1.

Humanitarian crisis
A humanitarian crisis (or "humanitarian disaster") is an event or series of events which represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people, usually over a wide area. Armed conflicts, epidemics, famine, natural disasters and other major emergencies may all involve or lead to a humanitarian crisis. Categories There is no simple categorization of humanitarian crises. Different communities and agencies tend to have definitions related to the concrete situations they face. A local fire service will tend to focus on issues such as flooding and weather induced crises. Medical and health related organizations are naturally focused on sudden crises to the health of a community. An ongoing or lingering pandemic may amount to a humanitarian crisis, especially where there are increasing levels of virulence, or rates of infection as in the case of AIDS, bird flu or Tuberculosis. Major health-related problems such as cancer, global warming typically require an accentuated or punctuated mass-event to justify a label of "crisis" or "disaster". The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) lists categories which include different types of natural disasters, technological disasters (i.e. hazardous material spills, Chernobyl-type of nuclear accidents, chemical explosions) and long-term man-made disasters related to "civil strife, civil war and international war".[1]) Internationally, the humanitarian response sector has tended to distinguish between natural disasters and complex emergencies which are related to armed conflict and wars.[2]

Examples
Recent humanitarian crises include the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake(Asian tsunami), the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Rwanda genocide, Sri Lankan civil war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Afghan Civil War, Darfur Conflict, Iraq War, May 2008 Sichuan earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake Cyclone Nargis made landfall in Myanmar and claimed the lives of at least 22,000 people[3] and most recently the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[3]. The current (as of 26 February 2011) rebellion in Libya, if it continues to escalate, may take on the characteristics of a humanitarian crisis and/or civil war.

Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States.[3] Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. At least 1,836 people died in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane; total property damage was estimated at $81 billion (2005 USD),[3] nearly triple the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.[4] Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most significant number of deaths occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland.[5] Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks.[5] However, the worst property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as all Mississippi beachfront towns, which were flooded over 90% in hours, as boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, with waters reaching 612 miles (1019 km) from the beach. The hurricane protection failures in New Orleans prompted a lawsuit against the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the designers and builders of the levee system as mandated by the Flood Control Act of 1965. Responsibility for the failures and flooding was laid squarely on the Army Corps in January 2008[by whom?] , but the federal agency could not be held financially liable due to sovereign immunity in the Flood Control Act of 1928. There was also an investigation of the responses from federal, state and local governments, resulting in the resignation of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Brown, and of New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Superintendent Eddie Compass. Several agencies including the United States Coast Guard (USCG), National Hurricane Center (NHC), and National Weather Service (NWS) were commended for their actions. They provided accurate forecasts with sufficient lead time.[6]

2. BP p.l.c.[3][4] (LSE: BP, NYSE: BP) is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors".[5][6] It is vertically-integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, including in biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind power. BP has operations in over 80 countries, produces around 3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 22,400 service stations worldwide.[7][8] Its largest division is BP America, which is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the United States and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.[9][10][11] As at 31 December 2010 BP had total proven commercial reserves of 18.07 billion barrels of oil equivalent.[2] The name "BP" derives from the initials of one of the company's former legal names, British Petroleum.[12][13] BP's track record of corporate social responsibility has been mixed. The company has been involved in a number of major environmental and safety incidents and received criticism for its political influence. However, in 1997 it became the first major oil company to publicly acknowledge the need to take steps against climate change, and in that year established a company-wide target to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases.[14] BP currently invests over $1 billion per year in the development of renewable energy sources, and has committed to spend $8 billion on renewables in the 2005 to 2015 period.[15] BP's primary listing is on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

3.Rodney king riots Background

On March 3, 1991, Rodney King and two passengers were driving west on the Foothill Freeway (I-210) through the Lake View Terrace neighborhood of Los Angeles. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) attempted to initiate a traffic stop. A high-speed pursuit ensued with speeds estimated at up to 115 mph first over freeways and then through residential neighborhoods. When King came to a stop, CHP Officer Timothy Singer and his wife, CHP Officer Melanie Singer, ordered the occupants under arrest.[7] After two passengers were placed in the patrol car, five Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers (Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano) attempted to subdue King, who came

