policy to address the problem that has been put on its agenda. A broad range of political actors typically participate in forming policy. The issue network for a particular area of public policy includes the congressional committee, the executive department(s), and the interest groups. A key factor in policy formation is defining the problem because how a problem is defined can have a significant impact on the substance of the policy. The following are examples of how political problems can be, and often are, defined in very different terms. The price of gasoline. Is the price of a gallon of gasoline too high or too low? Are gas price increases caused by high rates of consumption (Americans tend to drive

5 big cars and SUVs that do not get good gas mileage!!) or by decisions to not exploit all sources of energy ( Drill, baby, drill!)? Health Care. Is the high cost of health care caused by too much or too little access to health care? Do consumers overusee health care because their employers are paying for some of the cost of health insurance? Or are health care providers the problem? Supporters of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) definedd the problem in terms of access and coverage; opponents defined the health care act s mandate to buy insurance as an infringement on individual freedom. Unemployment. Some people define unemployment ass a problem caused by a lack of individual initiative. Others define unemployment as a problem caused by the structure of the modern economy. Crime. Crime can be defined as a problem caused by personal values or by poverty. Outsourcing. Do American businesses send jobs overseas because American worker wages are tooo high or because of tax incentives to do so? In all of the above examples a problem can be defined in very different ways that determine what policy solution is appropriate. Defining the energy problem as a problem of over-consumption leads to energy policies that are intended to solve the problem by emphasizing conservation. Defining the energy problem as inadequate supply leads to policies that emphasize production. The individuals and organizations who participate in the formation of public policy work hard to maintainn control over how the policy problem is defined in order to control the substance of the policy that is ultimately adopted Policy Adoption Chapter 13: Public Policy 279 Policy adoption is the making of a law or laws that give the policy legal force. The government s process of deciding upon a course of action includes deliberation over evidence of the need for government action. In Congress and the executivee branch, this could include hearings to take testimony about the nature of the subject being considered, calls for feedback from the public, lobbying by interest groups, citizens, or corporations. Individuals and organizations may provide evidence of the need for regulation, or evidence that regulation is not needed. If the publicc policy is to promote an activity by subsidizing it, then the focus is on getting the government to support policies that promote the activity. The policy adaptation stage can be very lengthy because the U.S. system of government creates so many points at which supporters and opponents (in particular) can participate in the process. In Congress alone, the decision-making stagess include subcommittees, committees, and the full bodyy of each house. The executive branch decision making process can include executive departments with

6 280 Chapter 13: Public Policy policy authority over the proposed policy. The policy adaptation stage culminates with the passage of a law or administrative regulation that identifies the official purposes of the policy. Elected officials often publicly appear at the signing of a popular law, for example, and bureaucratic officials may support a public policy that increases the agency s budget or rule making authority over their area of expertise Implementation The fifth stage is implementation. Implementation is what happens after a policy is put into effect. Implementation is neither automatic nor simple. There are three common problems with implementation: ambiguity, communication, and resistance. The first common problem is ambiguity. Some policies are not very clear or precise: the statutory language may be vague or general. When a statute or regulation is vague, the individuals responsible for implementing the policy may not know what the policy requires. This problem is fairly common when Congress passes a general law that described its goals only in very general terms, and then requires the experts or specialists in the bureaucracy to actually define what the law requires or to determine the way to implement the goals of the law. An example of this problem is a law passed by Congress declaring that federal policy supported clean air and clean water. These goals clean air and clean water require specific definitions that are provided by those authorized to implement the policy of clean air and clean water. Another example of the importance of implementation is the debates surrounding the use of enhanced interrogation as part of the war on terror. The government s official position is that torture is illegal, but the individuals who are conducting field interrogations are sometimes left to define what treatment is torture and what is not torture knowing that there is some support for tough questioning that may cross an unclear line. In fact, police officers, military police, or the FBI and CIA interrogators may not even know what the policy is concerning legal methods of interrogation. Having an official or general policy against torture does not eliminate the need to define what is, and what is not, torture. In fact any large organization needs clear communication of instructions throughout all of its levels if policies are to be implemented as intended. A common problem in government and private sector bureaucracies is need to clearly communicate policies throughout the organization s chain of command, from the top of the organization (the policy makers) to the bottom of the organization (the policy followers).

