Introducing the Policy Process PDF

CHAPTER Introducing the Policy Process Chapter at a Glance Overview Politics and the Policy Process What Is Public Policy? Ideas and Problems in the Policy Process What Makes Public Policy Public? Why Do We Study Public Policy? The Place of Policy Studies in the Social Sciences Evidence and Argument in the Policy Process Case Study: Does the DARE Program Work? Summary Key Terms Questions for Discussion, Reﬂection, and Research Additional Reading Overview This book is about how public policy is made in the United States. As a book on a particular ﬁeld of the social sciences, it goes beyond simple description to introduce you to theories and ways of thinking about the policy process. This is not to deny the value of understanding the substance of the many policies themselves. I am sure that you, your family, and friends have often puzzled over why the government does some of the things it does, particularly when those things are contradictory. Why does, for example, the government provide support for tobacco farming and discourage people from smoking? Why does the government give people tax breaks for buying houses? Why don’t renters get similar tax breaks? Or landlords, who could pass the savings on to renters? Why doesn’t the United States have a comprehensive health insurance system? Why is primary responsibility for the police or education held by the state and local governments and not the federal government? Is regulation of consumer product safety better for public safety, or would greater reliance on the market and information work better to promote public safety? These are questions that motivate many people of all ideological and political persuasions to understand public problems and ﬁnd solutions to them. 3 1 4 HAPTER 1 One of the most interesting reasons to study public policy is that public policy making is about problem solving. As this book outlines, we can study public problems and their solutions as participants in the public policy process. But understanding the substance of policy, while interesting in its own right, can only take us so far if we are interested in the social scientiﬁc aspects of the policy process. Many scholars have developed theories of how the public policy process works: that is, theories about how public problems are discovered and how policies are created to address those problems. This book introduces theories, frameworks, and models of the policy process. This focus on theory sets this book apart from many other textbooks on public policy. Most textbooks contain a thin treatment of theories of public policy— and the relation of these theories to broader social scientiﬁc questions—and then provide a series of case studies on “environmental policy” or “energy policy” or “national security policy.” There are many good books about all manner of policy issues, and I hope you ﬁnd them in the subjects that you ﬁnd most interesting. This book focuses on the process by which policies are made. An Introduction to the Policy Process describes how policy is shaped by social, institutional, political, economic, and other contexts. Much of this description is orthodox in political science; the discussion of the branches of government, of the Constitution, of the various groups and institutions, and the like, is similar to that found in introductory American politics textbooks. The difference is that I am interested in how groups, institutions, and structures work to solve problems through making public policies. And, in keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of policy studies, this book owes a debt to sociology, history, economics, public administration, and other disciplines. Politics and the Policy Process The study of public policy is generally considered an important aspect of political science, so it’s useful to start by asking, “What is politics?” One way to conceive of politics is as a process by which societies help ﬁgure out how to organize and regulate themselves; that is, how to govern themselves. What makes this “political” is its location in the public sphere, where decisions are made by the public to address issues that affect people in communities; all manner of other decisions are made in corporations, in families, and in other organizations that we do not consider to be part of the public sphere. The public sphere can be as small as an apartment complex, or a small village, or as large as a whole nation, or even the world. Whatever the scale, public policies address problems that are public, or, more importantly, that some number of people think should be public instead of private. Indeed, a key feature of politics and policy decision making is the very deﬁnition of what problems are public and which are private. While these questions may, at the outset, seem simple, they are in fact very complex. People have been trying to ﬁgure out how to work together in political INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS communities for thousands of years. Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle sought to understand how one can behave in a political context to help people make decisions within human societies, while reducing the possibility of political conﬂict turning destructive or violent.1 “Modern” political theory begins in the ﬁfteenth century when Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince for his patron, an Italian nobleman, to provide him with practical political advice. Machiavelli argued that if we understand and plan the political actions we take in pursuit of our goals, we are better prepared to seize the political opportunities that arise in the normal course of political life. The Prince depended on postulates—statements about how we think the political world works—and then argues that we should compare these postulates to the conduct of “real-world” politics. Developing and testing postulates about how the political world works is consistent with the way people thought of the human and natural world during the Enlightenment, when thinkers turned toward modern methods of scientiﬁc inquiry in hopes of better understanding all manner of phenomena—including physics, medicine, law, and politics.2 During this era of great scientiﬁc, political, and social foment, a host of brilliant thinkers turned their focus to understanding the use of power—a basic element of politics—in social settings. In continuing one’s exploration of political philosophy, one might read Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the nature of social and political interactions under what we call “the social contract.” In the American context, one would do well to read work by the French nobleman Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, who greatly inﬂuenced the most inﬂuential thinkers in America at the time of the American Revolution and the ratiﬁcation of the Constitution; his work is best known for the idea of the separation of powers into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, described in chapters 2 and 3. These ideas are reﬂected in The Federalist, a collection of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The Federalist is still studied to gain insights into the meaning of the Constitution and the thoughts of its framers. To this foundation in American political thought you might add the writings of, among others, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson. All of these statesmen sought to explain, to themselves and their countrymen, how our nation came to be, and how, in their minds, it was the best equipped to preserve individual rights and harness the creative power that ultimately made the United States one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. European thinkers like Karl Marx and Max Weber sought to understand how people organize their societies, and how the socially and politically strong can, by accident or design, ignore the desires of the politically weak. From there we can move to modern theorists and philosophers such as John Dewey, who studied the question of knowledge and learning in social life, and John Rawls, whose major work, A Theory of Justice,3 sought to understand fundamental questions of fairness. 