out of the car last. In a departure from the usual procedure, which is to tackle and cuff a suspect, King was tasered, kicked in the head, beaten with Pr24 batons for over one minute, then tackled and cuffed. The officers claimed that King was under the influence of PCP at the time of arrest, which caused him to be very aggressive and violent towards the officers. The video showed that he was crawling on the ground during the beating and that the police made no attempt to cuff him.[8] A subsequent test for the presence of PCP turned up negative. The incident was captured on camcorder by resident George Holliday from his apartment in the vicinity. The tape was roughly ten minutes long. While the case was presented to the court, clips of the incident were not released to the public.[9] In a later interview, King, who was on parole from prison on a robbery conviction and who had past convictions for assault, battery and robbery,[10][11] said that, being on parole, he feared apprehension and being returned to prison for parole violations. The footage of King being beaten by police while lying on the ground became a focus for media attention and a rallying point for activists in Los Angeles and around the United States. Coverage was extensive during the initial two weeks after the incident: the Los Angeles Times published forty-three articles about the incident,[12] the New York Times published seventeen articles,[13] and the Chicago Tribune published eleven articles.[14] Eight stories appeared on ABC News, including a sixty-minute special on Primetime Live.

4.2011 England riots

Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson. Following a peaceful march on 6 August 2011 in relation to the police response to the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service firearms officers on 4 August 2011, a riot began in Tottenham, North London. In the following days, rioting spread to several London boroughs and districts and eventually to some other areas of England, with the most severe disturbances outside London occurring in Bristol and cities in the Midlands and North West of England. Related localised outbreaks also occurred in many smaller towns and cities in England. The riots were characterised by rampant looting and arson attacks of unprecedented levels. As a result, British Prime Minister David Cameron returned early from his holiday in Italy and other government and opposition

leaders also ended their holidays to attend to the matter. All police leave was cancelled and Parliament was recalled on 11 August to debate the situation. As of 15 August, about 3,100 people had been arrested, of whom more than 1,000 had been charged.[12] Arrests, charges and court proceedings continue, with courts working extended hours. There were a total 3,443 crimes across London linked to the disorder.[13] Five people died and at least 16 others were injured as a direct result of related violent acts. An estimated 200 million worth of property damage was incurred, and local economic activity was significantly compromised. Police action was blamed for the initial riot, and the subsequent police reaction was criticised as being neither appropriate nor sufficiently effective. The riots have generated significant ongoing debate among political, social and academic figures about the causes and context in which they happened.

5. Late-2000s recession
The late-2000s recession, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession[1] or Lesser Depression[2] or Long Recession, [3] is a severe ongoing global economic problem that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The Great Recession has affected the entire world economy, with higher detriment in some countries than others. It is a major global recession characterized by various systemic imbalances and was sparked by the outbreak of the late-2000s financial crisis. There are two senses of the word "recession": a less precise sense, referring broadly to "a period of reduced economic activity",[4] and the scientific sense used most often in economics, which is defined operationally, referring specifically to the contraction phase of a business cycle, with two or more consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. By the economic-science definition of the word "recession", the Great Recession ended in the U.S. in June or July 2009.[5][6] However, in the broader, layperson sense of the word, many people use the term to refer to the ongoing hardship (in the same way that the term "Great Depression" is also popularly used).[7] In the U.S., for example, persistent high unemployment remains, along with low consumer confidence, the continuing decline in home values and increase in foreclosures and personal bankruptcies, an escalating federal debt crisis, inflation, and rising gas and food prices. In fact, a 2011 poll found that more than half of all Americans think the U.S. is still in recession or even depression, despite official data that shows a historically modest recovery.[

