Community, Politics and Decision-Making

Module No. 1

UNIT ONE - The Market and the Polis

One author begins with the statement “A theory of policy politics must start with a model of
political society, that is, a model of the simplest version of society that retains the essential elements of
politics.” She chooses the word Greek word “polis”, which means city-state. This word is fitting
because it describes an entity small enough to have very simple forms of organization yet large enough
to embody the elements of politics. In searching for the elements of politics, it is helpful to use the
market model as a foil because of its predominance in contemporary policy discussions. The contrast
between the models of political and market society will illuminate the ways the market model grossly
distorts political life.

A market can be defined as a social system in which individuals pursue their own welfare by
exchanging things with others whenever trades are mutually beneficial. Participants in the market are
in competition with each other for scarce resources; each person tries to acquire things at the least
possible cost, and to convert raw materials into valuable things that can be sold at the highest possible
price. In the market model, individuals act only to maximize their own self-interest (which might
include the well-being of their friends and family). Maximizing one’s own welfare stimulates people to
be resourceful, creative, clever and productive, and ultimately raises the level of economic well-being of
the society as a whole. With this description of the market model, an alternative model of the polis can
be constructed by contrasting more detailed features of the market model and a political community.

Community

Because politics and policy can only happen in communities, community must be the starting
point of the polis. Public policy is about communities trying to achieve something as a community.
This is true even when there are conflicts over what the goals should be and who the members of the
community are. Unlike the market, which starts with individuals and assumes no goals, preferences, or
intentions other than those held by individuals, a model of the polis must assume both collective will and
collective effort.

A community must have a membership and some way of defining who is a member of the
community and who is not. Membership is in some sense the primary political issue, for membership
definitions and rules determine who is allowed to participate in community activities and who is
governed by community rules and authority. The author notes a significant distinction between
residence and citizenship.

She continues with a discussion of the difference between political community and cultural
community. A political community is a group of people who live under the same political rules and
structure of governance and share status as citizens. A cultural community is a group of people who
share a culture and draw their identities from a common language, history, and traditions. The political
community can include many diverse cultural communities, and policy politics is faced with the
question how to integrate several cultural communities into a single political community without
destroying or sacrificing their identity and integrity.

Membership in a community defines social and economic rights as well as political rights. The
author recognizes that there is a component of “mutual aid” among community members. Mutual aid is
a good in itself that people create in order to foster and protect a community. Sharing burdens brings
and holds people together. And in a larger sense, sharing caring, and maintaining relationships is at least
as strong a motivator of human behavior as competition, separation, and promotion of one’s separate
self-interests.

Public Interest

The concept of “public interest” may mean any of several things. It could be individual interests
held in common, individual goals for the community, program or policies favored by a majority, or
things that are good for the community as a community. It’s important to note in regards to public
interest that often people want things for their community that conflict with what they want for
themselves (such as lower taxes and good schools) and that what people want usually changes over time.
At the very least, every community has a general interest in having some governing process and some
means for resolving disputes without violence, defending itself from outsiders, and perpetual existence.

There is virtually never full agreement on the public interest, yet it is necessary to make it a
defining characteristic of the polis because so much of politics is people fighting over what the public
interest is and trying to realize their own definition of it. The concept of public interest is to the polis
what self-interest is to the market. They are both abstractions whose specific contents we do not need to
know in order to use them to explain and predict people’s behavior. We simply assume that people
behave as if they were trying to realize the public interest or maximize their self-interest.

Essentially within a market the empty box of public interest is filled as an afterthought with the
side effects of other activities. In the polis, by contrast, people fill the box intentionally, with
forethought, planning, and conscious effort.

Common Problems

Common problems are defined as situations where self-interest and public interest work against
each other. There are two types of common problems: actions with private benefits entail a social cost
(industrial waste into a lake); and social benefits require private sacrifices (school system requires
taxes). Any situation can be described in both ways (clean lakes are a social benefit requiring private
costs of nonpolluting waste disposal and a poor school system is the social cost of high private
consumption). So whether a situation is labeled as “social benefits and private costs” or “social costs
and private benefits” is strictly a matter of point of view.

Common problems are also called collective action problems because it is hard to motivate
people to undertake private costs or forgo private benefits for the collective good. (Think global
warming!)
 In market theory, common problems are thought to be the exception rather than the rule. In the
polis, by contrast, common problems are everything. Most significant policy problems are common
problems. The major dilemma of policy in the polis is how to get people to give primacy to these
broader consequences in their private calculus of choices, especially in an era when the dominant culture
celebrates private consumption and personal gain.

Influence

Fortunately, the vast gap between self-interest and public interest is bridged in the polis by some
potent forces: influence, cooperation, and loyalty. Actions, no less than ideas are influenced by others-
through the choices others have made and the ones we expect them to make, by what they want us to do,
and by what we think they expect us to do. More often than not, the author argues, our choices are
conditional. (Striking worker, post office complaint)

Influence also leads to interesting collective behavior, such as “bandwagon effects” in elections
when a candidate’s initial lead cause more people to support him because they want to back a winner or
when panics happen when people fear an economic collapse, rush out to cash out their bank accounts or
sell their stocks, and in so doing bring about the collapse they feared. One cannot understate that
influence-in all its varieties and degrees of strength-is one of the central elements in politics.

Cooperation

In the polis cooperation is as important as competition for the following reasons. First, politics
involve seeking allies and organizing cooperation in order to compete with opponents. Every conflict
unites some people as it divides others and politics has as much to do with how alliances are made and
held together as with how people are divided. Secondly, cooperation is essential to power and is often a
more effective form of subordination than coercion. (Prison guard and prisoners)

In the market, cooperation is usually described negatively (collusion, oligarchy, price-fixing,

insider trading) while in the polis it is described more positively (coalition, alliance, union, party,
support).

Loyalty

Cooperation entails alliances, and alliances are at least somewhat enduring. In the ideal market,
a buyer will switch suppliers in response to a price or quality change. In politics, relationships are not so
fluid. They involve gifts, favors, support and most of all, future obligations. Political alliances bind
people over time. In the market, people are “buyers” and “sellers”. In politics, they are “enemies” and
“friends”. Friendships are forgiving in a way that pure commercial relationships are not, or should be.
In the polis, history counts for a lot; in the market, it counts for nothing. (It’s business not personal)

This does not mean that political alliances are perfectly stable or that people never abandon
friends and join with former enemies. But it does mean that in the polis there’s a presumption of
loyalty. It takes a major event-something that triggers a deep fear or offers a vast opportunity-to get
them to switch their loyalties. There is a risk to breaking old alliances and people do not do it lightly.