5 Enlightenment. Term used to describe a philosophic movement of the early eighteenth century, in which numerous theorists and philosophers developed new political and social philosophies based on reason and on insights from the natural sciences. The Enlightenment developed the thinking that spurred the American and French Revolutions, among other changes. 6 politics. In this book, I deﬁne politics the same way that Harold Lasswell does: the process by which society determines who gets what, when they get it, and how they get it. HAPTER 1 Postmodern philosophers like Michel Foucault offer powerful challenges to social contract theory and explain how people come to be dominated by power structures beyond their control.4 These theorists have all contributed to our understanding of politics and social interactions. Their ideas help us to understand the historic and modern ways of thinking about the relationships between our governments and ourselves. All this thinking still doesn’t provide a concise deﬁnition of “politics,” because such a deﬁnition is difﬁcult to produce. Harold Lasswell deﬁnes politics as “who gets what, when, and how.”5 This deﬁnition is simple, but we can discern on its own terms three essential aspects of politics: competition to gain certain resources, sometimes at others’ expense; the need to cooperate to make decisions; and the nature of political power. Let’s look at the ways the word politics is deﬁned in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (www.merriam-webster.com). Here are two that I ﬁnd particularly interesting: “the art or science of government” and “political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices.” (This dictionary deﬁnes artful as skillful or wily.) Many people focus on the artful or seemingly dishonest aspects of politics. They accuse people of “playing politics,” as if they engage in the process simply to gain personal or group advantages and not for any particular policy goals that would broadly beneﬁt society. The negative sense of the term is reﬂected in a Google News search I did while writing this section. Using the search term “playing politics with,” I found the following headlines: s '/0 .OW 0LAYING 0OLITICS WITH +ENNEDYS &UNERAL s *USTICE $EPARTMENT !GAIN !CCUSED OF 0LAYING 0OLITICS WITH #ASES s -ISSOURI &AMILIES $EMAND 2EPRESENTATIVE "LUNT TO 3TOP 0LAYING 0OLITICS with Healthcare Reform s 0LAYING 0OLITICS WITH 4ERRORISM s 0LAYING 0OLITICS WITH 3CHOOL .AMES ! STORY FROM $ALLAS 4EXAS INvolving an effort to name two schools after Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor.) The process does seem to be tawdry to many people. Clearly, there are great concerns about the motivations and honesty of politicians and lobbyists. The inﬂuence of interest group money, particularly from big business and, to a lesser extent, organized labor, is a point of considerable concern. The legislative process often seems arcane and designed to be opaque so that ordinary people cannot understand or participate in politics. But the problem with claims of “playing politics” is that such an accusation can be countered with the statement that one is simply “acting in the public interest,” with no deﬁnitive answer emerging. Furthermore, the use of the term “politics” in this way reduces the word to something with a negative INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS connotation, which is not the most fruitful way to think about politics. The careful study of politics and policy should not rely on analysis borne of frustration. Rather, as students of the policy process—which is a bit different from our roles as citizens—we need to carefully and scientiﬁcally understand why it is that money is so important in politics, why legislative processes can seem so confusing and slow, and whether and to what extent politics as currently practiced really works as a way of organizing our society. But while we can question our system and recognize that democratic or representative democracy, as practiced in the United States and in other world democracies may not be perfect, it also has signiﬁcant advantages over autocracy and dictatorship, which is why Winston Churchill once deﬁned democracy as “the worst form of government except for all the others.”6 With this in mind it remains useful to consider politics as, in the dictionary’s terms, “the art or science of government.” Politics is therefore a profession unto itself and an object of study. As such, it is the “the total complex of relations between people living in a society,” as deﬁned by Merriam-Webster.com. What does this have to do with public policy? The study of public policy is the study of how we translate the popular will into practice. Of course, this is a simpliﬁcation—the nature of the popular will is itself highly debatable—but it’s a good general way of considering what we study. What Is Public Policy? While the study of politics has a long history, the systematic study of public policy as we understand it is a fairly recent discipline. Daniel McCool argues that modern policy studies began in 1922, when political scientist Charles Merriam sought to connect the theory and practice of politics to understanding the actual activities of government. But McCool also notes that “the study of public policy did not suddenly spring into existence in the 1950s and 1960s.” The classic literature that founded policy studies—including much that is discussed in this book—is only about ﬁfty years old, beginning with Harold Lasswell’s call for the development of a distinctive policy science.7 Because the ﬁeld of policy studies is so new, many of the fundamentals of the policy sciences have only begun to be well understood in the last twenty years or so. Considerable debate remains over whether there is one coherent set of principles that can govern the study and understanding of what we call the public policy process.8 As in every ﬁeld of endeavor, the deﬁnition of key terms and ideas is often very important, but it also can lead to considerable contention. There are many possible ways to deﬁne public policy; this section provides some reasons to pick one particular deﬁnition over another. In academic studies of policy, we offer deﬁnitions of public policy to understand the shape of the ﬁeld we seek to study. For many people, deﬁning public policy helps them deﬁne their own role in policy making, as well as that of the organization they work for. As I was writing this chapter for the ﬁrst 7 CHAPTER 1 8 Table 1.1 Deﬁning “Public Policy” Deﬁnition Author “The term public policy always refers to the actions of government and the intentions that determine those actions.” “Public policy is the outcome of the struggle in government over who gets what.” “Whatever governments choose to do or not to do.” “Public policy consists of political decisions for implementing programs to achieve societal goals.” “Stated most simply, public policy is the sum of government activities, whether acting directly or through agents, as it has an inﬂuence on the life of citizens.” Clarke E. Cochran et al.a Clarke E. Cochran et al. Thomas Dyeb Charles L. Cochran and Eloise F. Malonec B.Guy Petersd a Clarke E. Cochran et al., American Public Policy: An Introduction. 