The Public Policy Primer PDF

The Public Policy Primer Fully revised for a second edition, this essential guide provides a concise and accessible overview of the public policy process: agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. The book provides an introduction to the key policy fun...

The Public Policy Primer Fully revised for a second edition, this essential guide provides a concise and accessible overview of the public policy process: agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. The book provides an introduction to the key policy functions, the challen- ges they entail, and how the challenges may be addressed by policy actors. Written from a comparative perspective, the authors include examples from a diverse range of countries at different stages of development, highlighting key principles and practices through which policy actors can effectively manage their policy processes and outcomes. Key features of the second edition: fully updated and revised content throughout; expanded references and further reading; more guidance towards understanding the key concepts in public policy. This important tool offers students of public policy and policy practitioners guidance on how to make, implement, and evaluate public policies in ways that improve citizens’ lives. Xun Wu is Professor in the Division of Public Policy and the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. M. Ramesh is UNESCO Chair of Social Policy Design in Asia at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Simon Fraser University, Canada, and Yong Pung How Chair Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Scott A. Fritzen is Associate Professor at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. Routledge Textbooks in Policy Studies This series provides high-quality textbooks and teaching materials for upper-level courses on all aspects of public policy as well as policy analysis, design, practice and evaluation. Each text is authored or edited by a leading scholar in the field and aims both to survey established areas and present the latest thinking on emerging topics. The Public Policy Primer Managing the Policy Process Xun Wu, M Ramesh, Michael Howlett and Scott Fritzen Designing Public Policies Principles and Instruments Michael Howlett Making Policy Work Peter John Analyzing Public Policy, 2nd Edition Peter John Public Policy and Private Interest Ideas, Self-Interest and Ethics in Public Policy J.A. Chandler The Public Policy Primer Managing the Policy Process, 2nd Edition Xun Wu, M. Ramesh, Michael Howlett and Scott A. Fritzen The Public Policy Primer Managing the Policy Process Second Edition Xun Wu, M. Ramesh, Michael Howlett, and Scott A. Fritzen Second edition published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Xun Wu, M. Ramesh, Michael Howlett, and Scott A. Fritzen The right of Xun Wu, M. Ramesh, Michael Howlett, and Scott A. Fritzen to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2010 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-65153-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-65154-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-62475-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK Contents List of figures viii List of tables ix List of boxes x Acknowledgments xi 1. Introduction: managing the policy process 1 Why is managing the policy process important? 1 A difficult policy world: the challenges of governance 2 Policy functions and processes: design and management of effective policies 7 Understanding the policy process 8 Actors in the policy process: policy “communities” 11 Managing the policy process: policy acumen, analytical skills, and managerial expertise 18 References 21 2. Agenda-setting 26 The basics of agenda-setting 30 What is the content of agendas? 32 Phases in agenda-setting 34 Challenges in agenda-setting 38 Strategies for policy actors in agenda-setting 40 Conclusion: the need to manage the agenda-setting process 46 References 46 vi Contents 3. Policy formulation 50 The basics of policy formulation 51 Challenges in policy formulation 62 Strategies to improve policy formulation 65 Conclusion: the need for analytical capacity 70 References 71 4. Decision-making 76 The basics of decision-making 76 Decision-making models 79 The decision-making process 81 Challenges in decision-making 87 Strategies for effective decision-making 89 Conclusion: better decisions help improve implementations and outcomes 95 References 95 5. Policy implementation 100 The basics of policy implementation 100 The importance of understanding context 108 Challenges in policy implementation 112 Strategies for public managers in policy implementation 115 Conclusion: policy implementation as successful network management 119 References 121 6. Policy evaluation 124 The basics of policy evaluation 125 The process of policy evaluation 127 Types of evaluation 129 Utilization of evaluation results 132 Challenges in policy evaluation 134 Strategies for evaluators 135 Conclusion: focusing on learning 138 References 139  Contents vii 7. Conclusion: influencing the policy process 141 The key role of policy capacity 142 Applying the capacity framework 148 Conclusion: overcoming barriers to integrated public policy 148 References 149 Index 153 Figures 1.1 Policy challenges 3 1.2 Public policy functions and processes 9 1.3 Actors in the policy process 12 1.4 The policy system: actors, skills, and policy process 20 2.1 Agenda-setting phases 34 3.1 Policy formulation process 53 5.1 Integrating top-down and bottom-up perspectives in implementation 107 5.2 A typology of institutional change environments as they may affect implementation 109 6.1 Types of evaluation 129 6.2 Handwashing campaign: types of evaluation 129 6.3 Central task of policy evaluation: netting out policy effects from other factors 131 Tables 3.1 Components of a public policy 55 3.2 Examples of policy tools 56 5.1 Center-local relations as they impact on implementation 110 5.2 Typical implementation barriers 113 6.1 Evaluation design for isolating net outcomes from gross outcomes 132 6.2 Conventional and participatory modes of evaluation 138 7.1 Summary: policy process and the associated policy challenges and responses 142 7.2 Policy capacity: skills and resources 144 Boxes 4.1 Decision matrix 84 4.2 Contesting imagined futures of the Affordable Care Act 93 5.1 Implementation as politics by other means 103 5.2 Implementation and institutional change 111 5.3 Forward and backward mapping in implementation design 116 5.4 Eight change management mistakes to avoid 119 Acknowledgments We are grateful to many colleagues including Andrea Migone of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada and Ben Cashore of Yale University for detailed comments received on the first edition, as well as the very helpful insights provided by reviewers commissioned by Routledge Press. Many at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore also supported this project, especially Kishore Mahbubani, Kanti Bajpai, Eduardo Araral, and Kenneth Tan. We have used portions of the manuscript in Masters courses and executive education sessions at the school, and the response we received from students and trainees also helped us tremendously in improving the text. Our sincere thanks to all of you. 1 Introduction Managing the policy process Why is managing the policy process important? With recurring environmental and financial crises, terrorism, continuing widespread poverty and inequality, and deepening concerns about climate change, the need for sound public policies has never been greater. Contem- porary economic, social, and technological changes make the need for good policy and governance yet more vital. Addressing problems related to these issues and others necessitate governments to rise to the challenge of devising more effective policies. These kinds of problems are too vast for communities and corporations, much less individuals, to resolve on their own: only governments have the potential to address such collective issues, especially when they work con- structively with other governments and nongovernmental actors to do so. Organizing and managing the policy processes involved at national, sub- national and international levels is a critical task and an important harbinger of successful policy-making and effective policy outcomes. Understanding policy processes and policy-making activities and the behavior of key actors is thus essential for policy actors aspiring to influ- ence policy development in a positive direction. This book seeks to provide key policy actors in government and in nongovernmental positions with lessons found in the many works in the policy sciences that deal with these issues and questions. Empirical research, for example, shows that government policy and gov- ernance institutions are the strongest determinants of development, both economic and social (Lin and Chang 2009; Haggard and Kaufman 2016; Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi 2004). Conversely, weak institutions and the bad policies they often produce are commonly the largest determinants of development failures. Thus, in the mid-1950s, income, education, and health indicators for Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and South Korea, for example, were broadly similarly, but within only a decade all these 2 Introduction indicators were much higher in South Korea, largely due to the policy insti- tutions and practices found in that country which allowed effective policies to be developed, enacted, and implemented. Success bred further success in Korea while interlocking policy, governance, and development failures in Myanmar deepened over several decades (Holliday 2012). As these two countries show, the rewards for enacting sound policies through effective management of the policy process are as high as the costs of getting them wrong; and the long-term performance differentials generated by policy choices made today can be staggering. The surest way to ensure effective policies are made and implemented is to build institutions and processes for making and implementing them that avoid common errors and replicate the conditions and practices needed for success. How this can best be accomplished is what this book is about. The book is for all stakeholders involved in the policy process. It is built upon the premise that policy actors can overcome existing barriers that under- mine their potential for contributing to policy success. To do this requires that they better understand the requisites and institutional supports for effective policy-making, and identify and seize opportunities to leverage their positioning within often crowded policy-making processes to influence outcomes. A difficult policy world: the challenges of governance Governments face many challenges in contemporary policy-making (see Van der Wal 2017). One growing concern is the increasing “wickedness” or complexities of policy problems. Uncertainties have always plagued policy- making. But the ability to predict how policy x will affect problem y and associated issue z over time has been increasingly seen as strained to the breaking point by: the ever widening interconnectedness of problems; the expanding range of actors and interests involved in policy-making; and a relentless acceleration in the pace of change and decision-making (Churchman 1967, Levin et al. 2012). Another factor which makes policy-making increasingly difficult is the fragmentation in many countries of the societal, political, and policy institutions traditionally charged with organizing collective action in govern- ment. The polarization and fragmentation of public aspirations, ever rising expectations of government, and secular declines in public confidence and trust in government institutions