Notes Policy Analysis

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Notities Policy Analysis
Policy analysis (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
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POLICY ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION: WHY STUDY PUBLIC

POLICY?
Overview of today9s class

• Introduction into the course
o What is a policy?
o What is public policy analysis?
• Organisational issues
o Compulsory literature and further reading
o Overview of the syllabus / lectures
o Info about the exam and portfolio
Public policy analysis <Governments make public policy.= ≠ politics; polity

• word 8public9 is important
o we are not going to analyse the policy of the KULeuven for example
o we are going to analyse government policies (governments make policies)
• politics = the process of the acquisition of power and the exercise of power
o who is in power has much more liberty to make public policy / has the authority to make
public policy than those who are not in power
• polity = the political system in which governments operate to make public policy, difference …
o whether a polity is democratic or not
o whether it is majoritarian or not
o whether it is pluralist or not
o whether it is elitist or not
• by focusing on public policy we focus on the actions of governments
Questions of public policy analysis, e.g.:

• Why are particular policy decisions taken at certain times and not others?
• How do individual decisions add up and work together in policy regimes or mixes, or are they
incompatible and contradictory?
• Do multiple decisions result in recognizable patterns of policy-making and policy content, or just
in random or quasi-random accumulations of past decisions?= (Howlett, Ramesh and Perl 2009)
• Other examples?
Public policy analysis

• policy analysis = post war (WOII) invention (before no well-organised discipline to study policies)
• Lasswell & Lerner: The Policy Sciences (1951)
o founding fathers of modern policy analysis
o policy analysis =
▪ discipline which relies on several methods, several disciplines
▪ problem-oriented
▪ importance of context
▪ alternative options to solve problems
▪ importance of the effects of policies (often not intended, leading to failures)
o multi-discipline: all this disciplines are very relevant to study government policies
Example COVID-19: disciplines of psychology and economics were a bit ignored in the first
steps in government policy in controlling the pandemic
→ Multi-method, multi-disciplinary, problem-oriented, mapping of contexts, alternatives and
effects

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• Public policy analysis asks (Blum & Schubert 2011)

o What political actors do
o Why they do it
o What difference it makes
Policy sciences – policy analysis: distinction between

• Analysis of policy: theory → this class (academic policy analysis)
• Analysis for policy: prescriptive, applied → example Cesare Borgia, Angela Merkel
Picture: Cesare Borgia

• leaders were very much relying on the advice of political advisers (for instance
Machiavelli)
• advisers compared what the other regions were doing
• the advisers of Borgia were actually advising on the basis of the analysis of the
consequences of certain decisions: they were analysing policy for policy
= prescriptive or applied policy analysis
Picture: Angela Merkel

• receiving a report of a policy adviser with different recommendations
• person on the left: someone who engaged in analysis for policy, making
recommendations (prescriptive and applied)
Picture: some books (reference to a scholarly activity)

• if you want to understand policies (how they get on the agenda, what kind of options
there might be, why certain decisions are taken and not others,…)
• rely on different theories and concepts
• = analysis of policy
Session 1 Introduction: Meta-analysis

• Types of policy analysts
• The evolution of the concept of <policy=
• Types of policy analysis
• Philosophical foundations of modern policy analysis
Policy analysts: who, where what?

• Academic public policy analysis
• Public administration
• Political parties
• Interest groups
• Think tanks
• NGOs
• International organisations
Terminology: 8policy9 and 8beleid9

• policy in English has a lot of meanings which are relevant for our class: wisdom, statecraft, acting
carefully, public policy processes, tactics
o 8policy9 as a rational plan
▪ all this different terms share a reference to policy or a meaning of policy as a rational
plan, there is some rationality in there
o 8policy9 as different from 8politics9 and 8polity9 (see above)
▪ in politics: we have political rationales, sometimes emotions more and more
▪ a polity not necessarily organised in a rational way
o policy: connotation of a rational way of dealing with issues / solving them
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• 8beleid9: (middle-ages, we don9t use these terms anymore): 8beleiden9, leader = 8beleider9,
government, administration, command
o Comeback of the term in the 20th century
▪ Activities of the government: what is the government actually doing about a problem?
▪ Action of a specific organisation
▪ Indication of a desired situation: ex. the policy may be to have zero traffic accidents
▪ Indication of a plan: ex. policy to develop a number of instruments to activate people on
the labour market
▪ Indication of effects: ex. policy to have unemployment under 200 000 people
• In French? = la politique
o no distinction between policies and politics (action publique, politique publique = policy)
• In Italian? In Spanish? politica
Definitions of Policy
• Thomas Dye (1972): Public policy is <anything a government chooses to do or not to do.=
• William Jenkins: Public policy as <a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or
group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified
situation where those decisions should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to
achieve.=
• James Anderson: <A purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing
with a problem or matter of concern for the population.=
Differences between the definitions above

• Thomas Dye
o speaks about the ideas of the government
o focus on the 8who9 (the government)
o government as an actor orientation
• William Jenkins
o speaks of goals of specific groups of actors who want something (the goal, orientation)
o focus on the 8how9 (certain goals and means)
o policy process orientation
• James Anderson
o focus on problems (no focus on problems in the other 2 definitions)
o focus on the 8why9 (problems that concern the population)
o problem orientation
o involves a target group of policy (refers to the population): governments can make policies
just for themselves (internal organisation), but Anderson uses an external orientation
(addressing issues that concern a certain population)
Which definition do you prefer and why? (chatbox)

• mostly Jenkins and Anderson
o Anderson
▪ should be credited for his problem orientation
▪ summarizes the length of the definition of Jenkins
→ purposive course of action = working to a certain goal, with certain means
▪ why distinction between problem and matter of concern? ex. sexual harassment at work
was a big problem in the sixties, but not a matter of concern for the government
• problem: some issues are problems that are objectively felt (there is evidence, kind
of connotation of objectivity, of a problem being felt by a population)
→ demands reactive policy
• matter of concern: may refer to something becoming a problem in the future (ex.
our energy, decrease of fish stocks in the sea,…) or may refer to what some people
experience as a problem and others not
→ demands proactive policy
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o Jenkins
▪ very detailed
▪ also a reference to power!
▪ good definition if you want to focus on the different components of a policy
• least Dye
o too simplistic, too narrow?
o defence for Dye: policy is about the government making choices
▪ the government has the primary authority to impose decisions upon the population
▪ policy making is about doing things, but also about not doing things (non-decision making
is also policy
Inputs, outputs and 8black boxes9: Easton9s systems model (1965)

• important to understand the political process
• input: can be support or requests from the populists (put into the political system)
• political system: produces decisions
• decisions lead to output, such as laws, subsidies, taxes,…
• what the government has as output also influences again if people support the government or
influence the development of demands
→ Easton left what really happened in the process of policy formulation, choice and implementation
as a black box (we will open this box in this class, from agenda setting to evaluation and feedback)
→ Policy Process view
Stages of the policy cycle (Lasswell, 1965)

→ names of the stages have evolved over the years
1. Intelligence: collecting + disseminating knowledge (= agenda setting: where data or problems
emerged, where there was indications of certain problems)
2. Promotion: supporting selected alternatives (where certain alternatives were promoted)
3. Prescription: decision for an alternative
4. Invocation: decision of rules of selected alternative
5. Application: implementation through the administration
6. Termination: ending the process
7. Appraisal: evaluation according to the initial goals
→ there was something terribly wrong in this view on the policy stages: Lasswell put the termination
of policies before the evaluation of policies (this is not what the literature nowadays promote)
➔ followers revised the policy cycle and the different stages and put evaluation before termination
Stages of the policy cycle (Brewer)

1. Invention/initiation
2. Estimation
3. Selection
4. Implementation
5. Evaluation
6. Termination = reversed order as compared to Lasswell9s model
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Five stages of the policy cycle and their relationship to 8applied problem-solving9 (in the book)
8Problem-solving9 Stages of the cycle
• Problem recognition and agenda-setting • Problem definition and agenda-setting
• Proposal of solution • Policy formulation
• Choice of solution • Decision-making
• Putting solutions into effects • Policy implementation
• Monitoring results • Policy evaluation
→ all stages where first problems are recognised and marked for government action, where solutions
are compared, where eventually their will be a choice in the decision-making stage (see Dye), where
solutions are put into effects (hopefully), where the results of a policy are being evaluated
➔ in a dynamic view: you will also get feedback – a policy may be terminated, may be revised or
innovated
Strength and limits of the policy cycle model

Strength / advantages Limits / disadvantages
• Helps to reduce complexity • Non-systematic and idiosyncratic policy
• Mapping and clarifying the roles of actors, processes/decisions (stages model suggest
institutions and ideas/interests that policy making is a very rational process)
• No linear order of the stages
• No clear notions about causes and effects of
policy decisions
→ we have to see this stages model as a way to approach a very complex process that policy making
actually is
Outline: policy analysis

• Aims
o The class Policy Analysis has the following aims: Students will acquire the necessary knowledge
to understand, analyse and explain – in a scientific and critical way – the formation,
implementation, and evaluation of policies.
o The class is multi-method and multi-disciplinary. It draws on knowledge of the auxiliary
sciences (law, economics, social psychology, philosophy…) and other parts of the study
programme in Political and Social Sciences (political science, sociology…).
o After imparting the theoretical knowledge, the course will acquaint the students with policy-
analytical applications in praxis via guest lectures, and with current, state-of-the-art
applications - by presenting from research at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute and
by YOUR INPUT.
→ critically look at the news, read the newspaper and try to understand what is reported
from a policy analytic point of view
• Study material
o Compulsory: TEXTBOOK :
Howlett M., Ramesh M. & Perl, A. (2020, Fourth edition) Studying public policy. Principles and
processes. Oxford, University Press.
Note: Some chapters of the text book can be downloaded from Toledo
o Slides will be prepared for each session.
Students download these slides themselves via Toledo. Slides will always be put on Toledo at
least one day before the lecture. Everything that is on the slides can be tested in the exam.
o Notes:
▪ Students are expected to take notes during the lectures. These notes are an important
learning resource, particularly with regard to the guest lectures.
o Extra material:
▪ E.g. examples, illustration purposes, guest lectures = also study material for the exam
• Contents
o Macro approach: overview of existing theoretical and philosophical approaches of public policy
analysis
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▪ Session 1: The development of public policy analysis and the policy sciences
▪ Session 2: Approaches of public policy analysis
▪ Session 3: Policy context, actors, and institutions
▪ Session 4: Policy instruments
o Meso-approach: concepts, tools and approaches to analyse the stages of the policy cycle
▪ Session 5: Policy cycle, problem definition and agenda setting
▪ Session 6: Policy formulation
▪ Session 7: Decision-making
▪ Session 8: Implementation
▪ Session 9: Evaluation
▪ Session 10: Feedback, policy learning, and a review of the policy cycle model
• Assessment
o Form of assessment: both a written exam and portfolio
o Exam (15 points):
▪ Knowledge questions
▪ Application questions
▪ Multiple-choice questions
▪ Identification/definition questions
o Portfolio (5 points): see assignments section on Toledo
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THEORETICAL APPROACHES OF PUBLIC

POLICY ANALYSIS
Previous session
• Terminology
• Definitions of policy
• Definitions of public policy analysis
• The policy-process approach
• Different models of the policy cycle
• Strength and limits of the policy cycle
Approaches of public policy analysis

Unit of analysis: focus on… Schools of thought
• individuals • deductive
• collectivity: groups in society • inductive
• structure
➔ Combining macro, meso and micro perspectives
➔ Positivist and post-positivist approaches
Deductive = starting from a certain theory or hypothesis and then approach reality to check if the
theory is confirmed (theory → empirical evidence)
Inductive = studying the empirical reality and then building a theory upon the observation and
patterns you observe (empirical evidence → theory)
Approaches
(Public choice = rational choice)
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Public choice: What?

• Application of neo-classical economics
• Rational action and individual utility maximisation: people behave rationally and calculate the utility
(What9s in it for me?)
• Self-interests of voters, politicians and administrative officials lead to increasing state intervention,
provision of goods and services
• Normative: less state and benefits of the market
Idea: people behave rationally and calculate the utility (what is in it for me?) → all actors do this in
this approach
From a self-interest position: ex. will it improve my position / situation?
Ex. politicians: they want to be reelected, they want money, they want a secure voting base, because
they want to align their pockets.
→ when they are not reelected or when their term is up: they will try to get the most of what there
is still to get (one of the reasons why politicians are thought to be prawn to corruption in their last
term of government, because they don9t have to care about being reelected or ethics)
Ex. civil servants (ambtenaren): they will try to maximize the budget for their own department, the
bigger their departments are, the more secure their jobs are, …
→ power per se is in a classic public choice approach only an instrument to get individual benefits
(not the goal)
This pursuit of self-interest leads to ever increasing state intervention by providing goods and
services: the bigger the state is, the more benefits can be read by voters, politicians and
administrative officials
→ if we don9t let the market play and if we don9t give back the state to society / empower society
and private businesses, we will be wasting money because politicians and civil servants will all create
bigger departments, have bigger policy programs,…
Normative: they want less state and they want a bigger market to prevent self-interested behavior
of politicians
This approach doesn9t assume that business aren9t self-interested, but in the private sphere and the
sphere of consumption, if you have a good working market where everyone follows their self-
interest, the idea is that you get good quality of services and goods and good relationships between
consumers and producers
→ they are just against this pursuit of self-interest, using the states resources: they are convinced
that the invisible hand of the market will increase welfare for everybody
Public choice: problems?