6th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999). Thomas R. Dye, Understanding Public Policy. 7th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992). c Charles L. Cochran and Eloise F. Malone, Public Policy: Perspectives and Choices (New York: McGraw Hill, 1995). d B. Guy Peters, American Public Policy: Promise and Performance (Chappaqua, NY: Chatham House/Seven Rivers, 1999). b edition of this book, a member of the policy analysis ofﬁce of a New York State agency called me. The agency was engaging in a strategic planning initiative; to do so it needed to establish its mission—its very reason for existence. Because this agency inﬂuences taxation, spending, and government performance assessment— that is, public policy in the broad sense—the caller was particularly interested in deﬁning the term public policy, so that her agency could know better how public policy relates to its work. The analyst ran through a list of the classic public policy texts, and asked if these were good sources of a deﬁnition of public policy. There are many good sources for such a deﬁnition, and I urged her to look at these sources because of scholars’ lack of a consensus deﬁnition of public policy. Thomas Dye argues that this search for a deﬁnition of public policy can degenerate into a word game that, eventually, adds little more understanding. It may be fruitless to look for one particular deﬁnition of public policy, and it is certainly not useful to continue to develop more deﬁnitions. I suggested to the caller that she review the texts and adopt a deﬁnition that the agency felt made the most sense in its particular context. Table 1.1 provides some examples of the deﬁnitions of public policy that the caller could draw from, and some strengths and weaknesses of these deﬁnitions. No single deﬁnition may ever be developed, but we can discern key attributes of public policy: s 0OLICY IS MADE IN RESPONSE TO SOME SORT OF PROBLEM THAT REQUIRES ATTENTION s 0OLICY IS MADE ON THE hPUBLICSv BEHALF s 0OLICY IS ORIENTED TOWARD A GOAL OR DESIRED STATE SUCH AS THE SOLUTION OF a problem. INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS 9 s 0OLICY IS ULTIMATELY MADE BY GOVERNMENTS EVEN IF THE IDEAS COME FROM outside government or through the interaction of government and nongovernmental actors. s 0OLICY IS INTERPRETED AND IMPLEMENTED BY PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ACTORS WHO have different interpretations of problems, solutions, and their own motivations. s 0OLICY IS WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CHOOSES TO DO OR not to do. While reaching a consensus on one deﬁnition of public policy has proved impossible, all the variants of the deﬁnition suggest that public policy making is public—it affects a greater variety of people and interests than do private decisions. This is why government and the policies made by government are sometimes so controversial, frustrating, and at the same time very important. But because the public is the source of political authority—that is, the authority to act on the public’s behalf—it is clear that government is at the center of efforts to make public policy. I deﬁne a policy as a statement by government—at whatever level—of what it intends to do about a public problem. Such statements can be found in the Constitution, statutes, regulation, case law (that is, court decisions), agency or leadership decisions, or even in changes in the behavior of government ofﬁcials at all levels. For example, a law that says that those caught driving while intoxicated will go to jail for up to one year is a statement of governmental policy to punish drunk drivers. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a statement of government policy toward the environment. The First Amendment speciﬁes that Congress cannot abridge religious, speech, or press freedoms, by stating “Congress shall make no law. . . .” Judicial decisions are also statements of policy: the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education is a statement of policy that governments cannot racially segregate schools. Because we also deﬁne public policy as what government chooses not to do, the lack of a deﬁnitive statement of policy may be evidence of an implicit policy. Aside from the constitutional examples, the government has never declared—and our system has never enshrined in the Constitution—a right to education, or health care, or a living wage; therefore, we can assume that the implicit policy is that there is no right to these things, while some other nations do express these as rights. Instead, while we might pass policies to address the problems that arise when dealing with these policy matters, we generally do not treat them as matters of right. Policies take many different forms. A policy might be a law, or a regulation, or the set of all the laws and regulations that govern a particular issue area or problem. This would be a sound but incomplete explanation. Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram provide a more extensive deﬁnition of policy: “Policies are revealed through texts, practices, symbols, and discourses that deﬁne and deliver values including goods and services as well as regulations, income, status, and other positively or negatively valued attributes.”9 This deﬁnition means that policies are not just contained in laws policy. A statement by government of what it intends to do such as a law, regulation, ruling, decision, order, or a combination of these. The lack of such statements may also be an implicit statement of policy. CHAPTER 1 10 and regulations; once a law or rule is made, policies continue to be made as the people who implement policy—that is, those who put policies into effect—make decisions about who will beneﬁt from policies and who will shoulder burdens as a result. In studying policy, then, we look at the broader sweep of politics, not simply the written laws and rules themselves. Ideas and Problems in the Policy Process problem. A usually undesirable situation that, according to people or interest groups, can be alleviated by government action. Compare with condition. One of the most fascinating aspects of studying public policy is the relationship between ideas and problems. According to Merriam-Webster, a problem is “a source of perplexity, distress, or vexation.” Given this deﬁnition, I am sure you can think of a lot of problems in the world that are vexing. Big problems that people are worried about as I write this are the economy, including sluggish growth and high unemployment, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rapidly growing costs of health care and college tuition, and the potential for global climate change. Each of these things is—or is not—vexing to some number of people. Public policy is largely driven by arguments about whether something is a solvable problem, what the potential solutions are, what the costs of those solutions