Abstract

We argue that the social construction of target populations is an important, albeit overlooked, political phenomenon that should take its place in the study of public policy by political scientists. The theory contends that social constructions influence the policy agenda and the selection of policy tools, as well as the rationales that legitimate policy choices. Constructions become embedded in policy as messages that are absorbed by citizens and affect their orientations and participation. The theory is important because it helps explain why some groups are advantaged more than others independently of traditional notions of political power and how policy designs reinforce or alter such advantages. An understanding of social constructions of target populations augments conventional hypotheses about the dynamics of policy change, the determination of beneficiaries and losers, the reasons for differing levels and types of participation among target groups, and the role of policy in democracy.
Article Excerpt Introduction The study of policy design has made great progress over the past decade in leading scholars to understand why the American political system produces certain kinds of designs rather than others, and the consequences that policy designs have for democracy. This article outlines the distinctive and important elements of policy design theory--the centrality of policy design, the attention to social constructions, the attention to policy consequences (or feed-forward effects), and the integration of normative and empirical research and theory. It then suggests how policy design theory can complement other policy theories in guiding research and evaluating the conditions of U.S. democracy, and how in its own right it can be further developed and used to guide important inquiry about public policy's politics and social impacts. The next generation of policy design theory should: (i) expand investigation into the social constructions that are ubiquitous in the policy field, especially the social construction of knowledge; (ii) further develop, empirically and theoretically, the relationship between policy design components and target populations; (iii) empirically investigate and theorize about the impact that policy designs have on subsequent political voice, social movements, and other aspects of political processes; (iv) integrate empirical research and normative democratic theory; and (v) integrate policy design more fully with other policy theories. What Are Policy Designs? The importance of policy design (by which we mean the content of policy) has been recognized at least since the 1950s, but until the past decade has not been paid much attention, much less given the central role that some policy design scholars envision for it. Recognizing that policies contain sets of fundamental elements, or designs, is akin to stating that policies contain an architecture--a text and set of practices that can be observed (Boborow & Dryzek, 1987). Just as any city has a design, comprised of buildings, streets, houses, parks, airports, sports arenas, and the like, so too any public policy contains a design. Just as the design of a city can be described along multiple dimensions--such as efficiency, esthetics, equality of access, adaptability, sustainability, friendliness, safety--so too can a policy design be evaluated according to a variety of dimensions. Identifying this architecture is a first step of policy research that employs policy design theory. Dahl and Lindblom (1953) were among the first who noted the importance of policy design. They pointed out that the rapid invention of new policy techniques was "perhaps the greatest political revolution of our times." In the 1950s, many intellectuals believed that societies would have to choose between socialism or communism on the one hand, and capitalism on the other. Dahl and Lindblom wrote that the creation of a variety of policy instruments would make choices between such extreme dichotomies unnecessary: Actual choices [are] neither so simple nor so grand. Not so simple because knotty problems can only be solved by painstaking attention to technical details ... Norso grand because ... most of the people neither can nor wish to experiment with the whole pattern of socioeconomic organization to attain goals more easily won. (p. 3)

Dahl and Lindblom (1953) did not develop a set of categories for specifically describing policy content, although they did discuss a set of normative dimensions for evaluating policy designs (such as freedom, rationality, efficiency, political equality, and subjective equality). Recognizing the difficulty in developing theory or coherent, progressive research programs without some agreement on the fundamental empirical elements of public policy, Schneider and Ingram (1997) proposed the following: 1. problem definition and goals to be pursued; 2. benefits and burdens to be distributed; 3. target populations (the "players" in the policy arena who receive, or may receive, benefits or burdens); 4. rules (policy directives stating who is to do what, when, with what resources, who is eligible, etc.); 5. tools (incentives or disincentives for agencies and target groups to act in accord with policy directives); 6. implementation structure (the entire implementation plan, including the incentives for agency compliance and resources); 7. social constructions (the "world making," the images of reality, the stereotypes people use to make sense of the reality as they see it); 8. rationales (the explicit or implicit justifications and legitimations for the policy including those used in debates about the policy); and 9. underlying assumptions (explicit or implicit assumptions about causal logics or about the capacity of people or of organizations). One of the by-products that has emerged at least partly from the Schneider and Ingram (1997) approach to policy design is that studies of policies now not only typically include the rational and instrumental components of design but also the value-laden components, such as social constructions, rationales, and underlying assumptions. Earlier design scholarship sometimes defined the "design" part of policy content as only that which was logical and "rational," omitting the contradictions, images, rationales, and other design components as they actually operate in practice (Linder & Peters, 1992). While some dimensions of policy designs are clearly normative (such as rationales and goals), others are not so obviously normative (such as tools or implementation structure). All of the dimensions are empirical in that they can be observed directly or indirectly. Once they identify the structural elements of a policy, scholars often move to evaluate the design. Depending on their research questions and goals, they might select from a variety of dimensions, such as whether the design is clear or opaque; deceptive or straightforward; inclusive or exclusive; top-down or bottom-up; participatory or closed; filled with mandates or enabling discretion; and whether it incorporates consistent or competing problem definitions and social constructions. Policy design theory posits that the characteristics of design emerge from a political and social process, and these characteristics in turn feed forward into subsequent political processes. Policy design becomes the central focus as scholars seek to understand how, and why, we get certain kinds of design elements instead of others, and just as importantly, seek to understand the full range of consequences that stem from differences in designs. Many of the elements of policy design are substitutable; that is, policymakers choose from among a variety of possible approaches to addressing a particular problem (Schneider & Ingram, 1997). For example, policymakers confronted with the threat of school failures could mandate standardized testing and establish sanctions for "failing" schools; or they could raise teacher qualifications or increase teacher salaries. The choice of design elements reflects political and social values, historical precedent, national trends in ideas about "good" policy, as well as a host of "local" knowledge that leads to enormous variability in policy designs across time and space. These choices produce policy experiences for those people who are directly affected, and the choices influence policy learning that stretches far into the future. Accounting for, and Considering, the Impact of the Social Construction of Reality A key strength and contribution of policy design theory has been its incorporation of social construction processes into its model of the policymaking process, policy design, and policy impacts (Ingram & Schneider, 1993, 2006, 2007; Schneider & Ingram, 1993, 1997, 2006, 2008). Social construction refers to an underlying understanding of the social world that places meaning-making at the center. That is, humans' interpretations of the world produce social reality; shared understandings among people give rise to rules, norms, identities, concepts, and institutions. When people stop accepting, believing in, or taking for granted these constructions,