Groups

Because of the powerful forces of influence, cooperation and loyalty, groups and organizations,
rather than individuals are the building blocks of the polis. Groups are important in three ways: First,
people belong to institutions and organizations, even when they are not formal members and their
opinions are shaped by organizations and they depend on organizations to represent their needs.
Second, the author asserts, policy making is not only about solving public problems, but about how
groups are formed, split, and re-formed to achieve public purposes. Third, groups are important because
decisions of the polis are collective.

Information

In the ideal market, information is perfect, meaning it is accurate, complete and available to everyone at
no cost. In the polis, by contrast, information is interpretive, incomplete, and strategically withheld.
Correct information does exist, but in the politics, the important thing is what people make of such
reports. Interpretations are more powerful than facts. For this reason, much of political activity is an
effort to control such interpretation. (Think spin control). In the polis, information is never complete.
More importantly for a model of the polis is that crucial information is deliberately kept secret for the
reason that one expects someone else to behave differently once the information is made public. (Think
Fred Thompson joining the race for presidency) Secrecy and revelation are tools of political strategy
and information by its very nature is valued and valuable.

Passion

One of the “Laws of Passion” is that passion feeds upon itself. Like passion, political resources
are often enlarged or enhanced through use. Channels of influence and political connections grow by
being used. Political skills and authority also grow with use. The more one makes certain types of
decisions, the easier it is to continue in the same path, in part because repeated decisions require no new
thought, and in part because people are less likely to resist or question orders and requests they have
obeyed before. This phenomenon of resource expansion is ignored in the market model.

Another law of passion governing the polis is “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. A
protest march means something more than a few thousand people walking down the street. Most human
actions change their meaning and impact when done in concert or in quantity. Another is “things can
mean (and therefore be) more than one thing at once.” (Health care expenditures) Ambiguity and
symbolic meanings have no home in the market model of society, where everything has its precise value
or cost.

Power

Power is the primary defining characteristic of a political society and is derived from all the other
elements. It is a phenomenon of communities. Its purpose is always to subordinate individual self-
interest to other interests-sometimes to other individual or group interests, sometimes to the public
interest. It operates through influence, cooperation, and loyalty. It is based also on the strategic control
of information. And finally, it is a resource that obeys the laws of passion rather than the laws of matter.

Any model of society must specify its source of energy, the force or forces that drive change. In
the market model, change is driven by exchange, which is in turn motivated by self-interest. Through
exchanges, the use and distribution of resources is changed. In the polis, change occurs through the
interaction of mutually defining ideas and alliances. Ideas about politics shape political alliances, and
strategic considerations of building and maintaining alliances in turn shape the ideas people espouse and
seek to implement.

Equity

“Every policy issue involves the distribution of something.”

A distributive conflict is any conflict where equity is the goal.

The paradox of distributive problems:

“Equality may in fact mean inequality; equal treatment may require unequal treatment; and the
same distribution may be seen as equal or unequal, depending on one’s point of view.”

Equality = uniformity in distribution, sameness

Equity = “distributions regarded as fair, even though they contain both equalities and inequalities”

Three important dimensions to any distribution:

1) Recipients (i.e. Who gets something)
2) Item (i.e. What is being distributed)
3) Process (i.e. How is the distribution being decided upon and carried out)

Horizontal equity- equal treatment of people of the same rank.

Vertical equity- unequal treatment of people in different ranks.
-rank/merit based distribution
-group based distributions (e.g. quotas, affirmative action, etc.)

In some instances (e.g. lottery, athletic competition) people accept unequal outcomes as long as there is
a fair process in place for deciding the outcome. (many things of value are indivisible).

Two views of equality-

1) criteria of the process: fairness in process
2) criteria of the recipients and items: the “end-result”

People do not “always agree on the relevant characteristics of recipients and items.”
That is where conflicts arise, in the descriptive and categorization process.

Liberty:
1) freedom from constraints
2) “having enough basic resources to choose out of desire than necessity”
-“fair shares” – everyone has at least a bare minimum to survive
Equality

1. Political Science defined- “who gets what, when, and how”

a. Distributions are at the heart of public policy controversies
2. Distributive conflict
a. Equity is the goal for all sides, the conflict comes over how the sides envision the
distribution of whatever is at issue
3. Paradox - Equality may in fact mean inequality; equal treatment may require unequal treatment;
and the same distribution may be seen as equal or unequal, depending on one’s point of view.

Equality - uniformity in distribution

Equity - distributions regarded as fair, even though they contain both equalities and inequalities

4. In any distribution, there are three important dimensions

a. The recipients
b. The item
c. The process
5. Challenges to distributive conflict
a. Who should count as a member of the class of recipients
b. Relevant internal divisions for distributing something and that these divisions have been
ignored
c. Some major divisions in society are relevant to distributive equity and that membership
in a group based on these divisions should sometimes outweigh individual characteristics
in determining distribution
d. Expanding the definitional boundaries of the item is always a redistributive strategy,
because it calls for using the more narrowly defined item to compensate for inequalities
in a larger sphere
e. The switch from a standardized value of the item to a more customized value
f. For many things in life, we are willing to accept an unequal outcome so long as we know
that the process was fair
6. The argument for Equality
a. Criteria of Process
i. Acquired fairly if:
1. Created newly or not formally held as property (inventions or rights to
own)
2. Acquired by transfer (sale, gift, or inheritance)
b. End-result concept
i. Assumes that a just distribution is one in which both the recipients and items are
correctly defined and each qualified recipient receives an equal share of each
correctly defined item
c. End-results look only at the end result and do not need any historical information as to
how the distribution came about
 7. Rawls defines the relevant class if recipients as all citizens, and he defines the relevant items as
social primary goods
a. Social primary goods are things that are very important to people but are created, shaped,
and affected by social structure and political institutions (I.e. power, opportunity, wealth,
income, civil rights, and liberties
b. Natural primary goods are things very important to people but which, while affected by
society, are less directly under its control (I.e. intelligence, strength, imagination, talent
and good health
8. Rawls approach looks to our innate sense of justice as well as our fundamental rationality and
then derives principles of equity by asking us to deliberate about rules for a just society without
being biased by knowing our own situation (veil of ignorance)

Efficiency:
 Getting the most out of a given input
 Achieving an objective for the lowest cost
 The ratio between input and output, effort and results, expenditure and income or cost and
resulting benefit

Conflicts with Efficiency:

 Who gets the benefits and bears the burdens of a policy?
 How should we measure the values and costs of a policy?
 What mode of organizing human activity is likely to yield the most efficient results?

