W E E K S 6 A N D 7 : O F F I C I A L A N D U N O F F I C I A L A C T O R S I N T H E P O L I C Y P R O C E S S

The Public Policy Process

Today’s grammar question:

What’s up with this comma?

“Well, actually he didn’t do it –he paid a painter $200 to do it for him.” (Councilman

Franz’s blog)

The moral of our story

The Next Assignment: The Policy Environment

See the assignment on the website: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tabirkla/documents/assignment3.pdf

File: lastname_environment.doc or .docx or .rtf

New due date! Friday, February 26

I may have been too strict about evidence in marking memos…government data are OK

Bonus! For every writing error in my comments back to you, I will give you a point (if you point out the errors!).

Objectives for this section

Understand official and unofficial actors in the policy process.

Understand the difference between official and unofficial actors.

Prepare to understand the role of interest groups and power in policy making.

Official and Unofficial Actors in Public Policy

What are official actors?

What are unofficial actors?

What is the difference between official and unofficial actors?

Are one set of actors more “legitimate” than another? The policy process involves the interaction of these actors

within the policy environment

That policy environment is characterized by static and dynamic features of our system

The Traditional View of Formal Institutions

Automatically have power and authority

Are relatively stable—monolithic?

Have the final say in policy debate

Their decisions are accepted

Interests are in the role of supplicants

This is the classic institutionalist approach

A More Realistic View

Power and authority must be earned and reinforced Are broadly stable, but are not at all monolithic Do not issue the final word—decisions often lead to

countermobilization Countermobilization is proof that decisions aren’t

unquestioned Bureaucratic delay or shirking Disobedience

Interests and members of formal institutions work together, not apart.

This looks more like the behaviorist approach

Hierarchy? Or Network?

The C0nstitution

and the People (really?)

Executive

The Bureaucracy

Legislative Judicial

Lower Courts

Hierarchy? Or Network

Coalition 1 Coalition 2

Mediated by policy brokers or policy entrepreneurs

Legis-lators

Groups

Agencies

Experts

News Media

Parties

Legis-lators

Groups

Agencies

Experts

News Media

Parties

Official Actors

Legislative branch

Executive branch (president, governor)

The bureaucracy

Judicial branch (courts)

Legislative Branch

Article I of the Constitution. Why? Does this rationale still hold today?

Make laws Lots of laws introduced, few pass (p. 51) Has a large staff to lighten workload

Hold hearings For lawmaking For other reasons

Perform oversight over the executive branch Approval of appointments Oversight hearings

Do casework for constituents. What are the power advantages and disadvantages of the

legislative branch?

Legislative Activity

105th Congress

(1997-98)

110th Congress

(2007-2008)

House Senate House Senate

Bills 4,874 2,655 7,336 3741

Joint resolutions 140 60 101 107

Concurrent

resolutions

354 130 442 46

The nature of legislation

Symbolism

Currying favor with constituents

Multiple bill introductions

How do we know what’s “on the agenda” just from a count of bills? Why does it matter what’s on Congress’s agenda?

Organization of the Legislature

Parties Elect the presiding officer or speaker

Determine who sits on committees

Committees Screen bills

Set the legislative agenda

Chairs are very powerful

Is the Congress centralized? Or decentralized? Evidence in favor

Evidence against

Where would you take yourproblems if you wanted Congress

to pay attention to them?

Public Policy and Critiques of the Legislature

Are legislatures out of touch with the people?

Are legislatures too slow? Do they suffer from gridlock?

Members and reelection

Congress as a decentralized institution

Congress as a localized, constituency-serving institution – examples?

Implications

“Gridlock,” or deliberation, is designed into the legislative process.

It’s unlikely that Congress will make big sweeping policy changes without a social movement or a major prod from the executive branch/.

Congress may focus on politically safe casework, oversight, and distributive spending. Field hearings as theatre

The House, in particular, may favor local interests over national interests Over 80% of Americans think that incumbents should lose their seats Yet, the vast majority of incumbents will be reelected

The Executive Branch

Chief Executive (President, Governor)

Staff (about 3000 appointed officials)

We consider the civil service (“bureaucracy”) separately

Presidential Advantages Over Congress

The veto power The head of a unitary branch Considerable power shifted toward the executive

branch during The Civil War The New Deal World War II Cold War Great Society

Attracts a lot of media and public attention—can “go public”

“The Bully Pulpit”

Constraints on the President’s Power

Inability to force action. Sheer size of his staff. “Going native” Turnover

The will of the other branches. Appointments Courts

The permanent bureaucracy. Result: the president may be more involved in

agenda setting than in selecting alternative policies.

Agencies and Bureaucrats

What is a bureaucracy? Division of labor

Impersonal, unbiased rules

Staff expertise

Obvious hierarchy

What is a civil servant? Selected on merit

What do you think motivates bureaucrats in public service?

What Do Government Agencies Do?

Provide public goods What is a public good?

Provide services that people may not want provided by the private sector Electricity

Phone

Water

Is the Bureaucracy too Big?