• Over-simplifying: policy is more complex than utility maximisation
• Poor predictive capacity
• Underestimated impact of institutions on action
• Neo-liberal, not value-free perspective
Oversimplification: the motivations of politicians are more diversified than only wanting
power/money/…
Poor predictive capacity: 8state intervention will increase9 should be proven right if the theory was
right, but this hasn9t been the case
→ a lot of governments were deciding to reduce state spending (since 70s)
➔ it is what the theory wants, but not what it predicts
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It would be really naïve if we were to think that some actors are not driven by self-interest! Self-
interest does play a role in policy making and politics!
Social structure and class theory: what?

• Focus on collective entities
• Economic criteria (drawn on to decide over class membership)
• Orthodox Marxism: view on the state as an instrument of the capitalist class
• Neo-Marxism: relative autonomy of the state (Poulantzas), see e.g. enactment of welfare policies
Most well-known approach is a Marxist one
In a Marxist approach: collective entities = entities divided along economic criteria (the 8haves9 and
the 8haves not9)
View on the state, derived from a Marxist approach, is that the state is just an instrument of the
capitalist class to preserve and maintain capitalism
There are some revisions to the orthodox Marxism: the state is not an exact linear instrument of
the capitalist classes, given the size of the state and the role civil servants play, the state has some
relative autonomy
The orthodox Marxists are always right in a way: they will say 8if the state decides welfare policies,
in the end it also serves the interest of capital9 so you have to keep people happy to be able to
continue to work in a capitalist setting
Orthodox Marxism also says that all policies are decided, and they are all furthering the interest of
capitalism (just as any institution: policy institutions support capitalism, just like religion does)
→ religion to Marx = opium for the people, to keep them calm, not to revolt against oppressing
forces
➔ religion is an instrument in the hands of capitalism (education too: it reproduces inequalities –
the justice system too, …)
Social structure and class theory: problems?

• Over-simplification and strongly deductive
• No clear definition of class
• Problems with differentiation between base and superstructure
• Economic determinism
• newer class studies but no longer Marxist; famous e.g. Esping-Andersen9s (1990) The Three Worlds
of Welfare Capitalism
No clear definition of class any longer: you can not say there is two classes in society → classes
became more diversified
Problem with distinction between infrastructure (economy: the relationship between the classes in
society)and superstructure (politics, education, justice, culture, arts,…: all the institutions that are
derived from this relationship)
→ The state itself has a strong grip on the economy and can go very far in planning the economy or
in regulating the economy: but of course capital will try to avoid regulation by the state but it shows
the power of the state or the superstructure to influence economic relationships, and that9s
something that wasn9t acknowledged by Marxist policy analysist (too strong economic determinism)
Newer class studies are no longer Marxist, but they give attention to the inequalities between classes
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Pluralism and Neo-corporatism

PLURALISM NEO-CORPORATISM
• De Tocqueville • Schmitter
• Bentley, Truman, Dahl, Polsby • Small number of influential interest groups
• Central role of interest groups • Representative monopoly
• Overlapping membership • Interaction state – interest groups
• Less attention for power differences
• neo-pluralism: differences between groups
PLURALISM
Pluralist thought that all groups in some way would have access to power and to the state. They
think that all groups eventually can extract policies that serve the interest of these groups.
→ Very big counter movement to such a view: some groups being more powerful than others
What makes a group powerful towards the state (powerbases)?: money, influence, size of the group,
collective interests, access to media (ex. having a lot of followers)
NEO-CORPORATISM
Some groups have more power than others and when this power is sustained over longer periods
of time and invested with a small group of influential interest groups: we speak of neo corporatism
→ Schmitter and Leebrug studies the impact of employers and employee associations on policy
making: from there they developed this theory of neo-corporatism
A small number of groups monopolies representation, and by doing that they become interesting
and reliable partners for the state to interact with
Neo-institutionalism: what?
• Scharpf, Mayntz, Ostrom
• neo: different to legalist approaches
• Rules, norms, configuration of governmental institutions…
o e.g. economic neo-institutionalism and transaction cost analysis
• Options for policymakers are <path-dependent=
• International and national determinants of policy
Became fashionable from the late 80s – 90s onward
Neo: marks the difference with old approaches that would just describe what state institutions used
to do
→ The way these institutions are organized will constrain the behavior of people (emphasized by
neo-institutionalists)
Rules, norms, configurations will determine very much the choices
One of the most important concepts is the concept of path-dependency: the options for
policymakers are limited to what was there to begin with
→ if you want to change or reconsider care for the elderly in the context of Belgium or most
European countries: your options are limited to institutional care or maybe community care but it
would be unthinkable to say we are going to care for the elderly the way it is done in the global
South (it9s up to the family to look after the elderly)
This approach also suggest that international and national determinants of policy have become quit
important: domestic policy actors have to follow a lot of international rules, what limits their choice
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Neo-institutionalism: problems?
• Chicken or egg? (causality dilemma)
• Functionalism
• Points to the limitations of policy but not to the purposeful actions of policymakers
• Not adequate for agenda-setting (but: for implementation, evaluation and re-formulation)
There is a chicken and egg problem: an institution is a crystallization of interactions between people
and between groups, so it has to start somewhere (an institution doesn9t fall out of the sky, it is
created at some point in time)
Neo-institutionalism is very important to understand the dynamics and non-dynamics of

implementation and of reformulating policy making, but in other stages actors and groups are more
important to consider
Statism
• Weber, Hintze, Skocpol, Hall & Soskice
• State-centred versus society-centred
• State as autonomous actor
• Too little attention to social factors and civil society – but can also be complementary
Not elaborated on
Welfare economics: market failures – need for government action

• Natural monopolies (e.g. railway, electricity)
• Imperfect/limited information (e.g. pharmaceutics)
• Externalities (e.g. air pollution)
• <Tragedy of the commons=
• Destructive competition
Very influential approach, inductive: approach that has led to the development of a great number of
concepts that are very useful
Market failure concept: welfare economist say that governments should have the market play its
role, governments should not touch issues in society if you have a well functioning market, BUT
when this market fails, governments should step in to correct this failures
→ there are a number of market failures where governments should step in
A market fails when there is a monopoly forming → consequence: no competition and no choice
for consumers leads to higher prices which you cannot escape from
➔ government should regulate the monopoly and actually try to break it by organizing competition
and liberalizing the market, BUT if nobody wants to bear the cost of a certain service, then the
government should step in to provide the service (what happened with railway companies or big
transport services like airlines)
Another market failure: when consumers don9t have perfect information (this is a lot the case) the
government also steps in
→ with any medicine comes an information folder, which is all regulated (pharmaceutical companies
do not provide this information out of their own volition, even the language) (another example: food
labeling, cookies on a website, smoking, …)
Negative externalities = negative consequences of the behavior of organizations or individuals and

these negative consequences are transferred to society as a whole, actually on people who are not
engaged in the market transaction
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<Tragedy of the commons= (very dramatically formulated here): when a good that is available /
accessible for all expires or gets depleted because the access to the good is not regulated and is
unlimited (common goods, not public goods because public goods don9t go away when you use
them, but common goods expire if everyone makes use of it without limits)
Destructive competition (ex. textile and clothing industry): you get a lot of bad working conditions,
so the government steps in for social regulation for labor rights
Welfare economics: cost-benefit analysis and Pareto optimum

• Cost-benefit analysis
o financial estimation of negative/positive effects of an option
o evaluation of social outcomes
• Pareto optimum
o Difficult to achieve in policy
o Kaldor-criterion
o non-financial costs
Other concepts that are very important in welfare economics
Cost-benefit analysis: we will come back to this when we discuss ways of decision making
→ in a cost-benefit analysis you choose policy options that have the most benefits and the least
negative effect
In reality, policies are not or are hardly ever made on welfare economics, cost-benefit analysis based,
neither are they based on a Pareto optimum (there will always be losers in policy making)
Kaldor-criterion: means that you can move ahead with policy decisions if the aggregate benefits
surpass the aggregate costs (so then policy is possible)
Welfare economics: government failure

• Principal-agent theory
• Organisational displacement – shift of goals
• Rising costs
• Derived externalities
Also government failures are important (not the market that fails, but the government): 3 types of
government failures (organizational displacement, rising costs, derived externalities)
Organizational displacement: organizations are called to life to perform a certain function or receive
funding from government to produce a certain service or good to society, but then it turns out the
organization is not really putting much effort in achieving the goals that justify the subsidies they get
→ related to the pursuit of self-interest
Rising costs: so governments don9t go bankrupt as private companies do, so there is always a risk
that governments are a bit wasteful
Derived externalities: governments sometimes overregulate society, suffocates private initiatives

because there are so many rules to follow
Theory on the principal-agent: we9ll come back to that in detail next week
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Welfare economics: new typologies – What9s the need for government action?
Goods can be exclusive to the user and can be exhausitive as a good
Exclusive: when it is used, it is gone

Exhausted: when you buy it, there is one less for someone else
Welfare economics: problems?

• Rational – technical
• Limitations of knowledge and capabilities
• Political character of instruments
• 8theoretical illusion9
➔ Post-positivist approaches
Post-positivist approaches and the 8argumentative turn9

• Emerged in the 1990s, increasing importance
• 8interpretive policy analysis8
• Critique:
o Positivist policy analysis lacking in comprehending reality (ideas, meaning, politics etc.) and
promoting a top-down view
• Catch the 8messy realities9 of policy processes
• Diversity of approaches
o Fischer, Forrester, Hajer, Wagenaar, Yanow...
We discuss the post-positivist approach when we discuss agendasetting
Discussion: Theories as „glasses<

„To someone with a hammer everything looks like a nail.< (Mark Twain)
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POLICY CONTEXT, ACTORS AND

INSTITUTIONS
1. GUEST LECTURE – MARLEEN BRANS
Last session
• Approaches of public policy analysis
o Unit of analysis
▪ Individual
▪ Collectivity / groups
▪ Structure
o Schools of thought
▪ Deductive
▪ Inductive
• Schools of comparative public policy
The three units also structures our list of policy actors and institutions.
Today
• Agency – structure
• Types of political actors
• Organisation of the state
• Organisation of society
• Globalisation
Dispute: actors – institutions

Agency Structure
• Individuals: welfare economics; public choice • Neo-institutionalism
• Collectivities: pluralism and corporatism • The state: statism
• Marxism
➔ Actor-centred policy analysis since the 1970s (<Does politics matter?= – „Politics matters!<)
Discussion: do actors play an important role or institutions/structures?

→ for us: both!
There is room for agency (either by individuals or groups) but to a great extend the policy choices
that are made and implemented also depend on what structure allows
→ our view is more along the lines of actor-centered policy analysis
(Political) institutions as …
• …systems of rules
• …long-term geared problem-solving
• ...enclosing mutual expectations
• ...granting power and limiting power
• ...facilitating collective decision-making
(Blum & Schubert 2011)
Institutions are important constrains on what policy actors can push for in the policy process
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Last sessions: varying role of agenxy – structure in different theoretical approaches

• Welfare economics, Public choice, Pluralism, Marxism
o Individual and group actors as primary
• Neo-institutional approaches
o Agency is determined by structure
o Public policy as product of interdependent interaction between state capacity and social action
o No a priori predictions
o Complexity
o Empirical analysis of specific cases
Actors and institutions in the policy process
Actors
• Elected politicians
• Administrative officials
• Political parties
• Interest groups
• Research organisations
• Mass media
• (Voters)
➔ Individual + complex actors
Administrative officials (bureaucrats)
voters: very limited role in policy making (only in elections)
Elected politicians: executive, government

• Power resources
• Constitutional role and formal authority to make and implement policies
• Control
o Information
o Fiscal means
• Privileged access to mass media
• Permanent support through the administration
Elected politicians: form the government, have a lot of power (see definition Dye)
They have access to information and they hold the budget
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Elected politicians: legislators, parliament