also compound the challenges facing policy-  Introduction 3 Figure 1.1 Policy challenges makers. Together these institutional, political, and policy realities create what has been termed “super-wicked” problems, which pose three types of chal- lenges to policy actors inside and outside government: political challenges linked to the need to gain agreement from key actors and the public on policy direction and content; technical or analytical challenges related to determining the most effective course of action; and operational challenges linked to effectively developing and imple- menting policy choices (see Figure 1.1). Each of these three challenges is discussed in detail below and in the chap- ters which follow. Political challenges Policy-making is a quintessentially political process in that it affects who gets what, making it vital for policy actors to understand the political implications of their actions (Lasswell 1958). Merely understanding policy-making as an analytical exercise—identifying the costs and benefits of different policy alternatives, for example—is not enough; policymakers need also to come to grips with the political dynamics underlying the policy activities in which they engage. Successful policy actors need to survey the policy-making fields in which they themselves are situated, and in doing so: identify other actors involved in and affected by policies and policy- making; 4 Introduction map out their essential interests, ideologies and relationships; and assess the waxing or waning of their sources of power and leverage within the process. Policy-making is embedded in a world of formal and informal political com- promises and deal-making. Policy actors need therefore to understand how and why to compromise—to acknowledge the trade-offs between policy theory and practice that may be needed to secure agreement among contend- ing actors and interests on a particular course of action that government or other strong policy actors may desire. Indeed, policy actors may need to help craft such compromises, or to manage their consequences. Consider (as we do throughout this book) the possible causes of policy failure. Ineffectiveness might on the surface stem from the poor design of an individual policy, or from incompetent or weak administration of the same. But often the real cause lurks elsewhere—in the failure to recognize and manage the contending interests of other policy actors. Examples are legion across levels and agencies of government itself, and may be magnified when government works cooperatively with the private or civil society sec- tors to formulate and implement policy. Disagreements between different levels of government, if left un- or poorly managed, can also lead to contradictory policies that are mutually destructive of the aims of all. In federal countries, for instance, one level of government may promote coal extraction to produce electric power while another level tries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Scharpf 1994), a situation which requires management if either aim is to be achieved. Within a single level of government, the goal of any given policy can be thoroughly clouded or undermined by the desires and strategies of differ- ent government agencies, each quite “rationally” pursuing incompatible or contradictory agendas. This is commonly the case, for example, where one ministry wishes to pursue an ambitious expansion policy in health or social welfare spending while fiscal gatekeeper organizations such as finance ministries or treasury boards wish to curtail budget deficits or government spending. Or agriculture ministries may continue to promote agricultural production at the expense of decreased water availability for industry and households, which may themselves be the subjects of major expenditure initiatives by ministries of public works and infrastructure expected to increase the latter (de Moor 1997). Again, such conflicts need to be anti- cipated and managed if either aim is to be accomplished. It is also often the case that policies are formulated by governments and political parties in order to secure the support of politically powerful groups of economic or social actors at the expense of long-term public interests that may be underrepresented in the political system (Bachrach and Baratz  Introduction 5 1970). In many countries, small groups of agricultural and business elites, for example, often exercise a virtual veto over reforms aimed at redistributing land or improving wages and working conditions for the large majority of the population (Patashnik 2008). But even where such conditions do not exist, political actors may try to appease clients in society and earn their support rather than act in the interests of the public at large. Consideration of the political context in which policy-making occurs also helps us to understand why some policies are adopted despite having virtually no chance of having an impact on the ground at all. So-called “ideological” or symbolic policies are often used by political elites to cement their legitimacy among key supporters. With multiple ambiguous, non- prioritized, and largely non-measurable goals, such policies have little chance of being effective in achieving any but political constituency-building aims. Technical challenges In addition to the very significant political challenges, governments also face a variety of technical and analytical challenges in understanding policy problems and their root causes, and in devising solutions for them based on realistic estimates of future effects and outcomes (Pollock et al. 1993). There is often not enough information available on the historical or even current situation encountered by a government for it to fully specify the nature and scope of the policy problem itself, let alone its solution. Nor are the analytical tools that would help analyze available information, isolate cause and effect relationships, and inform effective policy action always available (Howlett 2015; Hsu 2015). In many countries and contexts, the available information and analytical tools are often manifestly inadequate in dealing with the grow- ing complexity of problems (Parrado 2014). And the difficulties in acquiring and analyzing information are compounded by not knowing what to do with the findings. Take the obesity problem in many countries as a good example. We know what causes it (high caloric intake and insufficient physical activity to burn it) and what the population needs to address the problem (fewer calories and more activity). What we do not know is what can be done to discourage the population from consuming more calories than they can burn (May 2013). Another example of a problem with high behavioral (and other kinds of) uncertainty is global warming and the adaptations necessitated by the ensuing changes in our climate. An even more immediate problem is terror- ism; it has so many different origins and manifestations that it is impossible to devise solutions that would stymie all potential individuals and groups from turning to terrorist activities (May et al. 2009). 6 Introduction Such uncertainties need to be managed and, if possible, overcome. But policy-making in many countries is not helped by the generalist character of civil services found in them. Inherited from earlier times when problems were less pressing and complex, or when general expertise was adequate for most issues governments faced, public servants in many countries are still not generally expected, much less required, to be subject experts. This is notwithstanding the classic conception of the public service as being composed of “specialists” assisting “generalist” political masters. The reality is that most civil servants lack even basic training in the substantive areas in which they work (Howlett and Wellstead 2011; Howlett 2009) and often lack the skills and analytical competences needed to plug the information gaps and related uncertainties that plague decision-making and policy formulation and implementation. The health care sector, which attracts nearly one-tenth of global GDP, for example, is largely managed by public servants who lack both training and extended experience in the sector. Similarly, pension systems—another big budget item for most govern- ments—are typically run by managers who lack basic training in actuarial estimates or in the politics of pension reforms (Stiller 2010). Policymakers need to address these technical capacity gaps if policies are to be effective. Operational challenges In addition to these political and analytical hurdles, policymaking also involves serious operational challenges. Organizing collective actions inevit- ably involves numerous individuals and agencies in complex deliberative and analytical processes. The making and implementing of effective policies require, at a minimum: well-defined administrative processes delineating the roles and responsi- bilities of different offices and agencies; adequate resources available for policies to be carried out; compliance and accountability mechanisms in place to ensure that all concerned are performing the tasks expected of them (McGarvey 2001); and the establishment of incentives that enforce not only minimum compli- ance on the part of agencies and officials with prescribed duties but also encourage them to seek improvements in their performance, something all too rare in many governmental organizations (Osborne and Gaebler 1992). But making, implementing, and evaluating public policy is, of course, a collective effort. It is not sufficient for individual agencies and officials to  Introduction 7 function effectively. Governments need to ensure that officials and agen- cies work in unison towards shared goals. Coordinating and integrating the myriad efforts of large and diverse public agencies—across levels of govern- ment, and often in concert with actors in the private and non-profit sectors— is an extraordinarily difficult task (Vince 2015; Briassoulis 2005). Given that making and implementing policies almost always involves more than a few agencies, coordination is often hampered by such factors as: a “silo mentality,” whereby each agency focuses on its own core respon- sibility while ignoring the objectives of other agencies with whom they must cooperate to achieve an overall policy objective; different organizational cultures and standard operating procedures, which make it difficult for actors in a network to share information and resources, and to coordinate operational details; and the existence of multiple-veto points in many implementation chains, whereby an actor can stop or dramatically slow down joint efforts. The interconnectedness of policy problems increasingly requires agencies established in earlier eras to coordinate their efforts in order to achieve policy objectives. The single-minded outlook, culture, or operational tool-kit of any single agency can pose a major hurdle to the design and enactment of effective public policy (May 2014). Policy functions and processes: design and management of effective policies The ability to recognize, diagnose, and adequately address the interrelated political, organizational, and analytical complexities described above marks the litmus test for effective policy actors and public managers, and for the systems in which they work. Understanding the conditions and circumstances that promote policy effectiveness, and what it might take to institutionalize them, is the main focus of this book. As described above, all governments face different levels and combina- tions of political, operational, and technical barriers which determine the enormity of their tasks and how and to what extent they may be overcome. While individual leadership (and luck) may produce good policy in the face of these challenges, the only way to ensure that good polices are consistently produced is to have the right institutions and processes in place (Tiernan 2015a; 2015b). Modern problems are too complex to be dealt with by indi- vidual leaders, no matter how capable they may be. And so being a capable leader in this context means employing one’s leadership skills to build appro- priate policy institutions and processes, in addition to handling the contin- gencies associated with any given policy problem. 