are, and whether the solutions will be wholly or—more likely—partially effective. There are a lot of people who work to promote an understanding of a problem, and, in framing the problem a particular way, they promote the likely set of solutions, as we will see in greater detail in chapters 6 and 8. What Makes Public Policy Public? classical liberalism. In political theory, the ideological system that emphasizes individual liberty and the ownership and acquisition of private property as a means to improve overall wealth and happiness and discourage social strife. Liberalism is the political ideology on which the American political system is based. The dominant ideological foundation of our constitutional system (and that of other countries that were once part of the British Empire, such as Canada, Australia, and Great Britain itself) is known as classical liberalism. This ideology is very clearly expressed in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690). Among the many beliefs of liberalism is that power derives from the consent of the governed—that is, the people themselves. The people, and not royalty or the state, are therefore sovereign. Thus, when policy advocates seek to induce the government to make policy (by taking an action or refusing to do so), or when government actively engages in actions these advocates support, one can make a claim that the government does so in the public interest. Indeed, many states have groups called public interest research groups, or PIRGs, which promote their interpretation of the public interest. For example, agencies that regulate public utilities, such as electric companies, claim to regulate in the public interest by limiting rates or assuring service. Some policy advocates claim that laws that relieve tax burdens on the rich are in the public interest because they create overall public wealth, which leads to job creation, the creation of wealth, and, therefore, a more prosperous society over all.10 Those who INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS argue that the rich should be taxed at a higher rate than the poor claim that taxation based on ability to pay is more in the spirit of the public interest. Public policy is related to the public interest because it affects all of us in some way. But as these examples show, we are not all affected by the same policies in exactly the same way, nor is one’s intensity of feeling about an issue necessarily equal to that of others. And many of us don’t have any particular issue that would cause us to mobilize with others to demand policy change. Most of us do not care too much about the day-to-day workings of government because we are busy with the day-to-day workings of our lives and because the activities of government seem removed from our daily interests and needs. Still, the federal government plays an important role in every aspect of our lives, from the nutrition labeling on our breakfast cereal to the standards for ﬁre-retardant kids’ clothing. And state and local governments tax us, can restrict how we use our land through land use planning and zoning, deﬁne what the schools can and cannot teach, and make rules about everything from the operation of the state fairgrounds to where and when we can own and carry ﬁrearms. Big states, like California, are so inﬂuential that their standards—such as those on automobile emissions—are adopted by other states or in federal law. Not everyone likes rules like these, of course—industry for years battled against federal and state safety and emissions regulations on vehicles. But as oppressive as government is claimed to be by some interests, some government activities seem either benign or beneﬁcial to most people, and we tend not to dwell on those policies until something goes wrong. And, as is often true in democracies, policies ultimately gain broad support so their repeal is unlikely, as with the social security program or tax deductions for dependents. You may be interested in public policy because you care intensely about particular public problems and the policies intended to address them, such as those dealing with the environment, civil rights, economic freedom, or the promotion of personal morality. But even the most intensely interested participants in the policy process are not concerned with every issue. There is a considerable division of labor in democratic politics; in the formal institutions of government, different people have different constitutional responsibilities, and the vast array of issues that government handles on our behalf require that even members of legislatures need to be specialists in fairly narrow ﬁelds. In the United States, as in many democracies, people tacitly delegate policymaking responsibilities to government and to specialists because everyone cannot concern themselves with the day-to-day panoply of issues that government must address. But in delegating these responsibilities we do not abandon our interest in what the government does or how it does it (and sometimes the procedures the government uses are at least as important as the goals to be achieved), or our right to promote our own ideas of what constitutes the public interest when we are sufﬁciently motivated. 11 public interest. The assumed broader desires and needs of the public, in whose name policy is made. The public interest is hard to deﬁne, but is something to which all policy advocates appeal. CHAPTER 1 12 Why Do We Study Public Policy? While the concept of the public interest varies from person to person, and one person’s individual interests are likely to differ in some ways from their neighbors’ interests, most people are concerned about the impact of policies on their lives, such as how many services they receive or how much they have to pay in taxes. That said, why do you want to study the process that leads to the decisions to make these policies? Since you are reading this book, you probably already have an idea of why you are studying or working in public policy. Perhaps you have been interested in policy and politics since you were young; many people develop their interest in politics and policy at home. You may have been exposed to policy making when an interest in which you or your family believed was threatened, or if you perceived it was threatened. For example, you or your parents may have mobilized around plans to build a shopping mall, a power plant, a jail, or a polluting industrial facility near your home. And, for many people, politics and policy making are inherently fascinating, and people study the policy process simply because it’s interesting in its own right. Two texts in particular, by Clarke E. Cochran and his colleagues and by James Anderson,11 provide reasons for the study of public policy. The ﬁrst of these is what Cochran calls a theoretical reason and Anderson calls a scientiﬁc reason. They argue that one studies public policy so that one can know more about the process, both in pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and to inform practitioners. One might compare the pursuit of knowledge to “pure” science and the practitioner orientation to “applied” science. The practical and applied study of public policy takes its cues from theory, but seeks more actively to apply those theoretical insights to actual cases of public policy formation, thereby helping theorists improve their theories. In a course on public policy, theory may be applied to particular cases or