the constructions begin to change; "people consciously and unintentionally replicate and challenge institutionalized routines and prevailing assumptions" (Klotz & Lynch, 2007, p. 3). The policy design approach directs scholars to examine who constructs policy issues, and how they do so, such that policy actors and the public accept particular understandings as "real," and how constructions of groups, problems and knowledge then manifest themselves and become institutionalized into policy designs, which subsequently reinforce and disseminate these constructions (Schneider & Ingram, p. 73). Constructivist approaches to social inquiry, such as policy design theory, emphasize that human agency means that constructions, even strongly institutionalized ones, are inherently unstable and subject to change. Much of the work applying policy design theory makes use of its propositions about the social construction of target populations (e.g., Ingram & Schneider, 2005). Many scholars are by now familiar with Figure 1, which depicts a field of target populations and the positive or negative images that policy actors frequently invoke about them. The idea is that target populations have varying levels of political power, and that actors characterize them in positive or negative terms. Schneider and Ingram (1993) suggest a set of four "ideal types" of constructions: advantaged (powerful groups with positive images), contenders (powerful groups with negative images), dependents (powerless groups with positive images), and deviants (powerless groups with negative images). On the one hand, this is a dynamic model, and research has traced how particular target groups or their advocates strategically work to shift the prevailing images from negative to positive as they pursue particular policy goals. Policy processes often involve contestation over these images as actors seek to justify distribution of benefits or burdens to these groups. On the other hand, there are continuities in the levels of power and the constructions associated with particular groups, and the packages of burdens and benefits that they typically receive from public policies. Indeed, officials seem to gain political capital if they can deliver benefits to advantaged groups (typically justified as universally good for society, the economy, etc.) or burdens/punishments to deviants (typically justified in similar ways). Helping the business community in America is understood to be good for everyone, for the economy in general; harshly punishing criminals also is understood to be good for society as a whole. Officials may succeed in funneling benefits to dependents, and burdens to contenders, although Schneider and Ingram predict that such distributions will usually be tempered in some way. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Target group images seem linked to particular kinds of policy designs. Grounded in empirical research, Schneider and Ingram (1997) suggest that positively constructed groups, on one hand, tend to receive beneficial policies with high levels of discretion, short implementation chains, and strong provisions, in the sense that actual material benefits are allocated. Negatively constructed groups, on the other hand, tend to receive policy designs that distribute burdens often with deceptive, fear-based rationales. When beneficial policy is distributed to deviants, there typically will be low levels of discretion, long implementation chains (some of which are advantaged groups), and hollow, in the sense that actual material benefits lag behind statements of goals. Some research has shown that providing punishment to deviants will result in greater path dependence than policies that occasionally provide beneficial policy to persons constructed as deviants--such as criminals (Schneider, 2006). Providing benefits to advantaged groups also produces long path dependencies. But attempts to provide beneficial policy to dependents or persons constructed as deviants usually have a shorter window of opportunity, and achievements are more subject to slippage in later years, and more subject to punctuated equilibrium. The importance of accounting for social constructions of target groups goes beyond a focus on the policymaking process and the content of public policies to the impacts of policies. Policies can reinforce these images in the social world, as the general public, decision makers, and members of the target groups themselves feel the effects of policy or observe them. Scholars can think about how policies might work to improve the standing of a target group by distributing benefits in a way that replaces a negative image with a positive image. As research on the GI Bill, on Social Security compared to aid to families with dependent children (AFDC), on veterans' benefits, and on housing policy has shown, these images have direct material consequences for target groups and influence the degree of political voice they exercise (Mettler & Soss, 2004; Sidney, 2005). Policy design theory's incorporation of social construction goes beyond target populations to include the social construction of knowledge in the policy process. This is connected not only to issues of target groups, but is also analytically separate. This aspect of policy design theory has been applied less frequently and deserves more attention. It directs attention to processes of problem definition, interpretations of cause and effect, characterizations of knowledge and information as relevant or not relevant to a policy issue, as technical and scientific are contrasted with anecdotal and impressionistic. It directs attention to the role of experts in policymaking and the type of knowledge that causes an actor to be considered an expert. Clearly it links knowledge to power because some groups or voices thus shape policy, whereas others are excluded in part because their knowledge is socially constructed as less reliable, or invalid, or irrelevant. Such considerations are important not only in studying policymaking, but also in carrying out studies of implementation and policy impact that truly consider the political nature of these processes. And, as with the social construction of target populations, the construction of knowledge that drove the policymaking process may become embodied in the