8 Introduction In short, the main limitation on government ability to address policy chal- lenges is the set of deficiencies in the processes by which policies are made, implemented, and evaluated. Governments need to design an effective pro- cess to identify emerging problems, generate and assess alternative solutions to addressing the root causes of the problems, implement them in ways that take the behavior of all stakeholders into account, and finally evaluate the performance of the policies in a way that allows correct lessons to be drawn about smart practices (Howlett Ramesh and Perl 2009). Designing policy functions and processes in a way that is simple enough to be operationally workable while being responsive to the demands of policy coordination and complexity is the difficult but unavoidable task of modern governance. Even where policy actors must take such processes and organizational parameters as given (i.e. not amenable to redesign or improvement in the short term), they must find ways to effectively manage within their limitations. Understanding the policy process The policy process consists of the performance of five vital activities: agenda- setting, formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. These policy activities can be thought of as unfolding in “stages” with some pro- gression of policy-making from one stage to another (see Figure 1.2). Exactly in what order these activities occur and how they are linked together varies from case to case. Each is a discrete, albeit often interrelated, set of activities that often occurs in fits and starts in cycles of attention and inattention to certain issues by government (Downs 1972; Kingdon 1984; Teisman 2000). Agenda-setting is about how perceived problems become policy prob- lems that governments commit themselves to addressing (Kingdon 1984; Baumgartner and Jones 1993). Each society has hundreds, even thousands, of issues that citizens find to be matters of concern and which some would have the government do something about. Only a small proportion are actu- ally taken up for consideration by policymakers. While there is a tendency to view agenda-setting as something confined to policymakers in the exe- cutive and legislative branches of government this is not entirely accurate; a variety of other actors such as the media, think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, and political parties also play a vital role (Kingdon 1984). Public managers at all levels in governments and civil society groups, how- ever, are in a unique position to identify emerging policy issues through the programs with which they are involved. Public managers also often serve as a screening mechanism or as “gatekeepers” able to substantiate and verify and support (or not) various claims for attention among policymakers and the public at large. Most importantly, public managers can contribute to identifying and resolving significant policy issues that require sustained  Introduction 9 Agenda-setting Evaluation Formulation Implementation Decision-making Figure 1.2 Public policy functions and processes attention through their long tenures and experiences in office (Hicklin and Godwin 2009). Policy formulation involves the development of alternative courses of government activity designed to address problems which may be on, or expected to appear on, the government agenda (de Leon 1992). Due to com- petition for their attention and/or the urgency of the issues they face, policymakers typically have only brief windows of opportunity to come up with actionable solutions, and such pressure can lead to erroneous choices from a short- or long-run perspective (Birkland 1998). Policy actors can help to foster the development of policy ideas long before these issues reach the policy agenda; in so doing, they may help improve both the chance of their issue being taken up and the likelihood of future policy effectiveness (Halligan 1995; Craft and Howlett 2012). They can also help to ensure that recognition of unresolved design issues, or of implementation challenges, is followed up in later stages of the policy-making process, since the atten- tion of both the policymakers and the public to a particular issue may dwindle as new issues emerge (Downs 1972; Jones 1994). Decision-making occurs throughout the policy process. In the sense used here, it involves governmental authorities deciding on a particular course of action which is expected to address some policy problem (March 1994). Such choices are absolutely critical, of course, in determining what action a government will take and how it will be implemented and, as such, are an indispensable part of policy-making and ultimately of policy success or 10 Introduction failure. Often only senior echelons of the government are involved in this kind of decision-making, though they typically consult others in the govern- ment or civil society before arriving at decisions. This provides many opportunities for actors—lobbyists, interest groups, policy managers, and others—to influence the content and direction of the policy decisions (Clemens and Cook 1999). Implementation is another key activity in the policy process. In it, policy is actually given form and effect (Hill and Hupe 2009). The critical influ- ence that implementing officials at all levels in public service and within in civil society will have in determining policy success and failure on the ground rarely captures the public’s or even policymakers’ attention (Sabatier and Mazmanian 1981). The recurring and omnipresent inconsistencies between policy design and implementation found in many policy areas and jurisdictions suggest much improvement can be made through creative and discerning efforts by public managers and civil society groups to improve implementation and policy design (Goggin et al. 1990). And policies decided in the political arena are often broad and vague, leaving crucial details to public officials to work out (Epstein and O’Halloran 1994). This often provides a great deal of discretion to public servants—discretion that can sometimes serve to enhance policy implementation but that also raises create opportunities for localized corruption or other departures from policy intent (Scott 1969). In order to improve implementation, governments need to not only fully understand their options and spell out their decisions clearly, but also to provide incentives to implementers to improve imple- mentation activities and disincentives towards administrative malfeasance, arbitrariness, and capriciousness (Deschenaux 2015). Policy evaluation is a final critical policy activity. It involves the assess- ment of the extent to which a public policy is achieving its stated objectives and, if it is not, what can be done to improve it (Stufflebeam 2001). Evalu- ations must not only be clear about what lessons can be learned from past experience, but also ensure that they are designed in such a way that appropriate lessons are learned. Evaluations are often carried out by think tanks, interest groups, and other nongovernmental actors, but the direct access to information on policy performance enjoyed by public managers provides them with distinct advantages in this activity. However, such potential has often remained largely untapped. In part, due to many public managers’ fears of being undermined by negative evaluations of their own work, this tendency to downplay evaluation can also arise from a lack of sufficient technical expertise within the bureaucracy to conduct complex pro- gram evaluations. Given that evaluation is an indispensable part of policy learning and policy-making, such barriers to its production and utilization need to be overcome (Etheredge 1981).  Introduction 11 Actors in the policy process: policy “communities” A typical policy actor may be heavily involved in some of these five policy activities, somewhat more involved in others, and not at all in others. But who are these actors and how do they interact? To date, we have only talked about policy actors in general terms while occasionally mentioning such groups or organizations as civil society actors, governments, citizens, public servants, policy managers, think tanks, and others. In recent years, it has been broadly accepted that policies are not just made by agencies formally responsible for the issue but collectively by key stakeholders, both private and public (Hayward 1991). It is very com- mon, for example, for scores, if not hundreds and perhaps even thousands, of people to be involved across many different kinds of institutions and organizations—from think tanks to legislatures and cabinet offices—in making and implementing a single policy. Think of the huge range of actors involved in the development of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) in the US, finally enacted in 2010 after a multi-decade-long development process. Not only were state, local, and federal governments and legislatures, health care providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, think tanks, and political parties heavily involved, but also the courts and the public through various forms of protest and electoral contests. Because of their many attributes and activities, instead of discussing their individual role, analysts commonly refer to the role played by “communities” or “networks” of actors in policy-making. Building on earlier notions of “sub-systems,” the conception proposes that policies are made by sets of sector-specific government and nongovernment actors who form a “policy community” or “issue network” (Heclo 1978). As Miller and Demir (2007) put it, policies are made not just by those in formal authority but by those “most affected, most interested, most expert, or most sentimentally attached to the issue.” Policy communities comprise sub-sets of the governmental, nongovernmental, and international actors depicted in Figure 1.3 involved in specific policy issues or “sectors,” such as health, the economy, auto- mobiles, or telecommunications activities, among many others. Governmental actors The permanent players in the policy process, however, are governmental actors operating at subnational, national, and increasingly international levels who actually develop, decide upon, and implement public policies. Govern- ment officials are the primary actors in the policy process, notwithstanding the expansion of efforts to privatize government functions and expand the role of civil society and market players in the design and delivery of public services. Public policies are “public,” after all, and in the modern era the 12 Introduction Figure 1.3 Actors in the policy process state is the sovereign entity capable of speaking for and acting on behalf of the public. At least in the context of a reasonably democratic and capable state, its officials are the bearers of final authority, a fact that places them at the center of all policy processes. Legally, the authority to make and implement policies is the exclusive preserve of the government, though in democratic societies governments often choose to share this authority extensively with societal actors (Galanter et al. 1980), and for very weak governments (think of “failed” states, as an extreme case) de facto control over public sector resources