Trying to measure efficiency is like trying to pull oneself out of quicksand without a rope. There is no
firm ground. Objectives for public policy are forged in political conflict and are constantly changing not
handed down on a stone tablet.

At the societal level, efficiency is an ideal meant to guide how society chooses to spend its money or
allocate its resources in order to get the most value. Efficiency is always a contestable concept.

Markets and Efficiency:

 The theory of markets says that as long as exchanges are both voluntary and fully informed, they
lead to the goal of allocative efficiency: Resources always move in a direction that make people
better off.
o Every exchange should lead to a situation in which the new holders get more value out of
the resources than the old holders.

Challenges from the Market:

 In order for efficiency, there must be numerous buyers and sellers of any resource, so that no one
person or firm can influence the market price.
 There must be full information about the available alternatives, so that exchanges truly result in
the best situation for everyone.
 Decisions and actions of parties to an exchange must not affect the welfare of people who are not
part of the exchange.
 Resources involved in exchanges must be used individually and used up if they are used at all.
Challenges from the Polis:
 One can question the possibility of purely voluntary exchanges due to the vastly unequal
distribution of income and wealth.
 The market model requires accurate and complete information. But information is always
incomplete, interpretive and deliberately controlled.
 Individual actions have side effects on others. To ignore side effects, or to pretend that
externalities are a defect in a miniscule area of human affairs, is to undermine the ability of
public policy to achieve efficiency in any important sense.

The Equality-Efficiency Trade-off:

 Equality eliminates the differential rewards necessary to motivate people to be productive.
 To maintain equality government must continuously interfere with individual choices about how
to use resources, and in doing so, it curbs useful experimentation and productive innovation.
 To maintain equality requires a large administrative machinery that uses up resources but is not
itself productive.

Cartoon (pg 83)

“Welfare doesn’t work, because it gives poor people an incentive to stay poor!”
“Instead, let’s give the wealthy a huge tax cut. Then the poor will have an incentive to become
millionaires.”

 Where labor is well organized and shares significant political power, where in other words, there
is someone to “articulate the self-interest of the non-rich,” economic polices tend to reconcile
equality with efficiency. The idea that the two are incompatible is a politically useful myth for
the rich and powerful.

Security

Security in the broad sense as need; things that should be available because they are essential.
 Difficult to define objectively

Dimensions of Need
What is “minimally necessary” for survival.
 Relates to specified amounts of food, amounts of weapons for defense, income to function
o Things that are absolute. Quantifiable
 Using food as an example:
o Kinds of food, as opposed to “standard” food (“liver and lard”)
o Societal association or status (Dinner at Wynn Las Vegas vs. Burger King drive thru)
o Cultural (ex. Jews not consuming pigs)
o Fasting in cultures
Symbolic factors add to the absolute aspect of breaking down what is minimally necessary into easy to
handle components.
 “If we accept the symbolic dimension of need as important, then security means
protecting people’s identities as well as their existence.” P.90

This added dimension to need makes it a relative idea as well.

 Allows one people in a group to compare themselves to each other (absolute standard) and people in other
groups as well (relative standard)
So far, there are two dimensions of need:
1. Absolute
2. Relative
A third dimension is the direct vs. instrumental view of need.
 Direct: Actions that can take place now to counter current problems
 Instrumental: Actions that can contribute to future gains
o An investment for the future
 Ex. Education
A fourth dimension is protection against what might happen
 Policies enacted to allow for more effective action against the unknown future
o Ex. Mandatory seatbelts in cars, licenses for pilots, safety requirements for bridges and dams,
pre-natal healthcare
Final dimension: Relational needs
 A sense of belonging to something; need for non-tangible satisfaction

These five aspects are not stepping stones to one another, but alternative views.
 Makes it difficult to define what “security” should mean for a whole society of unique individual needs

Needs in the Polis

With so many different perspectives, the society makes decisions on what policies to pursue by
collectively validating claims for need
 “Public needs” are those needs the society “recognizes as legitimate and tries to satisfy as a community”
o Different from public goods, which are goods that anyone can use
o “Public needs” are needs the society believes are essential to that particular society and define
that society
 Examples. Medieval Jewish communities and practices that allowed for the
necessary practices of the religion; Athens and their military and festivals

The provision of public needs can create a sense of loyalty in turn, helping to strengthen the society.

In making claims for societal needs, the Stone gives three examples of how a society can understand
what is needed.
1. Needs expressed as decisions related to consumption
a. Action will be used to pursue those needs
2. Neopluralism
a. Not all needs will be recognized equally and those needs accompanied with greater clout will be
addressed
3. Marxist
a. The few powerful control what the needs of the society should be and the majority of society do
not know what they really need

The Security-Efficiency Trade-off

Argument: If people have what they need or feel secure, they will not work as hard and will be a drain
on society

Counter-arguments:
1. Self-fulfilling prophecy
a. The argument is proven true, not because it is necessarily true, but because those who are
receiving the security are forced to consistently prove their hardship due to eligibility tests
i. This is an argument for universal coverage as it uses the policies instituted during the
Great Depression and lifetime employment policies in Japan as better alternatives to
proving ones need for aid
2. Measurement of productivity
a. Mathematical errors in measurement
i. Related to greater staffing that, accounting-wise, lowers productivity and has no use, but
increases the delivery of quality service
3. Unwillingness to incur losses in order to gain
a. Preservation of jobs and industries that could be lost due to more efficient sectors pushing out
obsolete or inefficient processes
i. Author suggests countering the loss of jobs with training and relocation
1. But, again, community, pride, and belonging issues arise

Given these different dimensions of need/security in a society, any one perspective will not be
sufficient to address the needs of a society. Instead, it will take a multi-perspective approach to
effectively tackle these issues.

