SFFG/ENS

221: Environmental
and Natural Resources Policy
Formulation

Rico Ancog, Eleno Peralta and Hildie Maria Nacorda

Coordinator/Lecturers
 Course Description
• Theories, concepts and issues in
environmental and natural resource policy
formulations: case studies with special
reference to developing countries
 Course Objectives
• Explain the concept in the study of public
policy and how it is formulated;
• Demonstrate ability to critically analyze the
interrelationships between and among policy,
environment and natural resources, and
development;
• Analyze major problems and issues with a
system perspective by conducting a policy
clinic exercise/research project, and assess
policy options.
 Course Outline: Chapters
• Introduction to Policy and Politics
• Public Policy Theory
• The environmental and natural resource policy
setting
• Environmental and natural resource policy systems in
developing countries: issues and concerns
• Political systems and the process of policy-making in
developing countries
• The world system and its implication to environment
and natural resource policy
 Course Requirements
Requirements Grade
Percentage
Policy Analysis Assignment 30
Group Project on Policy Analysis and 30
Formulation

Final Exam 30
Classroom Participation 10
Total 100
Public Policies: Basic Concepts
and Theories

Rico Ancog
SESAM
 Public Policy
• “the use of reason and evidence to
choose the best policy among a
number of alternatives.”
 Outline of Presentation
• Review of basic concepts
• What is policy
• Policy and power
• State and civil society
Socio-economy and Environment
Linkages

Natural Environment

Raw materials Discharges

Economy
 Ecosystem Services

Provisioning Regulating Cultural

Goods produced or Benefits obtained Non-material
provided by from regulation of benefits from
ecosystems ecosystem ecosystems
processes
• spiritual
• food • recreational
• fresh water • climate regulation
• aesthetic
• fuel wood • disease regulation
• inspirational
• flood regulation • educational

Supporting
Services necessary for production of other ecosystem services
• Soil formation
• Nutrient cycling
• Primary production

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005

Ecosystem services trade-offs
Water availability
Food supply and Freshwater supply and
demand demand
Water use and nutrient loss

Erosion and
water flow

Forest product supply

and demand
Climate
change

Biodiversity
loss

Source: Ayensu et al. 1999. Science 286:685-686; Capistrano, 2012

 Policy
• a statement that guides a course of action
with respect to a particular problem
 Policy: 3 elements
• Problem- a condition, a situation confronting
an individual, a group or society
• Course of action- to be taken to address the
problem
• Statement- guides the course of action
– will or intent
– Agent/actor
 Classifications of Policy
Source: Intergovernmental Perspective Vol 18 (4) 1992

Purposes Types Goods

Security Distributive Collective

Membership Regulatory Private

Prosperity Self-regulatory

Needs Redistributive
 Are policies need to be always
written?
• Formal
– Changing contexts in terms of space and time
• Non-formal
– Cultural norms
 Examples: Cultural and Religious
Grounding?
• Value, norms, beliefs and conventions are part of our culture
– Judaeo-Christian culture and beliefs see Man as “inheritor of Earth”,
as owner
– “Nature vs Culture” divide of Judaeo-Christian reflects in
epistemology (Social/Biological Sciences)
– Utilitarian view sharply contrasts with Naturist
• Values are derived from worldviews and perceptions
– Homo economicus: people are egotistical utility maximizers
– Homo reciprocans: people behave altruistically to those who
reciprocate that altruism

• Cultural difference can be large and may drive behavior more than
individual responses.
 Are policies need to be always
written?
• Absence of action and incompetence?
• Absence of action is absence of policy?
• Deciding not to act is a decision?
• Neo-classical economics
• Conservation
 Personal vs public policy
• Moral standards and public standards
• Power and influence
 Policy and Law
• What is the difference and relationship
between a POLICY and RULES and
REGULATIONS?
– Laws- statements from legislature (NIPAS Act)
– Rules and Regulations- statements coming from
executive agencies

Where do policies come into the picture?

 Policy and Law
• Policies can influence the formulation of laws,
rules and regulations, and jurisprudence
• Policies can be expressed through laws, rules
and regulations and jurisprudence
• Laws, rules and regulations, and jurisprudence
can influence the formulation of policies, in
that they can mandate it.
 Politics and Power
• Who decides when an issue is worthy of being
considered as a policy problem?
• Politics
• Power
 Power: some questions
• Who decides that an issue is a problem?
• Who decides that such problem is public?
 Power: some questions
• Who decides that a given course of action is
appropriate, or better?
• Who formulates such course of action?
• Who gives authority to such statement that
guides the action?
 Power as capacity
• The ability to do something!
• Person has power when he can do X, and X
can be bad or good, right or wrong.
• Potential power vs Actual Power
• Differentiating variables: ascribed vs achieved
• Any specific examples of differentiating
variables?
 Power relations
• People interacts!
• Common grounds are contested.
• Entitlements—access to benefits and
resources, access to privileges
• Winners vs losers
 Trade-offs among ecosystem services

Water availability
Food supply and Freshwater supply and
demand demand
Water use and nutrient loss

Erosion and
water flow

Forest product supply

and demand
Climate
change

Biodiversity
loss

Source: Ayensu et al. 1999. Science 286:685-686.