policy areas, as often seen in the later chapters of introductory public policy texts. As knowledge ﬁlters from the more abstract to the more applied, insights from the theoretical world are employed, knowingly or not, by practitioners. Conversely, students of public policy derive theory by observing the collective activity of the practitioners of public policy. This book considers theory more extensively in chapter 10. Related to the practical reasons for studying policy are political reasons. People with political goals study public policy to learn how to promote their preferred policy options. I hope you ﬁnd this book useful in understanding the political process so that you can work toward reaching your policy goals while at the same time understanding why your best efforts may be thwarted. Some of you will become very active participants in the policy process. Some will become elected ofﬁcials, appointed ofﬁcials, or agency managers and staff. Others will lead interest groups, work in the news media, or provide scientiﬁc and technical information for others. Many of you, never thinking you’re involved in the process, will go on to successful careers in business, the arts, or other en- INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS 13 deavors. But some day, when you least expect it, you may get involved in policy making. Perhaps you will become active when you and your neighbors oppose the construction of a new shopping mall in your neighborhood. For some people this is the sort of problem that public policy is intended to address. But for others a mall is an opportunity for economic growth or an added convenience and the problem isn’t the mall, it’s the opposition to the mall. Perhaps your employer will ask you to participate in a public relations campaign to support or oppose a new policy. In short, chances are very good that you will become interested in the policy process at some point in your life, and I venture to guess that you will become involved in some way, given that you are reading this book! I hope that An Introduction to the Policy Process will help you become a more thoughtful and effective participant. The Place of Policy Studies in the Social Sciences Because of the focus on politics in this chapter, one might conclude that policy studies are or should be the sole province of political scientists and closely related scholars, such as those who study policy analysis or public administration. But this interpretation only holds true if we focus narrowly on the policy process. There are many ways to study policy making, as Peter May shows in his “public policy morphology” (Table 1.2). Many programs in political science, sociology, economics, public administration, law, and other disciplines allow students to specialize in the study of policy and the policy process as they work toward their bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Dozens of universities now offer master’s degrees in public policy (MPP degrees), and others offer bachelor’s or doctoral degrees in public policy that draw from multiple disciplines to provide training in policy studies.12 Most of these programs are interdisciplinary and draw their faculties from across the social, behavioral, and natural science disciplines. This interdisciplinary nature is both a strength and a weakness that has perennially faced policy studies. It is a strength because the discipline draws upon the best insights from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. To some people, however, it is a weakness because policy scientists do not share a language that transcends disciplinary boundaries. Our challenge as students of public policy is to understand and proﬁtably use the insights offered by the many disciplines that study, in various ways, public policy (Table 1.3). This book follows in the policy process tradition, which is more grounded in traditional political science. Students of the policy process view rational, scientiﬁc, and often quantitative policy analysis as part of the raw material of policy making that participants use to advocate for their preferred policies. The interplay of this evidence, the values and belief systems of the participants in the process, the structure of the process itself, and the distribution of power within the structure all have an important inﬂuence on public policy. social science. The branch of the sciences that studies the actions and behavior of people, groups, and institutions. Political science, sociology, anthropology, and economics are social sciences. History is sometimes considered a social science. discipline. A ﬁeld of academic research or study. Sociology, political science, and economics are social science disciplines; electrical, civil, and mechanical engineering are engineering disciplines. Disciplines approach similar problems in different ways. CHAPTER 1 14 Table 1.2 A Public Policy Morphology Public policy education and research has four fairly distinct variants. This book focuses on the ﬁrst approach, and can serve as a foundation for further study in other areas of policy study. s 0UBLIC 0OLICY 0ROCESSES4HIS CONSISTS OF RESEARCH ON THE FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PUBLIC POLICY USUALLY limited to the American context emphasizing national, domestic policy. Using perspectives of American politics, individuals studying public policy processes address such topics as issue emergence and policy agendas, the cultural deﬁnition of policy problems, policy formulation, political feasibility, and policy implementation. The policy process literature can be distinguished from other ﬂavors of public policy as follows: Unlike policy analysis, it does not emphasize the craft aspects of constructing and analyzing policies. Unlike policy research, it does not emphasize problem solving (rather, it is the study of how others deﬁne and seek to solve problems). And unlike comparative public policy, it tends to be limited to American settings although good comparative work is appropriate. The other variants of public policy are: s #OMPARATIVE 0UBLIC 0OLICY)N PRINCIPLE COMPARATIVE PUBLIC POLICY APPLIES THE LOGIC OF COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS to the substance of different policy problems. Current writing and analysis tends to emphasize cross-national comparisons. There is also a newly emerging literature of comparative policy work among the American states. Much of this work is descriptive, rather than theoretical. s 0UBLIC 0OLICY !NALYSIS! LOGIC OF ANALYSIS AND MIX OF TECHNIQUES IN SUPPORT OF PUBLIC POLICY DECISION MAKING This tradition borrows heavily from economics. The logic of “rational” analysis contains a central focus on problem speciﬁcation, generation of alternative policies, and assessment of policies in support of public POLICY DECISION MAKING 4HE TECHNIQUES INCLUDE QUANTITATIVE METHODS ECONOMIC ANALYSIS WELFARE ECONOMICS AND QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENTS -OST OF THIS TYPE OF TRAINING TAKES PLACE WITHIN PUBLIC POLICY PROGRAMS OFFERING professional two-year masters degrees. Weimer and Vining’s policy analysis text and Eugene Bardach’s short volume on policy analysis are leading works in this ﬁeld.13 s 0UBLIC 0OLICY 2ESEARCH4HIS CONSISTS OF APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AIMED AT DOCUMENTING POLICY problems and evaluating interventions. The distinctive element of policy research is that it is problem driven. As SUCH THE