Liberty
The paradox of liberty is that the idea of a country is consumed with freedom and individual rights and
yet laws and policies of all kinds necessarily restrict human behavior. The question posed by this policy paradox
is when it is acceptable to restrict liberty.

Paradox of Liberty
Order and safety in a society requires rules, laws and policies. Even in a free society these things are necessary to
maintain the greatest extent of freedom possible. Therefore, freedom for society requires the restriction of
individual liberties.

Attempts to Set Standardized Criteria

According to John Stuart Mills

The restriction of liberty is justified but should be used as little as possible.
4 elements:
1. when it prevents harm to others
2. the restriction is based on cases where there is a distinguishable line between actions that harm others and
those that don’t.
3. recognize that liberty is an individual concern and should not be restricted on the group level
4. liberty is defined as a lack of interference
Problems with this classification:
- actions that cause harm can be dealt with in many different ways that interfere with different people and
have different levels of interference
- Mill’s presents his ideas as if there is only one way to prevent each harm and the effects of this policy can
be weighed against the level of restriction and then evaluated
- Harm is subjective, restrictions to prevent harm to one group can cause harm to another

Types of injury that can prevented by policy (at the cost of interference or restricting liberty)
1. Physical injury
a. Direct and indirect
b. Intentional and accidental
*Should policy be created to prevent accidental harm or there too much ambiguity to warrant the
restriction of liberty?
2. Material damages – loss or destruction of property
3. Aesthetic damages – environmental harm, graffiti, privacy invasions, creating a disturbance, etc.
4. Psychological and emotional damage – curriculum requirements or restrictions,
5. Moral or spiritual damage – hate speech, pornography

Liberty outside of the vacuum

In the real world of the “polis” that was discussed, the liberty versus injury dilemma is more difficult.
1. liberty is not really all about the individuals because people are part of a community
- This changes the picture because it introduces new harms and new considerations
o Structural harms that prevent a community from working properly
o Accumulative harms – one action is insignificant but as more people engage in that action the
harm becomes more pronounced
o Individual harm that causes group harm
2. Policies and laws will cause and prevent harm individually and to groups in the community. We allow
different groups to cause harm and protect other groups based on their position and roles in the
community.
3. Harms are often allowed, even when they are foreseeable and expected, to protect free markets and the
sovereignty of the government

How to approach community and individual harms through policy

Two Dilemmas:
1. Dependence: Security from harm makes people and communities dependent but it allows them to seek out
needs, take risks, and make choices.
- Promote self-sufficiency so the government does not have to curtail liberty through dependency (Stone
argues that self-sufficiency is an illusion and unattainable)
- liberty for those who can secure it for themselves
- create policies that ensure security and maintain rights through further legislative action (ie: informed
consent laws)
- One problem with dependency created by legislation and policy is that some groups can be deprived of
rights based on their group status (must be 18 to vote)

2. Paternalism: Is it the responsibility, or even the proper role, of the government to protect people from
themselves?
- can you consent to being assaulted or enslaved?
- paternalism may be justified in certain circumstances, especially when, under normal
conditions one would not engage in a given behavior
 * “paternalism is justified whenever a rational individual would consent in advance to restrain
himself in some way.”
- however, what a “rational” person would do in a given situation is subjective

Liberty or Equality?
In order to obtain perfect equality you would have to severely restrict the liberty of those with resources to the
benefit of those without resources.

Introduces the positive view of liberty – that liberty is more simply the freedom choice rather than the absence of
interference.
- liberty increases when individual control increases
o there is a limited range of actions over which you can have control
o resources are needed to understand options
 power, wealth, and knowledge are the resources needed
 therefore, in the positive view liberty is restricted when inequality in resources exists
 positive views of liberty also restricts infringement of liberty to those cases in which
human control is involved

In essence one argues that redistribution of wealth actually increases liberty by equalizing resources and creating
human choice for people who may not otherwise have choices. She claims that liberty exists in degrees, so minor
restrictions of some individual liberty could vastly increase another’s liberty. Finally, she claims that compelled
cooperation to get society to address problems does not create a liberty-equality trade-off. Stone does not see a
problem with removing liberty from those considered “wealthy” to possibly increase the freedom of others
because she places the liberty of certain groups in a higher priority than the liberty of others. John Stuart Mill’s
and others who take the “negative” view of liberty would disagree with this evaluation of what, exactly,
constitutes liberty.

Liberty
The Paradox of Liberty – Flag burning example.
*Freedom is ambiguous and complex, just as other goals and values that motivate politics.
I. Liberty
A. Dilemma of liberty arises in public policy and the question of when the government can
legitimately interfere with choices and activities of citizens.
B. John Stuart Mill: The only time a government can exercise power over a citizens liberty,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
*In John Stuart Mill’s example, the individual reigns supreme.
1. Elements of Tradition in Mill’s way of thinking:
-1st: There is a single criterion by which we can judge whether interference with
individual action is justified – harm to others.
-2nd: Predicated on the possibility of clear distinction between behavior that
affects other people and behavior that does not.
-3rd: Sees liberty as an attribute of individuals, not social roles or groups or
organizations.
-4th: Defines liberty in a negative way (Lack of interference with individual
actions).
II. Breaking down Mill’s definition:
A. Harm to others (policy issues are then cast as a choice between protecting the liberty of individuals
and preventing harms to others).
a. What types of harms should government prevent?
i. Physical harm – seems obvious
1. What about toxic doses of chemicals in the workplace?
2. Birth control pills can be harmful if used by a smoker. Should smokers be
prohibited from taking birth control pills?

