POL5601

Policy Processes and Analysis

Lecture 3:
The Context of Policy-Making
Nick H. K. Or
Jan 28, 2021
nick.or@cityu.edu.hk
Office: B7410

1
Recaps & admin

• Typologies
• Lowi
• Wilson
• Hood
• CAP

• Grouping

• First in-class debate

• “For the best practice of policymaking, governments should always expand
their search in policy-relevant information and consider as many policy
solutions as possible”.

2
Week 2 assignment

• Preliminary observations
• Many of the issues are related to the COVID-19
• Many falls on topic 3 + 331
• Not all 331 related programmes are delivered by the Dept of Health
• Some involve multiple agencies from different policy areas (e.g., commerce,
education)

• See my comments if you are interested in.

3
Applying CAP coding to lawmaking in HK

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Applying CAP coding to lawmaking in HK

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Weekly assignment 3:
Public policies and Typologies
• Find one policy issue in the Government Press Releases (can be same as the one
you used in week 1 or 2).
• Classify the policy using Lowi’s typology (p.8-17 of the slides in Lecture 2)
• Classify the policy using Wilson’s typology (p.18-22 of the slides in Lecture 2)
• Classify the policy using Hood’s tools of government (p.24-31 of the slides in
Lecture 2)
• Please answer:
• What are the main difficulties when you apply these typologies?
• Are these typologies measuring the same thing? If not, what are the
differences?
• What insights about the public policy do you gain by applying these
typologies?
• Post it in the forum in Canvas.
• No greeting is required…
• Look at what other people did.
• Again, please do not spend more than 20 minutes.
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 Today’s Schedule
• System model of policy studies

• Legal and policy context

• Policy actors and functions

• Revisiting power structure in the study of policy process

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System model of policy studies
• Input-output model: A model of the policy process that assumes a
set of policy demands or inputs which are then processed by
political systems into laws, programs, and the services government
provides (outputs).

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Policy environment

• Policy environment is the structural, social, economic, political

and other factors that influence and are influenced by policy
making.

• Structural environment (e.g. separation of powers and

constitutional framework)
• Social environment (e.g. population and social structure)
• Economic environment (e.g. economic condition, budget
surplus or deficit)
• Political environment (e.g. National mood, trust on the
government)

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 Inputs
• Demands and supports as input indicators (e.g. public opinion,
election results)

• Input is a concept to capture the effect of the variety of events and

conditions in the environment.

• It is helpful to view the major environmental influences as

demands and supports.

• Through demands and supports, a wide range of activities may be

channeled, mirrored and summarized and brought to bear upon
political life.

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Outputs

• Outputs and feedback (e.g. Laws, oversight and evaluation)

• The idea of outputs helps us to organize the consequences

flowing from the behavior of the members of the system
rather than from actions in the environment.

• These are the decisions and actions of the authorities.

• The significance is not only that they help to influence events

in the broader society, they help to determine each succeeding
round of inputs that finds its way into political system.

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 What is policy context?
• Policy context refers to (1) the sets of legal rule and (2) role of
actors in the policy-making process.

• Sets of legal rules is defined as (1) the composition of institutions,

(2) the functions of each institutions, (3) the duties and authority
enforced by state actors as well as (4) the roles between
institutions (the rules of the political game)

• Actors are individuals, corporations or other entitles who possess

policy preferences and their desire in the policy making process.

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Brainstorming

• Can you name three examples of policy inputs and three examples of
policy outputs?
• Is there any feedback process?

• https://padlet.com/nickhkor/fk3dcpg5t3vllqys

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 Legal Rules: A Theoretical Review
• Constitution

• A constitution is a set of rules which lays down a

framework in which government and political activity are
conducted.

• Constitution seeks to achieve three aims:

• (1) establish the powers and functions of the various
institutions of government;
• (2) regulate the relationship between various government
institutions;
• (3) define the relationship between the state and
individual.

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Constitution

15
Important function one: Division of powers

• Horizontal divisions of power:

• (1) Executive branch (in charge of deciding and implementing

public policies)

• (2) Legislative branch (endowed with the competency to make

legislation)

• (3) The judiciary (interpret and apply the law and resolve
disputes emerging among private and public actors)

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 Important function two: Electoral institutions
and party systems
• Elections are one of the most important features of political
regimes as they legitimate policy-makers and determine
who is going to have the greatest political influence.

• Electoral systems determine how votes are transformed

into seats in legislative assemblies.