APPROPRIATE APPROACHES AND RANGE OF DISCIPLINARY RELEVANCE ARE IN PRINCIPLE QUITE BROAD Typically, policy research training includes development of expertise in the substance of one or more policy areas (e.g., health, energy, and environment). This type of training takes place across a range of programs as reﬂected in the diversity of substantive public policy offerings in the social, natural, and behavioral sciences. Source: Based on work by Peter J. May at the University of Washington. Evidence and Argument in the Policy Process For years, political scientists have known that government is neither monolithic—that is, one single-minded body that speaks with one voice and works toward one set of goals—nor a neutral referee that dispassionately judges between policy alternatives by weighing their costs and beneﬁts. The participants in the policy process—whether they are considered policy entrepreneurs, brokers, analysts, interest groups, or association leaders—are not all or even primarily neutral participants in the policy process. Along the same lines, as Clarke Cochran and his colleagues argue, there are few “neutral” policy analysts and by deﬁnition no neutral advocates of particular policy alternatives.14 Thus, as Giandomenico Majone and Deborah Stone note,15 INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS 15 Table 1.3 Selected Disciplines That Study Public Policy Discipline Description 2ELATIONSHIP TO PUBLIC POLICY Some important journals Political science The study of political relationships; that is, the study of the processes by which societies seek to allocate political power and the beneﬁts of such power. The political process is the process through which policies are made and enforced. American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Polity, Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly Sociology “Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts.”* Community and group activities are an important part of policy making, because groups of people often form to make demands. American Sociological Review, Contemporary Sociology ; American Journal of Sociology Economics The study of the allocation of resources in a community, however deﬁned. Economists study markets and exchanges. Welfare economists seek to understand the extent to which an overall community’s welfare can be maximized. There are many economic factors that inﬂuence public policy, such as economic growth, productivity, employment, and the like. The tools of economics are often used to promote policies or to explain why policies succeed or fail. American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Applied Economics, Journal of Political Economy Public The study of the management administration of government and nonproﬁt (PA) organizations, including the management of information, money, and personnel in order to achieve goals developed through the democratic process. The management of public programs is an integral part of the policy process. PA scholars study the motivation of program implementers and targets, and help research innovations to improve service delivery. Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Teaching Public policy We give this label to the highly interdisciplinary study of the public policy process. Policy scholars develop theories about how the policy process works, and develop tools and methods to analyze how policy is made and implemented. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management; Journal of Public Policy, Policy Studies Review, Policy Studies Journal, Journal of Policy History The study of what governments choose to do or not to do, including studies of the policy process, policy implementation and impact, and evaluation. *American Sociological Association, http://www.asanet.org/public/what.html. analysis is often undertaken in the name of advocacy, and is but one part of the rhetorical tools used in political debate. The results of “scientiﬁc” policy analysis are often abandoned when other rhetorical tools seem to work better. Indeed, as discussed later in this book, the act of identifying a problem is as much a normative judgment as it is an objective statement of fact; thus, if analysis proceeds from the identiﬁcation of a problem, and the problem is deﬁned normatively, then one cannot say that any subsequent analysis is strictly neutral. 16 GROW UP CHAPTER 1 Do people make up their minds and then gather evidence, or gather evidence, then make up their minds? Source: Non Sequitur © 2009 Wiley Miller. Reprinted by permission of Universal Uclick. All right reserved. As I wrote this chapter for the ﬁrst edition, my introductory public policy course was giving its group presentations on issues related to the apparent outbreak of school violence incidents in places such as Springﬁeld, Oregon, and Littleton, Colorado, in the late 1990s. One of the groups chose to focus on pending federal legislation, alternative policy choices, and the group’s analysis of the desirability of alternative solutions to the school violence problem. The group argued that armed guards, cameras in classrooms, metal detectors, and other measures seemed too severe. These security techniques would make INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS 17 Table 1.4 Anecdotes and Evidence Description How it is used Strengths/rationale Stories told to illustrate a problem or the failure of a POLICY SUCH AS h$!2% KEPT MY children off drugs” or “welfare QUEENv STORIES To justify starting or stopping programs by providing an easily understood story with obvious conclusions and underlying normative or moral principles. Anecdotes are good for staking out a position on an issue, or for motivating people to believe certain things. They are less useful as part of serious analysis, because they do not delve deeply into how programs work. Evidence Conclusions reached through from scientiﬁc scientiﬁc study of a problem or study from the outcomes of a policy. To justify starting or stopping programs by providing the most scientiﬁcally sound information that policy makers can use to make decisions. Scientiﬁc evidence is much stronger than anecdotes in understanding how and why things work the way they do. However, the results of scientiﬁc study are often controversial and unpopular, and sometimes run counter to popular expectations. Anecdotes schools seem like prisons and thereby damage the educational environment, in turn reducing academic performance. During a question and answer period, I asked the students whether they had any information that showed a link between these stern security measures and a poorer educational environment. They answered that they did not. I then asked, “Does it matter that you have no evidence?” After some discussion, we concluded that evidence is useful in policy debate, but it is not always necessary. Sometimes, the imagery and symbolism one associates with a policy—the image of a school that looks and in some ways works like a jail, in this case—are sufﬁcient to carry an argument. Thus, while one can gather considerable information on the relationship between school security and the educational environment, one need not necessarily have all the evidence at hand if one’s argument strikes a chord with the public and decision makers. This means, more bluntly, that relatively little evidence is needed to make an argument if it is possible to appeal to popular prejudices and common misconceptions, or to common values