policy design. Policy Design and the Feed(back)-Forward Process Policy design is not only a critical dependent variable that needs to be incorporated more explicitly into theories of the policy process, but is also an independent variable in that it has multiple consequences for society. Nextgeneration studies need to pay considerably more attention to how public policy impacts the conditions of American democracy, especially issues of inequality. Some have referred to this as policy feedback, even though a case can be made that it should be called policy feed-forward, as we are talking about how policy changes the dynamics of future political action. The ideas trace at least back to Schattschneider (1960) when he noted that new policies create new politics. Others have developed typologies showing how different kinds of policy shape subsequent politics, for example Lowi (1964, 1979), Wilson (1973), and Steinberger (1980). The term itself, feedback, can be traced to Easton's system theory and to pluralist theories that posit an equilibrium model of society in which politics produce policy which, in turn, feeds back into the input processes resulting (presumably) in appropriate changes in policy design. More recently, public policy scholars have picked up these ideas (Boborow & Dryzek, 1987; Ingram & Schneider, 1990; Schneider & Ingram, 1993, 1997; Woodhouse & Collingridge, 1993) as have historical institutionalists (Skocpol, 1992). Lowi (1979) is most often credited with the idea that "policy creates politics," but his typology has proven to be difficult to use. The vertical dimension of his typology refers to the level of coercion (benefit distribution involves low coercion; distribution of costs or regulations involves high coercion). The horizontal dimension is whether the policy identifies specific targets or whether it consists of general rules that affect the environment of groups. The policy types derived from these two dimensions are regulatory, redistributive, distributive, and constituent. Scholars have had difficulty understanding how these types fit into the two dimensions, but even more important, have found it very difficult to fit actual policies into these types (Greenberg, Miller, Mohr, & Vladeck, 1977). Furthermore, the mobilization patterns that emerge may depend as much on how people interpret the meanings of the policy as on the two dimensions that Lowi considered important. Wilson (1973) proposed a typology that also purports to offer an explanation of how different kinds of policies produce patterns of democratic participation. Working from a public choice perspective, he identifies the two relevant dimensions as whether the policy distributes benefits or costs, and whether these are concentrated or distributed widely. He identifies the types of politics that will result as majoritarian, interest group, clientist, and entrepreneurial. Majoritarian politics results when benefits are widely distributed but so are costs (as in national defense). All people are expected to participate rather equally in majoritarian politics. When benefits and costs both are concentrated on only a few, those affected will both mobilize and compete as in interest group politics. When benefits are concentrated on a few, but costs are widely distributed, clientist politics will emerge in which elected leaders distribute expensive favors to their clients while taxpayers are apathetic. Entrepreneurial politics occurs when small portions of society pay the costs to benefit large groups. These last two patterns, clientist politics and entrepreneurial politics, result in excessive and uncontrolled government growth, Wilson says, as elected leaders can please the many while extracting funds from the few. Although Wilson's typology seems intuitively sound, very little empirical research has been using, or confirming, these patterns. Part of the problem with both of these typologies is that it is very difficult to fit actual statutes or implementation guidelines or "on the ground" policy practices into them. The approach taken by policy design differs in that it characterizes the elements of policy designs and then traces their effects--both material and interpretive--on target populations, arenas for participation, subsequent framing of the issue, mobilization, and on broader or longer term aspects of democracy such as equality, access, and political voice. Schneider and Ingram (1997, 2005; Ingram & Schneider, 2006) suggest that policy design's impacts on four aspects of democracy should be emphasized: justice (e.g., fairness, quality of life), citizenship (political voice, participation, orientation toward government, identity), democratic institutions (scope, depth, authenticity), and problem solving (effectiveness, efficiency, relevance). They further suggest that policy designs "best serve democracy when the goals reflect a balance among democratic values, or when they focus on one or more aspects of democracy that are noticeably deficient in the societal context" (1997, p. 84). Current research on feed-forward effects can be clustered into four major types. A large number of studies focus on how policy creates target populations that may or may not be contiguous with social groups, and directs beneficial or burdensome policy to them (Mettler & Soss, 2004; Meyer, 2006; Sidney, 2003). Some groups may come to recognize common interests either in support of, or in opposition to, policy, thereby creating unity and enhancing the potential for participation through conventional means, social movements, or more disruptive activities. Social security is an example of the effects of a positive, universalistic, policy design that has embedded within it the idea that elderly citizens are worthy of respect and deserving of the funds they receive. The policy design assumes they are competent to manage their subsidy without intervening case workers or moral entrepreneurs to insure that the funds are wisely spent (Campbell, 2003; Soss, 2005). The results are a