7 Chapter 13: Public Policy 281 In addition to the problems of ambiguity and communication, resistance is a third problem with implementation. The implementation problem here is that the individuals who are entrusted with the responsibility to implement or carry out the intentions of the policy may not support it. Resistance or opposition to a policy can make implementation difficult. The police officer may oppose a Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution requires that individuals who are suspected of committing a crime must be notified of their rights before being questioned by the police. A public school teacher may oppose a Supreme Court ruling that that prohibits organized, spoken prayer in public schools or at school events. The political appointee on the Consumer Products Safety Commission may be opposed to further government regulation of business. The head of the Food and Drug Administration may claim that the FDA has the authority to regulate nicotine despite the tobacco lobby successfully stopped efforts to get Congress to pass a law that specifically authorized the FDA to regulate nicotine as a drug. 1 The U.S. system of government creates special implementation problems that many other countries do not have. A country with a unitary form of government does not have to worry about independent local, state, or regional governments that may or may not implement a national policy. A country like the U.S. with a federal system of government has to take into consideration the fact that a state may not support a national policy and therefore not implement it. Furthermore, separation of powers means that the branch of government that makes a law (Congress) is not the branch of government that implements or carries it out (the executive), and the branch that makes a law is not the branch that interprets a law when there is a legal dispute about what it means (the courts). For example, a Democratic Congress may pass a law that a Republican President does not support, or simply interprets in a way that differs from the way the Congress understands the law. In contrast, a country with a parliamentary system does not have to worry about separate branches of government because the legislative and executive branches are formally connected. A good example of problems with implication is the 2007 political debate about the role of the Consumer Products Safety Commission in inspecting goods (ranging from pet foods to pharmaceutical ingredients to toys) imported from China. Republican President George Bush reflected the generally pro-business position of the Republican Party when he appointed an acting head of the CPSC who was did not support increased government regulation of the import business. Democrats in Congress supported increased regulation of import businesses, particularly those that imported dangerous toys from China where industry inspections and regulation are not a strict as in the United States a Budgeting In order for a policy to be successful it has to be built into the budget. Take the case of global warming. One way to address global warming is to increase spending on research to develop energy that less harmful to the environment. But if the problem definition stage has identified business, consumer, and ideological opposition to such efforts, then any energy policy that is adopted should include provisions to ensure compliance with the policy. For instance, an energy policy that included increased research might have a legal provision authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to fine energy companies that do not spend a certain percentage of their research budgets on

8 282 Chapter 13: Public Policy environmentally friendly policies. Such a legal provision has budgetary impacts, and in order to be successful Congress would have to allocate money to the EPA for enforcement of the law Policy Evaluation The above description of the stages of the policy process explains why politics does not start with government decision making and it does not stop with the adoption of a policy. Politics includes what happens after a bill has become a law. Policy evaluation is determining whether a policy is working as intended. This can be difficult because the subject can be complex (e.g., determining the cause of crime) and because of politics. Some evaluation is based on anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is stories from a few people that make their way to the ears of an evaluator. Politicians often cite compelling personal stories as evidence that a policy they support is working, or as evidence that a policy they support is not working. Sometimes horror stories and success stories are cherry-picked from the data. Evaluation also sometimes relies on public opinion. The political assumption is that a popular policy must be a good policy and an unpopular policy must be a bad policy. But public opinion conventional wisdom can be mistaken. Social scientists value evaluation that is based on empirical evidence: the systematic analysis of data. However, policies are assessed by a variety of individuals from a variety of perspectives and with a variety of goals in mind so it is not surprising that different methods of evaluation are used a Unintended Consequences Public policies frequently have side effects or unintended consequences. Because policies are typically intended to apply to complex adaptive systems (e.g. governments, societies, large companies), making a policy change can have unintended or counterintuitive results. For example, a government may make a policy decision to raise taxes, in hopes of increasing overall tax revenue. Depending on the size of the tax increase, this may have the overall effect of reducing tax revenue by causing capital flight or by creating a rate that is so high that citizens have incentives to NOT earn the money that is taxed. The policy formulation process typically includes an attempt to assess as many areas of potential policy impact as possible, to lessen the chances that a given policy will have unexpected or unintended consequences. Because of the nature of some complex adaptive systems such as societies and governments, it may not be possible to assess all possible impacts of a given policy. Policies are intended to affect human behavior. When thinking about how to get people to do what you want, it makes sense to think about their motivations. One of the most frequently used motivators is money: individuals are paid money to do things we want them to do (e.g., work) and fined for doing things we don t want them to do. But money is an imperfect motivator. 3 A good example of unintended consequences is the public policy supporting wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that bicyclists wear helmets as a safety measure to protect against head injuries. Parents often require children to wear bicycle helmets. Should Chapter 13: Public Policy 283 local governments require bicyclists to wear helmets while riding on bike paths? The intended consequence is reducing head injuries. The unintended consequences include increased rates of obesity, increased heart disease, and increased rates of diabetes because requiring helmets reduces bicycle riding (exercise). Some American cities are adopting bike sharing programs to increase the use of bicycles for urban transportation. Helmets present a problem for such programs. When a major considers a law requiring wearing helmets, the benefits (reduced head injuries) should be considered against the costs (decreased bicycling).