or interests that are not too far outside the mainstream of current thought. This sounds cynical, but there are abundant examples in American history and world history of emotion overcoming rationality in policy making, such as the imposition of Jim Crow laws on black Americans based on a scientiﬁcally unfounded belief that blacks are genetically inferior to whites in some way. Because neither facts nor emotions are solely decisive, evidence and emotion play important roles in policy making, and sometimes emotion gains the upper hand. A summary of the differences between anecdotes and evidence is provided in Table 1.4. CHAPTER 1 18 Case Study: Does the DARE Program Work? Let’s consider the adoption of public policy where there is little social science evidence to suggest the policy meets its goals, but it continues to be an important policy. You may be familiar with the $!2% $RUG !BUSE 2ESISTANCE %DUCATION PROGRAM EITHER BY REPUTATION OR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE16 4HE REASON FOR THE CREATION OF $!2% OR ANY ANTIDRUG PROGRAM IS SIMPLE DRUG ABUSEINCLUDING THE ABUSE OF LEGAL DRUGS ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO AS WELL AS ILLEGAL DRUGSIS ASSOCIATED WITH POOR academic achievement, crime, and signiﬁcant health problems for drug abusers. The federal, state, and local governments have created drug use regulations and educated the public about drugs for DECADES $!2% WAS AN INNOVATIVE PROGRAM THAT LINKED SCHOOLS WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT IN A WAY THAT would, its designers believed, be more effective than existing programs in preventing school-aged children from using (or “experimenting with”) illegal drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. The program was founded in 1983 by the police and schools in Los Angeles to address local PROBLEMS WITH DRUGS AND GANGS )T HAS SINCE BEEN IMPLEMENTED INTERNATIONALLY $!2% NOW SERVES forty-three countries and 75 percent of school districts in the United States. Originally designed for OLDER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS $!2% PROGRAMS NOW ADDRESS DRUG ABUSE GANGS AND VIOLENCE WITH STUDENTS IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH TWELFTH GRADE 4HE NATIONAL $!2% ORGANIZATION CLAIMS THAT the program helps students make good decisions and “ ‘humanizes’ the police: that is, young PEOPLE CAN BEGIN TO RELATE TO OFlCERS AS PEOPLEv THROUGH THE $!2% PROGRAM STUDENTS MAY THINK OF POLICE OFlCERS AS FRIENDS AND HELPERS IN THE COMMUNITY $!2% DESIGNERS FELT THAT THE INCLUSION of police ofﬁcers as instructors would increase the credibility of the instructors and the program, a result that at least one study corroborated.17 7HILE THE $!2% ORGANIZATION REFERS TO ITSELF AS THE hPREEMINENT SUBSTANCE ABUSE EDUCATION PROGRAMvA REASONABLE CLAIM GIVEN THE NUMBER OF SCHOOLS THAT USE ITSCIENTIlC EVIDENCE OF ITS EFFECTIVENESS IS SCANT 4HE BASIC QUESTION IS WHETHER USING THE $!2% PROGRAM REDUCES DRUG USE IN THAT POPULATION OF STUDENTS COMPARED WITH STUDENTS WHO DID NOT GO THROUGH $!2% )N A REVIEW OF DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION PROGRAMS THE 53 3URGEON 'ENERAL PLACED $!2% in the “Does Not Work” category of these programs.18 ! 'OVERNMENT !CCOUNTABILITY /FlCE STUDY REVIEWED THE EXISTING BODY OF LITERATURE ON $!2% EFFECTIVENESS AND REPORTED THAT the existing research found no signiﬁcant difference in drug use between students who had COMPLETED $!2% AND STUDENTS WHO HAD NOT 2ESEARCH BY THE .ATIONAL )NSTITUTES OF (EALTH Department of Education, and Department of Justice corroborated these ﬁndings. Perhaps MOST DAMAGING TO $!2% WAS A STUDY PUBLISHED IN THE American Journal of Public Health, which conducted an overview (a meta-analysis) of the most scientiﬁcally rigorous studies the RESEARCHERS COULD lND 4HEY DISCOVERED THAT OVERALL STUDIES PROVED NO EFFECT FROM THE $!2% CURRICULUM IN SIMPLE TERMS THE STUDIES CONCLUDED THAT $!2% DID NOT HAVE A MEASURABLE inﬂuence on drug use among school-aged children, especially when measured over time. As A RESULT OF THE MANY STUDIES THAT SHOWED $!2%S INEFFECTIVENESS FEDERAL MONEY SUPPORTING $!2% PROGRAMS WAS CUT AND SOME SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAVE DROPPED THE $!2% PROGRAM19 Many ORGANIZATIONS CONTINUED THE $!2% PROGRAM THROUGH LOCAL FUND RAISING AND TAXATION 3EVERAL RESPONSES TO THE NEGATIVE RESEARCH lNDINGS FOLLOWED &IRST $!2% ADVOCATES ARGUED THAT THE OUTCOMES OF DRUG PREVENTION EDUCATION ARE DIFlCULT TO QUANTIFY THAT THE STUDIES CITED BY RESEARCHERS WERE mAWED AND THAT $!2%S SATISFACTION SURVEYS REVEALED POSITIVE outcomes including high levels of parent, student, and community satisfaction. Advocates (continued) INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS 19 Case Study (continued) also maintain that positive experiences with law enforcement ofﬁcers are signiﬁcant, though difﬁcult to measure. However, none of these claims or objections provides an answer to the FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH QUESTION ABOUT $!2%S EFFECTIVENESS 4HE SECOND RESPONSE WAS MORE SUBTLE BUT MORE REVEALING $!2% FACING THE LOSS OF FEDERAL FUNDING AND ITS OWN CREDIBILITY REVISED ITS CURRICULUM IN RESPONSE TO SEVERAL STUDIES )N AN UNDATED DOCUMENT ON ITS 7EB SITE $!2% SUGGESTS THAT THE hNEW $!2%v REmECTS CHANGES in curriculum design and delivery and incorporates more effective instructional methods BASED ON BETTER SCIENCE 4HE CREATION OF THE hNEW $!2%v WAS LIKELY MOTIVATED BY THE URGING OF $!2%S PROPONENTS TO AVOID LOSING FEDERAL FUNDING AND A DESIRE TO EMBRACE SCIENCE 4HE NEW PROGRAMWHICH EMPHASIZES TEACHING MIDDLE SCHOOL CHILDRENWAS TO BE EVALUATED BY A MILLION STUDY FUNDED BY THE 2OBERT 7OOD *OHNSON &OUNDATIONA HIGHLY RESPECTED INSTITUTION DEVOTED TO HEALTH ISSUESTO TRACK THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PROGRAM (OWEVER THE EVALUATORS HAVE NOT YET PUBLISHED RESULTS OF THEIR RESEARCH ON THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION OF $!2%S EFFECTIVENESS 7HY THEN DOES $!2% REMAIN SO POPULAR 4HERE ARE SEVERAL POTENTIAL REASONS AND THE remainder of this book will help you to understand the logic behind the continued adoption OF A PROGRAM THAT hDOESNT WORKv 4HE lRST REASON $!2% REMAINS POPULAR IS BECAUSE PEOPLE believe IT WORKS BECAUSE THEY DRAW ON ANECDOTAL EVIDENCETHAT IS PERSONAL EXPERIENCETO DRAW CONCLUSIONS ABOUT ITS EFFECTIVENESS $!2% SUPPORTERS OFTEN RAISE THE ISSUE OF $!2%S CREATION OF GOOD RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLICE OFlCERS AND STUDENTS )N ONE CASE A COUNTY sheriff in Ohio noted that “There are studies out there that said that it didn’t work, that kids still used drugs. What it doesn’t measure is the relationships that are built between the kids and those ofﬁcers.” ! PARENT IN 4EXAS REACTING TO THE IMPENDING CUT OF $!2% FROM HER CHILDRENS SCHOOL SAID h) ASKED MY KIDS @$O YOU THINK THAT PROGRAM IS WORTH IT AND THEY SAID @9ES 4HEY WOULD NEVER SMOKETHEY NEVER REALIZED HOW MANY CHEMICALS ARE IN A CIGARETTE AND IT TURNED them off to drugs, too.”21 )N ANOTHER INSTANCE A SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT IN 3UFFOLK #OUNTY .EW 9ORK EXPRESSED HIS DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THE DECISION TO DROP $!2% h)T HAS HAD A TREMENDOUS IMPACT ON THE STUDENTS AND HAS BECOME PART OF OUR SCHOOL CULTURE )M CONCERNED THAT WHEN the responsibility for teaching the curriculum falls on the shoulders of the teachers, who already have a full