• These can generally be assigned into:

• (1) majoritarian systems (Only one candidate can be
chosen in that particular constituency and the one who
receives the highest number of votes is awarded)
• (2) proportional representation systems (Seats are shared
among parties in proportion to the share of votes they have
received)

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Role of Executive: A Theoretical Review

• To put it simply, the executive is the branch of government that

is responsible for executive or implementation of policy.

• Theoretically, the executive branch extends from the head of the

government to members of enforcement and administrative
agencies.

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Role of Executive
• In accordance with the principle of politics-administration
dichotomy introduced by Woodrow Wilson in the 19th century,
members of the executive usually have been categorized in one of
the two ways:

• Political executives: elected politicians or political appointees who

are responsible for making of policies.

• Bureaucratic executives: career civil servants who are responsible

for implementation of such policies.

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 The distinction between political executives
and bureaucratic executives
Presidential system Parliamentary system
Hong Kong
(e.g. United States) (e.g. United Kingdom)

Political  President (head of  Prime minister (head  Chief Executive

executives government directly of government who (Head of HKSAR
elected by the is also the leader of Government)
people) majority party in the  Executive Council
 Cabinet ministers Parliament) (politically appointed
(politically appointed  Cabinet ministers advisers)
officials) (elected politicians  Bureaux Directors,
drawn from the Deputy Directors and
Parliament) Political Assistants
(politically appointed
officials)

Bureaucratic  Career civil servants  Career civil servants  Career civil servants
executives

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 Election Methods of Chief Executive
(Article 45)
• According to Article 45 of Basic Law, the Chief Executive shall be selected
by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the
Central People's Government.

• The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light
of the actual situation and in accordance with the principle of gradual and
orderly progress.

• The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal

suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee
in accordance with democratic procedures.

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 Election methods of Chief Executive
• Under the present arrangement, the Chief Executive is elected by an election
committee and is appointed by Central People’s Government.
• Based on the Basic Law, the present 1,200 members is composed from the
following four sectors:
Number of
Sector members
(1) Industrial, commercial and financial sectors 300
(2) The professions 300
(3) Labour, social services, religious and other sectors 300
(4) Members of the Legco; 300
Representatives of district-based organizations;
Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress;
Representatives of Hong Kong members of the National
Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

*Each of the above four sectors is further divided into 38 subsectors

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 Election methods of Chief Executive
• The first CE Election Committee formed in 1996 comprised of 400
members

• The second and third CE Election Committee formed in 2002 and

2007 contained 800 members

• The fourth and fifth CE Election Committee formed in 2012 and

2017 contained 1,200 members

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Role of Legislature: A Theoretical Review

• Legislature, sometimes also known as the assembly or the

parliament occupies a key position in modern government
machines.

• In its simplest sense, a legislature or an assembly is a collection

of people to debate major public issues of the day and to enact
legislations for the society.

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Two Types of Legislature:
Parliamentary system and Presidential System
• Generally speaking, there are two types of legislature in modern societies:

• Legislature under parliamentary system:

• The legislature is the supreme organ of the state and the system is
characterized by a fusion of legislative and executive power.

• Members of the executive (including the prime minister and other cabinet
ministers) are drawn from the legislature and accountable to it.

• Examples: The Parliament in the United Kingdom and House of

Representatives in Japan

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Two Types of Legislature:
Parliamentary system and Presidential System
• Legislature under presidential government:

• The legislature is an independent branch of government and the

system is characterized by the principle of separation of powers.

• The legislature and the executive are separately elected and they
are independent and on equal terms with each other.

• Examples: Congress in the United States

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 Functions of legislature
• Contemporary legislatures usually preform the following functions:

• Legitimize policies or legislation: to legitimize the actions of the

executive and turn political decisions into law

• Representation: to act as people’s representatives and to reflect public

views to the executive

• Debating chamber: to serve as the national form for discussing and

debating issue of public concerns; and

• Monitoring: to supervise and monitor the actions of political executives

and bureaucracy

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Composition of Legislative Council in Hong
Kong
• Now the Legco has altogether 70 members, 35 members
returned by geographical constituencies through directions and
35 members by functional constituencies.
Composition 1997 – 1998 - 2000 - 04 2004 - 08 2008-12 2012-16 2016-
98* 2000 present

Geographical
constituencies (GC) 0 20 24 30 30 35 35

Functional
constituencies (FC) 0 30 30 30 30 35 35

Election
Committee (EC) 60 10 6 0 0 0 0

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Questions

• Can you explain in your own words, what is the role of legislature in
policymaking?
• Would you say the legislature is more related to the policy input side
or the policy output side? Why?
• How does the composition of the legislature affect the policy
process?