may be highly diffuse by default. Governmental actors include elected officials as well as appointed administrators. Elected officials include legislators and executive members, while appointees include civil servants and members of the judiciary. The exact role they play in policy-making depends upon the issue as well as the configuration of state institutions. The role of legislators in the policy process, for example, ranges from not very significant (in the case of some parliamentary systems in which the ruling party by definition controls the legislature and can “whip” or direct members to follow its lead), to sub- stantial in presidential systems (where presidents and governors must negotiate constantly with individual members of congresses over passage of bills) (Olson and Mezey 1991). It is true, theoretically and technically speaking, that for all governments —regardless of the nature of their political system—elected or appointed  Introduction 13 executive members are the “masters” of the policy process, while civil “servants” are tasked only to assist their masters in performing essential government functions. In reality, however, the longer tenure and experience of civil servants means they commonly play a much larger and deeper role in defining policy content than this theoretical view would suggest, even though final authority to make policy decisions would typically (though not always; think of certain central bank appointments or executive agencies) remain with the political executive. While ministers can and do launch major policy initiatives, the bureaucratic agency in charge of a policy sector normally plays a key role not only in implementation, but in all stages of the policy process (Overeem 2012). The days are long gone, however, when policies were made by a single individual or even a single group within the government (Craft and Howlett 2012; Parson 2004). The great policy challenges of our time are too complex for either politicians or civil servants to be able to address on their own. Governments increasingly rely for expertise in dealing with problems upon groups and individuals outside the government, and need to find ways to work with them in policy-making. In past eras, this often involved finding ways to bring companies and other market actors into policy-making, often through activities such as contracting out government services or privatizing government firms. But greater participation and openness—often stemming from trends such as globalization and the rise of the internet and digital government—have also led to new modes of governance taking root along- side traditional market and state-based ones (Capano et al. 2015). These include a variety of new arrangements for the “co-production” or co-design and co-management of policies through formal and informal state and civil society interactions (Pestoff 2006; Pestoff et al. 2012). These activities—to take two examples, the use of parent-teacher associations to enhance and deliver educational services, or of disability associations to partner with government to serve the disabled—have raised both new challenges and new opportunities for governments, and have introduced a range of new actors— and growing complexity—into traditional policy processes. Societal actors The range of societal actors involved in the policy process and policy com- munities is potentially very large, since it is sometimes possible for indivi- duals, acting as activists, litigants, or voters, to bring items to the government agenda. Such individuals may attempt to have an impact on policy through public and legal action, such as demonstrations or lawsuits, right up to and through the implementation and evaluation stages. (The efforts by individuals and advocacy groups to use the courts to overturn the nascent Trump 14 Introduction administration’s ban on travelers and refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries is a case in point.) However, it is more common for policy communities to have a modest number of identifiable players, and to feature leaders and representatives from interest groups, religious organizations, companies, labor unions, associations, think tanks, or other kinds of policy research organizations interacting with each other over relatively long periods of time (McFarland 1987). These actors command different kinds of resources, from economic power to knowledge, that stem from the nature of the organizations they lead or represent; and these resources, and the skill with which they wield them, determine the ability of each actor to influence government thinking and attention on various issues (Cawson 1978). Among interest groups, for example, businesses and business associations are generally the most power- ful, with an unmatched ability to affect public policy through their direct control over investment and, hence, indirectly, over the jobs and economic prosperity that most governments desire. Labor too can occupy a powerful position among social groups in countries with high unionization rates, though it is typically less powerful than business, on whom organized labor also relies for job creation and wages (Harrison 1980; Panitch 1977). Surprising as it may appear, “the public” often plays a rather small and only indirect role in the public policy process (Brooks 1985). This is not to say that its role is inconsequential, as it provides the backdrop of norms, attitudes, and values against which the policy process unfolds. However, in most liberal democracies, rather than the citizens themselves, it is their representatives who are entrusted with the task of governing. But insofar as these representatives depend on their appeal to voters to win elections, they need to take public opinion into account. And elections provide an oppor- tunity for political parties to present their policy platforms, their appeals to the public for why they should be given control over legislative and executive offices. Once in existence, parties often work to put innovative strategies forward in order to win elections, including preparation of policy packages to appeal to voters. These packages are often a vital source of public policy agendas that public managers and other public servants must be prepared to address after the election (Von Beyme 1984). Another significant set of societal actors in the policy process is made up of researchers working at universities, research institutes, and think tanks who develop “bespoke” or “off-the-shelf” packages of ideas and instruments politicians and policy community members can use in developing and defending policy proposals and decisions (Prince 1983). These organizations maintain an interest in a broad range of policy problems and use their expertise and positioning to enable them to develop and put forward a comprehensive perspective on the issues facing governments. Their research  Introduction 15 tends to be directed at proposing practical solutions for public problems or, in the case of some think tanks, finding evidence to support the ideologically driven positions they advocate on behalf of those who fund them. This sets them apart somewhat from academic researchers at universities and research organizations who tend to have broader interests and do not necessarily seek to find or advocate practical solutions for policy problems. Explicitly partisan research is also generally frowned upon in academia (Cohn 2007), although some have argued that it is on the increase. In societies with a relatively free press or open internet, traditional and newer social media can play an important role in bringing issues onto the public and government agendas. Such media may publicize and criticize policy proposals as well as policy performance or non-performance (Spitzer 1993). The development of information and communication technologies has greatly enhanced the media’s ability to shape public opinion on public problems (Criado et al. 2013) and their ability to name and blame a policy for a problem or a “solution” for failing to resolve it, which can sometimes force an issue onto or back onto a government agenda. The extensive report- ing of the health implications of smoking, for example, heavily influenced the development of antismoking legislation passed in many countries over the past half century. However, this does not mean that the media directly controls agenda- setting and other policy processes. Often, the media itself suffers from a lack of access to information, poor reporting, and a host of other factors that limit its ability to set government agendas or otherwise influence decision-making, implementation, or other policy activities (Patterson 1998). The media is also far from homogeneous. The proliferation of newer media actors, and the explosion of “news,” both fake and real, consumed via social media plat- forms, including Facebook and websites dedicated to specific ideological viewpoints in recent years, have proven to be game-changers for the media’s role in policy advocacy. They represent avenues for a range of actors to influence the policy process in new and sometimes surreptitious ways. They also have led to a dilution of advocacy power among mainstream outlets, and a decline in the general level of societal trust in all forms of public affairs reporting, a phenomenon sometimes called the advent of a “post-fact world” (Fukuyama 2017). International actors International actors constitute a third general category of policy community membership, but one which varies considerably by policy area (Reinicke 1999). These actors may be individuals working as advisors or consultants to national governments or donor organizations, or members of international 16 Introduction organizations with the authority under international agreements to regulate their members’ behavior. International actors are more likely to partici- pate and act effectively in policy sectors in which there is an international agreement sanctioning their intervention (Keohane and Milner 1996). The central place occupied by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the inter- national monetary regime, for example, enables its officers to interfere in the details of public policy-making in many nations facing serious financial or fiscal problems. An even more significant resource is the possession of theoretical and practical expertise in a policy sector. Many international organizations—the World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO), for example—are repositories of immense expertise in policy issues. As a result, national governments often rely upon them when making policies, giving them significant influence in domestic policy processes (Mahon and McBride 2008). The financial resources that international organizations can dispense to governments form another source of influence that can help move specific items, or specific approaches to certain problems, onto government agendas. The nature and role of policy communities Policy communities exhibit a number of discernible features (Van Waarden 1992; Atkinson and Coleman 1992). First, as mentioned above, these policy communities are centered on a functional sector, such as banking, energy, education, or health care. Members are expected to represent their organ- izations rather than their own perceptions and interests (though this is not always the case, or even possible). Second, the relationships among public and private actors within a functional sector forming a community are typic- ally more informal than formal; rarely are the roles and responsibilities of the communities or their members specified in an official document or their existence even officially acknowledged. Third, the relationships between members are often horizontal, rather than hierarchical, in the sense that members relate to each other as equals rather than as subordinates or super- ordinates. Fourth, members are bound by shared core values: while conflicts among members are common, they typically center on policy details rather than core goals and functions. Fifth, and relatedly, the relationships in a community are durable and extend across issues and over time; they do not disband after an issue has been addressed. Sixth, each member of a policy community has resources—financial, informational, electoral, etc.