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W E E K S 6 A N D 7 : O F F I C I A L A N D U N O F F I C I A L A C T O R S I N T H E P O L I C Y P R O C E S S
The Public Policy Process
Today’s grammar question:
What’s up with this comma?
“Well, actually he didn’t do it –he paid a painter $200 to do it for him.” (Councilman
Franz’s blog)
The Next Assignment: The Policy Environment
See the assignment on the website: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tabirkla/documents/assignment3.pdf
File: lastname_environment.doc or .docx or .rtf
New due date! Friday, February 26
I may have been too strict about evidence in marking memos…government data are OK
Bonus! For every writing error in my comments back to you, I will give you a point (if you point out the errors!).
Objectives for this section
Understand official and unofficial actors in the policy process.
Understand the difference between official and unofficial actors.
Prepare to understand the role of interest groups and power in policy making.
Official and Unofficial Actors in Public Policy
What are official actors?
What are unofficial actors?
What is the difference between official and unofficial actors?
Are one set of actors more “legitimate” than another? The policy process involves the interaction of these actors
within the policy environment
That policy environment is characterized by static and dynamic features of our system
The Traditional View of Formal Institutions
Automatically have power and authority
Are relatively stable—monolithic?
Have the final say in policy debate
Their decisions are accepted
Interests are in the role of supplicants
This is the classic institutionalist approach
A More Realistic View
Power and authority must be earned and reinforced Are broadly stable, but are not at all monolithic Do not issue the final word—decisions often lead to
countermobilization Countermobilization is proof that decisions aren’t
unquestioned Bureaucratic delay or shirking Disobedience
Interests and members of formal institutions work together, not apart.
This looks more like the behaviorist approach
Hierarchy? Or Network?
The C0nstitution
and the People (really?)
Executive
The Bureaucracy
Legislative Judicial
Lower Courts
Hierarchy? Or Network
Coalition 1 Coalition 2
Mediated by policy brokers or policy entrepreneurs
Legis-lators
Groups
Agencies
Experts
News Media
Parties
Legis-lators
Groups
Agencies
Experts
News Media
Parties
Official Actors
Legislative branch
Executive branch (president, governor)
The bureaucracy
Judicial branch (courts)
Legislative Branch
Article I of the Constitution. Why? Does this rationale still hold today?
Make laws Lots of laws introduced, few pass (p. 51) Has a large staff to lighten workload
Hold hearings For lawmaking For other reasons
Perform oversight over the executive branch Approval of appointments Oversight hearings
Do casework for constituents. What are the power advantages and disadvantages of the
legislative branch?
Legislative Activity
105th Congress
(1997-98)
110th Congress
(2007-2008)
House Senate House Senate
Bills 4,874 2,655 7,336 3741
Joint resolutions 140 60 101 107
Concurrent
resolutions
354 130 442 46
The nature of legislation
Symbolism
Currying favor with constituents
Multiple bill introductions
How do we know what’s “on the agenda” just from a count of bills? Why does it matter what’s on Congress’s agenda?
Organization of the Legislature
Parties Elect the presiding officer or speaker
Determine who sits on committees
Committees Screen bills
Set the legislative agenda
Chairs are very powerful
Is the Congress centralized? Or decentralized? Evidence in favor
Evidence against
Public Policy and Critiques of the Legislature
Are legislatures out of touch with the people?
Are legislatures too slow? Do they suffer from gridlock?
Members and reelection
Congress as a decentralized institution
Congress as a localized, constituency-serving institution – examples?
Implications
“Gridlock,” or deliberation, is designed into the legislative process.
It’s unlikely that Congress will make big sweeping policy changes without a social movement or a major prod from the executive branch/.
Congress may focus on politically safe casework, oversight, and distributive spending. Field hearings as theatre
The House, in particular, may favor local interests over national interests Over 80% of Americans think that incumbents should lose their seats Yet, the vast majority of incumbents will be reelected
The Executive Branch
Chief Executive (President, Governor)
Staff (about 3000 appointed officials)
We consider the civil service (“bureaucracy”) separately
Presidential Advantages Over Congress
The veto power The head of a unitary branch Considerable power shifted toward the executive
branch during The Civil War The New Deal World War II Cold War Great Society
Attracts a lot of media and public attention—can “go public”
“The Bully Pulpit”
Constraints on the President’s Power
Inability to force action. Sheer size of his staff. “Going native” Turnover
The will of the other branches. Appointments Courts
The permanent bureaucracy. Result: the president may be more involved in
agenda setting than in selecting alternative policies.
Agencies and Bureaucrats
What is a bureaucracy? Division of labor
Impersonal, unbiased rules
Staff expertise
Obvious hierarchy
What is a civil servant? Selected on merit
What do you think motivates bureaucrats in public service?
What Do Government Agencies Do?
Provide public goods What is a public good?
Provide services that people may not want provided by the private sector Electricity
Phone
Water
Is the Bureaucracy too Big?