• Controlling government + influencing policies
• Fora
• Budgetary control
• Party discipline
• Relation to government, internal organisations, importance of committees
• Type of policy problems affects parliamentary involvement
o (-) Technical expertise
o (-) Confidentiality
o (+) Symbolic
The original functions of the parliament, law making, is not that important anymore as it once was.
Now there power really lies in controlling the government, in deciding on the budget
Place where issues can be put on the agenda (fora): try to get attention for new policy ideas
Party discipline: big debate now on how free individual members of parliaments are actually from
the discipline that their party requires
The power of parliaments and legislators depend very much on the type of issues they deal with
ex. when there is need for a lot of technical expertise and confidentiality you won9t find so much
parliament reactivity, because the resources of members of parliament is a lot smaller than the
resources of government
ex. for symbolic issues (ex. choice of a flag), the government usually allows the parliament some
more leap way
Administrative officials
• (Beyond) civil / public <servants=
• <Fourth power=
o Discretional competency, initiating policies
o Big material resource
o Specialists and expertise
o Continuity
o Access to information
o Closeness of policy processes
o (-) high vs. (+) low profile policies
They have discretionary competence and power, so they have to listen to their principal / their
minister, but as agent they also can divert from what the minister wants and there are different
ground for that (more information than the minister)
They are powerful, because they are there for a while (it9s a permanent administration and ministers
come and go)
More power in low profile policies than in high profile policies because then there is more scrutiny
from the outside
Political parties
• Boundary between state and societal actors
• Mainly indirect influence through personnel in executive (and legislative)
• Partisan differences matter (see Party-differences school)
o <Nixon-goes-to-China=-thesis
They select issues, articulate demands of citizens (gatekeeping function)

Nixon-goes-to-China thesis: not elaborated on
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Research Institutes
• Government research institutes
• Academic research institutes
• Think tanks (US, rise in Europe)
• Other examples?
Scientific evidence can play a role in policy making
Interest groups
• Knowledge and (exclusive) information on practice
• Political and organisational resources
Interest groups have different bases of power
political and organizational resources: lobby, campaigns, networks,…
Companies and business associations

• Business associations with <unmatched capacity to influence public policy=
o E.g. Lobbyists in Brussels
• More 8free enterprises9 in the US (pluralism) vs. high organisation grade e.g. in Belgium, Austria
(neo corporatism)
• Influence via
o Mobility of capital and investments
o (Financial) support of political parties
o Financial contributions to policy research
Companies and business associations have power sometimes without exerting power, meaning that
policy makers will always implicitly think of the effect of policy making on capital and investments,
knowing that these are mobile
Labor and employee organizations

• Influence increases with
o Organisation (centralised, not fragmented e.g. along lines of regions, languages, sectors)
o Membership + organisation grade
o Leadership
o Centralised and decentralised negotiation structures
• Neo-corporatist vs pluralist tradition
Labor and employee organizations are more powerful in countries where there is a neo-corporatist
tradition rather than pluralist tradition
Organization of society
• Unity among interest groups stable policy context
• Mancur Olson:
o Differences between groups matter (e.g. size)
o 8Encompassing9 (umbrella) groups vs. narrow groups
• Combination of weak/strong state with weak/strong interest groups
Umbrella organizations = not too many narrow single issue groups constantly lobbying government,
it is better if you have coordination and stability between the groups
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Organization of the state – Political-economic structures

Policy autonomy Policy capacity
• Independence of particular interests • Organisational coherence
• Isolation from societal pressure • Expertise
• Success of neo-corporatism and semi-
authoritarian regimes
To have a strong state or a state able to make policies, the state needs to be to some extend
autonomous from society, so the state should not be too dependent on particular interests, it should
be able to isolate itself to some extend from societal pressure (that9s why neo-corporatism and also
some of the authoritarian regimes have been the most successful in grand policy programs and in
implementing them)
For a state to be strong it also needs to have policy capacity, so it needs to be organizational
coherent and it has to build up expertise.
Governmental and administrative power distribution in political systems

• Federal or unitary?
• Presidential or parliamentary system?
• Two-party system or multi-party system?
• Proportional or majority voting system?
• Role of the courts
• Structure of the administration
➔ Effectiveness, tempo, …
Governmental power depends on the federal or unitary structure of a state, presidential or

parliamentary system,…
Veto player theory

• Tsebelis
o <Actors whose agreement is required for a change of the status quo.=
o <Any player who can block the adoption of a policy.=
• Examples?
• Significant for policy change
• Not necessarily negative
Examples: not elaborated on, see class about agenda setting
Organization of the international system

• International policy sectors:
o Trade, defence
• Other policy sectors
• International regimes:
o International standards, rules, procedures
o International trade regimes, international monetary systems, multinationals
All of the actors above are domestic policy actors, but of course the international system and
globalization is also very determining for policy making
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Globalization as a policy factor

• Lasswell (1930s)
• Etzioni (1960s)
• Anthony Giddens
o Transnational companies
o Increase of economic integration
o Globalisation of communication and media
• World agenda: drugs, crime, pandemics, environment, urban decay
• Convergence thesis (see also session 5)
o Similar policies because of internationalization
o But not absolute
There is a world agenda out there (ex. corona pandemic): shows how interconnected the world and
our policies are
Convergence thesis: policies agendas, the list of problems we have to solve, is converging (they also
claim that are policies will converge, but that Marleen strongly disagrees with)
2. GUEST LECTURE – TOM BELLENS – MINISTERIAL ADVISERS: UNELECTED

DECISION-MAKERS?
2.1 INTRODUCING THE TOPIC: YES MINISTER
Yes Minister
• British TV series happening in the 19809s
• Jim Hacker
o Minister of Administrative Affairs
• Sir Humphrey Appleby
o Cabinet secretary (top CS)
• Bernard Woolley
o Hacker9s private secretary(/adviser)
Yes Minister S02E1 The Compassionate Society
• Minister Jim Hacker learns that there a brand new hospital has been open for 15 months and
has yet to admit a patient despite having over 500 administrative personnel on staff
• He wants to reduce administrative staff and close down the hospital
• https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6l3xq1
Ministerial advisers: Agenda for Today

Special focus on ministerial advisers as a particular type of actor and ministers9 offices as a type of
institution.
1. Introduction
a. What is a ministerial adviser?
b. What is an EASO?
c. Administrative traditions
d. Size focus
2. Key themes in the literature
a. Roles of advisers
b. Careers and profiles
c. Tensions / dysfunctions
d. Decabinetisation
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2.2 DEFINITION
Advisers in popculture
Ministerial advisers as general cohort label, of which individual job titles exist (e.g. chief of staff, chef de cabinet)
Doug Stamper as the president9s chief of staff (always in the 8background9, doing the president9s dirty work,
offering policy advice … etcc)
Advisers in pop culture
A definition of political staffers by Pieter Moens

<Political staffers are individuals with a remunerated, unelected position that have been
politically recruited within a party9s central office , parliamentary group or ministerial
office= (Moens, 2021, p.40)
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Which definition works best? Student poll
Shaw and Eichbaum (2018, p. 3) suggests the term ministerial advisers is useful for situating these actors within
their locational boundaries and offers functional insights to their work
Hustedt et al: This definition suggests that advisers perform a functional servitude role, to a minister, highlights
the method of recruitment (implying the servitude role is primarily or entirely political), and illustrates the
temporary nature of the role. The main confusion here relates to 8recruited on political criteria9. This could be
interpreted to mean the minister personally recruited the adviser with the intention the adviser would serve the
minister9s political aims (e.g. in relation to policy, communications and media affairs). Put another way, the
adviser is recruited on a non-merit basis, compared with merit-based principles in traditionally impartial civil
service roles.
Two examples are academic definitions, one is a government definition. Think about this when writing your
assessments – is the definition coming from a scholarly source, or an official government source. If from the
government, the definition can provide insights to how the government interprets these types of roles, and a
different type of definition in another country could suggest a different interpretation on these roles.
Ministerial advisers
Variety of factors to define a ministerial adviser: Function (Political advice, not a standard bureaucrat), location
(proximity to government politician / cabinet minister), appointment type (linked to the government of the day)
Political advisers: provide support of political nature – one also needs to determine what constitutes as political
advice (is a speechwriter offering political advice, is the diary manager – secretary – offering political advice)
For the executive: they are not parliamentary assistant or working in consulting firm. Must be internal to
government.
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Professional contract: they are hired for this – not usually family/ friends. Rare exception with Ivanka Trump
recently acting as special adviser to the President.
Definition: Ministerial Advisers

1. <a temporary public servant appointed to provide partisan advice to a member of the political
executive and who is exempt from the political impartiality requirements that apply to the standing
bureaucracy=. (Shaw and Eichbaum 2018, p. 3)
2. <person appointed to serve an individual minister, recruited on political criteria, in a position that
is temporary=. (Hustedt et al. 2017, p. 300)
3. <Special advisers are employed as temporary civil servants to help ministers on matters where the
work of government and the work of the party, or parties, of government overlap and where it
would be inappropriate for permanent civil servants to become involved=. (Cabinet Office, 2011,
p. 58):
The Office of the Ministerial Advisers

➔ Many labels for a single institution
• <Ministerial office= (AUS, CAN, DEN, IRE, NZ, SW, UK)
• <Political office= (GR)
• <Private office= (EU)
• <Leadership staff unit= (GER)
• <Ministerial cabinet= (FR)
• <Strategic cells= (BE)
• <Bureau S-G= (Ne)
• <Office of direct collaboration= (Italy)
The EASO
<An executive advisory and support office is an institutional structure that acts as the personal
office of a member of the political executive; it is comprised of individuals as ministerial staff hired at
the executive actor9s discretion to perform advisory and support functions=
• Institutional structure
• Headed by a member of an executive government
• Composed of (ministerial) staff: (Ministerial) advisers and support staff
• Pursue policy (Halligan, 1995), political (Goetz, 1997), political communication (Laughrin 2014),
and advisory and support functions
• Staff are recruited at the discretion of the principal
Ministerial advisers: pursue policy, political communication functions

Support staff: do administrative and logistical support
All the staff of the EASO: recruited at the discretion of the principal (member of the executive
government: president, minister, state secretary,…) so it9s above civil servants because they go
through a standardized procedure to be recruited
2.3 ADVISERS ACROSS ADMINISTRATIVE TRADITION

Westminster administrative tradition
Westminster administrative tradition: consisting out of countries such as UK, New Sealand, Ireland,
Canada, Jamaica, the Bahamas,…
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Administrative principles
• Strong separation between politics and administration
• Traditional neutral civil service
o Civil servants appointed on merit-system
o Cabinetization
Neutral civil service: a strong separation between politics and administration

→ implications for the ministerial offices and the policy advisers system
Policy advisers system is traditionally a vertical one, where policy flows from the ministers office to
the top civil servants to the street-level bureaucrats
Cabinetization: an extra layer is added to this vertical system (a third layer), i.e. the ministerial office,
which filters the advice that is normally flowing vertically, it filters it for the political interest of that
ministry
Want to briefly introduce the observed change in Westminster countries and how they are undergoing a process
of cabinetization.
Westmisnter is a neighbourhood of London where the British Parliament and government offices are. Shorthand
for a type of administrative model in Britain and which was transferred to British colonial countries (now used
in Canada, New Zealand, but also Jamaica, Bahamas, some African countries, Pacific islands like Fiji, and even
Singapore, and India to a degree.
This is a simple explanation of the traditional policy advisory system – that is, how public policies flow up and
down through the levels of administration. For brevity I can9t go into specific details.
The ministerial cabinet model offers an extra level to filter policies for political value. The Westminster model
historically has not had such a level.
Origins of ministerial advisers
Although this ministerial offices got introduced by left wing parties, right wing parties also make use
of this ministerial offices and even build upon them more, extend them
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Observations about introduction of advisers with left wing governments.