*Even when an action is known to produce harms in others, there are

many possible ways of preventing harm, each of which interferes with
different types of liberties for different sets of people.
Ex. Some chemicals used in manufacturing are known to cause
injury to fetuses. Should employers exclude fertile women of childbearing
years from jobs involving exposure to chemicals?
ii. Material Harms
1. An activity may cause loss of income (ex. Slander)
2. Actions may cause loss of resources (ex. Reckless driving can damage
another’s property)
a. How far do we want to go? Is there a difference between actions that
cause physical damage to property and those that destroy market
value of property?
b. Even material losses have different degrees of urgency and reality
that might be considered relevant for decisions about liberty.
iii. Amenity Effects
1. An activity that causes aesthetic harms (ex. Satellite dishes on rooftops)
2. Environmental harms might be considered amenity harms rather than
material (actions that change the character of landscape or destroy wildlife
habitats).
3. Disturbances of quiet (blaring radios)
**All are examples of policy areas where government limits certain
activities in order to mitigate amenity harms.
iv. Emotional and Psychological harms
1. Place in public sphere – government asked to restrict behavior of one set of
people to prevent psychological damages to another (ex. Three Mile Island)
2. Spiritual and Moral Harms:
a. Mill was adamant about the idea that religious belief should never be
a permissible ground for government regulation of behavior.
b. Harms to others are not objective phenomena, but are political claims
which are granted more or less legitimacy by the government.
c. Claims based on physical harm are easier to assert successfully than
claims based on material harms etc. (it’s a hierarchy)
i. ***Significant aspect of political strategy is thus to move
claims from one category to another in order to gain
legitimacy.
III. Liberty in the Polis
1. The polis is a community with some collective vision of public interest, thus the liberty of individuals
is also limited by obligations to the community.
a. In the polis, the sphere of compulsion based on the interests of society (not individuals) is
large.
b. Above all else, societies require their members to obey the law, regardless of whether
violations cause harm to someone else.
i. Ex. A driver will be punished for running a red light even if no one is harmed.
ii. Meant to protect social order, not individuals.
2. Structural Harms – effects on the ability of a community to function as a community.
3. Accumulative Harm – some actions are not harmful when one person does it, but when a number of
people do it, it can be devastating (ex. Walking on grass, dumping sewage, taking money out of the
bank).
4. Harm to a group of that results from harm to individuals
a. Applicant is denied a job based on race, it affects his family, his community, others may not
try to get a job of that caliber, children denied emotional and financial security, etc.
5. Public officials and Business Executives
a. Governments are far less restrictive of these roles because they need more freedom to do their
jobs.
b. Sovereign Immunity: government agencies, officials, employees cannot be held liable for
certain kinds of damages they causes (ex. Police car damage during a chase).
c. Whether the liberties of officials are greater or smaller than those of ordinary citizens, the key
point is that liberty in the polis is to a significant extent an attribute of roles rather than
individuals.
6. Corporate Actors
a. To think of liberty only as it applies to individuals misses the significant political question of
the freedom accorded to corporate actors, which affect individuals just as much.
b. Government Agencies – can perpetrate both harms to the community and harms to the
individual.
i. Ex. Increased monitoring and record sharing may create a sense of distrust in the
community.
ii. Because corporate actors can have far greater impact on individuals and community
than the actions of other individuals, a theory of liberty must consider corporate
actors as well.
iii. Distinct legal culture in America regarding role of government in restricting
individual liberties to promote social cohesion, security, and solidarity (law and
morality are separate spheres; ex. Baby drowning).

IV. The Liberty-Security Trade-Off: Can a society provide its members both liberty and security?
1. The dilemma of Dependence:
a. Without the security of having one’s basic needs met, a person cannot make free choices. On
the other hand, security creates dependence (old city machine bosses, for example).
i. Security is necessary for liberty and yet undermines it.
 b. If public policy promoted self-sufficiency instead of dependence, then people would not
become dependent and suffer the inevitable constraints on liberty that accompany
dependence.
c. Modern democracies attempt to reconcile security and liberty by creating formal political
rights for the dependent.
2. The dilemma of Paternalism:
a. Should the government prevent people from acting voluntarily in ways that harm themselves?
b. Mill: never, unless it is referring to slavery.
i. By entering into slavery a person gives up his liberty and protecting individual liberty
is the very purpose of prohibiting paternalism in the first place.
1. Are there other situations in which a person’s freedom to choose should be
denied in order to enable him to have other choices in the future? (ex.
Assisted suicide).
2. Problem: how do we decide what is “as bad as” slavery?
c. Loophole: exclusion of whole categories of people from rights and liberties
i. Children and mentally incompetent are usually thought proper objects of paternalism,
as well as “backwards” societies.
ii. Ex. Women and blacks in the US.
iii. Ex. Right to die and the judge’s interpretation of the will of women vs. men.
d. Ulysses Contract:
i. Dworkin suggests that paternalism is justified whenever a rational individual would
consent in advance to restrain himself in some way.

V. The Liberty-Equality Trade-Off

1. People have different talents, skills, and abilities to secure the valued resources and
opportunities in society. To maintain equality, government would have to take away resources and
positions from some people (the advantaged) and give them to others (the disadvantaged). This taking
away of resources and positions interferes with the freedom of action of the advantaged.
**Only applies to a negative concept of liberty, one that defines it as the absence of
restraint.
3. Positive View of Liberty: Expanded whenever a person’s control over his/her own life is increased.
a. Range of issues or problems over which one can exercise control.
b. The resources, both material and non material, that enable one to envision alternatives and
carry out one’s will.
c. Under the positive definition, power, wealth and knowledge are prerequisites to liberty
because they are sources of capacity to exercise control.
i. In this sense, liberty is defined by degree (those with more power, wealth and
knowledge have more liberty).
d. Links social and individual freedom.
e. Issue with the positive definition is not what kinds of harms should be prevented, but what
constraints on individual freedom are within the realm of human agency.

*Becomes evident as we move from physical harms to abstract harms that harms are political claims
asserted by one set of interests against another.
“Symbols”
Symbolic representation is the essence of problem definition in politics. According to the author, a
symbol “is anything that stands for something else…The meaning of a symbol is not intrinsic to it, but is invested
in it by the people who use it.” Symbols which shapes “our perceptions and suspend[s] skepticism” are what make
symbols political devices. This makes symbols a means of influence and control, even though it is often hard to
tell with symbols exactly who is influencing whom.

There are four aspects of symbolic representation that are especially important in the definition of policy
problems: narrative stories, synecdoches, metaphors, and ambiguity.

Stories

Definitions of policy problems usually have narrative structure (a beginning, middle, and end) involving change
or transformation.

Brief Outline: Narratives with heroes and villains, problems and solutions, tensions and resolutions. The most
common are:

 Stories of decline, including the story of stymied progress and the story of progress-is-only-an-
illusion.
 Stories of control, including the conspiracy story and the blame-the-victim story.

