In the book, “Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making”, by Deborah Stone (2012), she makes several claims about the process and approach to policy analysis. Stone analyzes what she describes as three pillars of public policy; model of reasoning, model of society, and model of policy making. Her view on this process is different from the approach of a rational or market model in politics. Public policy based on the “rational decision-making model” has flaws (Stone 2012, p.11).
In the rational model of reasoning decisions are made by evaluation. There are logical steps or processes that are taken to make policy decisions. The goal or purpose is clearly defined or known. All alternatives are evaluated and taken into consideration
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The political solution or decision is the based on the one that does the most good for the most people in the community, based on the perception of the power group making the decision. In politics, facts may not be facts, but instead be misleading to promote a particular point of view. She also claims in the realm of policy, paradox takes place, where one idea, thought, or policy may have multiple meanings. The activity or idea will be defined in the way that suits our ideology or way of …show more content…
All policy decisions center around the goals of society. Those policy decisions can be conflicting with the various goals. All of the goals Stone talked about in her book make sense. It is the interpretation of the effects of policy on those shared goals; the varying priority of those goals to society, and trying to find the best solutions or policies for issues can be very challenging. The different perspectives on priorities or what is important to who and when drives the political decisions. For example, currently terror attacks against society is a big issue in the political arena. The societal goals of security and freedom may be in conflict when it comes to policy decisions in this area. How much freedom does society have to give up to have security? If we give up some freedoms this may also limit our individual security from the government, for example with Meta data. Learning how politicians craft arguments to further their ideology in relation to the goals was interesting. I guess I knew it was always there but did not think about it in those terms until I read this
In the past few decades political scientists have been looking at ways to categorize different patterns which have emerged during their in depth study on why certain issues shoulder their way onto the calendar, and why others are left in the trashcan. John Kindogon is one such political scientist, his perceptive on agenda formation suggests that there are interactions between three “streams” of society: Problem stream, Policy stream and Political stream. His model proposes that these individual streams intersect through what he calls policy windows, opportunities for advocates to push attention towards their problem. From the clever usage of these streams policies are able to become passable legislation. This paper will use Kingdon’s “Streams” model to explain how different aspects of the community, government and media brought Florida House Bill 0991 onto the docket. In order to better comprehend Kingdon’s theories of agenda setting and their correlation to the proposal of Florida House Bill 0991, the basic model of policy formation must be explained; a general sketch of this model is: Private problem à Public Problem à Makes the Agenda à Formulation à Adoption à Budgeting à Implementation à Evaluation à Termination.
...one, D. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: Norton, 2012. Book.
Kraft, M. E., & Furlong, S. R. (2013). Public policy: politics, analysis, and alternatives (4th ed.). Washington DC, CQ Press.
Harlan once said, “But in the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” The state of Louisiana passed a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. It was all based around accommodations being “separate but equal”, meaning that public facilities were split up by races but the place had to serve the same purpose. In 1892, Homer Plessy was one eighth African American and he took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car only for blacks and was arrested. I believe that this was unconstitutional because of the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Charles Lindblom in the Science of Muddling Though identified two methodology in formulating policy - the Rational Comprehensive (Root) and Successive Limited Comparisons (Branch). There are numerous differences between the root and branch decision-making methods for policymaking; root (rational) decision-making starts from basic issues on every occasion and builds from the ground up, whereas branch (successive limited comparison) begins with the current situation and changes incrementally. The linear or rational model presents policy-making as a problem solving process which is sensible, objective and analytical. In the model, decisions are made in an orderly manner starting with the identification of a problem or issue then ending with a set of activities to solve or deal with it. Charles Lindblom is critical of the Rational Comprehensive Method (Root) of policy process as simplistic and difficult to apply when dealing with complex issues (Lindblom, 1959, p. 79). He advocates that there is logic of “muddling through” the process rather than identifying all the issues, collecting al...
The fundamental of policymaking consists of a lengthy time process that goes through many steps in becoming a Bill. The process of policymaking is introduced in the beginning step of the Policy Formulation Phase, as the problem goes through a Legislation it goes into the Policy Implementation Phase, which than forms into a law or vetoed. Many policies do not become a Bill’s, but the certain ones that do they achieve the goal to guide the society with immense decision making and balanced outcomes.