Even so, right wing governments continue to use and build the political advisory system.
Suggesting that these advisers are supported by all sides of government.
Parties / politicians are not going to take away their own resources. Once built, hard to remove.
Napoleonic administrative system
Consisting of countries as Belgium, France, Italy,… but also institutions such as the European
Commission and regional governments like the Flanders government or the Government of the
Wallonia region
Politicized administration: triangular policy advisory system, where you already have a third layer
instated, that filters the policy advise on a partisan political basis (between the minister on the one
hand and the top civil servant on the other hand)
→ there can be a screen between the minister and the top civil servants
We don9t talk about a ministerial office here. This is a ministerial cabinet.
Politicized administration
→ Acceptance that top branch of the civil service is formally or informally politically appointed
Westminster and Napoleonic administrative traditions
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Size of EASO across administrative tradition
• Napoleonic countries have biggest EASO

• Yet cabinetisation in some Westminster countries
• Variation across Nap countries is explained by importance of support staff
• Still an emerging phenomenon
First observations: typically Napoleonic cases such as France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, European
Commission are the cases with the highest number of staffs.
Second observation about cabinetisation: trend of some EASO that are not from the Napoleonic
world that are slowly transforming into something that is comparable to Ministerial cabinets
ex. Canada and Greece → size comparable: so there is an ongoing process of cabinetisation
Third observation: important differences even within the Napoleonic tradition

ex. for Italian and French the average number is very high, compared to Greece of Belgium which is
much lower
Remark: with the biggest EASO, what we usually find is that the EASO9s in France of Italy have a
very high number of support staff, but a low number of ministry advisers
→ so if we would consider ministry advisers only, the number would actually be higher in Belgium
than in Italy
➔ so when considering size you should not only consider the absolute number, but also the ratio
between support staff and ministerial advisers
Size of the PM EASO
• Some countries have weak EASO for Regular Minister but strong ones for the Head of
Government ➔ Presidentialization thesis
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PM = Prime Minister
First observation: In some cases the head of government doesn9t have something that is functionally
equivalent to an EASO (ex. Italy and Greece: they have something called a general secretariat, which
is in between an administrative and political organization, which is a bit a blur line so not included
here)
Second observation: ex. France → the EASO of the Prime Minister has 470 members
➔ the French president has an EASO much bigger than the EASO of its minister (see previous slide,
89,6)
2.4 KEY THEMES ADRESSED IN THE LITERATURE
Key themes
• roles
• career and profiles
• scandals and controversies
• reforms
Roles and functions: different arenas of influence / coordination (Maley, 2015)

1. Vertical: With departmental bureaucracies
2. Horizonal: Within the executive (across ministries)
3. External: With non-government stakeholders (e.g. general public, industry, unions, universities,
etc.)
First typology by Maley: arena typology (designed based on the Australian case, but now applied in
other countries like Belgium and Greece: enable comparison across countries)
Three arenas were the advisers are very active
Vertical arena: the work of advisers in relation to the administration

Advisers work a lot with civil servants: question = what kind of relationship do they have?
Two relationships possible

- collaborative: no hierarchical relationship between the adviser and civil servants, and they
collaborate together
- hierarchical: advisers command civil servants
→ not a formal power: you won9t see in the law 8advisers have the right to command civil servants9
Horizontal arena: relates to the work of advisers of coordination across ministries

ex. in Belgium there are coalition governments (so multiple parties in power): example of a policy
issue that would touch upon environment dimension but also an agricultural dimension
→ it may well be that the person responsible for environment and for agriculture are not the same
person, so they have to negotiate, but these can be hard because those ministers may well be of
different political parties with very different views
➔ the advisers are there to negotiate among themselves, right before the ministers meet, so that
most of the issues are already solved before the ministers meet
External arena: the advisers also have to meet with stakeholders
Fourth arena that9s not mentioned here
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Types of advisory roles (Connaughton, 2010)
Another typology on advisory roles, based on Ireland case
Horizontal axe: what kind of message is the advisers supposed to provide? (advise of political nature
or advise of technical nature?)
Vertical axe: what is the type of support the ministry advisers provide? (on policy advise, or steering
administration?)
Experts: provide political advise of technical nature (someone with a high level of technical expertise
in a very specific polity domain)
Taken separately the categories provide different lenses through which the roles of advisers can be analysed.
Type I is the expert which embodies the role of adviser as an individual working in isolation or as part of the
government machine assisting with, contesting and promoting policy advice in a specific sector. One of the
earliest appointments of ministerial advisers within the Westminster model of government and administration
was Winston Churchill9s employment of the academic William Beveridge in 1908. The engagement of Beveridge
and other experts reflected the necessity to import external advice into Whitehall as civil servants were unable
to offer perspectives on the establishment of the first labour exchanges (Blick, 2004: 36). Type II is the partisan
who is appointed predominantly for political association with the minister and in instances where there are
levels of distrust between politicians and the civil service. These advisers are responsive and are sometimes best
placed to anticipate ministerial demands. Such advisers undertake work of a politically partisan nature, such as
representing their minister in political negotiations. The third type is the coordinator whose role includes
monitoring the programme for government, liaising with various groups and offices to facilitate an oversight of
the minister9s agenda. The fourth role conceptualisation is the minder which emphasises the importance of trust
in the relationship between minister and adviser. Minders should be looking out for issues that may be potentially
harmful to ministers, both politically and in terms of reputation. Advisers can also exercise their minder role to
thwart situations where political principals fail to deliver on their policy commitments because the 8minister has
gone native9. Characteristics of the four roles are summarised in Table 1. What overlaps the four categories is
the reality that ministers need assistance in government as the scope of a minister9s responsibilities far exceeds
the capacities of any one individual.
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Prosopographic studies (1)

• Why study careers and profiles?
o Multiple scholars in different traditions have studied the biographical characteristics of political
advisers
• Prosopography is a specific approach, that aggregates the individual information in order to tell
something about the group
• What is prosopography?
o Originates in historical research late 19th-century
o Theodore Mommsen, Prosopographia Imperii Romanii
o Descriptive undertaking (historism as proposed by von Ranke)
o Explanatory turn 1960s / 1970s

o Lawrence Stone, Prosopography (1971)=the purpose of prosopography is to make sense of political
action, to help explain ideological or cultural change, to identify social reality, and to describe and
analyze with precision the structure of society (...)= (Stone, 1971, p.47)
• French prosopography
o A unique French prosopography (Broady, 2002)
▪ Mirror to French society and its closed elite system
▪ Pierre Bourdieu / Centre de sociologie européenne and their legacy
o Bourdieusian theoretical ambitions:
▪ Field, habitus, capital
▪ <administrative field=, <political field=, <cultural field=
▪ The ultimate aim of prosopography is to explain the history and the structure of the field
under scrutiny
• Main takeaway: modern prosopography originated in the context of social history / French
prosopography also looks for explanation by social structure but in a unique (Bourdieusian) way
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• French prosopography on ministerial cabinets, two examples

o Collas, Dulong et Sawicki (2018)
▪ « SOCIOGRAPHIE DES CABINETS MINISTÉRIELS (2012-2014) »
▪ Prosopography on the Ayrault & Valls I governments
▪ Survey on MAs, collecting information on their <pathways= into the cabinet
▪ To what extent have recent changes in French society (Europeanization, Regionalization,
privatization) altered the <field of power= in France?
o Rouban (2012)
▪ No Bourdieusian terminology or references
▪ Prosopography on MCs between 1974 and 2012
▪ Have the MAs surrounding N. Sarkozy a more <neo-liberal pathway= than the MAs from
previous presidents?
Tensions and scandals – The case of Belgium

• Incompetence
• Bad working conditions
• Information bias (cabinet écran)
• Elitism
• Tensions with the administration
The ministry advisers create tensions: because we don9t know exactly what they do, wo they are,…
→ creates controversies and scandals
List of 5 typical criticisms towards ministerial cabinets

- incompetence: advisers are hired for other reasons than their competence (namely their partisan
affiliation)
- bad working conditions: very demanding kind of job
- information bias: the idea that advisers have huge power, because since you cannot go directly to
the minister, they are the one who basically protect the gate of the minister
- elitism: the idea that advisers, top civil servants and ministers belong to the same political
administrative elite (which is far apart from society)
- typical tensions
MA in Belgium: MC and ADM relations
Ministerial cabinets and administrative are sometimes in conflict: here one reason for this conflict is
explained
In Belgium: the ministerial cabinets have huge control over the policy making process, and they
interfere with the administration work, so sometimes they will tell civil servant how they should
work, and some other times they will just do the work of the civil servant because they need to act
fast
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→ consequence: within the administration people feel that there is deresponsabilisation and
demotivation because they are not responsible for anything anymore in the policy process
➔ consequence: the minister, because of the demotivation of the administration, still needs to act
fast, so he or she will rely more and more on the ministerial cabinets
➔ because he/she relies so much on the ministerial cabinets the administration will feel demotivated
etc… (vicious circle)
MA in Belgium: MC – ADM relations
MA in Belgium: Scandals
→ Politicisation of the administration
Chief of Staff from Minister for Cooperation/ Development nominated as director of administration for Foreign
Affairs (nov 2019)
Scandal with current prime minister De Croo, former Minister for Cooperation / Development
→ at the end of the previous government, he decided to nominate his chief of staff (so the head of
the ministerial cabinet) as a chief of the administration of foreign Affair
➔ problem = creates a politicization of the administration: because people have the impression that
this chief of staff is now related to OpenVLD, but at the head of an administration which may be
working with a new minister that may well be from the socialist parties (that may create distrust)
→ Use of ministerial advisers for private benefit
Minister of Interior resigns as she allegedly used MC members for her electoral campaign (april 2016)
Another type of scandal with Joelle Milquet: hired cabinet members to support her in her electoral
campaign, but of course ministerial advisers are not funded for the private benefit of the minister
but for the minister to work in the government, so she had to resign for this
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→ Conflict of interest/ pantouflage
An ex ministerial adviser of the Ministry of Energy works for Engie Electrabel (july 2019)
One of her advisers stopped working in the ministerial cabinet in the ministry of Energy and went
directly to Electrabel, which is a private enterprise in the energy sector
→ conflict of interest for the ministry adviser? because he came from a position where he got
privileged information about policy making in the energy field and then moved to a private enterprise
where he could potentially share this information
→ another question: was the person defending the interest of the government / of the population
when he worked in the ministerial cabinet, or was he already defending the interest of private
entreprises?
Reforms: Decabinetisation
• = Attempts to control or constrain the work of ministerial advisers
• 6 types of reforms
o Size
o Role
o Localization
o Recruitment
o Eligibility
o Conflict of Interest
Those controversies and scandals lead to demands for reforms
Size: attempts to reduce the size of ministerial cabinets

Role: attempts to decrease the influence of the ministerial cabinet and increase the influence of the
administration
Localization: attempts to physically moving the ministerial cabinets closer to the administration, to
improve the working relationship between those actors
Recruitment: imposing standardized recruitment procedures (on criticism of incompetence)
Eligibility: imposing some criteria like education level, nationality level criteria
Conflict of Interest: imposing to disclose information on advisers publicly (to increase the public
trust)
Reforms: some examples

• 2000 – The Era of Big reforms
• (1) European Commission – The Kinnock Reform
o Eligibility measure (Nationality + professional background)
• (2) Belgium – The Copernicus Reform
o Localization, Role, Recruitment
• (3) Italy – The Legislative Decree 99
o Role + Eligibility
!!! Adoption ≠ Implementation
Key role of MA enable them to resist change
In Belgium and Italy they tried to change everything, but actually nothing has changed.
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Since then
• Reforms focused on Ethics and Conflict of Interest
o Belgium (Mandate and Asset declaration, Ethics Commission)
o France
o Portugal
o Italy
• One big reform: Greece (2019)
o Relabel, Size, Role
Since 2010: the reform attempts are much smaller in ambition. We see many reforms that are
focused on ethics and conflicts of interest → doesn9t change much on the work of advisers
On exception: big reform in Greece
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POLICY INSTRUMENTS
1. GUEST LECTURE – ELLE FOBÉ
1.1 INTRODUCTION TO POLICY INSTRUMENTS

What9s the problem? How to solve it?
Policy instruments: talking about the very tangible aspects of policy

→ thinking about the solutions that seem the most efficient to solve a problem
➔ often different views on what would work
example: massive car accident → solution: sell less alcohol / make people aware of the problem / …
Policy Instruments = tools of government

• concrete operational means to achieve policy goals to solve problems
• A central part of disputes and deliberations in the policy process, as well as in the public debate
The tool that in essence governments could use to achieve certain goals and solving problems
Public and political debate on this issues: opinions are quite divers
→ the instruments (the tools) that are chosen in the end may even be contested (ex. the covid
pandemic measures)
Studying policy instruments

• Origins: economics & political science
o Assumptions:
▪ state monopoly to use legitimate force
▪ PI affect/change human behavior
• Classifying/typologizing
o Kirschen: 64 instruments; Salamon: 10 methods of collective action; Van der Doelen: carrots,
sticks or sermons ; Doern & Phidd: 5 scale of coercion
• Thinking about policy instrument choice:
o Why instrument a in country x, instrument b in country y?
… for the same problem?
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Roots of academic thinking about policy instruments lay in the 50s and 60s = a time marked by
strong belief in human rationality and the technical competencies and the ability of the government
to change the society (systematically)
➔ belief in the advancement of the society was quite strong
Dispute among economist and political scientists about how far governments could and should go
in intervening in society
→ differences in classifications
Later on the attention of academics and scientists shifted to bigger questions: not just what are
policy instruments and how much state intervention does each instrument entail, but also how
choices between instruments were made (what makes governments decide if a certain instrument
is better than another, why do policy instruments differ between countries even though they have
the same problems)
1.2 CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO GOVERNMENTAL MEANS (HOOD9S NATO MODEL)
NATO-model (Hood, 1986)
Four different types on instrument, based on the means, the sources that governments used to
change societal behavior, to steer behavior of citizens and of enterprises
4 types of instruments: nodality, authority, treasure, organization

- Nodality (< node: a central point in a network): uses the source of information to steer private
behavior
- Authority: relies on the source of regulation to change and alter the behavior of citizens and
enterprises
- Treasure: refers to the use of financial incentives (money to be precise) to alter or change societal
behavior
- Organizations: uses the governments or the states own institutions or services to steer societal
behavior
➔ those instruments and the source that are used for that are the basis for Hoods NATO-model,
and this model assumes that certain requirements are needed to be fulfilled in order for this
instruments to be effective
Underlying assumptions for … to work:

