1. The Policy-Making Process

2. Public Policy
Public Policy: government’s plan to solve a common problem
Encourage behavior: ex: low interest student loans
Discourage behavior: ex: drug laws

3. Policy Formation:
Agenda Setting: Public Attention
Policy Formulation: policymakers address; strategies
Policy Adoption: formally adopt
Policy implementation: bureaucracy carries out, procedures for running programs
Policy evaluation: Determine next step (goes back to 1, 2, or 4)

4. The Policy-Making Process
Public policy is government action or inaction taken to deal with problems and concerns.
Policy Adoption
Problem Recognition
Budgeting
Agenda Setting
Policy Implementation
Policy Formulation
Policy Evaluation

5. Linkage Institutions
Linkage institutions are political channels through which people’s concerns become political issues on the policy agenda.

6. Linkage Institution’s Roles
Interest Groups:
Lobby for regulation, distributive or redistributive policies
Sierra club, AARP, NRA
Political Parties:
Determining Policy
Public Opinion:
“Trigger Issue”
Elections:
Solidify public opinion and direct government

7. Other Influences Groups may react to a sense of relative deprivation
The national government may later adopt ideas pioneered by the states
The media helps place issues on the political agenda

8. Media

9. Setting the Agenda
The political agenda: deciding what to make policy about
The current political agenda includes taxes, energy, welfare, and civil rights
Shared beliefs determine what is legitimate for the government to do

10. Scope of Government Action
Government always gets larger
People generally believe that government should continue to do what it is doing now
Changes in attitudes and events tend to increase government activities
Government growth cannot be attributed to one political party

11. Government Growth

12. Policy Making Institution's Roles
Congress:
Passing Laws
President:
Budget Proposal, veto, executive orders (Civil Rights Act 1964), “making” it an issue,
Bureaucracy:
implementation (enforcement and interpretation with broad language)
Courts:
Interpreting what gov. can and cannot do

13. The Influence of Institutions
The courts make decisions that force action by other branches: e.g. school desegregation, abortion
The bureaucracy is a source of innovation and forms alliances with senators and staff
The Senate is a source of presidential candidates with new ideas

15. Policy
A choice government makes in response to a political issue or public problem 15

16. Domestic Policy Types of Policy:
Redistributive: high income pay, low income receive
Distributive: all pay bill; ex: tax breaks, student loans, price supports, Pork-barrel
Regulatory: limit actions, environmental regulation

17. Economic Policy: GDP: Gross Domestic Product
Fiscal: taxation and spending
Progressive Tax
Regressive Tax
Flat Tax
Keynesian
Supply-side
Divided Government
Reagan: decrease taxes
Congress: wouldn’t cut spending

18. Other Domestic Issues Economic Policy Monetary: regulate Debt: total
Federal Reserve
Debt: total
Deficit: yearly
Free Trade: NAFTA
U.S. Budget
Nation
States
Environment:
Clean Air Act: 70: limited emissions; 90: regulated plants and industries

19. Other Domestic Issues Entitlements: Mandatory public expenses
Social Security
Welfare: AFDC (abolished 1996) and TANF (5yrs, other restrictions)
Health Care:
Medicare
Medicaid
Obamacare
Middle-Class:
Education:
Homeownership:
Corporate Welfare:

20. Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy: policy to solve problems outside of borders
Isolationism: Remain neutral
Interventionism: Spread democratic ideals
Containment: Prevent the spread of negative influences

21. Foreign Policy Strategies:
Deterrence: discouraging another country from doing something
Compellence: encouraging another country to do something
Preemption: attack before being attacked
Unilateralism vs. Multinationalism

22. Foreign Policy Instruments: Propaganda Diplomacy Foreign Aid
Covert Operations
Economic Sanctions

23. Foreign Policy Influences: Other Countries:
Intergovernmental Organizations: NATO, United Nations, EU, AU, OPEC
NGOs:
Multinational Corporations:
Public Opinion:
Interest Groups:

24. Policy Impacts Does it solve the problem?
Does it create more problems?
Depending on the answer, policymakers
may revisit the issue
refine their efforts
policy must be on the agenda
or ignore the problem if people are disinterested in the policy 24

25. Policy Example: The Clean Air Act—Public Concern
Air pollution becomes a problem when a sufficient number of people complain about it
Smog in Los Angeles, 1960s
Asthma and children
Air quality alerts 25

26. Clean Air Act—Linkage Institutions
The issue attracts attention from any number of linkage institutions
News reports or books on air pollution problems
Politicians realize electoral benefits of advocating air pollution legislation
Interest groups and political parties use issue to mobilize support 26

