3—The Policy Contents. States and Societies

Question 1

What are policy paradigms?

Answer 1

In policy-making, policy paradigms define the scope of feasible public policies

Question 2

What are policy ideas?

Answer 2

Policy ideas are the best options within the boundaries set by policy paradigms

Question 3

What are the supplementary/residual state and corrective state approaches to liberal political economy?

Answer 3

—Supplementary/residual state: the state should provide those goods (e.g. pure public goods) that private companies would have no incentives to offer
—Corrective state: the state should level the playing field and correct market failures (Rawls)

Question 4

What is the problem with conciliating democracies and liberal economies?

Answer 4

Democracy is about collective rights, while liberalism is about individuals’

Question 5

What is the state’s autonomy?

Answer 5

Is the measure of how independent is a state in its policy-making. It is higher in a society with conflicting groups.

Question 6

What is the state’s capacity?

Answer 6

Is the measure of how effective is the state in implementing its policies. As opposed to autonomy, it is higher in a society with large umbrella groups, which can internalise the negative effects of such policies and represent collectively the interests of the varied associations they are composed of.

Question 7

How does the state’s authority affect public policy?

Answer 7

A unitary system (e.g. China) has a higher authority than a federal system (e.g. the US). Thus, policy implementation is easier.

Question 8

How do presidential systems affect public policy?

Answer 8

In presidential or semi-presidential systems, the executive and the parliament are elected at different moments, thus the executive might not have the majority in parliament, complicating policy-making.

Question 9

Define public policy in a parliamentary system

Answer 9

In a parliamentary system, the executive and the parliament are elected at the same time, ensuring the majority of the winning party in both branches. However, the majority might shift during the legislature and the coalitional nature of governments in many parliamentary countries might affect public policies.

Question 10

How do executives influence public policy?

Answer 10

Executives have access to privileged information, thus carefully select what to share with the media. Additionally, the recent trend to rely on committees for policies’ approval, grants politicians more autonomy from their parties, resulting in more powerful executives. Furthermore, executives have considerable financial resources and a bureaucracy under their control. However, a government might lack both the resources and the political capacity to make and implement coherent policies

Question 11

Why are bureaucracies crucial in public policy?

Answer 11

Bureaucracies usually last longer than executives, thus allowing for long-term policy planning. The non-inference of politicians or client groups in day-to-day activities its crucial to ensure bureaucracies’ proper functioning

Question 12

How do interest groups affect public policy?

Answer 12

Interest groups have often access to unrivalled information on policies which may impact them. Being public policy an information-intensive process, they are valuable both for governments and opposition to back up their position. Furthermore, interest groups may have considerable financial resources they use to steer policy making. The extent to which interest groups impact public policies depends on their cohesion and on the state’s strength (e.g. a weak state or a state with no influence over multinationals could not provide much support)

Question 13

What is a think tank?

Answer 13

A think-tank can be defined as “an independent organization engaged in multi-disciplinary research intended to influence public policy” (James, 1993: 492).

Question 14

How do think tanks act?

Answer 14

They seek politicians who might espouse their objectives and finance their research. Thus, they spend considerable effort publicising their work. The reliability of state-financed think tanks in developing countries is questionable. Given the cut to research funding in the 1990s, think tanks often navigate in a context of destructive competition

Question 15

What is the media’s role in public policy?

Answer 15

Media are fundamentals in setting the public agenda by choosing whether or not an issue is worth reporting. However, very often media are led by government officials’ opinions than vice versa

Question 16

What is the role of academic policy experts and consultants?

Answer 16

As opposed to think thanks, which seek an immediate response, academic and consultants focuses more on long-term effects

Question 17

What is the role of international actors and regimes in public policy?

Answer 17

International actors find it easier to intervene in a regime which sets penalties for noncompliance. Their financial resources are also influential. The more subsystems are fragmented, the more influence they have. Transnational corporations (TNCs) are key actors.

Question 18

What is an advocacy coalition?

Answer 18

In the work of Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith (1993), an advocacy coalition refers to a particular subset of actors within the policy subsystem. An advocacy coalition consists of actors from a variety of public and private institutions at all levels of government who share a set of basic beliefs (policy goals plus causal and other perceptions) and who seek to manipulate the rules, budgets and personnel of governmental institutions in order to achieve these goals over time.

Question 19

What are the factors determining the chance of success of an advocacy coalition?

Answer 19

They are both internal—the coalition’s resources—and external—the nature of the problem, natural resource endowments, cultural values, constitutional provisions, public opinion, technology, level of inflation or unemployment, and change of political party in government

Question 20

How are policy subsystems classified?

Answer 20

They are classified according to whether or not there is a dominant knowledge base and to what extent a consensus exists on those idea sets. In particular:
- Dominant idea set + few idea sets= Hegemonic community
- Dominant idea set + many idea sets= Fractious community
- Non dominant idea set + few idea sets= Contested community
- Non-dominant idea set + many idea sets= Chaotic community

Question 21

What are policy networks?

Answer 21

Policy networks indicates how the components of the policy subsystem interact with each other in policy-making

Question 22

What are the main variables of policy networks?

Answer 22

1. The number and the type of membership
2. Whether state or societal actors dominate their activities and interactions