- information: it relies on its moral authority to persuade people to change their behavior (it9s not
forcing people to change their behavior)
- regulation: the government is seen as a force or an actor that has the legitimate power to demand
something of its citizens and of its businesses
- money: this implies that they need certain financial means to change behavior and to disincentivize
people9s actions or businesses
- own institutions/services: based on the capacity of the governments to provide services and make
institutions work effectively and efficiently
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The essence of Hood9s model: government is a central actor in society and human behavior is in
essence rational (we can either convince, incentivize or, based on the legitimate authority of making
things happen, regulate behavior, based on rational assumptions in that behavior: coercion is present
in this model to differing degrees.
Policy Instruments based on information
Information campaigns
ex. non-smoking campaigns: based on dissuading or convincing people of pervert behavior (we want
them to stop smoking, so we provide them with messages that tells them how bas smoking is, and
based on this message we assume that we can dissuade them of this alternative behavior)
ex. labels and rankings of all sorts: also provide information about different things (the performance
of provide companies, the quality of schools / hospitals / elderly care / sustainability …)
→ not all provides by the government, some are very private initiatives
➔ often comparative information (ex. this school is better than that school): no coercion because
the government or state does not tell people how to change their behavior or what to do, they just
tell them that something should be done (they give them the opportunity to do so)
Classic instruments are information campaigns: dissuading or convincing people of preferred behavior
Non smoking campaigns
Modern instruments: labels, rankings – provide information on the performance of companies, on the quality
of schools, hospitals, elderly care, on the sustainability of consumer products, on the health quality of food
products
Comparative information – that enables citizens to improve their behaviour, stimulating them towards the right
decision
But not coercing them, forcing them to do so
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Information and blaming

• Advantages
o Adjustable general/targeted
o Where no definite solution can be found
o Low costs
o Political support
• Disadvantages
o Passive
o Not for crises
o Sometimes only symbolic
+ adjustable to different groups in the society (smokers, consumers, parents,…: very targeted)
+ temporary solution when big solutions to complex problems are difficult to take first instance (it9s
doing something at least, quite immediate action) ex. covid pandemic: information campaigns to
convince people of the effectiveness of vaccination
+ low costs: no people required to reinforce them: more or less one time cost to come up with the
campaign
+ wide political support among actors, because it9s not a very contested method (it entails a very
low degree of coercion
- implies a lot of action from citizens or businesses: being informed and taking initiatives (assumption:
when information is presented to consumers or businesses, they will change their behavior
accordingly without any consequence or without any thought to it)
- difficult to use during crises: they cannot tackle complex problems, they can only be provided in
support of certain problems and solutions, but they are not a key crucial instrument
- they entail some symbolic politics: doing something, taking action without actual decisions being
made
Policy instruments based on authority
Regulation
• Demands or directions or administrative rules
• Types:
o Economic regulation
▪ price and production control
o Social regulation
▪ physical and moral welfare, e.g. gambling, discrimination…
o Environmental regulation as a mixed type
Policy instruments based on authority are on the other side of the spectrum when it comes to
coercion
One instrument of authority is regulation: rules that are in essence coercive because they tell us
what we can and cannot do (accompanied by reinforcement of rules and sanctions if we do not obey
by the rules)
Different types of regulation

- economic regulation: regulates market activities (ex. quota on how many fish can be caught, max.
price for gas / electricity,…) (used a lot in the past)
- social regulation: protecting our wealth and health
- environmental regulation: combining aspects of the former two
Often contested: too much regulation curves market competition
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Self-regulation
• Industrial sectors or occupational groups implement their own rules that apply to all of their
members.
Less active role of the state in steering the society, more autonomy for businesses to decide on
their own ways of working and their own standards, and less coercion
Command-and-control regulation: aim at private citizens (ex. wear seatbelt when driving a car,
washing hands after using the toilet,…) → reinforced and sanctioned for them to be effective
➔ Not everyone needs this reinforcement and sanction system: most people obey by rules because
they accept the decisions that have been made
ethical codes etc.: for example in sports, airplane safety, …
Regulation
• Advantages
o Low costs
o Crisis instruments
o Symbolically attractive
• Disadvantages
o Curb market / innovation
o Low flexibility with regard to individual situations
o Over-regulation
o Capacity for implementation, enforcement and sanctions
+ low direct cost

+ ex. covid crisis: not having any social contact (can be very effective to tackle the crisis)
+ gives the impression of a strong government of strong leadership
- difficult for smaller companies to access markets, because the rules that are in place are already
often tailored to the activity of large existing player
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- not flexible: apply to anyone at anytime (ex. prohibited to sit on a bench in a park during Covid:
people were actually fined, even though these were the elderly who needed a rest)
- too many rules van be confusing: erode public support and legitimacy (what is required for lots of
regulations to work)
- rules require a certain degree of capacity from the government, to make sure that people obey by
the rules (indirectly the cost of regulation on governments are quite high still)
Policy instruments based on money / treasure
Subsidies: incentives / motivate people to display the right behavior

Taxes and charges: disincentives / dissuade people from displaying the wrong behavior
This instrument uses a lot of public means.
Subsidies
• Advantages
o Flexible
o Stimulates innovation
o Politically attractive
• Disadvantages
o Budgeting
o Disturbs market competition
o Large information requirements
o Not for crisis
o Difficult to abolish
+ adjustable in height and target groups

+ potential to support small starting enterprises and provide them with the necessary time and
money to develop and fully mature their organization
+ politically attractive, because they allow policy makers to cater to the knees of certain interest
groups
- require necessary budget, a substantial degree of public means (can be problematic, because they
may not always be available)
- can keep alive sectors and businesses that aren9t viable in the first place
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- require some information about the beneficiaries: making sure that all the conditions are met
- providing incentives (for example for renovating a house) has an effect in the medium to long term,
but it doesn9t alter people9s behavior right away
- highly unpopular for any policy maker to get rid of certain subsidies (once they are in place, it is
very difficult to abolish them)
Policy instruments based on organization
Direct public provisions: state pensions, public education, public library, public swimming pool,…
Public enterprises (operate quasi independently from the central government, and provide services
that the private market could also provide) ex. transportation
Differences between countries to the degree to which these services and enterprises are provided
by the government and not by the private market (ex. NMBS for national rail travel, but international
rail transportation is offered by private companies like Thalys, Eurostar,…)
The enterprises that provide services to the market entail a high degree of coercion, there is often
no choice for the consumer about which library to go in your own municipality (often one public
library)
Public enterprises
• Extreme form of regulation
• Share of public property: min. 51%
• Degree of public control and management
• Sell goods and services
• (Relation revenues – expenses)
Extreme form of regulation, because activities that can in essence be provided by the market are
now provides by a public organization, by a state owned organization
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Public enterprises / direct service provision

• Advantages
o Accumulation of expertise
o Low transaction costs (internalization)
• Disadvantages
o Loss of flexibility
o Political control and incoherence
o Not very cost-conscious
+ It builds up capacity within governments to deliver these services, to set up these organisations
+ implies low transaction costs, which means that the risks of deciding on delivering services and
deciding how to do so are internalized within the government
- very little flexibility: it takes a while to alter procedures and agreements (also for consumers: very
little choice in which company to rely on)
- a lot of political control and incoherence in decision making: ex. when the political principle changes
(with different political views) it may impact their performance quite significantly
- not very cost-conscious because they experience very little market competition
1.3 DEBATES ON POLICY INSTRUMENTS
Debates on
• Degree of state intervention
• 8objective9 instrument criteria
Degree of state intervention
Policy instruments are about achieving policy goals

• by affecting/changing human behavior
• Shared focus (in the literature) on coercion
o more than merely encouraging or discouraging
o + also restricting/enforcing behavior … by one actor, i.e. the state
• Attention for particular role of the government
o monopoly of legitimate force
o capacity to issue rules
→ Studying policy instrument choice enables identification of acceptable/legitimate level of coercion in
societies.
The issue of debate on which instrument is better than another instrument lies in the degree of
state intervention that is used.
→ some prefer no intervention at all, some prefer a lot of intervention
Hood9s NATO model is one type of classification and is very intuitive because it relates back to the
means of the government
→ an alternative way of looking at policy instrument relates to this debate on the degree of state
intervention (takes into account the extreme position of no intervention at all ↔ Hood: essentially
departs from some level of coercion – from information to regulation)
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Degree of state-intervention-classification
Categories on the right (row 1-2): categories that Hood would also assign to his four types of
instruments
Other types of instruments that are not used by governments, but by other actors in the society
= voluntary instruments = all sort of initiatives that family and communities can set up, that voluntary
organizations can take, and that private markets can endeavor
Ex: private markets can choose that they do not need the government to address the problem of
traffic accidents, by limiting the speed a car can go
In a lot of third world developing countries there is no government to implement policy instruments,
so people have to rely on family etc…
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Degree of state-intervention-classification
• Authoritative instruments
o Limit individual choice, high degree of force
• Mixed instruments
o Behavior / preference modification
• Voluntary instruments
o No or low state involvement
▪ Economic self-interest, moral values or emotional satisfaction
▪ Applied to social and economic policies
▪ Privatisation, belief in individual liberties, cost containment & 8communitarianism9
Authoritative and mixed instruments are quite often used by governments, but voluntary
instruments add something to the classification of instruments because they take into account the
fact that there may be low or no state involvement
Cf. Dye & non-decisions: The absence of a policy is also a policy!
8Objective9 instrument criteria

<The variety of instruments available to policy-makers to address a policy problem is limited only by
their imagination.=
(Howlett, Ramesh & Perl 2009, p. 114)
• Mutually exchangeable instruments
o But often no clear connection policy goal and chosen/preferred policy instruments
• Policy instrument choice on the basis of certain criteria
o Effectiveness
o Efficiency
o Legitimacy
o Political support
o + Target-group thinking: knowledge, values, attitudes
Which instrument to chose? Why is a certain instrument chosen?
In theory (normative approach rooted in rationality, positivism)

• Instrument selection = objective 8weighing9 of options based on criteria
↔
In Practice (post positivism)
• choice ≠ objective
• but based on:
o Ideology
o Educational background
o Habit
o Experience
o Organizational culture
o …
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2. GUEST LECTURE – PIETER RAYMAEKERS

Nudging, or the behavioural turn in public policy
Bridging the gaps

• Intention-behaviour gap
what we know ≠ what we want ≠ what we do
• Behavioural sciences - policy sciences
o → Behavioural Public Policy
o → Behaviourally informed policy instruments
Traditional policy instruments approach citizens as rational decision makers, they look at the costs
and benefits of certain choices and they make a calculated choice
→ But this is not always the case: they start from 2 gaps
- intention-behavior gap: ex. it9s not because we know speeding isn9t allowed that we don9t do it
→ the real behavior is always difficult
➔ over the last half century: scientists have been accumulating behavioral expertise on how we can
bridge this gap
- behavioral sciences – policy sciences gap: for a long time this knowledge about human behavior
has not been used sufficiently
➔ this marriage between behavioral sciences and policy sciences is called behavioral public policy
About bounded rationality
The idea that we are not 100% rational (we are emotional, we get carried away,…) = bounded
rationality (goes back a long time)
Behavioural Insights and Public Policy: institutions applying BI to public policy around the world
Over the last two decade there has been some behavioral turn (now there are more than 200
organizations within governments over 100 countries that are considered behavioral inside steams
or nudge units: they are using behavioral insides to influence and steer the behavior of cititzens)
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2.1 THE HUMAN PSYCHE
Not only a behavioral turn, but also an experimental turn
Which table is the longest? (Most people think the left table is the longest, but the tables are equal)
Which emotion do you see? (Anger)
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Two cognitive systems (< social and cognitive psychology)
The idea is that we have two types of thinking
System 1: fast reasoning, automatic thinking, rather unconscious, we use it all the time to make every
day decisions
→ We can train this (ex. typing, driving,…)
System 2: slower, more conscious and more effortful, used to make more complex decisions
The cognitive bias codex
In a perfect world we would be able to use our system 2 the whole time, but that9s not possible.
We don9t have the cognitive capacity to be using this system during the whole day, we rely most of
the time on system 1.
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The cognitive bias codex: especially when we need to act fast or if there is not enough information,
we use system 1 reasoning BUT this can lead to mistakes (to cognitive errors or biases)
4 of the most typical biases:

- status quo bias: we tend to seek for the path of least resistance (we like things to stay like they are
and we don9t do effort to change them)
- present bias: we tend to put a lot of weight on short term small rewards, instead of looking at long
term advantages
- optimism bias: ex. the number of students that thinks they will pass vs the number of people that
passes
- confirmation bias: we tend to search for information that supports or confirms the beliefs or values
we already have
Cognitive biases in COVID-19 times
Hindsight bias: we always think it is easier to predict afterwards, we look at decisions of the past
with information of the present (it9s always easy to say 8we should have gone in lockdown earlier9)
2.2 THE NUDGE NARRATIVE
Nudging is a bit of a catalyst, starting out this entire movement of using behavioral sciences in public
policy
Financial crisis (2008)