A) Story of Decline
a. “In the beginning, things were pretty good. But they got worse. In fact, right now, they are nearly
intolerable. Something must be done.” Usually ends with a prediction of crisis: “Unless such-and-
such is done, disaster will follow.”
i. Real World Examples: poverty rates are rising, crime rates are higher, import penetration
in U.S. markets is greater, environmental quality is worse.

Variations on a Story of Decline

A) Stymied Progress
a. “In the beginning things were terrible. Then things got better, thanks to a certain someone.
But now somebody or something is interfering with our hero, so things are going to get
terrible again.”
i. Real World Examples: Automakers tell a story of how minimum wage legislation,
mandatory health benefits, and occupational safety regulation threaten to destroy
America’s once-preeminent position in the world economy. The Pentagon tells how
budget constraints have undermined our once-dominant military position.
B) Change-is-only-an-illusion
a. “You always thought things were getting worse (or better). But you were wrong. Let me
show you some evidence that things are in fact going in the opposite direction. Decline (or
improvement) was an illusion.”
i. Real World Examples: Cancer patients are not really living longer; these “statistics”
are only because we can now diagnose cancer at earlier stages. Child abuse is not
really on the rise, it only appears to have increased because we have more public
awareness, more legislation, and more reporting.
 C) Story of Helplessness and Control
a. “The situation is bad. We have always believed that the situation was out of our control,
something we had to accept but could not influence. Now, however, let me show you that in
fact we can control things.”
i. Real World Example: Cancer, previously thought to strike victims unpredictably,
now turns out to be related to diet, smoking, and chemicals – all things humans can
control.

Variations on Story of Helplessness and Control

A) Conspiracy
a. Its plot moves us from the realm of fate to the realm of control, but it claims to show that all
along control has been in the hands of a few who have used it to their benefit and concealed it
form the rest of us.
i. Real World Example: Ralph Nader’s famous crusade against automobile
manufacturers was a story that converted car accidents into events controllable
through the design of cars, and even willingly accepted by automakers.

B) Blame-the-victim
a. It moves us from the realm of fate to the realm of control, but locates control in the very
people who suffer the problem.
i. Real World Examples: the poor are poor because they seek instant pleasures instead
of investing, Third World countries are poor because they borrow too eagerly and
allow their citizens to live too extravagantly, women are raped because they “ask for
it”.

What all these stories of control have in common is their assertion that there is choice. They choice may
belong to society as a whole, to certain elites, or to victims, but the drama in the story is always achieved
by the conversion of a fact of nature into a deliberate human decision.

Synecdoche

Brief Outline: A small part of a policy problem is used to represent the whole—for example, the horror story.

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a whole is represented by one of its parts: “Ten thousand feet moved
down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House.” This form of symbolism is very common in politics, where
examples are offered up as “typical instances” of a larger problem. These typical cases then define the entire
problem and frame the policy response.

Real World Example: The “welfare queen” has become the dominant representation of the welfare problem. She
is a mother of many children who has been on the rolls for ten or twenty years, and has adopted welfare as a way
of life. In fact, only about a fifth of current welfare recipients have been on the rolls for ten years or more. So, a
reform that is targeted to the long-term welfare recipient, then, will only affect a small part of the welfare
population, and a small part of the welfare problem.

The Horror Story: Politicians or interest groups deliberately choose one outlandish incident to represent the
universe of cases, and then use that example to build support for changing an entire rule or policy that is
addressed to the larger universe.
Real World Examples: The early 1995, the 104 th Congress rush to dismantle much of the safety and
environmental regulation of the 70s and 80s, so antiregulation crusaders claimed the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration had abolished the tooth fairy (by requiring dentists to discard any baby teeth the pulled),
and had required all buckets to be built with a hole in the bottom of them. These absurdities could be counted on
to create hostility to regulation, but they grossly distorted the actions of the agency. What OSHA did require was
that dentists protect themselves and their assistants from blood-borne pathogens when handling teeth (not the
disposal of baby teeth), and 50 babies drown yearly by falling into buckets, so OSHA suggested that the buckets
be redesigned to tip over if a child fell in, but left it up to the industry to make a voluntary effort.

Synecdoche can suspend our critical thinking with its powerful poetry. The strategy of focusing on part of a
problem, particularly one that can be dramatized as a horror story, thus is likely to lead to skewed policy. Yet it is
often a politically useful strategy because it takes a larger issue and presents a single, manageable chunk for the
public to identify with.

Metaphors

A metaphor is an implied comparison. It works by using a word that denotes one kind of object to describe
another.

Brief Outline: A likeness is asserted between one kind of policy problem and another. Common metaphors in
politics include organisms, natural laws, machines, tools, containers, disease, and war.

Living Organisms: Communities or groups are said to have a “life of their own” and organizations have “goals”.
To see something as an organism is to assert that it is “natural”, which in turn implies that however it is, that is
“the way it is supposed to be”. It’s often argued that tampering with any part of an organism (community,
neighborhood, family) will upset a delicate balance, destroy the whole, or interfere with nature.

Natural Laws: Many famous social scientists have claimed to discover laws that govern the social world and that
set limits, and even total barriers, to the changes humans can bring about through deliberate policy. The most
influential “law” of social behavior is Charles Murray’s “law of unintended rewards”. This law states that ‘any
social transfer increases the net vale of being in the condition that prompted the transfer’. In simple English, this
law states that helping people who have problems (poverty, illness, homelessness, or drug addiction) especially
giving them money or services, actually rewards them for having the problem and creates an incentive for them
to stay poor, sick, homeless, etc. While no one in Washington or state capitals is going to quote Murray’s Law,
the equation “helping hand equals incentive to be needy” is the driving force in today’s social policy debates.

Machines and mechanical devices: Our Constitution is derived from a notion that a political system is a machine
with working parts that had to be kept “in order” and “in balance”. Thus, “checks and balances” are central to our
way of thinking about how political power should be allocated. The metaphor of balance implies a story about the
decline from balance to imbalance and prescribes addition of something to one side or subtraction from the other.

Wedges and inclines: Government regulation is often portrayed as a wedge: once they get their foot in the door,
the regulators will be pushing through with more and more. The image of the wedge suggests that a seemingly
small beginning can have enormous leverage. The ‘slippery slope’ argument is a part of this metaphor.

