1、Public Policy and Policy Analysis,contents,Public policy, administration and management,Limitations of the policy analysis approach,Introduction,In the period roughly from the 1950s to the 1970s, public policyreally began to take off, and public administration began to move into a state of decline w

2、hich was to accelerate in the 1980s (Parsons, 1995, p. 7). By the early 1970s, some involved in the study of public policy consciously and deliberately distanced themselves from the discipline of public adminis-tration. Most public policy practitioners at the time saw it as concerned with the applic

3、ation of formal, mathematical methods to solving public sector problems.,The argument here is that there are now two public policy approaches, each with its own concerns and emphases: The first is termed policy analysis; The policy analysis people are those who have continued to develop the field in

4、 the way it started, that is, by the use of sometimes highly abstract statistics and mathematical models, with the focus on decision-making and policy formation.,Introduction,Introduction,The second is political public policy. Political public policy theorists are more inter-ested in the results or

5、outcomes of public policy, the political interactions determining a particular event, and in policy areas health, education, welfare,the environment, for example rather than in the use of statistical methods.,Introduction,Public policy could now be considered either as a separate paradigm, competing

6、 with public administration and public management or as a set of analytical methods applicable to both. It is argued here that the public policy movement is closely related to the traditional model of public administration, with its implicit acceptance of the bureaucratic model and its one best way

7、thinking. The extent of its critique of the traditional model was to argue for more usage of empirical methodology to assist or even supplant decision-making, rather than more fundamental questioning.,Public policy, administration and management,There are differences in definition between the policy

8、 analysis and political public policy schools. Putt and Springer (1989, p. 10) argue: From a policy analysis perspective, The function of policy research is to facilitate public policy processes through providing accurate and useful decision-related information. The skills required to produce inform

9、ation that is technically sound and useful lie at the heart of the policy research process, regardless of the specific methodology employed. This definition emphasizes methods.,Public policy, administration and management,Quade(1982, p. 5) who defines the area as: A form of applied research carried

10、out to acquire a deeper understanding of socio-technical issues and to bring about better solutions. Attempting to bring modern science and technology to bear on societys problems, policy analysis searches for feasible courses of action, generating information and marshalling evidence of the benefit

11、s and other conse-quences that would follow their adoption and implementation, in order to help the policy-maker choose the most advantageous action. These points set out what the more formal, policy analysis, approach aims to do.,Public policy, administration and management,Lynn(1987, p. 239) take

12、the approach is quite different and emphasizes the political interaction from which policy derives. In his definition: Public policy can be characterized as the output of a diffuse process made up of individuals who interact with each other in small groups in a framework dominated by formal organiza

13、tions. Those organizations function in a system of political institutions, rules and practices, all subject to societal and cultural influences.,Public policy, administration and management,Perspective: Public administration was considered the domain of the gifted amateur, where governing wisely and

14、 well had little to do with any kind of method or statistic. Public policy is expressly more political than is public administration and has also emphasized more techni-cal, even mathematical approaches to decision-making. It is more realistic than public administration in that it does allow the bur

15、eaucracy to have decision-making and political roles.,Public policy, administration and management,It is rather more difficult to separate public policy from political science and sometimes it would be hard to decide whether a particular study is one of public policy or politics. As Henry(1990, p. 6

16、)argues: public policy has been an effort to apply political science to public affairs; its inherent sympathies with the practical field of public administration are real, and many scholars who identify with the public policy sub-field find themselves in a twilight zone between political science and

17、 public administration, pirouetting in the shadows of both disciplines.,Public policy, administration and management,The relationship with public management is also difficult to pin down. It is argued here that public management is superseding traditional public administration and is a more realisti

18、c description of what actually happens in the public sector. However, the relationship between manage-rialism and public policy is not as simple as one superseding the other. Public management uses empirical models, but these are usually those of economics. The policy analysis approach may use econo

19、mics as only one of the many possible methodologies,most of which are inductive, whereas economics is deductive.,Policy analysis,The early period of policy analysis that is, by assuming that numbers alone or techniques alone can solve public policy problems. third stage period of policy analysis It

20、is only from 1980 that Putt and Springer see what they term a third stage in which policy analysis is perceived as facilitating policy decisions, not displacing them (1989, p. 16). As they explain:,Policy analysis,Third-stage analysts decreasingly serve as producers of solutions guiding decision mak

21、ers to the one best way of resolving complex policy concerns. Policy research in the third stage is not expected to produce solutions, but to provide information and analysis at multiple points in a complex web of interconnected decisions which shape public policy.Policy research does not operate se