curriculum, that it won’t have the same effectiveness that it did when the police ofﬁcers came to visit.”22 &ROM THE SCHOOLS PERSPECTIVE THE $!2% PROGRAM lLLS IMPORTANT NEEDS !S ONE POLICE DEPARTMENT NOTES h(AVING A $!2% PROGRAM IN THE LOCAL SCHOOL LIFTS THE BURDEN off teachers and administrators to provide drug education, and gives them additional time to DO SOMETHING ELSE )T IS POPULAR WITH PARENTS AND THE MEDIA because it conveys the idea that something is being done to combat the menace of drug abuse by children.”23 4HIS IDEA OF hDOING SOMETHINGv IS IMPORTANT IN POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY )N THE $!2% CASE AN EXPERT ON ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE ABUSE NOTED THE POWERFUL REASONS WHY $!2% PERSISTS in so many schools: This evidence, of course, is not popular with parents, police ofﬁcers and others since many OF THEM BELIEVE $!2% WORKS !ND KIDS DO SAY THE @RIGHT THINGS AFTER PARTICIPATING "UT REsearch shows there are no long-term effects. A perfect formula for a belief-versus-science POLARIZATION 3O WHY THE INTEREST AND SUPPORT FOR @NEEDING MORE $!2% PROGRAMS DESPITE (continued) CHAPTER 1 20 Case Study (continued) OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE THEY DONT WORK 7ELL ITS MOSTLY ABOUT THE COMFORT PARENTS SCHOOL staff, police ofﬁcers, and other adults receive when a program is delivered that is visible and, IN THEIR BELIEFS HELPFUL )T FEELS GOOD TO KNOW THAT AT LEAST SOMETHING IS BEING DONE24 Often, policy makers feel a great deal of pressure to “do something” about public problems, even when all the information is not available; indeed, as we will learn, information is often HARD TO COME BY &URTHERMORE ONCE A PROGRAM IS IN PLACE MANY STAKEHOLDERSIN THIS CASE PARENTS TEACHERS THE POLICE SCHOOL BOARDS AND LOCAL COMMUNITY LEADERSHAVE SO MUCH money, time, and personal belief invested in a program that it is difﬁcult, even in the face of scientiﬁc evidence, to change the program. !NOTHER WAY TO UNDERSTAND THE PERSISTENCE OF $!2% IS BY REFRAMING THE ESSENTIAL RESEARCH QUESTION $OES $!2% WORK /NE CAN ASK h7HAT DOES @WORK MEANv !S ORIGINALLY DElNED BY $!2%S DEVELOPERS THE PROGRAM WAS SUPPOSED TO KEEP KIDS FROM TRYING OR USING DRUGS 4HE SCIENTIlC EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN "UT ARE THERE OTHER BENElTS TO $!2% 7HAT ABOUT THE OFT CITED RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLICE AND CHILDREN )S THIS A POSITIVE BENElT (OW WOULD ONE MEASURE THIS $O POLICE OFlCERS BENElT FROM MEETING AND INTERACTING WITH THE STUDENTS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES 7HAT ABOUT THE USE OF POLICE AS INSTRUCTORS $OES THIS BENElT TEACHERS WHO MAY NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE TEACHING STUDENTS ABOUT DRUG USE AND ABUSE 7HAT beneﬁts, if any, might accrue to a community as a whole for identifying, as so many signs do, PARTICULARLY IN SMALL TOWN !MERICA THAT h7E ARE A $!2% COMMUNITYv #OULD A MORE SCIENTIlCALLY SOUND PROGRAM PROVIDE THESE BENElTS /R IS THE DRUG PROBLEM SO INTRACTABLETHAT IS HARD TO SOLVETHAT NO PROGRAM IS LIKELY TO WORK 4HE $!2% CASE ILLUSTRATES HOW POWERFUL RHETORIC SYMBOLISM AND STORYTELLING THAT RELIES ON anecdotes can promote a policy even when the evidence of its effectiveness is scant. Despite MOUNTING EVIDENCE THAT THE OLD $!2% WAS INEFFECTIVE AND THE LACK OF EVIDENCE THAT THE NEW program is effective, the curriculum continues to be used in many schools around the nation. )T IS VERY DIFlCULT TO REMOVE $!2% FROM SOME SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF THE POPULARITY OF THE IDEA OF working with the police combined with the valued goal of preventing or reducing youth drug use and violence. Are there other policies that continue to be used even if they fail to achieve THEIR GOALS !RE POLICIES ENACTED THAT ARE UNLIKELY TO ACHIEVE THE GOALS THAT THEIR PROPONENTS CLAIM 7HY WOULD PEOPLE PROPOSE POLICIES THAT THEY MAY KNOW WONT WORK WELL (OW DO WE MEASURE WHETHER A POLICY IS hGOODv OR NOT #ONSIDER THESE QUESTIONSAND THE LOGIC BEHIND THESE QUESTIONSAS YOU READ THIS BOOK Summary This chapter has provided an overview of the endeavor on which you are about to embark: the study of public policy. We learned that the study of public policy is rooted in the study of politics, which is an ancient ﬁeld of study. But we also learned that the study of public policy, as we generally deﬁne it, is a recent innovation. I hope that this introductory chapter has motivated you to study the public policy INTRODUCING THE POLICY PROCESS 21 process both to satisfy your own personal curiosity about how things work, and to motivate you to understand and perhaps play a more active role in the decisions that affect you, your family, and your community. This book is organized in three broad sections. This chapter and chapters 2 and 3 are overviews of the policy process and of the environment in which policy is made. Chapter 3 introduces the stages model of the policy process, which serves to organize the various parts of the process so that we can analyze them. Chapters 4 and 5 are about the actors in the policy process. Chapters 6 through 9 cover the outputs and processes of public policy. Chapter 10 brings all this together by considering modern, better theories of the policy process that improve upon the stages model and develop better grounded theories. As you read this book, I hope you will think of current ideas and events in the political world with public policy implications. As you do so, think about what you are learning from this book and how it can be applied to these new situations. Key Terms Classical liberalism Policy Politics Public Public Interest Discipline Problem Interest Enlightenment Social science Questions for Discussion, Reﬂection, and Research 1. How is public policy grounded in the study of politics? What do you think the term “politics” means in this context? Do you think it would be possible to make public policy without politics? 2. Is there a real difference between playing politics and just the general political process of argument, negotiation, and compromise? Why do people think so negatively of politics given that this is the process by which we address public problems? 3. Discuss the study of public policy. Are there other disciplines that aren’t mentioned here that contribute to the study of public policy? In what way might those disciplines contribute to policy making? (Think broadly. How do scientists and engineers help make public policy? Doctors? Social workers? Other professions?) 4. Compare policy analysis to the study of the policy process. How are they similar, and how are they different? 5. Ask your friends, neighbors, or parents what comes to mind when they hear the word “politics.” Then, ask what they think when they hear the term “public policy.” How are their responses similar to and different from the ideas discussed in this chapter? CHAPTER 1 22 6. Find an article on a public policy issue in a newspaper. Consider carefully whether the people making arguments for or against a particular policy are making normative or positive arguments. Are they using anecdotes or evidence? How can you tell the difference? Whose arguments do you consider most persuasive? Why? Additional Reading In this chapter I argue in favor of evidence-based policy advocacy. The making of public policy based on scientiﬁcally gathered evidence (by which I mean evidenc

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