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 The Judiciary

• The judiciary is the branch of government that is

empowered to adjudicate legal disputes.

• Thus, the central function of judges is to

adjudicate on the meaning of law so as to
arbitrate in disputes between state and individual
or disputes among individuals.

• The judiciary usually comprised of a system of

courts which includes appeals courts and up to a
supreme authority.

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 Structure and jurisdiction of the HKSAR
courts
• Court of Final Appeal
• High Court
• District Court
• Magistrates' Courts
• Family Court
• Lands Tribunal
• Labour Tribunal
• Small Claims Tribunal
• Obscene Articles Tribunal
• Coroner’s Court
• Juvenile Court

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 Political parties: A theoretical review
• A political party is defined as “a group of people that is
organized for the purpose of winning government power, by
electoral or other means”.

• Four characteristics of political party:

• (1) Parties aim to exercise government power by winning
government power;
• (2) Parties are organized bodies with a formal “card carrying”
membership;
• (3) Parties typically adopt broad issue focus, addressing each of
the major areas of government policy; and
• (4) Parties are united by shared political preferences and a
general ideological identity.

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 Functions of political party
• Representation: to respond to the views of society

• Recruitment of political leaders: to articulate various interests of the

society

• Policy initiation: to formulate a set of policy program to attract

popular support

• Recruitment of political leaders: to provide a training ground for

politicians

• Political mobilization and socialization: to socialize through debates

and campaigns

• Organization of government: to facilitate the formation of

government

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 Interest groups : A theoretical review
• Interest groups are organizations that make policy
suggestions to governments in order to bring public
policies more in line with the interests of their members.

• It is populated by organizations that share common goals

and values.

• Civil society can be considered as the autonomous sphere

of the society which is (1) independent, (2) consisting of
various non-governmental and non-profit organizations
organized by citizens and (3) participated in voluntarily.

• These associations may take many forms, including

community organizations, think tanks, religious groups,
and advocacy groups etc.
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Differences between political parties and civil
society
Political parties
Purpose To exercise government power by
winning government offices
Focus Broad issue, addressing each of the
major areas of government policy
Ideological identity Shared political preferences and a
general ideological identity
Civil Society
To seek influence on government
policies instead of joining the
government directly
Single-issue focus
Political ideology is not significant
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Questions

• Can you name the main differences between interest groups and civil
society?
• Are there some groups (non-governmental actors) in the society
more powerful than other members of the society? Give us some
examples?

36
Study of policy process

• The study of the policy process is essentially the study of the

exercise of power in the making of policy and cannot therefore
disregard underlying questions about the sources and nature of
that power.

• The concept can be analyzed into two perspectives:

• Structure of power (whether the popular will can be structurally

expressed to government or through competition between groups)

• Distribution of power (whether the power is equally distributed

among different stakeholders)
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 Study of policy process

Structure of Power
Power structured Power fragmented

Power distributed relatively Representative government in Pluralist government in which

equally which a unified executive is popular will prevails through
responsive to popular will competition among groups

Distribution of
Power

Power distributed unequally Government by an Unpredictable and chaotic

unrepresentative elite, or in the government, buffered by
grip of external influences multiple pressures

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Pluralism

• Public policy to a large extent is a reflection of interests of

various groups in the society based on the assumptions that an
open platform is available for all individuals and groups to get
involved in the policy process.

• Political power is equally distributed among them, and that the

government acts as a neutral party.

• Therefore, public policy is largely reflected of the preferences

of various societal groups.

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 Neo-pluralism
• Neo-pluralism also emphasizes on such open platform of policy
process.

• However, although the political power is widely dispersed in

society, the distribution of power is in fact unequal in the hand
of individuals and groups.

• The inequality of ownership of economic resources will result

in the concentration of political power in the hands of
economic elites which means the business sectors.

• Moreover, the government has its own preference on policy to

give the favors to the business class in order to maintain the
stable amount of investment and employment rate.
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Elitism

• Elitism also mentions that citizens are lacking in the platform to

engage in policy process.

• The political power is in the hands of several elites like

government officials, big businessmen or professionals and they
are the core of policy making.

• The government is not neutral as it operates under guidance of

elites.

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Corporatism

• Corporatism points out that the commercial sectors and

organized labor unions enjoy prior privilege in accessing the
platform of policy process while others are excluded.

• The government acts as a mediator between businessmen and

labors.

• They are the main participants in the policy process.

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