—that are of value to others, and this forms the basis for exchange and cooperation among them (Rhodes and Marsh 1992). The size and specific membership of policy community varies consider- ably by sector. In the banking sector, for example, the policy community is  Introduction 17 likely to consist not only of central banks and the ministry of finance, but also managers of large banks and perhaps other financial institutions, as well as established think tanks and academics in the field. The policy com- munity in the agriculture sector, similarly, would comprise the agriculture and perhaps environment ministries plus a range of different farmer advo- cacy groups, major agro-industrial and agricultural biotechnology firms, and researchers specializing in farming issues. The effectiveness of a policy com- munity depends on its membership’s comprehensiveness and coherence, among other things. Originally developed to describe how policies were actually made, the concept of policy capacity is used increasingly in a normative sense; that is, proponents use the concept to not only describe how policies are made and implemented in their view, but also how they should be made. Propo- nents argue that governance by close-knit groups (or policy communities) can be efficient and effective; it ensures policies are made by those with knowledge in the area and who have an interest in its success, unlike more traditional conceptions of a public service run by faceless and neutral bureaucrats. But policy-making by policy communities (where they exist) suffers from limitations that cannot be ignored. First, policy communities exclude citizens and are therefore undemocratic. Second, the line separating a (beneficial) policy community from (much less so) crony networks is fuzzy and may be breached easily, leading to grave consequences in terms of policy effective- ness and the realization of the public or common good. Most importantly, in the contemporary era the sector-centeredness of policy communities militates against solutions to problems, such as poverty and climate change, that increasingly cut across sectors (Jochim and May 2010). The exact range of societal and the specific state actors involved in the policy process depends to a great extent on the nature and characteristics of the policy issue, overall political system, and the policy sector in question. It is also a function of the policy activity concerned (May 1991). Agenda- setting, for example, is often an “open” activity in which a variety of actors drawn from within and beyond the government are involved. While govern- ments sometimes play the lead role in highlighting a problem and defining its scope and depth, they are often reactive: responding to demands made by civil society groups and the media. Policy formulation, by comparison, often sees the involvement of fewer nongovernmental actors as bureaucratic players assume a central role in can- vassing, fleshing out, and assessing policy options. Though they may consult civil society actors for greater clarity and legitimacy, bureaucratic actors often work in relative secrecy (from the public’s perspective) (Halligan 1995). Decision-making outside of elections and referenda is always the 18 Introduction narrowest and most closed policy function, typically performed exclusively by relatively small numbers of political executives in cabinets or admin- istrative agencies. Indeed, official secrecy often prohibits the public from even knowing how and on what basis decisions were made. Conversely, the number of actors in policy implementation may range from only a few— confined to a lead line agency in the case of traditional civil service delivery, for instance—to a much larger spectrum of governmental and nongovern- mental actors in the case of “co-production,” in which representatives from various sectors collaborate in a reciprocal relationship in the production of knowledge or public services (Brandsen and Pestoff 2006). Modern governance is to a large extent characterized by increasing efforts to expand the implementation process to include nongovernmental organizations and private firms (Torfing 2012). Policy evaluation is also a large and “open” area despite often having been viewed as an activity conducted by inside experts on an episodic basis. Following the realization that such evaluations are often ineffective in improving outcomes, there are increasing efforts being made to open up the evaluation process to include a broader range of governmental and non- governmental actors, including the public, through such devices as social media. In this way, the evaluation function within the policy process, and its contribution to “policy learning,” might be take place on a more continual basis (Howlett Ramesh and Perl 2009), and in theory might help the process to benefit from a broader range of perspectives as well. On the other hand, many commentators have noted that the proliferation of participants in policy analysis and evaluation has done little to stem the politicization of findings and perspectives; all powerful sides in a policy arena can and do roll out studies and evaluations purporting to “objectively” prove their point of view (Daviter 2015). Again, however, the exact range of actors involved in each activity depends heavily on the policy sector in question. Defense and, to a lesser extent, foreign affairs are usually conducted behind closed doors and involve far fewer actors than activities such as education or health that typically involve a much larger variety of governmental and nongovernmental actors, often at multiple levels of service delivery and policy activity (Hooghe and Marks 2003). Managing the policy process: policy acumen, analytical skills, and managerial expertise It follows from the above discussion that appropriate institutional arrange- ments and structured policy processes are imperative for making effective policies and implementing them effectively. The institutional arrangements  Introduction 19 should allow deliberation and the utilization of knowledge and expertise in policy-making (Nutley et al. 2007). The policy process, in turn, should be able to: recognize emerging problems and understand their sources; develop, analyze, and compare alternative solutions; select the most effective solutions; implement them effectively by creating the conducive conditions; and assess the performance of chosen solutions and revise or replace them as needed. The success of a policy system rests on the degree to which it facilitates the ability of a government and society to move forward to meet the most important chronic and emergent challenges of its time. Yet chronic policy underperformance, spectacular policy failure, or “window dressing” activi- ties that simply perpetuate the status quo are all too common to varying degrees in all governments. What marks the difference between high- and low-performing policy systems is the key question this book addresses. Our answer centers on the way in which government institutions and management practices structure the relationships among governmental, societal, and international actors. One key is to create effective relationships among policy actors by struc- turing policy communities in such a way that they are focused on problem- solving and the promotion of broader interests rather than (only) the pursuit of self-interest. Policy communities that are cohesive, yet transparent and open—especially to new actors and ideas—play a very significant role in determining whether policy problems may be handled in an effective way (see Figure 1.4). The challenge is to establish policy communities which perform these functions in an integrated manner (Vince 2015; Meijers et al. 2004). In reality, however, it is rare to find policy-making systems that are equipped to address complex problems in an integrated, coherent, and adap- tive fashion (Howlett and Ramesh 2014). Policy actors are often handicapped not only by narrowly defined self-interests with short-term time horizon, but also by the lack of appreciation of the complexities of the problems they encounter and the constraints and opportunities they face. Institutions and practices conducive to responding to such complexities at system level are often conspicuous by their absence. In such circumstances, policy actors’ ability to integrate and simultaneously address political, operational, and technical challenges determines the overall effectiveness of their policy actions while the five key policy functions provide them ample opportunities for intervention. This book focuses on identifying key points of potential 20 Introduction Figure 1.4 The policy system: actors, skills, and policy process influence on the policy process. We argue that policy actors can make a crucial contribution in their respective domains by leveraging their political acumen, analytical skills, and managerial expertise, subjects that serve as a major focus and theme of this volume. Policy or political acumen. Policy acumen consists of the accumulated knowledge of, and experience in, the policy process. It starts with an under- standing of the key players, their key interests, and their strategies and resources. It also rests on a broad understanding of policy practices in other countries and/or different policy sectors. This knowledge and experience forms a solid basis for judgment about policy feasibility: what will work in one’s specific circumstances and contexts, and what will not. Contrary to expectation, policy actors are often particularly weak in the development of policy acumen, due to their lack of training in public policy and related fields, their limited exposure and access to key stakeholders in policy sys- tem (Pal and Clark 2016), and the inherent complexity of (often emergent) policy problems.  Introduction 21 Analytical skills. The second capacity necessary for effectively partici- pating in the policy process is analytical skills for diagnosing a situation or problem and for developing appropriate strategies to address it. For example, analytical tools such as political mapping and stakeholder analysis enable policy actors to assess the support for existing and proposed policy measures, while cost-benefit analysis and other policy analysis techniques help them to compare the consequences and costs of various options available. While not all policy actors may be directly involved in conducting formal analysis (instead depending on their colleagues or policy network partners), it is critical for them to be familiar with the potential and limitations of the various analytical tools, in order to be intelligent and critical consumers of analyses produced by others (Howlett 2015). Managerial expertise. Policy actors’ capacities to perform key managerial functions—such as planning, organizing, staffing, budgeting, coordinating, and monitoring—also significantly shapes their ability to participate effect- ively in the policy process. For example, managerial expertise may allow them to exert greater influence in agenda-setting, where their efforts in sus- taining attention onto key public issues are particularly critical. In addition, their managerial expertise may provide opportunities to lead the development of alternative forms of network management, or to better coordinate and direct the activities of a multitude of actors involved in the policy process (O’Toole and Meier 2010). In this book, we discuss these capacities and policy challenges and reflect on how they can be met in an integrated manner. The chapters in this book show how many policy actors need to change the way they define their goals, conceptualize and select alternative means of reaching the goals, implement their choices, and evaluate their performance so that corrections may be made to existing policies and superior outcomes attained. The book demonstrates not only the complexity and challenge inherent in the attempt to manage the policy process, but also the potential opportunities for doing so that might be unlocked by well-prepared, high-capacity policy actors. References Atkinson, M. and Coleman, W. (1992). “Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance.” Governance, 5(2), 154–80. Bachrach, P. and Baratz,M. S. (1970). Power and Poverty: Theory and Practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Beyme, K. von. (1984). “Do Parties Matter? The Impact of Parties on the Key Decisions in the Political System.” Government and Opposition, 19(1), 5–29. Birkland, T. A. (1998). “Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting.” Journal of Public Policy, 18(1), 53–74. 