PPA 503 – The Public Policy-Making Process Lecture 3a – Official and Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy

Introduction Political science traditions. Institutionalism – focus on texts of constitutions, laws, and other written statements of policies and the relationships between formal government institutions. Behaviorism – focus on political motivations of individuals, acting singly and in groups, often through polling, game theory, and statistical techniques. Neo-institutionalism – focus on organizations and systems in which individuals interact and achieve political and policy goals through explicit or implicit rules and operating procedures.

Introduction Main categories of actors in the policy process. Official actors – statutory or constitutional responsibilities. Legislative, executive, and judiciary. Unofficial actors – participation with no explicit legal authority. Interest groups, media.

Legislatures First listed branch in the federal and most state constitutions. Source of considerable research. Primary function is lawmaking. Number of bills and resolutions gives some idea of how busy legislatures are.

Legislatures Jurisdiction House or Assembly Bills House or Assembly Concurrent Resolutions House or Assembly Joint Resolutions Senate Bills Senate Concurrent Resolutions Senate Joint Resolutions U.S. Congress (2001-2002) 5,767 521 125 3,181 160 53 California Legislature (2001-2002) 3.283 264 66 2,277 114 56

Legislatures Burden eased by staff. Bills sifted by committee structure at both the federal and state level. Committee chairs wield significant power. Most bills fail to move past their first committee hurdles because they are largely symbolic gestures.

Legislatures Other critical functions performed by legislators that affect public policy. Casework – activities to help constituents with government agencies or to gain a privilege or benefit. Supports reelection. Oversight – Monitor the implementation of public policy. Government Accountability Office – www.gao.gov. Studies public programs and makes recommendations to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. Public hearings. Help understand issues. Reveal shortcomings in current policies. Make political capital.

Legislative Organization

Legislative Organization California process. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bil2lawx.html.

Legislative Organization What you see on C-SPAN does not represent the bulk of legislative action on policy. Most of the critical work on public policy is done in committees, which review legislation, propose and vote on amendments, and, in the end, decide whether a bill will die at the committee level or be elevated for consideration by the full body. One of the most critical elements of legislative organization is the organization on party lines.

Legislature – Critiques of Public Policy Process Many people argue that legislatures are out of touch with the people. To understand why legislatures work as they do, you need to understand two elements of the legislature: the nature of the members of the body and the organization and nature of the branch itself.

Legislature – Critiques of Public Policy Process The primary goal of the typical legislator is reelection. Casework allows legislators to please voters. Home style and hill style. Legislatures are decentralized institutions, especially Congress. Committees and subcommittees. Decentralization and centralization of party leadership. Issue networks and policy subsystems.

Legislatures – Implications for Policy Making Decentralization and casework focus makes complex and change-oriented legislation difficult to pass.

The Executive Branch For the sake of discussion, the executive branch can be considered in two parts: the administration, staff, and appointees; and the bureaucracy. Advantages of an elected executive in the policy process. Veto power. Unitary branch of government. Media and public attention. Informational advantage over the legislature.

The Executive Branch Elected executive limitations. “Power to persuade”. The size of the Executive Office of the President. Elected executive’s focus on agenda-setting.

Administrative Agencies and Bureaucrats Characteristics of bureaucracy. Fixed and official jurisdictional areas. Hierarchical organization. Written documentation. Expert training of staff. Career, full-time occupation. Standard operating procedures. Key complaints about bureaucracy. Size. Red tape.

Administrative Agencies and Bureaucrats What Do Government Agencies Do? Government agencies provide services that are uneconomical for the private sector (public goods – free-rider problem). Public goods are indivisible and nonexclusive. Complaints tend to focus on speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of public service delivery.

Administrative Agencies and Bureaucrats Bureaucracy and the problem of accountability. The key problem is the question of accountability. Most public employees are appointed on merit, not accountability to elected officials. Early thinking focused on separation of politics and administration. Modern thinking: Agency decisions are political and in the realm of administrative discretion. Problem: no single, agreed-upon definition of the public interest. Administrative discretion: ability to make decisions with minimal interference.

The Courts The ability to interpret legislative and executive actions: judicial review. Courts are the weakest because their authority rests on the legitimacy of the law and their ability to argue their case. Legislatures and executives initiate public policy, while courts react to the practical effects of such policies.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Individual citizens. Low political participation. Voting. Other forms of participation: campaigning, contacting, etc. Despite this, citizens can be mobilized: Recall election in California. Generally speaking, individuals want the most services for ourselves while paying the least taxes for those services.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Interest groups. Interest groups have been part of the political scene since the founding. Madison and the dangers of faction. Since the 1960s the number of groups has greatly expanded. Transportation, mass communication, expansion of government. Few legal barriers to the creation of groups.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Interest groups. The power of interest groups varies. Knowledge, money, information. Group size, peak associations. Intensity, direct economic interest, ideological commitment. Social movements (combinations of interest groups).

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Types of interest groups. Institutional versus membership groups. Economic (private) versus public interest versus ideological groups. Benefits, free-rider problems. Activities of interest groups. Lobbying. Campaign contributions. Access (well-off). Mass mobilization, protest, and litigation. Riots and protest marches.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Political parties. Functions. Voting cues. Transmission of political preferences. Creation of packages of policy ideas. Organization of the legislative branch. Think tanks and other research organizations. Brookings, Cato, Urban Institute, Rand, American Enterprise Institute. Ideological, scholarly, and methodological distinctions.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Communications media. The news media are important actors in the policy process. Newspapers – National versus regional versus local. TV is the central news medium. Older population, networks; younger population, cable news. Entertainment programming can be equally important. Movies, t.v., videogames. Media’s primary function in policy process is agenda-setting. Media coverage correlates with institutional attention.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Communications media. News media are not just passive actors. Interest try to arouse media focus. Time and space constraints require discretion. Profit-driven businesses. Competitive biases of news gathering: dramatic and narrative qualities of the story.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Subgovernments, issue networks, and domains. Policy domain is the substantive area of policy over which participants in policy-making compete and compromise. The political culture and legal environment influence the domains. Policy community inside the domain consists of the actors actively involved in policy making in that domain. Iron triangles one way of organizing the policy community. Issue networks may be more accurate description.

Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy Subgovernments, issue networks, and domains. Prying open policy networks (major corporate interests usually dominate). But, policy change is possible by prying open a domain. Focusing events. Social movements and mobilization. Exploiting the decentralization of American government. Going public.