Lecture 5: Literature and extra material

Policy and policy making process

Main points are:

1. Definition and the difference between law and policy:

• Law is a strict rule that applies equally to everyone. You cannot choose to not follow
it (please note that the Dutch decided that you may condone (NL: 'gedogen') certain
issues that are not in line with the law, like the policy on softdrugs.)
• Policy is a guideline. You can choose to not follow it if you have good reason. You will
have to motivate such a decision. Following your policy does not require further
motivation, as you have (if you've done your work properly) motivated the choices
you made regarding your policy. That motivation counts for every case that is decided
according to the policy.

A definition of policy:http://www.fao.org/wairdocs/ilri/x5547e/x5547e00.htm#Contents
(from FAO, to learn 1.3 (except for the example of livestock) up to and including 1.8). NB: This
is a very highly condensed text on policy; not easy! Try to fully understand it and don’t be
fooled by how little text it is. Study it and make sure to ask questions on the parts that are
not clear.

2. Who makes policy?

• Politicians: are end-responsible. They should have a broad view and be able to put the
policy at hand (which is probably sectoral (specialist, i.e. about mobility, education,
nature)) in the broader perspective.
• Civil servants: are mostly content driven professionals. They may know a lot about
their topic (like mobility), but may not know anything about other interests the
government should look after. They have risk of tunnel vision. They give advice to the
politicians.
• External consultants: there are four main reasons to 'hire' external consultants.
 1. Objectivity and independance: they are, or at least seem, more objective, because
they don't have a specific interest.
2. Knowledge: they may be more experienced in certain areas. Policy on things that
happen only once in three years are not the the civil servants specialty. A consultant
may be asked on such topics every day by many different government entities. They
build up more knowledge faster.
3. Capacity: the civil servant organisation may not have enough manpower to take on
developing a new policy, because they are busy with 'business as usual'. Government
should then either stop doing some of these businesses-as-usual, or find additional
capacity.
4. ‘Name’: attaching a big (positive) name of a person or consultancy to it, may increase
the sense of quality, even if the actual quality is not different (or possibly even worse).
With a higher sense of quality, people are more likely to support it.

Regarding external consultants it is useful to distinguish between profit and non-profit

consultants. An example of the latter: universities. They may present more objectivity still,
plus are more likely to deliver a full end product. If you are a profit driven consultancy firm,
you may be tempted to deliver a product that looks good, but has some loose ends. These
loose ends then require more work to be done, which of course the consultancy firm will be
happy to do. On the other hand: non-profit consultancy has a higher risk of suffering from
tunnel vision, because of their high level of specific knowledge.

3. How to make policy

Timing (3 streams model by Kingdon):
https://www.scottbradford.us/2003/12/04/the-kingdon-policy-window-model-and-its-
application-to-the-new-york-public-smoking-ban/
The model applied to banning smoking. The basic idea is simple. An example of application
may give more insight. For the exam, you should understand the main idea, not the example
of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-wIyS-hFNI
This might help understand it better.

Policy making methods (based on: A. Geul, Beleidsconstructie, coproductie en communicatie,

Utrecht 2013):

• Japanese; copy and improve.

➢ Advantages: fast, cheap and proven effective.

➢ Disadvantage: not always applicable and may stop your own thinking and finding a
better solution.

• Engineering; thorough analysis of the problem, it's causes and possible solutions.

➢ step 1 - define the problem, look for all possible causes of the problem, look for all
possible causes of these causes, and for the causes of these again. Tackling the
problem will require eliminating some or all of the causes.
➢ step 2 - think of all possible interventions to remove or diminish the causes (and the
causes of the causes, etc).
➢ step 3 - evaluate the possible interventions on effectiveness, efficiency, costs,
revenues, etc. Then choose which interventions you will actually apply and motivate
why.
➢ Advantages: thorough, very likely to be highly effective, real solution with good
motivation.
➢ Disadvantages: very time-consuming, costly and result may be effective, even
efficient, but beware of acceptibility! Some solutions are very cheap and very
effective, but quite simply not acceptable. The example we used in the lecture:
 eliminating traffic accidents by forcing people to not leave their house. Very effective,
indeed.

• Competition; activate intrinsic motivation to be on top of the list

Usually used by government levels that have little authority and / or little budget. The idea is
that people don't like to be on the bottom of any list. Showing everyone how they perform
will encourage the bottom rankers to move up on the list and the top rankers to want to stay
there. The party that ranks last is likely to invest in performing better, possibly suddenly
making an other party last on the list. Now that party will want to improve. This way, it is quite
easy and cost-efficient to increase the average performance. It also allows for parties to
choose in which way they think they can reach the goals best (and most efficiently).

➢ Advantages: it leaves room for location- and culture-specific ideas, it triggers intrinsic
motivation (you do it because you want it yourself, instead of because you have to),
the system is self fueling: improvements by one pafrty
➢ Disadvantages: uncertain results, differences in measuring and aiming for only the
measurement-tool (comparable with the current VW scandal where software was
implemented to show better results when cars would be tested. So no actual
improvement, just a way to fool the system. Also: the way the Greeks made their
financial situation fit the EURO-criteria. Strictly speaking it fit those criteria, but not
the ideas and intentions. It was manipulated within the rules.

• ‘Roman’; you don't solve the problem, but mitigate it's symptoms (from 'bread and
games' the Romans supplied to suppress civil unrest)
The main point of the Roman way of Policy making is that you don't actually solve the
problem. Examples you see quite often are: delaying ('in order to tackle this problem, we need
to further research it!' and giving citizens the feeling that you take action, while you are not
(remember the lightbulb example from the lecture).

➢ Advantages: some problems (or most, some would argue) will disappear by
themselves. Buying time is then a smart way to deal with it through not dealing with
it. If you don't want to act on a problem (you might actually see the 'problem' as
something desirable as it may serve a different purpose (i.e. traffic jams are not a
 problem if you want public transport (PT) to be used more. Traffic jams are a driver
for people to switch to PT. Think about London and Paris; why do people use so much
PT? Because it is such a hassle using the car; it is more expensive, takes longer and
rather frustrating. This
➢ Disadvantages: You quite simply don't solve the problem. And: sometimes people will
find out and think you 'cheated'; they are less likely to believe or trust you next time.