dramatic improvement in the income levels of elderly people, and a level of political participation rivaled by no other group. Equally interesting is that the typical relationship of higher incomes to higher participation seems to be erased in this group--at least partly because of the actual design of social security (Campbell, 2002). Soss (2005); Campbell (2002); Mettler and Soss (2004); and others all emphasize that it is not just a subsidy that is important, but the ways in which that policy is designed. The GI Bill, Mettler finds, greatly enhances the civic engagement and participation of people not only because it offers educational benefits, but also because of the respect it confers on the recipients. Soss's comparison of Social Security Disability Income recipients with AFDC recipients finds that the former participates in much the same way as other groups but that AFDC has a depressing effect on political voice. There is some limited evidence that experience with Head Start programs--a highly participatory, capacity-building program for mothers of low-income children--has a positive effect on political participation such that even those who are welfare recipients participate in much the same way as nonrecipients. A second group of feed-forward effects involves specific rules or allocation of resources that differentially impact citizens (Hacker, Mettler, Pinderhughes, and Skocpol, 2004; Pierson, 1993). Sidney's (2003) work comparing fair housing and community reinvestment policy designs shows that each poses distinctive challenges to advocates. One traps them in a cycle of invisibility that diminishes public attention to the problem of housing discrimination over time. The other casts them as troublemakers and interlopers when advocates use the law to challenge local banks. Policies that provide for free public education provide important resources for participation, but policy that permits ever-increasing tuition costs and restricts access to higher education thwarts greater equality in political voice. The relationship between income and participation is well known, and policy that exacerbates income inequality exacerbates political inequality. Third, policies embed many aspects of the rhetoric in the policy debate and the assumptions or rationales that support and sustain the policy. These include social constructions of target groups, particular ways of framing the issues, assumptions about the capacity of people and organizations (or lack thereof), the kind of language and knowledge that is respected, and so on. These messages are interpreted and internalized by target groups and other players in the policy arena, shaping the way citizens view the problem and shaping their perceptions of whether their interests are of legitimate public concern. Welfare policy in the United States persistently sends the message that poverty is the problem of the individual, the local community, "failed" families, and not the broader socioeconomic structure of society. Welfare recipients tend to internalize this message and do not mobilize to pursue remedies through public policy. Fourth, policies directly affect participation through voting eligibility, ballot construction, procedures for voting, design of election districts, and the role that money plays in electing candidates. The next generation of policy research should include systematic analysis of the effects of public policy designs on the most critical issues of our time, including the vastly unequal levels of political participation across socioeconomic groups, the cynicism people demonstrate toward government, the growing inequality in income and education, the framing of issues in such a way that policymakers would rather "win" and defeat their "enemies" than they would solve a collective problem. These analyses must incorporate not only the influence of political power, scientific learning, advocacy groups, windows of opportunity, but also the critically important role of social constructions of reality. As social construction of target populations becomes increasingly negative and divisive, the possibility of creating policy designs that serve democracy decreases. Policy designs need to be transparent rather than opaque, straightforward rather than deceptive, contain positive constructions of all social groups and points of view even of those who are "losing," logical connections between means and ends, implementation processes that grant equal access to information and subsequent points of contestation, and arenas for discourse that engage multiple "ways of knowing" the issue. Integrating Normative and Empirical Analysis Using Policy Design Theory From the start, many scholars of policy design chose to study public policy because of its important roles in democratic governance--its potential to solve problems, its potential to embody and to respond to the voices and needs of the governed, its position as the work of government, the primary task of democratically elected representatives and their agents. Indeed, one of the distinguishing themes in the emergence of policy design and social construction theory is a focus on the normative ends of social inquiry. Whereas many policy analysts and policy process scholars explicitly...