22 Introduction Brandsen, T. and Pestoff, V. (2006). “Co-production, the Third Sector and the Delivery of Public Services: An Introduction.” Public Management Review, 8(4), 493–501. Brooks, J. E. (1985). “Democratic Frustration in the Anglo-American Polities: A Quantification of Inconsistency Between Mass Public Opinion and Public Policy.” Western Political Quarterly, 38(2), 250–61. Briassoulis, H. (Ed.) (2005). Policy Integration for Complex Environmental Prob- lems: The Example of Mediterranean Desertification. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Capano, G., Howlett, M., and Ramesh, M. (Eds.) (2015). Varieties of Governance. Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cawson, A. (1978). “Pluralism, Corporatism and the Role of the State.” Govern- ment and Opposition, 13(2), 178–98. Clemens, E. S. and Cook, J. M. (1999). “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change.” Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 441–66. Cohn, D. (2007). “Academics and Public Policy: Informing Policy-Analysis and Policy-Making,” in Dobuzinskis, L., Howlett, M., and Laycock, D. (Eds.), Policy Analysis in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 574–98. Craft, J. and Howlett, M. (2012). “Policy Formulation, Governance Shifts and Policy Influence: Location and Content in Policy Advisory Systems.” Journal of Public Policy, 32(2), 79–98. doi:10.1017/S0143814X12000049. Criado, J. I., Sandoval-Almazan, R., and Gil-Garcia, J. R. (2013). “Government Innovation through Social Media.” Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 319–30. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2013.10.003. Daviter, F. (2015). “The Political Use of Knowledge in the Policy Process.” Policy Sciences, 48(4), 491–505. De Moor, A. P. G. (1997). Perverse Incentives: Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Subsidies Now Harm the Economy, the Environment, Equity and Trade. San Jose: Earth Council. Deschenaux, J. (2015). “Lessons for Employers from a Massachusetts Marijuana Lawsuit.” HRMagazine, 60(9), 27–30. Epstein, D. and O’Halloran, S. (1994). “Administrative Procedures, Information, and Agency Discretion.” American Journal of Political Science, 38(3), 697–722. doi:10.2307/2111603. Fukuyama, F. (2017). “The emergence of a post-fact world”, www.project- syndicate.org/onpoint/the-emergence-of-a-post-fact-world-by-francis- fukuyama-2017–01 [accessed March 31, 2017]. Galanter, M., Blankenburg, E., Klausa, E., and Rottleuthner, H. (1980). “Legality and Its Discontents: A Preliminary Assessment of Current Theories of Legalization and Delegalization,” in Alternative Rechtsforen Und Alternativen Zum Recht. Bonn: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 11–26. Goggin, M. L., Bowman, A. O. M., Lester, J. P., and O’Toole, L. J. (1990). Implementation Theory and Practice: Toward A Third Generation. Glenview: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown. Haggard, S. and Kaufman, R. R. (2016). Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.  Introduction 23 Halligan, J. (1995). “Policy Advice and the Public Sector,” in Peters, B. G. and Savoie, D. T. (Eds.), Governance in a Changing Environment. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 138–72. Harrison, R. J. (1980). “Natural Resources and the Constitution: Some Recent Developments and Their Implications for the Future Regulation of the Resource Industries.” Alberta Law Review, 18(1), 1–25. Hayward, J., Rustow, D. A., and Erickson, K. P. (1991). “The Policy Community Approach to Industrial Policy,” in Comparative Political Dynamics: Global Research Perspectives, 381–407. New York: HarperCollins. Heclo, H. “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment,” in King, A. (Ed.), The New American Political System. Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, pp. 87–124. Hicklin, A. and Godwin, E. (2009). “Agents of Change: The Role of Policy Managers in Public Policy.” Policy Studies Journal, 37(1), 13–20. Hill, M. and Hupe, P. L. (2009). Implementing Public Policy: An Introduction to the Study of Operational Governance. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd. Holliday, I. (2012). Burma Redux: Global Justice and the Quest for Political Reform in Myanmar. New York: Columbia University Press. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2003). “Unraveling the Central State, but How? Types of Multi-Level Governance.” American Political Science Review, 97(2), 233–43. Howlett, M. (September 2015). “Policy Analytical Capacity: The Supply and Demand for Policy Analysis in Government.” Policy and Society, Special Issue on The Dynamics of Policy Capacity, 34(3), 173–82. doi:10.1016/j.polsoc. 2015.09.002. Hsu, A. (September 2015). “Measuring Policy Analytical Capacity for the Environ- ment: A Case for Engaging New Actors.” Policy and Society, Special Issue on the Dynamics of Policy Capacity, 34(3), 197–208. doi:10.1016/j.polsoc. 2015.09.003. Jochim, A. E. and May, P. J. (2010). “Beyond Subsystems: Policy Regimes and Governance.” Policy Studies Journal, 38(2), 303–27. doi:10.1111/j.1541-0072. 2010.00363.x. Keohane, R. O. and Milner, H. V. (1996). “Internationalization and Domestic Politics: An Introduction,” in Internationalization and Domestic Politics, 3–24. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lasswell, H. (1958). Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: Meridian. Lin, J. and Chang, H. (September 2009). “Should Industrial Policy in Developing Countries Conform to Comparative Advantage or Defy It? A Debate Between Justin Lin and Ha-Joon Chang.” Development Policy Review, 27(5), 483–502. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7679.2009.00456.x. Mahon, R. and McBride, S. (2008) The OECD and Transnational Governance. Vancouver: UBC Press. May, P. J. (1991). “Reconsidering Policy Design: Policies and Publics.” Journal of Public Policy, 11(2), 187–206. May, P. J., Sapotichne, J., and Workman, S. (2009). “Widespread Policy Disruption and Interest Mobilization.” Policy Studies Journal, 37(4), 793–815. 24 Introduction May, C. (February 2013). “Agency and Implementation: Understanding the Embedding of Healthcare Innovations in Practice.” Social Science & Medicine, 78, 26–33. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.11.021. McGarvey, N. (April 2001). “Accountability in Public Administration: A Multi- Perspective Framework of Analysis.” Public Policy and Administration, 16(2), 17–29. doi:10.1177/095207670101600202. Meijers, E., Stead, D., and Geerlings, H. (2004). “Policy Integration: A Literature Review,” in Meijers, E., Geerlings, H., and Stead, D. (Eds.), Policy Integration in Practice: The Integration of Land Use Planning, Transport and Environmental Policy-Making in Denmark, England and Germany. Delft: Delft University Press, pp. 9–24. Miller, H. T. and Demir, T. (2007). “Policy Communities,” in Fischer, F., Miller, G. J., and Sidney, M. J. (Eds.), Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics and Methods. New York: CRC Press, pp. 137–47. Olson, D. M. and Mezey, M. L. (1991). Legislatures in the Policy Process: The Dilemmas of Economic Policy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Osborne, D. and Gaebler, E. (1992). Reinventing Government. Reading: Addison- Wesley. O’Toole, L. J. and Meier, K. J. (2010). “In Defense of Bureaucracy—Public Managerial Capacity, Slack and the Dampening of Environmental Shocks.” Public Management Review, 12(3), 341. doi:10.1080/14719030903286599. Overeem, P. (2012). The Politics-Administration Dichotomy: Toward a Consti- tutional Perspective, Second Edition. CRC Press, 2012. Panitch, L. (1977). The Canadian State: Political Economy and Political Power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Parrado, S. (2014). “Analytical Capacity,” in Lodge, M. and Wegrich, K. (Eds.), The Problem-Solving Capacity of the Modern State: Governance Challenges and Administrative Capacities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Patashnik, E. M. (2008). Reforms at Risk: What Happens After Major Policy Changes are Enacted. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Patterson, T. E. (January 1998). “Time and News: The Media’s Limitations as an Instrument of Democracy.” International Political Science Review, 19(1), 55–67. doi:10.1177/019251298019001004. Pollock, P. H., Lilie, S. A., and Vittes, M. E. (1993). “Hard Issues, Core Values and Vertical Constraint: The Case of Nuclear Power.” British Journal of Political Science, 23(1), 29–50. Prince, M. (1983). Policy Advice and Organizational Survival. Aldershot: Gower. Reinicke, W. H. (1998). Global Public Policy: Governing without Government? First Edition. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Rhodes, R. A. W. and Marsh, D. (1992). “New Directions in the Study of Policy Networks.” European Journal of Political Research, 21, 181–205. Rodrik, D., Subramanian, A., and Trebbi, F. (June 2004). “Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Devel- opment.” Journal of Economic Growth, 9(2), 131–65. doi:10.1023/B:JOEG. 0000031425.72248.85.  Introduction 25 Sabatier, P. A. and Mazmanian, D. A. (1981). Effective Policy Implementation. Lexington: Lexington Books. Scharpf, F. W. (1994). “Community and Autonomy: Multilevel Policy-Making in the European Union.” Journal of European Public Policy, 1, 219–42. Scott, J. C. (December 1969). “Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change.” American Political Science Review, 63(4), 1142–58. doi:10.1017/S0003055400 263247. Spitzer, R. J. (1993). Media and Public Policy. Westport, CT: Praeger. Stiller, S. (2010). Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform: How Politicians and Policy Ideas Transform Resilient Institutions. Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. Tiernan, A. (March 2015a). “Craft and Capacity in the Public Service.” Australian Journal of Public Administration, 74(1), 53–62. doi:10.1111/1467-8500.12134. Tiernan, A. (September 2015b). “The Dilemmas of Organisational Capacity.” Policy and Society, Special Issue on The Dynamics of Policy Capacity, 34(3), 209–17. doi:10.1016/j.polsoc.2015.09.004. Torfing, J. (2012). “Governance networks”, in Levi-Faur, D. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van der Wal, Z. (2017). The 21st Century Public Manager. UK: Palgrave. Chapter 2 and 3. Vince, J. (June 2015). “Integrated Policy Approaches and Policy Failure: The Case of Australia’s Oceans Policy.” Policy Sciences, 48(2), 159–80. doi:10.1007/ s11077-015-9215-z. Waarden, F. van. (1992). “Dimensions and Types of Policy Networks.” European Journal of Political Research, 21(1/2), 29–52. 