The Policy Process

1
The Policy Process

• ESSP 660
• September 15

2
Policy Process

• Initiation and Agenda Setting
• Policy Formulations
• Policy Selection and Legitimization
• Budgetary Process
• Implementation
• Evaluation
• Lessons

3
Getting on the agenda
4
Getting on the Agenda

• Problem recognition/definition
• e.g. Earth Day, April 22, 1970 Nationwide
  teach-ins increasing affluence in the US,
  emphasis of quality of life.
• Framing the issue
• Issue Linkage and the Politics of Interest
  Aggregation
• Role of Policy Entrepreneurs
• Policy makers viewed environmental concerns as
  politically attractive and capitalized on the
  momentum.
• Edward Muskie (D-Maine)

5
Edward Muskie

• Presidential hopeful for 1972 election
• Chair of Public Work Committee
• Proposed policies well beyond what Nixon wanted.

6
Issue Formulation

• Anthony Downs. Up and Down with Ecology The
  Attention Issue Cycle. The Public Interest,
  Volume 28 (Summer 1972), pp. 38-50.
  http//www.anthonydowns.com/upanddown.htm
• Pre-problem stage
• Alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm
• Realizing the cost of significant progress
• Gradual decline of intense public interest
• Post-problem stage

7
Policy formulation the (ir)rational approach

• Policy analysis paradigm
• Generating alternatives and decision rules
• Examining costs, benefits, and risks in policy
  design
• e.g. Reaganomics and the costs of environmental
  regulation.
• Welfare economics and public choice approaches

8
(No Transcript)
9
Policy Formulation Politics and Science

• Changes in the notion of science
• e.g. Climate change and uncertainty
• Political theory in understanding policy
  frameworks
• e.g. command and control, market incentives, cap
  and trade
• Influence of media coverage
• e.g. Cuyahoga River fire of 1969, etc.
• Interest groups agenda setting
• e.g. Sexual harassment

10
Formulation Improving Policy Design

• Developing systems in policy that imbed social
  choice evaluation within the policy.
• Klyza, 1994. Ideas, institutions, and policy
  patterns Hardrock mining, forestry, and grazing
  policy on United States public lands, 1870-1985
• MiningPrivatized
• ForestryProfessionalized
• Grazing--Captured

11

• Privatization and Mining
• Federal govt didnt want to manage federal land
• release the energy within society
• States wanted income and commerce (Sage Brush
  Rebellion)
• Policy development for mining was ad hoc!
• Technocratic utilitarianism and Pinchot
• Government provides scientific management to
  promote sustainable yields
• Forest Service
• Soil conservation service ()
• Grazing and the wild westanti-federalist grazers
• Unregulated through the late 1800s
• No cadre of professionals
• Localized grazers form management units

12
Policy Selection and Legitimization

• Official approval of means and ends
• Political and ethical acceptabilities
• Democratic participation
• Hypotheses
• Policy outcomes determine legitimacy
• Human-beings are only secure from evil at the
  hands of others in proportion as they have the
  power of being, and are, self-protecting
• --J.S. Mill On Liberty

13
The Budgetary Process

• Issues of resource allocation and funding
  priorities
• The deficit dilemma and the national debt
• Entitlements and uncontrollables
• Macroeconomics and budget preparation
• Hypotheses
• Economics limits policy options
• Macro-economics constrain policy options
• Role of government is directly correlated with
  national debt

14
Policy implementation

• Reformulating policy in operational terms
• Gathering administrative and constituent support
• Finding channels of influence and corridors of
  indifference to achieve policy objectives
• Hypotheses
• Agency determines implementation success
• (EPA under Reagan)
• (Local) participation leads to better outcomes
• (watershed planning, USDA organic standards)

15
Policy Evaluation

• Selecting achievement measures
• ?? a surprisingly new endeavor, often very
  difficult
• Great Societywar on poverty
• Drug use and additionwar on drugs
• Assessing performance
• Economic costs and health benefits of clean air
• Assigning responsibilities for failure and
  success
• Clean Air ActJapanese versus US auto industry
• Government learning
• Ecosystem-based management?
• Determining costs of and new problems created by
  the closure or cutback management of policy
  program

16
Mocking the efforts of policy scientists

• Harold Lasswell Policy sciences would help
  democratic institutions would select rational
  outcomes.
• In the end, policy scientists wonder if their
  field is just 'muddling through'

17
The tail wagging the dog

• Policies and politics are not the sole arena of
  politicians and government offices
• Contrary to the media bias, elected officials and
  bureaucrats have may enact and enforce laws, but
  these proximate policy makers dispute over
  relatively narrow range of alternatives.

18
Leader and followers as a false dichotomy

• Leaders are lenses...that refract competing
  interests
• Corporate interests
• Leisure
• Sports
• Horoscopes?
• Science rarely competes well

19
Summary

• Understanding each of the policy stages can be
  extremely valuable to understand current
  environmental regulations/policies
• Be cognizant of all the appropriate rules/laws
  and background.
• e.g. food safety strict liability and farming.

20
Combination of Phases

• EPA seeks guidance from courts, e.g. navigable
  waters to develop reliable policies.

21
Constitutional Constraints

• Three branches
• State versus Federal Government
• Interest group politics
• MADD and driving age
• Morton versus Sierra Club

22
Negation

• Environmentalism negates
• marketplace economics
• economic growth as a goals
• technological optimism
• and the political structures that support them.
• Critique
• Luddites
• Elitism

23
Environmental Movement

• Idealist versus Pragmatists
• Preservationist versus prudent resource use
• Factions within organizations
• Deep ecology Radical Environmentalism

24
What is there a role of science

• Executive Branch
• Congress
• Courts
• Bureaucracies
• Interest groups
• Corporate lobbies
• Political parties