• Bounded rationality
• Bounded willpower
• Social proof
2008: year of the financial crisis

- bounded rationality: financial products were too complex, the high management of the banks didn9t
even get what it was about
- bounded willpower: people knew that the story was too good to be true, but they still believed it
- social proof: all people were winning at the stock market, so people tended to follow the majority
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Definition of nudging
• Nudge = a light touch or gentle push (in the 8right9 direction)
• Nudge = <any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people9s behavior in a predictable
way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.=
• Libertarian paternalism
2008 book 8Nudge9 published: book about improving decisions, about health, wealth and happiness
➔ You can see that this 8nudge9 is some sort of an instrument to help people make the right choices
First title of the book 8libertarian paternalism9, but the editor recommended to edit the title
→ it9s important that the political philosophy is libertarian paternalism (some sort of a middle ground
between very liberal and very paternalistic)
Pioneers in the US & UK

• 2009: Barack Obama appoints Sunstein as the head of OIRA
• 2010: David Cameron with the support of Richard Thaler founds the Behavioural Insights Team
or Nudge Unit
Third important event of 2008 (financial crisis, Nudge book, Obama president)
OIRA = Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs → determines much of the information
campaigns and the regulation making
➔ politics and policy making supporting this new movement
Taxonomy
A lot of things can be a nudge

→ taxonomy: 4 big types / categories of nudges
What can you do to nudge people

- you can change the information environment
- you can change the social environment
- you can change the physical environment
- you can change the default option
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1. Changing the information environment
Different nudge messages: see which one works best

→ especially the message on the top (the concept of reciprocity) increases flu vaccination
2. Changing the social environment
Idea is that if people don9t know what they should do or they don9t know what the desired behavior
is, that just showing them what most people do can help a lot
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3. Changing the physical environment
4. Changing the default option
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2.3 THE BEHAVIOURAL TURN
How can we integrate this insides from behavioral sciences and this nudge narrative into a policy
analysis framework into the policy sciences
Exponential increase of using nudge, so this behavioral turn has also reach policy sciences
We have knowledge from social and cognitive psychology & from behavioral economics
→ they form this idea about nudging and behavioral insights
The experimental turn

• Experimental method is long established in other scientific fields such a psychology and health
sciences
• (Behavioural) Public Policy as an experimental design science?
• Different types of experiment:
o Field
o Survey
o Laboratory
o Nature
o Quasi
o …
The behavioral turn coemerged with an experimental turn
On the one hand we have this nudges, on the other hand we have the idea that we should test the
effectiveness of these new nudges
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A fourth policy instrument?
A big question now is 8can we consider this nudges as a new policy instrument?9
Three main bodies of criticism
Effectiveness
Small to median effects versus large populations
Small to median effects: mostly about 2-3% so we need big populations (it9s not something you do
in a little town)
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Cost efficiency
• Nudges are cheap and attractive in times of austerity
• Relative versus absolute cost efficiency
• Underestimating real cost (recourses, manpower)
Transparency
What about transparency?
A behavioural lens?
A dual strategy
• Addressing the ration dimension of behaviour
o Eg. better informed, cost/benefit ratio
o ➔ traditional instruments
• Harnessing the unconscious dimension of behaviour
o Eg. Biases and heuristics
o ➔ Behavioural Insights & Nudging
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PROBLEM DEFINITION AND AGENDA

SETTING
Session 5
Previous session
• Policy instruments
• Types and classifications
• Strength and weaknesses of the different policy instrument types
• Current trends and debates in instrument choice
Today
• The policy cycle model
• Problem definition
o Positivist and post-positivist views
• Agenda-setting
o Ideas, discourse, and argumentation
o Policy types
o Agenda-setting theories
1. PROBLEM DEFINITION / RECOGNITION
What are policy problems? How are they perceived?

• Economic, ecological, or technical problems influence the life chances of people and, thereby,
become social problems. (Schneider & Janning 2006)
• Positivist view vs. constructivist view
Positivistic view: there are economical and ecological factors and technical problems that will cause
social problems across the world, that will be picked up by politics
➔ in a positivistic view this happens quite automatically (cf. definition Anderson): a problem in a
positivist view will always find its way to the agenda
↔ constructivists: actually study why some problems are a concern for some, but not for others,
and how then problems can also be kept from the agenda
Positivistic view: If problems are visible enough, they will find their way to the agenda (irrespective
of politicians and citizen9s preferences)
↔ in constructivist view: some problems never make it to the agenda, because they are deliberate
kept of the agenda, because they are not recognized by important actors in the system for many
other reasons
Origin of policy problems: positivism

• <The facts speak for themselves.=
▪ Economic and technological determinism
o Little attention to political, cultural and ideological factors
o Sharkansky, Wilensky (convergence hypothesis)
• Political economy
o Political business cycles
o Political economy and political actors
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Sharkansky, Wilensky: since problems are resembling each other across the world, so there is a
global agenda actually
→ problems are converting and from their perspective also policies will convert (solutions will
become more similar (point of debate whether you accept this hypothesis or not)
Political business cycles: electoral cycles cause some problems to emerge at the agenda at the start
(or end) of a new term of a government
→ issues that are not very popular: you put on the agenda by the start of their term, hoping that
they will be forgetting when there is a re-election
→ decisions that make you popular in the face of citizens are better to put on the agenda closer to
the elections
Origin of policy problems: constructivism = socially constructed process of problem perception

• Role of ideas and ideologies
• Discourse and language
• Impact of professionals and experts
• Central role of argumentation
• Policy problems as narratives
• Media and problem definition
Policy problems are originating from a socially constructed process of problem perception, so actors
who have power (based on different resources) can have problems recognizing the problems of
some groups
There are all kind of mechanisms to gatekeep problems from entering the agenda or from pushing
items on the agenda
→ ideas and ideologies play a role, framing, argumentation, narratives, media,…
Framing: how certain problems are framed in the media, and how a certain framing will also
determine the further process of policy making
From problems to solutions

• Dominating view: No clear connection between =a problem= and <a solution=
(see: garbage can / multiple-streams model; variety of policy instruments)
• Agenda setting
o <Why do some issues appear on the governmental agenda for action and not others?=
Dominating view: there is no clear connection between a problem and a solution (one problem
could become a solution for another problem)
2. FROM PROBLEM DEFINITION TO AGENDA SETTING

Agenda-setting: introduction (1)
• Definition of agenda:
o List of subjects and problems onto which public officials and persons or groups external to government
pay attention at a specific point in time.
o Political agenda (other agendas, public agenda etc.)
• How do different policy problems get on the agenda?
• How are they selected for government action?
Not all subjects and problems are very well defined, but there are at least themes
Political agenda has another connotation: deals with issues of electoral strategies or solving internal
or external fights with or between other parties
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Short films: <Borgen=

• Agenda setting and the media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn7c7EHtCLU
• Ideas and problem definition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa-40hCIfDY&t=58s
• Watch the series to learn about: politics, negotiations in government coalitions, spin
doctors/political advisors, the role of the media...
• Compare with theories/frameworks such as: party differences, power resources, pluralism,
multiple-streams framework…
How are problems socially constructed? How do different views on problems lead to different
definitions?
If you look at people sleeping on the street as a problem on vagrancy, than you look at it as a
problem of nuisance so the solution would be police and legal sanctions
If you look at the problem as a problem of homelessness, so you try to understand how people
became homeless (ex. prices of housing, lack of social assistance,…)
➔ the same manifestation of an issue
vagrancy = landloperij (there used to be a law that you were obligated to have your identity card
and 20 frank with you, or you could be sanctioned)

• Pluralism:
o Agenda determined by groups
• Criticism:
o Government initiates policy programmes by its own
o Non-decision making, the third face of power
(Schattschneider, Bachrach & Baratz, Lukes, Crenson)
The view on how open the agenda is for problems
Pluralist view: agenda is determined by groups and groups will always find their way to the agenda
→ critics:
- some groups have more and better access to the agenda than other (ex. because they have the
media behind them, they can mobilize lots of people on the street, they can finance research or
electoral candidates,…)
- government can initiate policy programs on their own
- non-decision making: decision not to tackle a certain issue
- third face of power: the people who suffer from a problem don9t even articulate the problem on
the agenda (strong exertion of power: preventing peoples problems from entering the agenda)
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3. AGENDA-SETTING: IDEAS, DISCOURSE AND ARGUMENTATION
Experts, professionals, and the marketing of ideas

• Knowledge is power
• Knowledge requires money
• Access to knowledge can be prevented (ex. on social media)
• Think tanks
o Post-modern
o Replacing democratic agenda-setting
o Citizen panels as democratic alternative
Discourse and argumentation

• Brendan Bruce
o Undermining opponents with words
o Images of power
• Murrey Edelman
o Policy is the creation of an illusion
o Words that succeed and policies that fail
• Fisher and Forester
o Argumentative turn in policy analysis
• Deborah Stone
o The policy paradox
o Agenda-setting as narrative
There is a whole literature on the role of discourse and argumentation in agendasetting
Brandon Bruce: advisor to Margaret Thatcher, very much inspired by Machiavelli

→ book images of power: examples of how you can undermine opponents with words and using a
certain narrative
Deborah Stone: shows how the discussion of problems a government should deal with is very much
captured as narratives
The narrative structure of problem definition

• Deborah Stone
• Narratives and the social construction of problems
1. Stories of decline (things got worse, e.g. family life)
o Stymied progress story (progress halted e.g. economy)
o Change is only an illusion (e.g. crime numbers)
2. Story of helplessness and control
o Conspiracy (e.g. Trump: political elite in Washington, the many need to rise up against the
few)
o Blame the victim (e.g. homelessness, unemployment)
In agenda-setting the definition of problems follows a certain narrative structure
One narrative: a story of decline

- stymied progress story: all was well and then something happened, a problem emerged (a typical
narrative you find on overregulation, on economic action being too much constrained by for instance
environmental regulation)
- change is only an illusion: don9t be blinded by numbers → sometimes used by actors who want
more funding for instance (ex. for cancer institutions)
Second narrative: story of helplessness and control
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Media and problem definition

• Intensifying problems
• Producing problems
• Gatekeepers
• Pluralism versus critical analysis
Examples of how the media contributes to problem definition
4. POLICY TYPES / CHARACTERISTICS AND AGENDA SETTING
Types of policy issues and agenda-setting

• Wilson
o Spreading or concentration of costs and benefits
• Lowi
o <Policy determines politics=
• Distributive, redistributive, lumpy issues, principle issues
Wilson: If there is a spread or concentration of costs and benefits, you will get another type of
discussion during agenda-setting
→ the nature of the policy in terms of how benefits and costs are going to be spread over different
groups in society determines very much the politics surrounding policy issues
Generally four types: Distributive, redistributive, lumpy issues, principle issues

→ you get a different configuration of actors who are pro or against certain government action
Distributive: everyone gets to one (doesn9t happen very often)

Redistributive: ex. who gets to pay more taxes?
Lumpy Issues: even if your in favour of something, that doesn9t mean you want it yourself (not in my
backyard policy)
Principle issues: where there is not much negotiation room (before or against something) ex. ethical
issues like abortion)
Other policy characteristics that can influence agenda setting

• Unambiguousness vs. ambiguousness
• Many people affected vs. few people affected
• Urgent vs. not urgent
• Simple vs. complex
• Routine vs. novelty
• High vs. low symbolic character
Schneider & Janning 2006, Blum & Schubert 2011
5. AGENDA-SETTING THEORIES
Agenda-setting processes: Cobb & Elder

2 agendas 4 stages 3 models
• Systemic agenda • Initiation • External initiation
• Institutional agenda • Specification • Mobilisation model
• Broadening support • Internal initiation
• Placement on the
institutional agenda
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Governments cannot deal with all the items on the systemic agenda and only few items will make it
to the institutional agenda. This develops along 4 stages: there is an initiation or a recognition of a
problem, then there is specification of what is exactly the problem and what causes it, then support
for an issue is broadened, and then the issue gets places on the institutional agenda (so there will be
proposals of law, there will be regulation, there will be design and consideration)
Cobb & Elder say that there are three ways in which you can understand how items from the
systemic agenda arrive on the institutional agenda
- external initiation: here you would get societal actors organizing and putting problems on the
agenda
- mobilization model: when the government puts an item on the agenda, and then seeks support of
citizens (so then tries to sell the problem definition)
- internal initiation: an issue that is initiated within government by the covered pressure of specific
groups
Difference internal and external initiation

- external: it is clear where the pressure is coming from to put an item on the agenda
- internal: actors without necessarily having public support manage to get an issue on the agenda
Model Cobb & Elder: inspired the agenda-setting processes of Howlett & Ramesh
Agenda-setting processes: Kingdon

• 3 streams
o Problem stream
o Policy stream
o Politics stream
• Policy windows / Windows of opportunity
• Chance, context
One of the most influential agenda-setting processes
Kingdon: studies the number of agenda-setting processes in the US

→ came to the conclusion that there are three streams that kind of exist relatively independently
from each other
- problem stream (~ systemic agenda C&E): all concerns and issues people worry about (world of
problems)
- policy stream: where all kinds of definitions of problems float and often lots of thinking have been
done on how to tackle certain problems (world of experts, research,…: think about how to define
problems and consider solutions)
- politics stream: where you find political parties, electoral concerns, electoral cycles, all kinds of
political considerations that are not necessarily based on objective analysis of problems, but that are
driven by political motives (world of politics and political / electoral considerations)
A problem arrives on the agenda, and with it the request of a policy, but only under certain
conditions: these three streams should come together at a moment in time
→ by coming together, a window of opportunity is opened for a problem to be recognized
How does this confluence of the different streams happen?