Containers: The idea of a fixed space. The problem might be that a space is overfilled, thus Mexican workers
“spill over” the borders into the United States. The solutions to the problems are varied, but appropriate to the
metaphor. One can “drain off” some of the contents of the container, by appointing disgruntled employees to a
low-level management position where their loyalties will be split. Or you can allow a gradual release of pressure
by letting angry citizens “blow off steam” at town hall meetings.
Disease: Cults, communism, crime (or any other condemned behavior) is said to “spread”. Members and
advocates “infect” others with their ideas (the “Gay Agenda”). Teenage pregnancy and high school dropout rates
are viewed as an “epidemic”. Disease metaphors imply a story about deterioration and decline and about struggle
for control between humans and nonhuman “germs”. The disease label discredits opponents and implies a moral
rightness of treating them as less than human. The most pervasive disease metaphor is social policy us the image
of the poor and disadvantaged – who have their problems because of personal issues and deficiencies.

War: This is ingrained in policy language. We declare “war on poverty”, “invasion of privacy”, and go on
“campaigns” against drunk driving. When something is portrayed as an invasion, the invader is foreign, and
therefore not a citizen whose rights have to be respected or whose life is to be valued.

Names and labels are used to create associations that lend legitimacy and attract support to a course of action.
Symbolic devices are especially persuasive and emotionally compelling because their story line is hidden and
their sheer poetry is often stunning. For these reasons, it is worth cultivating some skill in recognizing symbols
and questioning their assumptions by asking: What is the underlying narrative? Does it make sense? Does the
metaphor tell a different story from the one the author purports to tell? Does the metaphor seem to obviate the
need for evidence, or does it bias the kind of information opponents might bring to bear on a conflict? Does a
symbol offer a “pig in a poke”, and might we want to inquire into substance before lending support to the symbol?

Ambiguity

The most important feature of all symbols is their ambiguity. A symbol can mean two (or more) things
simultaneously: “religious freedom” means organized vocal prayer in public schools to some people and
absolutely no prayer in public schools to others.

Brief Outline: The ability of statements, events, and experiences to have more than one meaning. Ambiguity is the
“glue” of politics. It allows people to agree on laws and policies because they can read different meanings into the
words.

Ambiguity enables the transformation of individual intentions and actions into collective results and purposes.
Without it, cooperation and compromise would be far more difficult. It allows leaders to aggregate support from
different quarters for a single policy.

It allows policy makers to placate both sides in a conflict by “giving the rhetoric to one side and the decision to
the other”.

Real World Example: a president might succeed in unifying advocates and opponents of foreign military
intervention by asking for a congressional mandate allowing him to send troops “only if American interests are
threatened”.

Conclusion

Policy stories are tools of strategy. Policy makers often create problems as a context for the actions they want to
take. This is not to say that they actually cause harm and destruction so they will have something to do, but that
they represent the world in such a way as to make themselves, their skills, and their favorite course of action
necessary.
 Outline for Symbols

 Symbolic representation is the essence of problem definition in politics.

 A symbol “is anything that stands for something else,” and that meaning is collectively created.
 Symbols shape our perceptions and are thus a means of influence and control, as well as political
devices.
 There are four types of symbolic representation that are especially important in the definition of
policy problems:

I. Narrative Stories
 Tell how the world works and provide a promise of resolution for scary problems.
o Policy problems are similar to stories in that they: have a beginning, middle, and
end, have heroes, villains, and innocent victims, and often pose evil vs. good.
o In policy making, what appears as conflict over details, is really disagreement
abut the fundamental story.
o The most common types of stories used in policy are:
1. Stories of Decline
 Basis: “In the beginning, things were pretty good. But then they got worse. In fact, right
now, they are nearly intolerable. Something must be done.”
 Exemplifies a crisis situation and warns unless this is done…disaster will follow. It is a
prediction of doom (Very Common).
A. Stories of Hindered Progress
 Basis: “In the beginning things were terrible. Then things got better, thanks to a certain
someone. But now somebody or something is interfering with our hero, so things are
going to get terrible again.”
 This is often told by every group that wants to resist regulation.
 Ex. When the AMA was fighting government cost-containment efforts, they reminded
people about the days of plagues, TB, high infant mortality, etc. and warned that new
government restrictions would undo all the progress that had been made.
B. Stories of “Change is only an Illusion”
 Basis: “You always thought things were getting worse (or better). But you were wrong.
Let me show you some evidence that things are in fact going in the opposite direction.
Decline (or improvement) was simply all an illusion.”
 Ex. Violence and corruption throughout the world are not really on the rise. They only
appear to have increased because we have more public awareness, more legislation, and
more reporting in the media of these topics.
2. Stories of Helplessness and Control
 Basis: “The situation is bad. We have always believed that the situation was out of our
control, something we had to accept but could not influence. Now, however, let me show
you that in fact we can control things.”
 Stories about control serve to speak to the fundamental problem of liberty in this country,
mainly, they force us to ask questions regarding to what extent do we actually control our
own life conditions and destinies?
 Politicians use this because what had formerly been viewed as random, accidental,
natural, or a twist of fate, is now alleged to be amenable to change due to human agents
of intervention. These stories often provide heroes.
A. Stories of Conspiracy
  Basis: Its plot moves us from the realm of fate to the realm of control, but it claims to
show that control thus far has been in the hands of a few who have used it to their benefit.
 These stories always reveal that harm has been deliberately caused or knowingly
tolerated, and they end with a call to wrest control from the few who benefit at the
expense of many.
 Ex. Oil companies.
B. Stories that Blame the Victim
 Basis: It also moves us from the realm of fate to the realm of control, but locates control
in the very people who suffer the problem.
 This story often ends with victims having to reform their own faulty behavior.
 Ex. The poor are poor because they seek instant pleasures instead of using their time to
work hard and invest their money efficiently.
Overall, policy stories use many literary devices to lead the audience to a course of action and people must
be aware of these tactics in order to be able to make somewhat thoughtful choices and decisions.

II. Synecdoches
 These are figures of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole.
 In politics, such symbolism is very common, where certain examples are offered up as
typical instances of a larger problem.
 We often make policies based on examples believed to be representative of a larger
universe.
 Politicians or interest groups often use “Horror Stories,” where they deliberately choose
one outlandish incident to represent the universe of cases, and then use that example to
build support for changing an entire rule or policy.
o Ex. Why do women get half of all assets in a divorce void of a prenuptial
agreement? This rule was fashioned on the assumption that the woman in a
household spends her married years as a housewife and mother, and as such, had
no economic assets of her own to claim in a divorce.
 The strategy of focusing on part of a problem is likely to lead to skewed policy, but it is
often politically useful because it takes a larger issue and presents a single, more
manageable chunk for the public to identify with.
o Ex. A plea all over the news to find one missing, abused, or starving child within
a region, makes the public aware and sympathetic to other children in a similar
situation.