Social construction of target populations: implications for politics and policy.

We argue that the social construction of target populations is an important, albeit overlooked, political phenomenon that should take its place in the study of public policy by political scientists. The theory contends that social constructions influence the policy agenda and the selection of policy tools, as well as the rationales that legitimate policy choices. Constructions become embedded in policy as messages that are absorbed by citizens and affect their orientations and participation. The theory is important because it helps explain why some groups are advantaged more than others independently of traditional notions of political power and how policy designs reinforce or alter such advantages. An understanding of social constructions of target populations augments conventional hypotheses about the dynamics of policy change, the determination of beneficiaries and losers, the reasons for differing levels and types of participation among target groups, and the role of policy in democracy. Contemporary political scientists consider many variables to be significant political phenomena that previously were viewed either as irrelevant or as the proper domain of another discipline. The importance of gender in understanding political behavior and the role of money and media in politics are examples. Although the question of who benefits or loses from policy has long been interesting to political science, most other dimensions of policy designs have been considered the purview of economists, lawyers, and other specialists. With the emergence of public policy as a major subfield of political science, however, attention has turned to new aspects of the policy process, such as agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and consequences, (Arnold 1990; Ingram and Schneider 1991; Kingdon 1984; Lipsky and Smith 1989; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983; Rose 1991; Smith and Stone 1988; Pressman and Wildavsky 1973) as well as additional elements of policy design, such as goals, tools, rules and target populations (Ingram and Schneider 1992; Linder and Peters 1985; Ostrom 1990; Schneider and Ingram 1990a, 1990b; Stone 1988). We argue that the social construction of target populations is an important, albeit overlooked, political phenomenon that should take its place in the study of public policy by political scientists. The social construction of target populations refers to the cultural characterizations or popular images of the persons or groups whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy. These characterizations are normative and evaluative, portraying groups in positive or negative terms through symbolic language, metaphors, and stories (Edelman 1964, 1988). A great deal has been written (mostly by sociologists) about social constructions of social problems (Best 1989; Spector and Kitsuse 1987). The more specific topic of social construction of target populations is important to political science

because it contributes to studies of agenda setting, legislative behavior, and policy formulation and design, as well as to studies of citizen orientation, conception of citizenship, and style of participation. Our theory contends that the social construction of target populations has a powerful influence on public officials and shapes both the policy agenda and the actual design of policy. There are strong pressures for public officials to provide beneficial policy to powerful, positively constructed target populations and to devise punitive, punishmentoriented policy for negatively constructed groups. Social constructions become embedded in policy as messages that are absorbed by citizens and affect their orientations and participation patterns. Policy sends messages about what government is supposed to do, which citizens are deserving (and which not), and what kinds of attitudes and participatory patterns are appropriate in a democratic society. Different target populations, however, receive quite different messages. Policies that have detrimental impacts on, or are ineffective in solving important problems for, certain types of target populations may not produce citizen participation directed toward policy change because the messages received by these target populations encourage withdrawal or passivity. Other target populations, however, receive messages that encourage them to combat policies detrimental to them through various avenues of political participation. The theory is important because it helps explain why some groups are advantaged more than others independently of traditional notions of political power and how policy designs can reinforce or alter such advantages. Further, the theory resolves some longstanding puzzles political scientists have encountered in attempting to answer Lasswell's question, "Who gets what, when, and how?" (Lasswell 1936). The theory returns public policy to center-stage in the study of politics, offering an alternative that goes beyond both the pluralist and the microeconomic perspectives. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TARGET POPULATIONS A theory that connects social constructions of target populations to other political phenomena needs definitions of target populations and of social constructions, an explanation of how social constructions influence public officials in choosing the agendas and designs of policy, and an explanation of how policy agendas and designs influence the political orientations and participation patterns of target populations. Conceptualizing Targets and Constructions Target population is a concept from the policy design literature that directs attention to the fact that policy is purposeful and attempts to achieve goals by changing people's behavior (see our earlier work, Ingram and Schneider 1991). Policy sets forth problems