In conclusion, collective dilemmas happens everywhere, therefore, the government as “third party” has the advantage to solve public problem and issue. The main reason result to collective dilemmas is the bounded rationality, which claim people are rational, goal-oriented which leads cooperative problem.
The first example that involves using the rational choice perspective is when Laura decides to move back home to El Paso with the children. She based her decision on her own personal goals and values. She feels as though she belongs to the community in El Paso and that is where her family is. She did not want her children to forget about the Mexican American heritage they are a part of. Laura’s goal in this decision is to make a better life for herself and her children.
Biggs, S., & Helms, L. B. (2007). The Practice of American Public Policymaking. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
If one was to look at the political administration dichotomy, in theory only elected officials should be the ones who decide the public policy, since they are decision makers, but once the policy is made by the elected officials then the policy implementations. Furthermore, administrations are the responsibility of the bureaucrat with whatever they do. In practice, the bureaucrat is involved in implementation and formulation, in which they have the expertise and the knowledge on the subject. The question then is should bureaucrats be involved in policy formulation? This is structural and difficult to draw a line between these two functions. This paper will look at whether or not Bureaucrats should be involved in policy formulations and if what is stated in theory is actually practiced in reality. It will be argued bureaucracy should be involved in policy formulation in order such policies run smoothly.
Political Philosophy is typically a study of a wide range of topics such as, justice, liberty, equality, rights, law, politics and the application of a codified law. Depending on what the philosophy is, it usually tends to be a very sensitive and a personal ideology that an individual holds within the reality of their existence. Several of the fundamental topics of political philosophy shape up the society that we live in as these specific topics and their implementation by the state ensures a legitimate government. In Political Philosophy, the aforesaid concepts or topics are evaluated and analyzed with tremendous depth in context to their history and intent. Furthermore, in a rather colloquial sense, political philosophy is generally a point of view which after some deep thinking asks questions such as, what are the government’s duties? Is it legitimate? What makes it legitimate? What are the duties of its citizens? What are their rights? Are they protected? So on and so forth. In the following paper, I will canvass my political philosophy and elaborate on my reasoning behind it.
Public choice theory analyses the application of economic concepts to the study of how governmental decisions are made and implemented (Edgar Browning & Jacquelene Browning 1994). The study of public choice theory dates back to the early 1400’s. Machiavelli and Hobbes are some of the initial theorist to contribute to and use public choice as an approach to political economy (Hill 1999). Duncan Black was the first to use economic concepts to study voting procedures and the political decision-making process in groups (Hill 1999). Following Black’s writings, public choice schoolwork received widespread attention in 1986, when James Buchanan was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics (Hill 1999). However, research shows that public choice theory has only been methodically studied for the past three decades (Edgar Browning & Jacquelene Browning 1994). In order to compensate for the shortage of information, we will introduce solutions to the issues that have significant influences on the modern political
United States being a federal system, large number of decisions is not only made by the Federal, but also by state and local governments. Government uses various tools like Law, services, money, taxes, other economic instruments and suasion to influence policies. These tools are unique to the Government and may not be available to private parties. Peters suggest that a huge amount of money flows through the government and it gets redistributed to different people in forms of goods and services (Peters, 2013). Since governments have the resource and rights to influence social agendas, Government has to be involved in policy making. Since public policies are results of collaborations between various groups and backgrounds, the environmental factors contribute as an uncontrollable attribute to policy making. These environmental factors that affect policy making
Public policy can be defined as “What ever governments choose to do or not do” (Dye, 2008, p 2). In the context of this essay, public policies are a set of actors by the government in order to reach out to the masses. The ministries and departments are mandated to deliver specific mandates in the form of public goods and services.
Decision making process is the model which explains that the process of policy can be produced. Karl W. Deutsch said politics is the making decision by public means. The decision that has been decided is not the private decision for some people, but it is the collective decision by the public sector, government. The decision means the general action or public goods, about what will do and who gets what. Deutsch illustrated a country as a ship, meanwhile government act like helmsman.