- by chance / context: events, crises,… are very important in opening policy windows, because that9s
when the problem becomes manifest / visible, that9s when politicians are compelled to show that
they can make a difference, …
- political savviness: you can have policy entrepreneurs (= people who make the most of a good
crisis: will push for certain issues on the agenda, will organize media access, build a coalition, push
for a certain idea,…) those people can push a window open and connect the different streams
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Agenda-setting processes: Howlett & Ramesh
Initiator = who puts something on the agenda?

Public support: how much?
Global warming: experts and counter-experts

• John Coleman slams global warming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk8SSqc7ekM
• Scientist builds argument for precautionary action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
What kind of narratives were you able to identify? (Narratives: story of decline, conspiracy,…)
Coleman:
- (climate)change is just an illusion
- conspiracy
Scientist:
- stories of decline
- precautionary principle
Actors and institutions in the subsystem

- Epistemic communities: problem framing and shared narratives/discourses
- Advocacy coalitions: shared ideas, frames and proposing solutions
- Policy entrepreneurs: facilitate agenda-setting by exploiting policy windows
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POLICY FORMULATION AND DECISION-

MAKING
Last week
• The policy cycle
• Problem Definition
o Positivist view
o Constructivist view
• Agenda setting
o Ideas, discourses and argumentation
o Policy types, policy characteristics
o Agenda-setting theories
Today
• Policy formulation
o Definition and characteristics
o Actor constellations: Policy sub-systems, communities, networks
• Political decision-making
o Definition and characteristics
o Different decision-making models, how decision-making works
▪ rational
▪ incremental
▪ Irrational
Decision-making is the stage of the policy cycle that is the most political
1. POLICY FORMULATION
Policy formulation
After identifying problems, putting them on the agenda
= definition, weighing, acceptance, planning of policy options
• Less rational than might be expected, political ambiguities
• Limits
o Dominant actors in the policy community
o Moral and ethics
Definition, search for policy options, discussion of what would be the best solution to address an
identified problem
There is a lot of rationality in the literature on policy formulation, with calculation and what the
effects are of certain policy options, but in reality this process is much less rational than might be
expected (depends on problems not being clearly defined and on there being dominant policy actors
in the policy community)
There are limits to what one can formulate as policies: some are not moral acceptable
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Characteristics (cf. Jones, 1984)

• No monopoly of one group
• Policy formulation without target group contact
• Policy formulation without support
• Policy formulation as win and loose solutions create winners and losers
• limitations:
o substantial: types of policy problems
o procedural: institutional and tactical
Substantial: ex. eradication of poverty, it9s a very complicated problem so there will always be a lot
of debate on how to solve it
Procedural: first options need to be within the power and competences of the governments involved
+ tactical and political limitations
Policy sub-systems
= actors involved in formulation in specific policy sectors
• Sub-governments (pluralist criticism) or <iron triangle=:
o Small number of participants (E.g. state-labour-employers)
o Stabile interaction in closed processes
o Control of the policy sector (limited access to outsiders)
• Not for ALL policy sectors we are all part of policy communities: share visions or beliefs
• Also: Issue networks (Heclo): Policy networks is narrower than communities, networks
o Large number of participants share a policy solution focus, the members do not necessarily
share the same interests
o Larger support Iron triangles: small number of participants, stabile interaction
o Less control promoting solutions, closed process & control of policy
sector, limited access to outsiders and insiders
Policy formulation is not the playground of one actor, usually there are a lot of actors involved
Scholars have said that this 8iron triangle9 may be true for some sectors, but not for all of them!
↔ issue networks: an issue pops up and then all kinds of organizations press for certain policies, for
certain decisions
Advocacy coalitions
• Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (Advocacy coalition)
• >constructivism
• All types of actors in a policy sector come together in advocacy coalitions for policy formulation
• They are grouped because of their common belief systems and individual interests
• Examples
o Netherlands: polder model – neo-liberal model
o Repression versus prevention
o Anti-globalists
o Other? wind power: regulation coalition vs pro-coalition vs anti-coalition
sugar tax proponent and opponents (big food, anti-poverty)

Policy communities
• Shared visions or beliefs prior to interests; communal policy focus
• Only involved in the formulation of policy problems and solutions
• No structured interaction
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• Examples: how shared/contested is knowledge? Monopoly or plural communities?

o Repression-prevention in judiciary
o Government and market when it comes to recovery policy
o Active vs passive labour market policy
Policy networks
• Katzenstein (term)
• R.A.W. Rhodes (further developing the concept)
• Wilks and Wright (stability of networks and interactions)
Difference networks – communities

• Difference in the motivations of actors
o Knowledge
o Expertise
o Advocating interests
• Networks share a policy focus plus advocated interests
• Actors within the same network may advocate different interests and not share any beliefs
In communities we mainly talk of knowledge, expertise,…

In networks, it is mainly interest next to policy focus (pursuit of interest is more important)
Typology of policy networks

Policy capacity!!!! eens bekijken in slides staat niet
• Criteria in samenvatting
o Number and type of participants
o Relations between participants
• 8 types (Howlett)
o Bureaucratic networks
o Issue networks
o Participatory networks
o Pluralistic networks
o Clientelistic networks
o Captured networks
o Triadic network
o Corporatist networks
Who guides the policy formulation, who steers it? = relations between participants
→ the state or groups? (within the groups you can also make the distinction between one or more
groups)
Typology of policy networks (Howlett)
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2. DECISION-MAKING
Characteristics
…<defines a number of operations, via which – by using material and personal resources – a specified
goal shall be reached.= (Schneider & Janning 2006, p. 57) = rational view
• Material and personal resources:
see negotiations about e.g.:
o Which department/ministry etc. leads negotiations?
o Which financial resources are foreseen?
• Specified goal
o see negotiations of the previous stages of the policy cycle (problem definition, agenda setting,
policy formulation)
Who decides?
• Typically, the number of involved political actors gets smaller with each stage of the policy cycle
until political decision-making
• Authorised actors: public actors with respective competencies, who can decide
• <Other actors have, at best, a voice in the decision-making process, but they do not have a vote per se.=
(Howlett & Ramesh 2003)
Decision-making models
• Three classical models
o Rational model
o Incremental model
o Irrational model
• Alternative models
o Forester
Decision-making
• Choice between policy alternatives
• The most political stage
• No stand-alone stage, rather grounded in previous stages
• Not technical, winners and losers
Types of decisions and non-decisions

• non-decision making also important (The absence of a policy is also a policy!)
• Non-decision making vs. negative decision
• Positive decision: Decision to change the status quo
• Negative decision: Decision not to change the status quo, put on the agenda, but no reforms
decided upon
• Non-decision: (conscious) Decision not to do anything about an issue, not put on the agenda
(see Blum & Schubert 2011)
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Rational model (1)

• Determining the goals for solving a problem
• Exploring all possible strategies to reach the goal
• Exploring all important consequences of policy alternatives; estimating the probability of
consequences
• Choice as strategic with largest benefits and lowest costs
Rational model (2)

• Attractive portrayal of policymaking
o Although rational, best options are not always accepted or supported by people
• Philosophic foundations
o enlightenment, positivism
• Scientific method, engineering method, manager method
• Source: Fayol, Gulick and Urwick
Enlightenment: in a view that we can control society
Rational model (3)

• Strong belief in rationalism, also normative belief in how policies should be made
• Criticism
o Cognitive limitations = bounded rationality (Simon)
o intrinsic ambiguousness and politics – political ambiguity
o satisfycing instead of maximizing
satisfycing = maximizing en satisfying
Incremental model (1) (Lindblom)

• Only familiar alternatives, small changes
• Mixing policy goals with other values
• Remedies instead of proactive action
• Trial and error
• Limited number of consequences are being considered
• Fragmented analytical process through the participation of several actors
incremental: small changes to the status quo
Incremental model (2)

• 8Science of muddling through9
• Small adaptations of the status quo
o Through negotiations
o Through standard procedures (e.g. inflation-based raising of benefits)
• No difference means-goal
• Problem-solving instead of goal-finding
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Incremental model (3)

• Normative criticism
o No focus on the direction of change
o Conservative
o Undemocratic
o Short-term view
• Analytical criticism
o Only for situations with continuity and availability of means
o Only for stabile policy contexts
Other models
• Combination rational-incremental model
o Mixed Scanning model (Etzioni)
▪ Policy alternatives considered are limited, but decision-making is more rational
• Irrational model
o Garbage can model (March & Olsen)
▪ Ad hoc, chance, <focusing events=
▪ Goals are not known
▪ No attention for relation causes-consequences
▪ See also Kingdon9s multiple-streams model (agenda-setting)
▪ Yes Minister, the Compassionate Society?
Alternative models (1): Forester

• Requirements for rational decision-making
o Small number of participants
o Simple setting
o Problem is well-defined
o Perfect information
o No urgent situation
Alternative models (2): Forester
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IMPLEMENTATION
1. INTRODUCTION
Central question
How can implementation research be characterized (Theory) and what does it take to realize policy goals
(Practice)?
2. STUDYING POLICY IMPLEMENTATION (THEORY)
A quote
The goals have been formulated. The decisions have been made. And the rest is a matter of implementation.
It seems to presume that no decisions have to be made during the implementation.

It gives the expression that implementation is just a matter executing, but it isn9t that simple.
Typical top-down view of implementation: implementation here is seen as residual in this view,
something that can be taken for granted
An example
The painting and the hole in the wall
Explication: suppose you have a large painting and hire a carpenter to hang it in your living room (on
the right), but hangs it lower than you preferred, because the carpenter knows exactly the place of
the electricity cables behind the wallpaper
→ what does this express?
The relevance of implementation: implementation is just more than a residual
➔ implementation has a logic of its own
Two contrasting perspectives

• implementation seen as following instructions
• implementation seen as practice
There are three broad categories of approaches

- top-down approaches
- bottom-up approaches
- synthesizing approaches
A 8top-down9 perspective (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973)
First print of this book was made in 1973

→ Why has this book become a classic in public administration?
- the book expressed explicit the tension from a social sciences9 perspective to what happens
after a bill becomes a law
- it tells a story of disappointment about the less than hoped for results in practice, of the
good intentions formulated before
- the study can be seen as emblematic for the top-down perspective on policy-implementation
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Top-down implementation studies: features

• A public programme as a single case
• 8Vertical9 comparison
• Evaluations of goal achievement
Very soon researcher will see some type of implementation gap or failure: implementation studies
following such a top-down perspective observe very soon already a mismatch between what has
been achieved and what was expected
Characterized the top-down perspective as the thesis of incongruent implementation
Many single case studies of implementation have the character of evaluation of goal achievement
What is compared: policy results and policy intentions (because obviously things can go wrong:
therefore implementation research = misery research)
The top-down perspective: characterization

• Intentions precede actions.
• Goals determine instruments. Instruments determine results.
• Policy formation is more important than policy implementation.
What you see here is the assumption of a linear causality: the idea that goals determine instruments,
and instruments determine results
→ implies a chronological order: intentions precede actions
Implementation is perceived as following instructions.