to be solved or goals to be achieved and identifies the people whose behavior is linked to the achievement of desired ends. Behavioral change is sought by enabling or coercing people to do things they would not have done otherwise. By specifying eligibility criteria, policy creates the boundaries of target populations. Such groups may or may not have a value-based cultural image, however. Therefore, they may or may not carry out any social construction. The social construction of a target population refers to (1) the recognition of the shared characteristics that distinguish a target population as socially meaningful, and (2) the attribution of specific, valence-oriented values, symbols, and images to the characteristics. Social constructions are stereotypes about particular groups of people that have been created by politics, culture, socialization, history, the media, literature, religion, and the like. Positive constructions include images such as "deserving," "intelligent," "honest," "public-spirited," and so forth. Negative constructions include images such as "undeserving," "stupid," "dishonest," and "selfish." There are a wide variety of evaluative dimensions, both positive and negative, that can be used to portray groups. Social constructions are often conflicting and subject to contention. Policy directed at persons whose income falls below the official poverty level identifies a specific set of persons. The social constructions could portray them as disadvantaged people whose poverty is not their fault or as lazy persons who are benefitting from other peoples' hard work. On the other hand, not all target populations even have a well-defined social construction. Motor vehicle policies identify automobile drivers as a target population; but these persons have no particular social construction, at this time. Policies directed at drunk drivers or teenage drivers, however, have identified a subset that carries a negative valence. The actual social constructions of target groups, as well as how widely shared the constructions are, are matters for empirical analysis. Social constructions of target populations are measurable, empirical, phenomena. Data can be generated by the study of texts, such as legislative histories, statutes, guidelines, speeches, media coverage, and analysis of the symbols contained therein. Social constructions also can be ascertained from interviews or surveys of policymakers, media representatives, members of the general public, and persons within the target group itself. One of the major contentions of some social constructionists (sometimes called strictconstructionists) is that there is no objective reality but only the construction itself (Spector and Kitsuse 1987, J. Schneider 1985). Those who make this argument contend that research should focus on the constructions, not on the reasons the constructions

have arisen or how constructions differ from objective reality. The point of view adopted here, however, is more like that expressed by Edelman (1988) and Collins (1989). Target populations are assumed to have boundaries that are empirically verifiable (indeed, policies create these empirical boundaries) and to exist within objective conditions even though those conditions are subject to multiple evaluations. One of the important issues for analysis is to understand how social constructions emerge from objective conditions and how each changes. Social Constructions and Elected Officials Research has uncovered a number of important motivations for elected officials (Arnold 1990; Kelman 1987; Kingdon 1984). Two of the most important are to produce public policies that will assist in their reelection and that will be effective in addressing widely acknowledged public problems. Social constructions are relevant for both of these considerations. Social constructions become part of the reelection calculus when public officials anticipate the reaction of the target population itself to the policy and also anticipate the reaction of others to whether the target group should be the beneficiary (or loser) for a particular policy proposal (Wilson 1986). Thus, the electoral implication of a policy proposal depends partly on the power of the target population itself (construed as votes, wealth, and propensity of the group to mobilize for action) but also on the extent to which others will approve or disapprove of the policy's being directed toward a particular target. The convergence of power and social constructions creates four types of target populations, as displayed in Figure 1. Advantaged groups are perceived to be both powerful and positively constructed, such as the elderly and business. Contenders, such as unions and the rich, are powerful but negatively constructed, usually as undeserving. Dependents might include children or mothers and are considered to be politically weak, but they carry generally positive constructions. Deviants, such as criminals, are in the worst situation, since they are both weak and negatively constructed. Public officials find it to their advantage to provide beneficial policy to the advantaged groups who are both powerful and positively constructed as "deserving" because not only will the group itself respond favorably but others will approve of the beneficial policy's being conferred on deserving people. Similarly, public officials commonly inflict punishment on negatively constructed groups who have little or no power, because they need fear no electoral retaliation from the group itself and the general public approves of punishment for groups that it has constructed negatively. Figure 1 shows other examples of how a