Consequences of Ecosystem Change for Human Well-being
Ecosystem Services Constituents of Well-being

Security
Provisioning
Services

Basic
Material for
Supporting Regulating Good Life Freedoms
Services Services and
Choice

Health
Cultural
Services

Good Social
Relations
Problems with ecosystem services linked to
socio-economic problems and conflict
 Laguna Lake Basin, Philippines

• Fish production has declined by 64% from 1980 to 1996

• Combined aquaculture and capture fisheries provided 66% of freshwater fish
requirement of Metro Manila; only providing 18% by early 2000s
• Social conflicts over fisheries; between fishery, agriculture, industry
 Equity Issues in Watershed Governance
• Balancing diverse interests often means
making trade-offs, resulting in some
“winners” and “losers”

• Bias in favor of lowlanders, powerful actors

• Uplanders, powerless actors marginalized

in planning and policy processes
– Physical/ capacity barriers to participation
– Political representation, accountability
mechanism
– èRole of the state redirecting benefits fairly
 Definitions
• Equity- fairness of access to, rights
over, and distribution of resources,
services, benefits or power

• Externality – a positive or negative

consequence of an action that affects
someone other than the actor, and
for which the actor is neither
compensated or penalized (external
to the market mechanism).
 Power as capacity
• Robert Dahl (1957) – A has power if he/she is
able to make B do things that would
otherwise not do (1st Dimension of Power)
• Unlike reputational approach, the
identification of who has power is done by
analyzing
– the conflicts that emerge,
– the parties involved, and
– the outcomes of such conflict
 Power as capacity
• Unlike reputational approach, the
identification of who has power is done by
analyzing
– the conflicts that emerge,
– the parties involved, and
– the outcomes of such conflict
 Power as capacity
• “dispersion” of power:
– Pluralist
– Elitist
 Power
• 1st Dimension of Power: A is able to make B
do things which B would otherwise not do
• 2nd Dimension of Power: Structural biases are
mobilized by A to confine the decision-making
process to safe issues such that while B is still
aware of his/her claim to a competing
preference, such claim is effectively shut out
from the decision making process.
 Power
• 2nd Dimension of Power
– “Non-decision making” refer to “the practice of
limiting the scope of actual decision-making to
‘safe’ issues by manipulating the dominant
community values, myths, and political
institutions and procedures (Bachrach and Baratz
1963)
Mechanisms where 2nd Dimension
of Power operates
• Forces can be used to prevent the demands of
B from entering the decision making process
• B can be co-opted into decision making
structure to deter the emergence of issues
• Rules or procedures may be invoked to deflect
unwelcome challenges from B
• Existing rules and procedures may be reshaped
as a way of blocking challenges from B
Mechanisms where 2nd Dimension
of Power operates
• What if A is now able to shape B’s preference
so that B no longer challenges A?
• Stephen Lukes (1974)—aside from the overt
conflict and covert conflict, latent conflict
operates when there is a conflict of wants or
preferences between A and B, if B is aware of
its interests.
• 3rd Dimension of Power-- power as being
exercised by A over B by affecting B in a
manner contrary to B’s interest
Mechanisms where 2nd Dimension
of Power operates
• What if A is now able to shape B’s preference
so that B no longer challenges A?
• Stephen Lukes (1974)—aside from the overt
conflict and covert conflict, latent conflict
operates when there is a conflict of wants or
preferences between A and B, if B is aware of
its interests.
Mechanisms where 2nd Dimension
of Power operates
• What if A is now able to shape B’s preference
so that B no longer challenges A?
• Stephen Lukes (1974)—aside from the overt
conflict and covert conflict, latent conflict
operates when there is a conflict of wants or
preferences between A and B, if B is aware of
its interests.
• 3rd Dimension of Power-- power as being
exercised by A over B by affecting B in a
manner contrary to B’s interest
 3rd Dimension of Power
• How?
 3rd Dimension of Power
• Ideology and ideological institutions
 3rd Dimension of Power
• Ideology– collection of belief systems that
justify the existence of something, whether it
is a state of things or an action (dominant vs
counter)
• Ideological institutions—where ideologies
operate; it shapes people’s consciousness
– Example?
What does power have to do
with policy?
 Remember
• Conflicting interests are solved through
issuance of statement that guides courses of
actions to be taken in relation to the problem.
– Policies are outcomes of the decision-making
process in which power operates in its many
dimensions.
– Policies emerge as responses to conflicts (or
deterrents to conflicts)
– Policies are outcomes of processes that are
unmeshed in power play.
 What is politics?
What is its relationship to public
policy?
 Politics and Policy
• Politics is the process by which power is
produced, reproduced and exercised.
• Politics lies in the various struggles for power.
– How do you produce power?
– How do you reproduce power?
– How do you exercise power?
 How do you exercise power?
• 3 dimensions of power
• Agents
How power is produced is related
to the manner agents emerge
 How power is reproduced is related
to how agents are shaped by their
circumstance, how they exists and are
transformed.
 Again, how do you produce and
reproduce power?
• Production of power lies in the manner by
which actors and agents emerge
• Reproduction of power lies in the manner by
which actors and agents, shaped by their
circumstances, exist and are transformed
 How do you exercise power?
• The production and reproduction of political
agents is central to an analysis of the
“political”
• The exercise of power in society is a public
domain—the domain of government and
governance (operations, structures and
processes of government and governance at
all levels)
• State as the site for the exercise of power.
 Political institutions
• those involved in state-building and state-
maintenance processes, such as elections,
political conflicts and violence, political
change, the art of governance, and other
concerns.
• Policy, is an instrument of the state.
 State and Civil Society
• What is State?
• What is the difference between a state and a
government?
• What is the difference between government
and governance?
 Theories of the state
• Pluralist theory- state is an institution that
serves the interest of the people, and
therefore is a neutral aggregator of competing
preferences.
• “Social contract”
• Sovereignty of the people as the ultimate
source of state power
 Theories of the state
• Elitist theory- state is seen as an instrument of
an elite class
• Marxian view on state
 Theories of the state
• Corporatist theory- state becomes another
player in society.
– State assumes an independent role becoming a
class in itself competing with other groups in
society.
– Independent of any class and has its own interests
to pursue