KAY 386: PUBLIC POLICY

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KAY 386 PUBLIC POLICY

• LECTURE 2
• Reading Parsons, pp. 16-41.

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Course Agenda

• Course Syllabus and Slides will be available at
• http//yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/myildiz/
• Select the readings to be read after the midterm
• Select the topics for newspaper assignments

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Meanings of Public Policy

• Public policy (PP) as rationalization of the
  state and politics as a policy-making activity.
• Concerned with what decision policy makers have
  or do not have.
• Empirical assumptions
• the laws that govern human behavior exist
  independent of human control,
• the units of analysis in social systems are
  highly similar over time and space.

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Enlightenment Notion in PP

• Background of the growth of the policy approach
• The world is full of puzzles and problems which,
  through the application of human reason and
  knowledge, could be solved.
• Policy science as the desire for knowledgeable
  governance.
• The acquisition of facts and knowledge about
  problems so as to formulate better solutions.
• The analysis of policy requires that we have an
  understanding of the historical, legal,
  anthropological and geographical contexts of PP.

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The growth of PP

• The growth of PP as a distinct field of academic
  activity may be dated to the late 1960s.
• In 1972 the Policy Studies Organization was
  founded.
• 1970s and 1980s witnessed an explosion of
  think-tanks and research institutions in which
  interdisciplinary approaches to policy thrived.
• In the 1980s and 1990s the PP field has spread
  beyond America to other countries.

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The growth of PP-2

• Expansion of government as a problem solver
• In the US, in 1960s, governments increasingly
  required more information and analysis about
  education, transport, health, etc.
• A belief in social science as a form of
  engineering and medicine.

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Harold Lasswell

• A pre-eminent moving spirit behind the growth of
  a policy science approach.
• Supply of data is needed for the making of
  rational judgements on policy decisions
• Policy sciences are contextual, problem-oriented,
  multidisciplinary, multi-method, and involved in
  the synthesis of ideas and techniques.
• Policy scientist is an integrator of knowledge
  and action.
• Policy analysis is speaking truth to power.
• Setting up of early think-tanks in 1940s.

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Other Important PP Scholars

• Herbert Simon- bounded rationality
• Charles Lindblom- incremental approach
• David Easton- proposing a model of political
  system
• Conceptualizing the relationship between
  policy-making, policy outputs and its wider
  environment.
• Yehezkel Dror and Lindblom agree that
  policy-making is far too complex to be captured
  in any model.

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Institutional Settings

• Institutional settings that one can find policy
  analysts (not mutually exclusive)
• Universities
• Independent research institutions think-tanks
• In-house policy units
• Pressure and lobby groups
• Political parties
• Freelance consultants

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PP Frames

• Frames of analysis are models of organizing
  problems, giving them a form and coherence.
• It involves constructing a boundary around
  reality which is shared, or held in common by a
  group or community.
• Main frames in PP are
• Welfare Economics
• Public Choice
• Social Structure
• Information Processing
• Political Philosophy
• Political Process
• Comparative Politics
• Management

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Political Policy Processes in PP

• Stagist approaches
• Pluralist-elitist approaches
• Focusing on power and its distribution
• Neo-Marxist approaches
• Application of Marxian ideas on PP
• Sub-system approaches
• Application of communities, networks
• Policy discourse approaches
• Influence of language and communication patterns
  on PP

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Comparative PP approaches (not mutually
exclusive)

• Socio-economic approaches
• How PP is the outcome of economic and social
  factors
• Party government approaches
• How party competition and partisan control of
  government matters to PP
• Class struggle approaches
• How political forms of class struggle affect PP
• Neo-corporatist approaches
• Influence of organized interests on PP
• Institutionalist approaches
• The role of the state and social institutions in
  shaping PP

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Methods of the comparative PP approach

• Single case studies of one party area in one
  country
• Statistical analysis of several case studies and
  countries
• A more focused comparison of a policy area or
  sector between a selected number of comparable
  countries

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Does human behavior, on which policy analysis is
  based, depend on universal principles?
• Did Turkey/Turkish scientists produce any
  original solutions to public policy problems,
  which became an example to other countries?