III. Metaphors
 Are sometimes held to be the essential core of human thought and creativity.
 In policy, they are a likeness asserted between one kind of policy problem and another.
 The author describes these specific types of policy metaphors:
1. Living Organisms
A. With this metaphor, communities or groups are said to have a “life of their own” and
organizations have “goals”.
B. Ex. “Industry is being strangled,” serves to personify industry.
C. When anything in politics is described as “fragmented,” the perception is that it is broken.
Policy metaphors often jump from “description to prescription.”
D. A natural life cycle is also used to explain why political issues seem to experience periods of
rapid growth and then decline.
 E. In a culture where the common understanding is treating likes alike, to claim a likeness
through a political metaphor is also to posit an interpretation of equity, and demand equal
treatment of certain agencies, etc.
2. Natural Laws
A. In policy, this contributes to the belief that providing monetary assistance to those who have
problems like, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, etc., actually rewards them for having the
problem and creates an incentive for them to remain in their current condition.
3. Machines and Mechanical Devices
A. Our Constitution is derived from 18 th century political thoughts that rest on a notion that the
political system is a machine with working parts that have to be kept “in order” and “in balance”.
B. Thus, “checks and balances” are central to our way of thinking about how political power
should be allocated.
C. Policy prescriptions become the addition of something to one side or subtraction from the
other.
D. Ex. With nuclear weapons, strategists talk of a “balance of terror,” where mutual fear prevents
either side from acting.
4. Wedges and Inclines
A. Government regulation is often portrayed as a wedge: once they get their foot in the door...
B. The image of the wedge suggests that a seemingly small beginning can have enormous
leverage.
C. As for inclines, the metaphor is of one ascending a ladder, compelled rung by rung, even
though it gets scarier step by step, and despite the fact that perhaps escalating further goes against
one’s better judgment.
D. Slippery slope arguments meanwhile begin by acknowledging that a law for example is not in
itself bad, but permitting the phenomenon would eventually lead to badness.
E. Ex. Allowing physicians to pursue pleas for assisted suicide in certain cases…
5. Containers
A. This is the idea of a fixed space.
B. The problem might be that a space is overfilled, thus Mexican workers “spill over” the borders
into the United States.
C. Or, one can “drain off” some of the contents of the container, and allow a gradual release of
pressure by letting angry citizens “blow off steam.”
6. Disease
A. In the policy realm, cults, crime, or any other condemned behavior is often said to “spread,”
with such people viewed as contagious. Members and advocates are basically said to “infect”
others with their ideas.
B. Ex. Teenage pregnancy and high school dropout rates are viewed as an “epidemic”.
C. The disease label discredits opponents and implies a moral rightness of treating them as less
than human.
D. The psychiatry profession has further facilitated such treatment in the political realm, by
converting many social problems into mental disorders. As such, consistent unemployment and
repeated absences from work are classified as “anti-social personality disorder,” meaning that
those people are in fact sick, not simply unhappy.
7. War
A. We declare war on many issues (such as drugs) because when something is portrayed as an
invasion, the invader is foreign, and therefore not something whose rights have to be respected.
 B. When people are at war, survival is at stake, so costs are often ignored and one is viewed as a
traitor if he or she does not support the effort. This is one obvious reason why this tactic is so
often used by leaders to carry out policies.
Overall, names and labels are used to create associations that lend legitimacy and attract support to a course
of action. What is a “gas tax” to one person is a “user fee” to another. Symbolic devices are especially
persuasive and emotionally compelling because their story line is often hidden.

IV. Ambiguity
 The capacity to have multiple meanings.
 A symbol can mean two (or more) things simultaneously: “religious freedom” means
organized vocal prayer in public schools to some people and absolutely no prayer in
public schools to others.
 Ambiguity is the “glue” of politics. It allows people to agree on laws and policies because
they can read different meanings into the words. Without it, cooperation and compromise
would be far more difficult.
o Ex. Ambiguity can unite people who would benefit from the same policy but for
different reasons. Some groups do not want to see the construction of more
homes because they want to preserve nature, while others simply do not want to
see the value of their own homes reduced.
 It allows leaders to aggregate support from different quarters for a single policy.
 It allows policy makers to placate both sides in a conflict by “giving the rhetoric to one
side and the decision to the other”.
 Legislators can satisfy demands to do something about a problem by passing a vague
statue with ambiguous meaning and then letting administrative agencies hash out the
more conflicting details.
 By portraying a decision one way in the press yet executing it another, political leaders
can perform the magic trick of making two decisions at once and keeping the peace so
that two sides can technically claim victory.

Overall, problems are not out there in the world waiting for smart analysts to come and define them, they are
created in the mind of citizens by other citizens, leaders, organizations, and government agencies as an
essential part of political maneuvering. Policy stories are tools of strategy with symbols, metaphors,
ambiguities, etc., all as weapons in the arsenal of manipulation.
GUIDE QUESTIONS:
1. Differentiate political community from cultural community.
2. How is public interest explained in the module? In what ways does public interest dominate
over self- interest?
3. What are the two types of common problems? How does one differ from the other?
4. There are three (3) potent forces that form the gap between self-interest and public interest,
what are they? How do these potent forces affect the community?
5. How do you account for “Balimbings” in the government system? What force is diminished
that removes the alliance?
6. How does power define a political society? Cite two (2) examples.
7. What is the difference between Equality and Equity?
8. How can you say that there is efficiency in government? Explain your observations
9. Discuss the Dimensions of Need in Security. How does the Security-Efficiency Trade Off
work?
10. What are the restrictions of Liberty according to John Stuart Mills? How do these apply in a
community setting?
11. 2 dilemmas to approach community and individual harms through policy are Dependence
and Paternalism, discuss each.
12. Explain how liberty in the polis operates. Cite one community where you have observed it.
13. Discuss the four aspects of symbolic representation that are important in the definition of
policy problems. Give examples of each.