PPA 691 – Seminar in Public Policy Analysis Lecture 1a – Introduction to Public Policy Analysis

Introduction Policy analysis is a social and political activity. The subject matter concerns the lives and well-being of large numbers of our fellow citizens. The process and results of policy analysis usually involve other professionals and interested parties. Done in teams and office-wide settings. Immediate consumer is a client, who may be a hierarchical superior. Ultimate audience includes diverse subgroups of politically attuned supporters and opponents.

Introduction Policy analysis: More art than science. Eightfold path. Draws on intuition as much as method. Eightfold path. Steps. Define the problem. Assemble some evidence. Construct the alternatives. Select the criteria. Project the outcomes. Confront the tradeoffs. Decide! Tell your story.

Introduction Eightfold path (contd.) Iteration is continual. Steps not necessarily taken in precisely this order, and not all may be significant for each problem. But serves as a starting point. Iteration is continual. The problem-solving process – being the product of trial and error – is iterative, so that you usually must repeat each of these steps, sometimes more than once.

Introduction Iteration is continual (contd.) The spirit in which you take any of these steps, especially the earliest phases of your project, should be highly tentative. Some of the guidelines are practical, but most are conceptual. Most concepts are obvious, but some are technical and some are common terms used in special ways All concepts become intelligible through experience and practice.

Introduction The concepts come embedded in concrete particulars. In real life, policy problems appear as a confusing welter of details. Concepts are formulated in the abstract. Analyst must learn to see the analytic concepts in the concrete manifestations.

Introduction Your final product. Coherent narrative style. Steps. Describe problem. Lay out alternatives. Each course of action has projected outcomes, supported by evidence. If no alternative dominates, discuss nature and magnitude of trade-offs. State recommendation.

The Eightfold Path Define the Problem. Think of deficits and excesses. The definition should be evaluative. Quantify if possible. Conditions that cause problems are also problems. Missing an opportunity is a problem. Common pitfalls in problem definition. Defining the solution in the problem. Be skeptical about the causal claims implicit in diagnostic problem definitions.

The Eightfold Path Assemble Some Evidence. Think before you collect. The value of evidence. Self-control. Do a literature review. Survey “best practice.” Use analogies. Start early. Touching base, gaining credibility, brokering consensus. Freeing the captive mind.

The Eightfold Path Construct the alternatives. Start comprehensive, end up focused. Model the system in which the problem is located. Reduce and simply the list of alternatives. Design problems. A linguistic pitfall.

The Eightfold Path Select the criteria. Apply evaluative criteria to judging outcomes, not alternatives. Criteria selection builds on problem definitions – and continues. Evaluative criteria commonly used in policy analysis Efficiency. Equality, equity, fairness, justice. Freedom, community, and other ideas.

The Eightfold Path Select the criteria (contd.) Weight conflicting evaluative criteria. The political process takes care of it. The analyst imposes a solution. Practical criteria. Legality. Political acceptability. Robustness and improvability. Criteria in optimization models. Linear programming. Improving linguistic clarity.

The Eightfold Path Project the Outcomes. Projection = Model + Evidence. Attach magnitude estimates. Break-even estimates. The optimism problem. Scenario writing. The other guy’s shoes heuristic. Undesirable side effects. The ethical costs of optimism.

The Eightfold Path Project the outcomes (contd.) The outcomes matrix. Linguistic pitfalls. Confront the trade-offs. Commensurability Break-even analysis revisited. Without projecting outcomes, there is nothing to trade-off. Simplify the comparison process.

The Eightfold Path Decide! Tell your story. The twenty-dollar-bill test. Tell your story. The New York taxi driver test. You, your client, and your audiences What medium to use? Your story should have a logical narrative flow. Some common pitfalls. Following the eightfold path. Compulsive qualifying. Showing your work. Listing without explaining. Style.

The Eightfold Path Tell your story (contd.) Report format. Table format. References and sources. Memo format. The sound bite and the press release.

Problem-Centered Policy Analysis