1999: 2.79 million civilian employees
$1.8 trillion budget.
4.47% of Americans work for all government (2.09% work for the federal government), according to U.S. BLS
2008 2.73 million civilian employees (slight decline)
About $3.0 trillion budget
4.65% of Americans work for all government (1.88% work for the federal government)
Bureaucracy and Accountability
Bureaucrats are not elected, yet they make policy.
Yet, bureaucrats are supposed to act in the “public interest.”
The problem: what is the “public interest”?
Bureaucrats are given more or less discretion based on how sensitive an issue is.
The problem of agency “capture”
The Courts
Hamilton: “The least Dangerous Branch” The courts are neither impotent nor all powerful. The Courts do make policy. Rely on judicial review
Rely on enforcement by other actors—executive and legislative branches, private actors. Why are most court decisions respected?
The courts are undemocratic institutions But, was our republic designed as a democracy? How does one balance popular will with constitutional limit?
Implications for policy
Policy change is slow, and takes time to develop
Coalition building is important
The institutions are important gatekeepers, but are not the only participants
Interest Groups
Why are groups so important? Can individuals make change acting alone?
Aggregation of resources
Aggregation of members=power
Forming “advocacy coalitions”
Groups or “special interest groups” are sometimes viewed as a bad thing. Why?
Interest Groups: Background
Have been around a long time Madison mentions them in Federalist 10
A relatively small number of groups until the 1960s
Major growth in interest groups in the 1960s. Any ideas why?
Kinds of Interest Groups
Institutional interest groups Membership because you belong to a particular interest group,
such as NCSU graduate students
Membership interest groups Groups you choose to join
Reasons for Rapid Interest Group Growth
Many government programs=many clients
Lack of legal constraints against group formation in a democracy
Increasing number of public demands Resources
Rights
Types of Membership Groups
Economic (private interest). Are primarily interested in benefits for members.
Do you think they will at least argue that, when their members benefit, the public benefits?
Public interest groups. Seek to create broad benefits for everyone.
Hard to define a single “public” interest.
Other types of groups. Churches, for example.
Why Do People Join Groups?
To gain some sort of a benefit. Economic well being or gain. The desire to do good. The desire to belong to or identify with a group. The desire to find a way to make one’s voice heard. To get the freebies: magazines, calendars, etc.
What Do Groups Do?
Lobbying (providing information)
Support candidates Money
Votes
Mobilize members to take action
Sue in court
Public protests and “direct action”
Groups and Power
We all know that some groups have more power than others
What is power?
Why do some groups have more power than others?
Three Levels of Power
An actor (“A”) makes actor B do something he or she doesn’t want to do.
A keeps B from doing the things he or she wants to do.
These are what we call the two faces of power. What about the third face of power?
The Third Face of Power
A creates and maintains a social structure in which B cannot even imagine taking action to pursue his or her own interests.
This sounds like a conspiracy (or Marxist “false consciousness” but is more subtle than this.
This is a good way to describe power relations in the United States.
Differences in Group Power
Resources Money Information
Size of membership Reasons for membership Direct economic incentives Material inducements
Congruence of goals with prevailing ideas and values
Political Parties
They aggregate preferences into broad coalitions
They organize the legislative branch
They provide opportunities for participation
They help integrate national and state politics
There are Many Political Parties
The Democratic and Republican presidential parties (2).
The Democrats and Republicans in the House (2).
The Democrats and Republicans in the Senate (2).
The Democrats and Republicans in the upper and lower houses of very state except Nebraska (which only has one house of the legislature) (99).
The Democratic or Republican Gubernatorial party (50).
Total: 155 parties—not entirely separate or unique.
What Does the Party System Mean?
Conflicts over partisan and ideological issues that influence public policy (is this bad?)
The need for bipartisan cooperation on some issues to get anything done. Some states have very dominant parties
Even then, the parties then divide into factions
Think Tanks
Research organizations that provide information on public policy.
Their goals. To influence public policy, often in a way consistent with
their ideological perspective. Examples: Urban Institute tends to be liberal; American
Enterprise Institute, conservative.
To serve the public interest with research and information for policy makers. Why do I cast doubt on their research?
Think Tanks
Their numbers have grown—why? Desire for influence in politics
Ideological sponsorship
The proliferation of particular interests
What’s the difference between think tanks and interest groups Organization
Goals
Techniques for asserting influence
The News Media
Serve as “watch dogs” that keep track of government This is the role assumed in the first amendment
This is sometimes referred to as “muckraking” or investigative journalism
What does the news emphasize?
Personalized news
Dramatized news
Fragmented news
Normalized news
How do news biases influence public policy? Distorted agendas
Distorted “facts”
This is not about ideological bias
How Effective Are the Media As Watch Dogs?
Very little news (<1%) is the result of investigative journalism.
Most news in an average news paper is wire service copy, press releases, etc.
Much of what is printed or aired is because of the beat system and personal relationships with sources.
Is the internet going to be a “better” alternative source of news?