22、parated and aloof from decision makers; it permeates the policy process itself.,Empirical methods,Much has been said in passing of the empirical methods and skills needed by policy analysis and policy analysts. In one view, two sets of skills are needed. (Putt and Springer, 1989) ：scientific skills

23、.which have three categories: i:information-structuring skills ii:information-collection skills iii:information-analysis skills ： facilitative skills.such as ： policy, planning and managerial skills.,Empirical methods,Some of the empirical methods used in policy analysis include: (i) benefitcost ana

24、lysis (ii) decision theory (iii) optimum-level analysis (iv) allocation theory (v) time-optimization models Perspective:empirical methods undoubtedly would improve the making of policy. However, there are relatively few such mundane problems. Public policy is usually complex and has no easy answers.

25、,Policy process models,Patton and Sawicki (1986) put forward a six-step model： Step 1: Verify, define and detail the problem Step 2: Establish evaluation criteria Step 3: Identify alternative policies Step 4: Evaluate alternative policies Step 5: Display and select among alternative policies Step 6:

26、 Monitor policy outcomes,Policy process models,In sum We organize the methods according to the steps in the process because we believe that policy analysis is more than methods or techniques. It is a way of thinking about problems,of organizing data, and of presenting findings. At the end of the pro

27、cess,what we have is a framework rather than a method ;a set of headings rather than a concrete approach.,Limitations of the policy analysis approach,：Quantitative methods ：Separate public policy discipline ：Overemphasis on decisions ：Not used, or used less ：The rational model ：A faulty model of sci

28、ence ：Undemocratic,Responses to criticism,Criticisms have been made about policy analysis for some years. In a defence of the approach, Nagel (1990, p. 429) argued that policy analysis can incorprate other values than those for which it is criticized and move away from those things criticized earlie

29、r.,Responses to criticism,He refers to three Es the traditional goals: Effectiveness Efficiency Equity Balanced by three Ps as high-level goals: Public participation Predictability Procedural due process If implemented these would go some distance, towards countering the criticisms of those who argu

30、e that policy analysis.,Responses to criticism,Nagel (1990, p. 459) says of the field in which he was a pioneer: The field of policy studies scores well on a lot of dimensions. It has a longterm philo-sophical foundation, originality, a theoretical side, a practical side, an important political scie

31、nce that involves all fields of political science, a multidisciplinary component that involves all fields of knowledge, especially the social sciences, a qualitative value-oriented side, a quantitative, reasonably objective way of dealing with analytic problems, an abil-ity to get utilised when dese

32、rved in the light of democratic processes, non-utilisation when deserved in the light of those same democratic processes, value to conservative policy makers, and value to liberal policy makers.,Political public policy,A far less rigid approach to looking at policy is put forward by other writers,su

33、ch as Lynn (1987) and deLeon (1997). Policy-making is viewed in this approach as a political process rather than a narrowly technical one. The focus is understanding how particular policies were formed, developed and work in practice; these are concerns broader than a focus on decision-making or mat

34、hematical models.,Political public policy,Lynn (1987, p. 45) argues that policy-making encompasses not only goal setting, decision making, and formulation of political strategies, but also supervision of policy planning, resource allocation, operations management,programme evaluation, and efforts at

35、 communication, argument, and persua-sion. Public policy in this perspective is a process, but one which is a political one above all other considerations.,Political public policy,The main difference between the two public policy perspectives is the role given to the political process. Policy analys

36、is looks for one best answer from a set of alternatives and has a battery of statistical weapons at its disposal to do so. Political public policy sees information in an advocacy role; that is, it real-izes that cogent cases will be made from many perspectives which then feed into the political proc

37、ess.,Political public policy,More recent analysis of the policy process takes the political aspect some-what further. John argues there is a new policy analysis (1998, p. 157): Moving from the modest claims of ideas-based empiricism, the new policy analysis makes claims about the primacy of ideas an

38、d the indeterminacy of knowledge. Rather than rational actors following their interests, it is the interplay of values and norms and different forms of knowledge which characterise the policy process. This is less rigid than the sequential view of policy and more open to political interplay and incl

39、uding a much wider set of influences than earlier policy analysis.,Conclusion,Public policy and policy analysis form an approach to the management of the public sector, one that caused a fundamental rethinking of public administra-tion in the 1970s and early 1980s. Adding more sophisticated forms of

40、 empir-ical analysis meant that public administration went some distance away from amateurism and towards professionalism. The influence of policy analysis has waned somewhat since its heyday in the 1970s, while public management incorporates analytical techniques, instead of them having a separate existence and a s