2 Agenda-setting Agenda-setting is a label for the process by which governments decide which issues need their attention and prioritize amongst them. It involves, among other things: the determination and definition of what constitutes the “problems” that subsequent policy actions are intended to resolve; preliminary exploration of the possible solutions to such issues; assessment of the extent and nature of political support for any kind of action to resolve them (Dery 2000, Kingdon 1984, Mukherjee and Howlett 2014). In the abstract, a successful agenda-setting process is thus one that is able to prioritize and assess the root causes of problems, and to focus the lion’s share of attention onto those problems with a reasonable chance of resolution within a reasonable time period, utilizing a reasonable amount of govern- ment resources. However, this is often not the case. Rather governments typically have a great deal of trouble understanding the sources of problems, estimating what is feasible and what is not, and controlling the sequencing of issues to be dealt with (Skodvin et al. 2010). In many cases, they are unable to exercise control over the issues that appear on their agendas; issues may be driven instead by factors such as natural calamities, partisan political maneuvering, and fickle public concerns driven by media headlines (Levin et al. 2012). Dealing with these process- and substance-related problems is essential both to agenda management and to understanding why policy actors act the way they do. The difficulties governments face in agenda-setting begin with the very definition of a what is a policy “problem” needing action. As Kingdon (1984) noted, a “problem” is not the same as a “condition,” which is some aspect of social life that may not be amenable to correction by government (even  Agenda-setting 27 though it may be a source of public or government concern). A good example of a “condition” is human aging, broadly considered to be inevitable and outside the bounds of government control. While aspects of aging— such as elderly poverty or elderly care—may involve related issues that can be amenable to policy intervention and thus become “policy problems,” “aging” in itself is a condition of life that governments cannot alter, not a “problem” per se. A problem, then, is the undesirable effect of a condition that is amenable to government action (Peters 2005). Hence the fact that airplanes crash, for example, is a condition linked to gravity which makes some accidents inevitable. But air traffic safety and aircraft maintenance are problems that can be addressed through, for example, the development of air traffic control systems and standards or, in the case of aircraft mainten- ance, regular inspections and maintenance standards and protocols (Rochefort and Cobb 1994). Having said that, problems vary in their “tractability”—the degree of difficulty involved in developing and implementing solutions to them, whether due to cost or other factors (Hisschemoller and Hoppe 1995). A problem such as deaths due to car collisions might be effectively and affordably mitigated by, for example: mandating seat belt installation and use; traffic law enforcement; reduction in poor driving behaviors such as speeding and drunk-driving; and improving car safety during the manufacturing process by introducing “crumple zones” and air bags in cars. In contrast, problems such as homelessness may be less tractable, as they might involve a staggering array of issues, such as: family life and living patterns; job preparation and employment trends; the education system; the nature of housing and real estate markets and landlord-tenant rela- tionships; drug, alcohol, and sexual abuse; issues linked to disabilities and the effectiveness of the health and mental health systems, etc. Some problems deeply rooted in human behavior such as cigarette smoking and drug and sexual abuse, for example, are especially pernicious and 28 Agenda-setting difficult to root out or correct, making them highly “intractable” (Cnossen 2005). Notwithstanding newspaper columnists, pundits, and media commenta- tors who typically present the causes and nature of policy problems and the solutions to them as simple and self-evident, and hence the fault of venal, unintelligent, or ideologically blinkered politicians and civil servants for their failure to be corrected (Rose and Parsons 2015), in reality the opposite is often true. Problems with tractable characteristics—sometimes referred to as “well-structured” or “tame” problems (Simon 1973)—are quite rare in the real world of public policy, not least due to the fact that easily tractable issues are “low-hanging fruit” which typically have already been the subject of earlier policy interventions and in many cases greatly mitigated (at least as compared with initially very high levels). To return to our car accident example, implementation of the more feasible and cost-effective among the measures noted above may have a significant initial impact on fatalities (reducing the fatality rate from a to b), leading to a sense in which further reductions (reducing further from b to c) prove to be relatively more difficult; the problem might have stabilized and become less amenable to intervention—more “intractable”—at any given level of effort. Recent years have seen an increase in traffic deaths due to distracted driving (e.g. use of mobile phones while driving), with few policy interventions as yet demonstrated to be effective. A similar dynamic may exist with efforts to reduce infant mortality rates. While large gains are initially achievable through targeted and relatively low cost, high-impact interventions like child immunization, further gains would depend on more complex and long-term efforts to strength health systems. In some cases, problems are so successfully addressed that they arise much less frequently on government agendas—only when, for example, a very high-profile airline crash focuses attention onto some previously unexpected or unresolved aspect of an issue such as air traffic control. This was the case, for example, in 2014–2015 when two Malaysia Airlines air- craft crashed in unexpected ways; one disappearing without trace from radar screens on an otherwise regular flight, and the other being shot down over a warzone when governments in the region failed to close down commercial air traffic in an area filled with surface-to-air missiles and war- ring aircrafts. These examples show that even for problems deemed to be relatively tractable, policy efforts take place in a complex, dynamic environment. This is even more true in the case of the much more common example of policies attempting to address much less tractable issues, such as the ill-structured or “wicked” problems discussed in Chapter 1. These problems have:  Agenda-setting 29 boundaries subject to dispute; causes that may be unknown or poorly understood; and potential solutions that are highly uncertain and/or subject to deep disagreement among technical experts and social and political actors (Rittel and Webber 1973; Churchman 1967). Such problems are occurring more frequently on government agendas as citizens, NGOs, and government agencies search for or demand ameliorative action on a wider range of problems linked to boundary-crossing conditions such as global warming. Highly intractable issues can appear and disappear from policy agendas in a pattern that Anthony Downs (1972) called an “issue-attention” cycle. In it, immediate concerns and calls for action run up against the difficulties and costs involved in correcting or altering relevant policy behavior. Government and public attention drifts elsewhere until the issue is again raised to the forefront of public or government attention by some event and/or interest group. The problem of gun violence in the United States (including suicides, accidents, homicides, and periodic mass shooting events) provides one of the best examples of this process in recent years. Efforts common in many countries to limit or control access to weaponry which have proved effective in preventing such massacres are stymied by constitutional and interest group impediments in the US. Corrective action becomes extra- ordinarily difficult due both to extremely high rates of gun ownership and proliferation (a condition that may render many policies attempted in other settings technically ineffective if adopted in isolation) and to interest group dynamics. As a result, even mass public outrage following repeated mass shooting incidents (such as the Newtown massacre of 20 children and six adults from a single gunman with using a semi-automatic weapon) has, to date, failed to secure adoption of even modest gun control measures (Erbing et al. 1980). Governments face other challenges in agenda-setting beyond issues of agenda control and the tractability of issues. Consider two. First, the poor framing of public problems often leads to government and public preoccu- pation with ineffective and wasteful solutions—preoccupation that may crowd out attention to more feasible solutions. Certainly, many social media and media commentators and pundits (but also politicians more interested in constituency building than problem-solving) contribute to this dysfunction. Second, many critical public problems fail to reach official policy agen- das, while relatively minor concerns—or concerns affecting narrow interest groups—do. A prominent cause for this is the nature of the interest articula- 30 Agenda-setting tion and aggregation systems present in a country or jurisdiction; these can favor the concerns of minor groups of “special” interests over more general “public” ones. The attention paid by many governments to tax breaks for the richest and wealthiest group of citizens and businesses—those capable of hiring lobbyists and public relations firms to press their claims for exemptions and special treatment—is far greater than that paid to issues such as gender inequality or child poverty. This is the case despite the fact that the latter issues affect many more people in much more serious ways than a lower capital gains exemption. But issues such as poverty and inequality are also much less amenable to clear solutions or to sustained and focused public pressure, given their diffuse character and the voluntary nature of groups and individuals concerned. Mounting a sustained lobbying and public education effort becomes much more difficult for such groups than for tax lawyers and their clients. NGOs and other nongovernmental actors can and do take these processes and potential outcomes into account as they attempt to make their voices heard in policy-making circles. Governments and public managers are well- positioned to facilitate or hinder such efforts; they can, for example, ease the process of agenda-access for broadly constituted public interest groups, while making the same more difficult for narrow or private ones or vice versa (Cobb and Ross 1997; Rochefort and Cobb 1994). While public agencies are well-positioned to tackle these and other defects in agenda-setting and thus improve policy processes and outcomes, this potential remains largely untapped. This is not least due to the widespread perception that public managers’ responsibility is confined to administrative and organizational tasks—the implementation of a given mandate handed down from above, a long-standing normative viewpoint often termed the politics-administration dichotomy (Rosenbloom, 2008)—rather than to the political and technical considerations that characterize agenda-setting. In this chapter, we describe the nature of