→ When things goes wrong: this failure will be attributed to a lack of compliance by the implementor
A 8bottom-up9 perspective (Lipsky, 1980)
Turned the top-down perspective upside down: policies aren9t made at the
ministries, but at street-level
➔ rather revolutionary
Bottom-up implementation studies: features

• In-depth case studies versus surveys
• Micro-level comparison
• Focus on what happens at the street level
These studies want to discover how street-level bureaucrats are dealing with multiple amounts and
scarcity of resources in often very difficult circumstances
The bottom-up perspective: characterization

• Policies are made at the street level.
• Multiple 8vectors inward9 (Weatherly)
• 8Dilemmas of the individual in public services9 (Lipsky)
8Synthesizing9 approaches
• The Policy-Implementation Process Model (Van Meter and Van Horn)
• The Communications Model of Intergovernmental Policy Implementation (Goggin et al.)
• The Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier, Weible a.o.)
• The Policy Regime Perspective (May)
• The Integrated Implementation Model (Winter)
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Not going into detail for this approaches
8Synthesizing9 approaches: features

• Explaining the dynamics and results of policy processes
• Comprehensive
• Quantitative orientation
8Synthesizing9 approaches: characterization

• Multi-level dynamics
• Applicable as identifiable 8theoretical approach9
• Methodological rigour
Multi-level: in all these approaches the distinction between micro-, meso- and macrolevel can be
identified
This approaches also have been applied by other authors than the ones that invented them, as such
they are used in international implementation research
They meet the requirement of structured
Characterizing the state of the field

• Top-down implementation studies
o Ongoing stream of single case studies
o Implementation studies of EU directives
o Implementation science
• Bottom-up implementation studies
o Novel conceptualizations (street-level bureaucracy and beyond)
o Multiple aspects
o Steps towards comparative research
• Synthesizing approaches
o Being adopted and applied
o No hegemonic status
You may expect only synthesizing approaches being applied in implementation researches
BUT that is not the case, all three perspectives are alive
➔ not any approach has received an hegemonic status
Implementation research: an ongoing quest

→ conclusion: co-existence and evolution of variety of perspectives and approaches (with cyclical
elements)
3. IMPLEMENTING PUBLIC POLICIES (PRACTICE)
Two contrasting perspectives (foci) in implementation research related to two different loci in the policy
process
• At the top The world of policy intentions (rule making)
• At the bottom The world of implementation (rule application)
In the history of implementation theory and research authors have expressed fundamental criticisms
on the top down perspective of implementation
→ essence: limited explanatory power of the top-down perspective (you can not explain much with
it)
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➔ then why is the top-down perspective then still so much alive?

Despite the criticisms, the top-down perspective can still be observed in implementation theory and
research and in policy making
The policy process as applied problem-solving

Agenda-setting Problem recognition
Policy formulation Proposal of solution
Decision-making Choice of solution
Policy implementation Putting solution into effect
Policy evaluation Monitoring results
Implementation is here characterized as no more or no less than the rational idea 8we have identified
a problem, we have identified a solution, the next thing is putting solution into effect9
→ implementation is a residual
➔ essence of top-down implementation
Policy as rational problem-solving - Policy as continued politics

A 8quest for control9 - Policy as a message
Policy-on-paper as technical instruction - Professionalism as to be identified in
practice
Implementation research (theory) reflects the dualities of implementing public policies in real life
(practice)
Why does implementation need attention, seen from the top?

• Problems varied
• Circumstances specific
• Stakeholders multiple
Why does implementation need attention, seen from the top? (continued)
Conditions of perfect implementation (Hood, 1976)
1. Implementing (unitary) organization works like an army, with clear lines of authority.
2. Initial standards and objectives are being followed.
3. Implementers do what they are asked to do.
4. Organization-units communicate perfectly.
5. There is no time pressure.
Conditions of perfect implementation (Gunn, 1978)
1. There are no external restrictions.
2. There is enough time.
3. There are sufficient means, in each step of the implementation.
4. The theory behind the policy is plausible.
5. There is a direct relation between cause and consequence.
6. The implementing organizations do not depend on each other.
7. All implementers agree on the objectives.
8. All objectives can be specified in the concrete actions.
9. Good communication between the implementing organizations
10. Everyone respects authority and obeys.
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Making policy is political
• Multiple diversity: Values, stakes and interpretations (cf. Stone 2012)
• Ongoing interaction as (verbal) struggle
• Who influence implementation doing what, how, why and with what effects = Empirical questions
There are many reasons why implementation is complex

→ it all comes down to the fact that implementation is part of a fundamentally political process,
political in the sense that in definition a variety of stakes of values is apparent
Why does implementation need attention, seen from the bottom?

• Discretion inherent. Policy goals, often vague and conflicting, need interpretation.
• Accountabilities. Multiple and practiced beyond hierarchy.
• Workload. Ongoing stream of rules may lead to 8policy alienation9 (Tummers 2012).
Why does implementation need attention, seen from the bottom? (continued)
• Implementation takes place in a multi-layered system of 8co-governance9.
• Plurality of 8discretionary actors9
• Performing their tasks, but no 8puppets on a string9
Why does implementation need attention, seen from the top and from the bottom?
What does it take to realize policy goals?
Important are at least:
• Communication (cf. 8Policy as a message9)
• Coalitions, commitment and capacity (Continued 8politics9)
• Capacity and craftsmanship. Enabling and enhancing 8public service professionalism9 (Hupe 2019)
= The five Cs of realistic implementation
4. CONCLUSION
Both in studying policy implementation (Theory) and in implementing public policies (Practice) attention
to the street level is to be included.
What happens on the ground?
attention to the context, both for theory and for practice
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EVALUATION
After implementation
• The policy cycle
• Implementation
• The advent of implementation research
• Why is implementation complex?
• Implementation approaches
o Top-down
o Bottom-up
1. WHAT IS EVALUATION?
Evaluation: introduction
• Closer investigation of
o Working processes
o Means
o Results
o Reaching of goals
• Through bureaucrats, politicians, external actors
Broad versus narrow definition

• Broad: political evaluation etc.
• Narrower:
<Evaluation is the process of systematically determining merit, worth, or significance of something.= (M.
Scriven)
<Evaluation can be viewed as a structured process that creates and synthesizes information intended to
reduce the level of uncertainty for stakeholders about a given program or policy. It is intended to answer
questions or test hypotheses, the results of which are then incorporated into the information bases used by
those who have a stake in the program or policy.=
(McDavid & Hawthorn)
2. FORMS OF EVALUATION (BROAD-NARROW)
Broad – narrow understanding

• Political evaluation
• Juridical evaluation
• Administrative or rational evaluation
We take a broad view because not all evaluation is very systematic, and the actors involved in
evaluation may also differ
→ three types of evaluation
Evaluation: a rational or political process?

• Dominance of the rational model
• Classical boundaries to rationality
• Political boundaries to rationality
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• Evaluation is, intrinsically, a political endeavour

• The biggest advantage is the possibility to learn
It is not as rational as presented because there is not always perfect information, sometimes short
of time,… (classical and political boundaries)
3. EVALUATION AND THE POLICY CYCLE
Political evaluation
• Not systematic, no sophisticated methods
• One-sided and biased, but still relevant
• Not directed at improving policies
• Directed at support or dismissal of policies
• At times of elections or referenda
• Consultation with members of the policy subsystem
One-sided and biased: It shows the positions of stakeholders and the concerns they may have
Not directed at improving policies: not directed to giving advice
Juridical evaluation
• Evaluation through juridical institutions
• Possible conflicts between policies and constitutional standards, administrative standards, and
individual rights
• Own initiative or on request by persons and organisations
Biggest difference with political evaluation: the evaluators are judged (the court)
↔ in political evaluation: everyone can make an evaluation
Juridical evaluation: examples
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Rational or administrative evaluation: forms and techniques

• Forms
o Evaluation of efforts: inputs
o Performance measurement: outputs
o Effectiveness evaluation
o Efficiency evaluation
o Process evaluation
• Techniques
o PPBS (Planning Programming Budgeting System)
o Zero-base budgeting
o Management by objectives
Rational or administrative evaluation: usually done by professional agencies

→ these kind of evaluations are constructed out to actors that then can claim to make independent
judgements and evaluations
Techniques: not going into these methods and techniques
4. EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
Evaluation techniques
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Cost-effectiveness analysis
• Regression analysis
• Expert panel
• Benchmarking
• Etc.
Example
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FEEDBACK AND LEARNING
After implementation: feedback and learning

• Back to agenda-setting
• Status quo
• Adjustments
• Termination
• POLICY CHANGE?
Policy cycle and the post-evaluation stage

• Attention since the 1970s
• Kaufmann: <organizations never die=
• Bardach: <policy is rarely terminated=
• Peters & Hogwood: types of policy change
Ideal types of policy change (Peters and Hogwood)

• Policy innovation
• Policy succession
• Policy maintenance
• Policy termination
policy innovation: new problems to be addressed or change the instruments completely

policy succession: continue the policy as usual (maybe changing the means a bit, but you keep the
goals and policy instruments the same)
policy maintenance: like a car (for maintenance: oil it)
policy termination
Policy change on a continuum

• As ideal types, innovation and termination occur rarely
• On a continuum, innovation does occur
o New instruments
o Policy expansion to new target groups or other sectors
• On a continuum, termination does occur
o Less investment of money or personnel
o Extracting target groups
Innovation: prohibition of smoking in public places (definitions op public place has expanded ex. not
smoking on the train)
Termination:
- less military support in Mali
- vaccination campaign (second booster: only for the elderly and vulnerable people)
Policy termination (Hogwood and Gunn)

• Functional policy termination
• Organisational policy termination
• Termination of standpoints
• Ideal-typical policy termination
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ideal-typical policy termination

ex. no student loans anymore for students (because not needed anymore)
functional policy termination: you withdraw certain functions from an organization that executes a
policy or you may cut parts of the organization
Organizational policy termination
Termination of standpoints: standpoint or point of view is terminated, so the policy belief lying
behind the policy
Brakes to termination (Hogwood and Gunn)

Breaks Reasons
• Intellectual resistance • psychological: keeping identity
• Lack of political initiative • power: vested interests
• Institutional continuity
• Dynamic conservativism
• Anti-termination coalitions
• Legal obstacles
• High kick-off costs
• Unintended consequences
• Reluctance and refusal
Termination is not so quick or easy

→ a lot of breaks why policies aren9t terminated (they all have to do with psychological and power
reasons)
Hints for policy termination (Behn inspired by Machiavelli)

1. Redefine the discourse
2. Termination at the beginning of a legislature or during crisis (if there is no crisis – create one!)
3. Create incentives for termination
4. Make sunset provisions
5. Discredit the anti-termination coalition
6. Choose the weakest
Definitions
• Learning in policymaking refers to sustainable change in behaviour, which is based on new
information= (Biegelbauer 2007, p. 232)
• <Deliberate attempt to adjust the goals or techniques of policy in response to past experience and
new information= (Hall 1993, p. 278)
Learning and policy: definitions

Instrumental definition (Hall) Learning as an unconscious process (Heclo)
• Learning in order to better reach objectives • continue behavioural change in response to
• Belongs to the formal, normal policy process stimuli from the environment
• Attempts to adjust the policy in the light of • Reaction to external circumstances
results of existing policy
= endogenous learning = exogenous learning
Endogenous learning = learning from within

Exogenous learning = learning because of external circumstances
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Social learning (Hall): First, second, and third order change

• First-order change
o Adaptation of instruments – subsidies solar panels
• Second-order change – wind energy instead of solar panels
o Choice of new instruments
• Third-order change
o Change of underlying objectives and ideas, paradigmatic change – independence of fossil fuels
76

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lOMoARcPSD|10790040

Notities Policy Analysis

Policy analysis (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

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INTRODUCTION: WHY STUDY PUBLIC

Overview of today9s class

Public policy analysis <Governments make public policy.= ≠ politics; polity

Questions of public policy analysis, e.g.:

Public policy analysis

Downloaded by Eppo Belpaire (eppo.belpaire@gmail.com)

• Public policy analysis asks (Blum & Schubert 2011)

Policy sciences – policy analysis: distinction between

Picture: Cesare Borgia

Picture: Angela Merkel

Picture: some books (reference to a scholarly activity)

Session 1 Introduction: Meta-analysis

Policy analysts: who, where what?

Terminology: 8policy9 and 8beleid9

Differences between the definitions above

Which definition do you prefer and why? (chatbox)

Inputs, outputs and 8black boxes9: Easton9s systems model (1965)

→ Policy Process view

Stages of the policy cycle (Lasswell, 1965)

Stages of the policy cycle (Brewer)

Strength and limits of the policy cycle model

Outline: policy analysis

THEORETICAL APPROACHES OF PUBLIC

Approaches of public policy analysis

(Public choice = rational choice)

Public choice: What?

From a self-interest position: ex. will it improve my position / situation?

Public choice: problems?

Social structure and class theory: what?

Most well-known approach is a Marxist one

Social structure and class theory: problems?

Pluralism and Neo-corporatism

Became fashionable from the late 80s – 90s onward

Rules, norms, configurations will determine very much the choices

Neo-institutionalism is very important to understand the dynamics and non-dynamics of

Welfare economics: market failures – need for government action

Negative externalities = negative consequences of the behavior of organizations or individuals and

Welfare economics: cost-benefit analysis and Pareto optimum

Other concepts that are very important in welfare economics

Welfare economics: government failure

Derived externalities: governments sometimes overregulate society, suffocates private initiatives

Goods can be exclusive to the user and can be exhausitive as a good

Exclusive: when it is used, it is gone

Welfare economics: problems?

Post-positivist approaches and the 8argumentative turn9

We discuss the post-positivist approach when we discuss agendasetting

Discussion: Theories as „glasses<

POLICY CONTEXT, ACTORS AND

1. GUEST LECTURE – MARLEEN BRANS

Dispute: actors – institutions

Discussion: do actors play an important role or institutions/structures?

Last sessions: varying role of agenxy – structure in different theoretical approaches

Actors and institutions in the policy process

Administrative officials (bureaucrats)

voters: very limited role in policy making (only in elections)

Elected politicians: executive, government

They have access to information and they hold the budget

Elected politicians: legislators, parliament