1999: 2.79 million civilian employees

$1.8 trillion budget.

4.47% of Americans work for all government (2.09% work for the federal government), according to U.S. BLS

2008 2.73 million civilian employees (slight decline)

About $3.0 trillion budget

4.65% of Americans work for all government (1.88% work for the federal government)

Bureaucracy and Accountability

Bureaucrats are not elected, yet they make policy.

Yet, bureaucrats are supposed to act in the “public interest.”

The problem: what is the “public interest”?

Bureaucrats are given more or less discretion based on how sensitive an issue is.

The problem of agency “capture”

The Courts

Hamilton: “The least Dangerous Branch” The courts are neither impotent nor all powerful. The Courts do make policy. Rely on judicial review

Rely on enforcement by other actors—executive and legislative branches, private actors. Why are most court decisions respected?

The courts are undemocratic institutions But, was our republic designed as a democracy? How does one balance popular will with constitutional limit?

Implications for policy

Policy change is slow, and takes time to develop

Coalition building is important

The institutions are important gatekeepers, but are not the only participants

Unofficial Actors

Interest Groups

Why are groups so important? Can individuals make change acting alone?

Aggregation of resources

Aggregation of members=power

Forming “advocacy coalitions”

Groups or “special interest groups” are sometimes viewed as a bad thing. Why?

Interest Groups: Background

Have been around a long time Madison mentions them in Federalist 10

A relatively small number of groups until the 1960s

Major growth in interest groups in the 1960s. Any ideas why?

Kinds of Interest Groups

Institutional interest groups Membership because you belong to a particular interest group,

such as NCSU graduate students

Membership interest groups Groups you choose to join

Reasons for Rapid Interest Group Growth

Many government programs=many clients

Lack of legal constraints against group formation in a democracy

Increasing number of public demands Resources

Rights

Types of Membership Groups

Economic (private interest). Are primarily interested in benefits for members.

Do you think they will at least argue that, when their members benefit, the public benefits?

Public interest groups. Seek to create broad benefits for everyone.

Hard to define a single “public” interest.

Other types of groups. Churches, for example.

Why Do People Join Groups?

To gain some sort of a benefit. Economic well being or gain. The desire to do good. The desire to belong to or identify with a group. The desire to find a way to make one’s voice heard. To get the freebies: magazines, calendars, etc.

What Do Groups Do?

Lobbying (providing information)

Support candidates Money

Votes

Mobilize members to take action

Sue in court

Public protests and “direct action”

Groups and Power

We all know that some groups have more power than others

What is power?

Why do some groups have more power than others?

Three Levels of Power

An actor (“A”) makes actor B do something he or she doesn’t want to do.

A keeps B from doing the things he or she wants to do.

These are what we call the two faces of power. What about the third face of power?

The Third Face of Power

A creates and maintains a social structure in which B cannot even imagine taking action to pursue his or her own interests.

This sounds like a conspiracy (or Marxist “false consciousness” but is more subtle than this.

This is a good way to describe power relations in the United States.

Differences in Group Power

Resources Money Information

Size of membership Reasons for membership Direct economic incentives Material inducements

Congruence of goals with prevailing ideas and values

Political Parties

They aggregate preferences into broad coalitions

They organize the legislative branch

They provide opportunities for participation

They help integrate national and state politics

There are Many Political Parties

The Democratic and Republican presidential parties (2).

The Democrats and Republicans in the House (2).

The Democrats and Republicans in the Senate (2).

The Democrats and Republicans in the upper and lower houses of very state except Nebraska (which only has one house of the legislature) (99).

The Democratic or Republican Gubernatorial party (50).

Total: 155 parties—not entirely separate or unique.

What Does the Party System Mean?

Conflicts over partisan and ideological issues that influence public policy (is this bad?)

The need for bipartisan cooperation on some issues to get anything done. Some states have very dominant parties

Even then, the parties then divide into factions

Think Tanks

Research organizations that provide information on public policy.

Their goals. To influence public policy, often in a way consistent with

their ideological perspective. Examples: Urban Institute tends to be liberal; American

Enterprise Institute, conservative.

To serve the public interest with research and information for policy makers. Why do I cast doubt on their research?

Think Tanks

Their numbers have grown—why? Desire for influence in politics

Ideological sponsorship

The proliferation of particular interests

What’s the difference between think tanks and interest groups Organization

Goals

Techniques for asserting influence

The News Media

Serve as “watch dogs” that keep track of government This is the role assumed in the first amendment

This is sometimes referred to as “muckraking” or investigative journalism

What does the news emphasize?

Personalized news

Dramatized news

Fragmented news

Normalized news

How do news biases influence public policy? Distorted agendas

Distorted “facts”

This is not about ideological bias

How Effective Are the Media As Watch Dogs?

Very little news (<1%) is the result of investigative journalism.

Most news in an average news paper is wire service copy, press releases, etc.

Much of what is printed or aired is because of the beat system and personal relationships with sources.

Is the internet going to be a “better” alternative source of news?

Another View: Journalism as Policy Analysis

Next Week: Agenda Setting