agenda-setting processes in more detail. We also explore various opportunities, circumstances and strategies that policy actors can employ to play a meaningful role in agenda-setting and to make agenda-setting both more facilitative of effective policy outcomes and more democratic. The basics of agenda-setting What is agenda-setting? Agenda-setting is sometimes defined as the process by which the demands of various groups in the population are translated into items that governments  Agenda-setting 31 consider for action. This definition is closely linked with the idea that public policy-making is driven primarily by the actions of nongovernmental actors—to which government would react (Cobb et al. 1976). Empirical evidence, however, has shown that in most countries concerns about certain policy problems are raised more often by members of governments rather than (or in addition to) social groups. In addition, it is sometimes the case that proposed solutions to problems precede the articulation of problems, such that agenda-setting becomes less about problem definition per se than about how actors attempt to attach their preferred policies to recognizable “problems” (Kingdon 1984, Beland and Howlett 2016). The adage “to a hammer everything looks like a nail” is one way of expressing this para- doxical quality in agenda-setting. Regardless of how it actually arises, however, the policy agenda is a list of issues or problems to which governmental officials and others in the policy community are paying some serious attention at any given time. Agenda- setting is thus, as set out above, about a government recognizing that a prob- lem is a “public” problem worthy of its attention and not simply an issue affecting only a few a people, or a background “condition” about which it can do very little and that must rather be endured (Rochefort and Cobb 1993; Dery 2000). Agenda-setting is concerned with the initial processes of issue iden- tification and policy initiation, and with the manner in which these processes affect subsequent policy-making activities undertaken by governments. It is a process that is: nonlinear in the sense that so-called solutions (proposed policies, programs, technologies or interventions) can be advanced before any stable problem definition is achieved, and items may appear on agendas in a cyclical or some other form; political as well as technical, in the sense that perceptions of the magnitude and scale of problems, and of the feasibility of potential solutions, are often equally (or more) important than actual evidence of the same; and located within a complex network of state and societal organizations, policy subsystems and actors, including experts and various members of epistemic communities, political coalitions and instrument constituencies or groups of actors promoting particular policy solutions (Baumgartner and Jones 1991; 1993). Both governmental and nongovernmental actors involved in any aspect of policy-making must be fully aware of these realities. They must also be aware 32 Agenda-setting of consequences of these realities, both for agenda-setting itself and for later stages or tasks involved in policy-making as discussed in subsequent chapters. What is the content of agendas? Given the different configurations of conditions, institutions, and actors found in different jurisdictions, it is not surprising that the actual content of policy agendas differs across governments and time periods. That is to say, agenda items differ greatly between countries and jurisdictions in terms of the substance or content of agenda issues and the timing of their entrance into the process (Dowding et al. 2015). In general, agenda formation depends on the nature of the economic and social circumstances in which people live and governments operate. In China, for example, the government’s top agenda items in the late twentieth century focused on spurring economic growth and addressing chronic prob- lems in social service delivery. In the first decade of the twenty-first century China’s policy agenda shifted on the economic front away from production and supply concerns towards more consumption- and safety-oriented con- cerns, including threats to food safety and growing air pollution. In France and Japan, on the other hand, priorities in the later period included the reform of the pension system for public sector employees, and on health and immi- gration concerns—with both issues spurred largely by shifting demographics and the aging of their population (Pritchard 1992). These are phenomena that China too will face, but at a later date given the structure of its population demographics. As noted above for problem tractability, agenda formation needs to be placed in the context of changing social, economic, and political conditions, and of the adoption and effects of previous rounds of policy adoption. As discussed in Chapter 1, policy communities—actors involved in defining and interpreting a problem and identifying solutions to it—play a significant role in bridging the formal government agenda and the informal public one. The “image” a policy problem has within a policy community— how it is named, claimed, blamed, and framed by different policy actors— heavily influences a problem’s articulation, deliberation, and resolution (Baumgartner and Jones 1993). Hence, when a problem such as unemploy- ment is portrayed as a technical and economic issue rather than a social one, economic experts in the policy community may dominate policy-making, and solutions can be discussed within a frame of immigration targets, apprenticeship quotas, or tax burdens. When the ethical, social, or political aspects of the problem assume the center stage, however, a much broader  Agenda-setting 33 range of policy community participants might be involved. For example, as if the problem of unemployment is framed as being the result of unequal and unjust distributions of income, wealth, or opportunities, then actors such as political parties, trade unions, religious organizations, and social justice activists may rise in salience. (The causal relationship may be reversed: the question of which issue frame dominates agenda-setting will flow in large measure from the relative strength of the different contending policy actors involved.) Policy actors need to understand these aspects of agenda-setting if they are to respond appropriately to the social and political concerns raised by their constituents and clients. They must understand, for example, the material interests of both social and government actors in relation to any particular issue, the institutional and ideological contexts in which they operate, and the potential for change in the circumstances that shape debates on public issues. Furthermore, the nature of the issue at hand may influence the ability of any actor to affect the timing and entrance of a problem onto a societal or government agenda. Some issues—for example, adjusting resource allo- cation across industrial or social welfare portfolios—afford policy actors greater opportunity and discretion for deciding on the time and circumstance of their entrance onto a policy-making agenda; in other cases events or problems—such as those critical threshold or time-delimited consequences— force an agenda item onto the front burner of government attention and compel action, regardless of whether a government or any policy actors want to consider it at all, or at that specific point in time (Birkland 1998; Levin et al. 2012). Consider examples such as these: the 9–11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and many other terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere; rising sea levels for various Pacific island nations, which in some cases have forced leaders to consider large-scale relocation of their population; the Syrian refugee crisis that saw European leaders scrambling to respond to contradictory demands from all sides. These examples concern momentous, even catastrophic events of great magnitude. The great majority of issues afford more discretion and leeway to the gatekeepers of government agendas, as they decide if and when to deal with other subjects. The construction of a new highway or hospital, for instance, may well be left for consideration until immediately prior to an election, or some other circumstance thought to favor government interests. 34 Agenda-setting Phases in agenda-setting Figure 2.1 Agenda-setting phases Issue initiation Initial demands for government action can come from inside and/or outside governments, described as inside initiation and outside initiation respectively (Cobb et al. 1976). In the case of inside initiation, the government controls many aspects of problem definition, framing, and issue articulation. In such cases, officials can often place an issue onto the formal agenda of the government even in the absence of any public pressure, or even any publicly recognized grievance. There may be considerable debate within a govern- ment over the issue, but the public may well be unaware of the policy and its development until its formal announcement; in some cases, such as with certain highly technical issues or security-related policies, no formal announcement of the policy adoption or change may be forthcoming at all. A good example of inside initiation is pension policy. Pension reforms are often tied to demographic changes that alter actuarial projections of fund profit or loss. They thus reflect fiscal pressures as opposed to popular clamor to work longer (admittedly an unlikely proposition) or to increase contri- butions. Inside initiation also includes situations in which influential groups with special access to the government initiate a policy without the general public’s involvement (Fischer 2003). The wish to exclude public scrutiny may reflect special characteristics of the sector involved—such as with national security  Agenda-setting 35 issues—but may also stem from political considerations (for example, government fear that an issue might be hijacked or stalled by opponents). For example, certain critics have alleged that international lending agencies often initiate unpopular policy reforms in this manner; many aspects of banking and financial regulation as well as trade negotiations—areas in which narrow but well-mobilized and well-resourced actors have much to gain or lose—have also been linked to such agenda dynamics. Both of these cases are quite different from the case of outside initiation, in which issues appear on the government agenda as a result of “pressure” from individuals, groups, and organizations outside government (Jones 1994). This is often thought by many members of the public to be the only way in which issues can, or should, arise in policy-making, though as shown above this is clearly not the case. In this better-known pattern, issues arise first within a societal space first; and then—if nongovernmental actors play their cards well, circumstances are propitious—issues expand sufficiently in the public realm so as to find space within the government’s informal, and eventually its formal, policy-making agenda. How common such a pattern varies by country and jurisdiction. Some systems of government are more open to outside agenda-setting than others (Cobb et al. 1976). The state of California—and Switzerland—both wit- ness frequent citizens’ initiatives that are put to vote by the entire electorate due to constitutional provisions for referenda. Other countries, such as Belarus, Brunei, and Turkmenistan, and perhaps to a lesser extent China and Kazakhstan, discourage or informally suppress the formation of interest groups not controlled by the government; in others, such as North Korea and Saudi Arabia, such groups are generally illegal. In yet other cases, su