27. Clean Air Act—Institutions
In response to pressure from public (through linkage institutions), policymaking institutions respond with policy solutions:
Passing the Clean Air Act of 1970
Issuing Executive Order to create the EPA 27

28. Clean Air Act—Evaluation
The Clean Air Act is evaluated over time
It is amended in 1977 to extend deadlines for compliance
The evaluation stage revealed that the initial Act—however successful in limiting air pollution—was too restrictive and impractical 28

29. Clean Air Act Revisited
In 1990, the Clean Air Act is again amended in response to the growing problem of:
Prevailing winds and subsequent problem of Acid Rain
Current talk of regulating carbon dioxide
California has done so, as of 2006
Federal “cap and trade” legislation?
Not through Congress, but regulation through EPA and supported by courts 29

30. Costs, Benefits, and Policy
Cost: any burden, monetary or non-monetary, that some people must, or expect, to bear from the policy
Benefit: any satisfaction, monetary or non-monetary, that some people must, or expect, to receive from the policy
Politics is a process of settling disputes over who benefits/pays and who ought to benefit/pay

31. A Way of Classifying and Explaining the Politics of Different Policy Issues

32. Kinds of Politics
Majoritarian politics: distributed benefits, distributed costs
Interest group politics: concentrated benefits, concentrated costs
Client politics: concentrated benefits, distributed costs
Entrepreneurial politics: distributed benefits, concentrated costs

33. Majoritarian Politics: Distributed Benefits, Distributed Costs
Majoritarian politics – A policy in which almost everybody benefits and almost everybody pays
Social Security
Military Defense
Cancer research
Controversy usually over cost/ideology, not rival interest groups

34. Majoritarian Politics
Example: Antitrust legislation in 1890s was vague with no specific enforcement agency
During the reform era, politicians and business leaders committed to a strong antitrust policy
Enforcement was determined primarily by the ideology and personal convictions of the current presidential administration

35. Interest Group Politics – Concentrated Benefits, Concentrated Costs
Interest group politics – A policy in which one small group benefits and another small group pays
Labor - Business
TV Broadcasters – Cable Companies
Banks – Insurance Companies
Fought by organized interest groups 35

36. Interest Group Politics
Organized interest groups are powerful when regulatory policies confer benefits on one organized group and costs on another equally organized group
Example: In 1935 labor unions sought government protection for their rights; business firms were in opposition

37. Texas high school students protest against smoking during an event sponsored by Teens Against Tobacco Use, a peer-based tobacco use prevention program.
During the Great Depression,
depositors besiege a bank hoping
to get their savings out.

38. Client Politics: Concentrated Benefits, Distributed Costs
Client politics – A policy in which one small group benefits and almost everybody pays
Farmers
Airlines
Pork-barrel legislation
Logrolling
Legitimacy

39. Client Politics
“Agency capture” is likely when benefits are focused and costs are dispersed—an agency is created to serve a group’s needs
Example: National regulation of milk industry, sugar production, merchant shipping
The struggle to sustain benefits depends on insider politics

40. Entrepreneurial Politics: Distributed Benefits, Concentrated Costs
Entrepreneurial Politics – A policy in which almost everybody benefits and a small group pays the cost
Auto safety/antipollution
Brady Bill
Policy entrepreneurs – activists who pull together a political majority on behalf of unorganized interests

41. Entrepreneurial Politics
Relies on entrepreneurs to galvanize public opinion and mobilize congressional support
Example: In the 1960s and 1970s a large number of consumer and environmental protection statutes passed (e.g., Clean Air Act, Toxic Substance Control Act)

42. Highway safety was always a problem, but it became a national issue after policy advocates, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), emphasized it. p. 465

43. Deregulation
Example: airline fares, long distance telephoning, trucking
Deregulation is a challenge to iron triangles and client politics
It is based on the idea that governmental regulation was bad in industries that could be competitive

44. An Example: Acid Rain Problem identification: Agenda setting:
The president, legislators, interest groups, and other public officials recognize that acid rain is a problem
It affects health and the economy
Agenda setting:
Media cover problems caused by acid rain
Candidate Bush signals his willingness to combat acid rain if elected president 44

45. Acid Rain, continued Policy formulation: Policy Adoption:
The White House and administrative agencies develop a proposal
Congress responds with its own proposal, influenced by interest groups
Policy Adoption:
Provisions to limit acid rain are written into the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 45

46. Acid Rain, continued Budgeting: Policy Implementation:
Congress appropriates money so that the EPA can carry out the acid rain provisions of the CAA 1990
Policy Implementation:
EPA monitors emissions outputs; sulfur dioxide
Industry engages in emissions trading
Policy evaluation: was the policy effective?
If not, the process could begin again
It was, so acid rain “solved”, but other air pollution problems arise 46