Models of Policy Analysis Dr. Thomason Kaplan University

The Standard Model of Policy Analysis Despite all that we have discussed about policy analysis, there is still a standard approach to policy analysis that derives from the policy stages model. Here we consider it as five distinct steps, which extend across the five stages in the policy process that we have discussed through this course.

Step 1. Defining the Problem and Its Causes: this first step in policy analysis involves research to determine the nature, location, history, timeframe, and causation for a policy problem. As discussed at length in the previous unit, problem framing (in particular causation) is a political as well as a cognitive act. For one thing, most environmental problems are subjective or open to multiple interpretations. For another, the causation often implies a distribution of burden and responsibility. Most importantly, though, the definition of the policy problem significantly shapes the subsequent stages in the process.

Step 2. Establishing Criteria to Assess Policy Options The second step in this rational approach to policy development is lay out criteria for selection of policy options. Although these choices are political, some of them are more explicitly so than others. For example, one might determine that minimizing the life-cycle impacts of greenhouse gases is a policy priority. That criterion involves political choices about analytical method (life-cycle assessment) and impact category (climate change). However, political feasibility (will this get passed?), technical feasibility (will this work?), economic feasibility (will this be cost-effective?), and legal appropriateness (is this constitutional?) are basic criteria typically used in policy analysis. Environmental policy analysis should include a criterion for ecological feasibility as well.

Step 3. Generate Policy Options: the third step in policy analysis is the generation of options that can address the problem and that can be analyzed for their feasibility on the criteria established in step two. There are a number of ways that a policy analyst can generate policy options. One is to brainstorm, which can lead to the most wildly inventive but also least practical approaches. An analyst might review best practices in the field, ask topical experts to provide suggestions, or sponsor research to develop new insights and solutions. An analyst can also pay close attention to the audience for the policy proposal (whether a specific client or the public at large). More narrowly, an analyst can look for options to tweak an existing policy just incrementally or to apply a template ideological or methodological solution, such as “creating a new partnership.” One option, of course, is always to take no new action.

Step 4. Assess Options and Choose Policy: the fourth step is a more thorough assessment of policy, where an analyst engages in the kind of detailed study that is most conventionally called “policy analysis.” This assessment often invokes the most positivist methods, as we discussed in Units 6 and 7 and as discussed in your text. Many of these techniques are sophisticated and intensive, such as the narrative analysis described in Chapter 6 of Clemons and McBeth or the quantitative economic analyses taught in many policy analysis courses. Reports are the common outcome of options assessment, and the goal of this fourth step is to select a policy to implement.

Step 5. Evaluate Policy Outcomes: the final step in policy analysis, which corresponds to the final stage in the policy wheel, is policy evaluation. This analysis examines the policy outputs and ambient policy outcomes to answer such questions as, did the policy work out as planned? Are there better options out there? Or, Should the policy be revised or ended? As discussed in Unit 1, policy evaluations can occur prospectively (what do we expect to happen?), formatively (while a policy is in place), or summatively (after a policy is assumed to have matured).

Democracy and Public Policy The final chapter of your text by Clemons and McBeth devotes its focus to two intertwined questions: How democratic is policy making, and what can create and sustain this democratic quality? A policy analyst not only faces these questions as choices in her or his everyday work; more fundamentally, the analyst answers these questions in the way that s/he thinks about decision-making authority and how much public participation should be part of the policy process.

A policy analyst informed by 21st Century scholarship must recognize and practice a few things: Reality is relative, based upon the individual describing it and the perspective that s/he is trying to get across; Technical methods can yield incisive analysis, but their insights are conditional upon the way one sees a problem and its acceptable solutions; and Environmental policy analysis is the process of finding politically acceptable and effective solutions to complex, ongoing problems that society is only beginning to understand causally. Clemons and McBeth refer to this policy analysis perspective as a post- positivist-inspired, political, nonrational approach to a rational methodology. In other words, they want to recognize that policy is infused with politics at every stage; that people’s views on problems and solutions is heavily influenced by their experiences and interests; and that the best policy analysis uses methods that account for these policy realities, even when undertaking systematic assessments of policy options.

The Policy Wheel Revisited Rarely will there be only one acceptable or appropriate alternative. Not only will different options appeal to various interested parties, but two or more alternatives may bring roughly the similar results. None of these alternatives is likely to be perfect, as problems are rarely solved. More often their severity is reduced, the burden is more even distributed, or they are replaced by less severe problems. (from Carl Patton and David Sawicki, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning, p. 35).

Continued The point is that public policy is best treated as unfolding when our habits, knowledge, and available solutions are changing rapidly. Consequently, we should treat policy making as an iterative or trial-and- error process. For this reason, the policy stages model organized into a cycle is conceptually convenient and helpful. Although its view of the policy process is normative (given that policy stages are often fuzzier, more nonlinear, and interdependent than the model suggests), it gives us a way to think about being able to go back to the drawing board as needed or desired.