Download Official and Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy

PPA 503 – The Public
Policy-Making Process
Lecture 3a – Official and Unofficial
Actors and Their Roles in Public
Policy
Introduction
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Political science traditions.
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Institutionalism – focus on texts of constitutions,
laws, and other written statements of policies and the
relationships between formal government institutions.
Behaviorism – focus on political motivations of
individuals, acting singly and in groups, often through
polling, game theory, and statistical techniques.
Neo-institutionalism – focus on organizations and
systems in which individuals interact and achieve
political and policy goals through explicit or implicit
rules and operating procedures.
Introduction
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Main categories of actors in the policy
process.
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Official actors – statutory or constitutional
responsibilities.
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Legislative, executive, and judiciary.
Unofficial actors – participation with no
explicit legal authority.
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Interest groups, media.
Legislatures
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First listed branch in the federal and most
state constitutions.
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Source of considerable research.
Primary function is lawmaking. Number of
bills and resolutions gives some idea of
how busy legislatures are.
Legislatures
Jurisdiction
House or
Assembly
Bills
House or
Assembly
Concurrent
Resolutions
House or
Assembly
Joint
Resolutions
Senate Bills
Senate
Concurrent
Resolutions
Senate Joint
Resolutions
U.S.
Congress
(2001-2002)
5,767
521
125
3,181
160
53
California
Legislature
(2001-2002)
3.283
264
66
2,277
114
56
Legislatures

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Burden eased by staff.
Bills sifted by committee structure at both
the federal and state level.
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Committee chairs wield significant power.
Most bills fail to move past their first
committee hurdles because they are largely
symbolic gestures.
Legislatures
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Other critical functions performed by legislators
that affect public policy.

Casework – activities to help constituents with
government agencies or to gain a privilege or benefit.

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Supports reelection.
Oversight – Monitor the implementation of public
policy.

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Government Accountability Office – www.gao.gov. Studies
public programs and makes recommendations to improve
efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability.
Public hearings.
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Help understand issues.
Reveal shortcomings in current policies.
Make political capital.
Legislative Organization
Legislative Organization
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California process.
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http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bil2lawx.html.
Legislative Organization
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What you see on C-SPAN does not represent the
bulk of legislative action on policy.
Most of the critical work on public policy is done
in committees, which review legislation, propose
and vote on amendments, and, in the end,
decide whether a bill will die at the committee
level or be elevated for consideration by the full
body.
One of the most critical elements of legislative
organization is the organization on party lines.
Legislature – Critiques of Public
Policy Process


Many people argue that legislatures are
out of touch with the people.
To understand why legislatures work as
they do, you need to understand two
elements of the legislature: the nature of
the members of the body and the
organization and nature of the branch
itself.
Legislature – Critiques of Public
Policy Process
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The primary goal of the typical legislator is
reelection. Casework allows legislators to please
voters.

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Home style and hill style.
Legislatures are decentralized institutions,
especially Congress.
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Committees and subcommittees.
Decentralization and centralization of party
leadership.
Issue networks and policy subsystems.
Legislatures – Implications for
Policy Making

Decentralization and casework focus
makes complex and change-oriented
legislation difficult to pass.
The Executive Branch


For the sake of discussion, the executive branch
can be considered in two parts: the
administration, staff, and appointees; and the
bureaucracy.
Advantages of an elected executive in the policy
process.
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Veto power.
Unitary branch of government.
Media and public attention.
Informational advantage over the legislature.
The Executive Branch
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Elected executive limitations.
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“Power to persuade”.
The size of the Executive Office of the
President.
Elected executive’s focus on agendasetting.
Administrative Agencies and
Bureaucrats
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Characteristics of bureaucracy.
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Fixed and official jurisdictional areas.
Hierarchical organization.
Written documentation.
Expert training of staff.
Career, full-time occupation.
Standard operating procedures.
Key complaints about bureaucracy.

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Size.
Red tape.
Administrative Agencies and
Bureaucrats
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What Do Government Agencies Do?
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Government agencies provide services that
are uneconomical for the private sector
(public goods – free-rider problem).
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Public goods are indivisible and nonexclusive.
Complaints tend to focus on speed, efficiency,
and effectiveness of public service delivery.
Administrative Agencies and
Bureaucrats
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Bureaucracy and the problem of accountability.
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The key problem is the question of accountability.
Most public employees are appointed on merit, not
accountability to elected officials.
Early thinking focused on separation of politics and
administration.
Modern thinking: Agency decisions are political and in
the realm of administrative discretion.
Problem: no single, agreed-upon definition of the
public interest.
Administrative discretion: ability to make decisions
with minimal interference.
The Courts

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The ability to interpret legislative and
executive actions: judicial review.
Courts are the weakest because their
authority rests on the legitimacy of the
law and their ability to argue their case.
Legislatures and executives initiate public
policy, while courts react to the practical
effects of such policies.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Individual citizens.
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Low political participation.
Voting.
 Other forms of participation: campaigning,
contacting, etc.
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Despite this, citizens can be mobilized:
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Recall election in California.
Generally speaking, individuals want the most
services for ourselves while paying the least
taxes for those services.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Interest groups.
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Interest groups have been part of the political
scene since the founding.
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Since the 1960s the number of groups has
greatly expanded.

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Madison and the dangers of faction.
Transportation, mass communication, expansion of
government.
Few legal barriers to the creation of groups.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Interest groups.
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The power of interest groups varies.
Knowledge, money, information.
 Group size, peak associations.
 Intensity, direct economic interest, ideological
commitment.
 Social movements (combinations of interest
groups).
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Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Types of interest groups.
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Institutional versus membership groups.
Economic (private) versus public interest versus
ideological groups.
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Benefits, free-rider problems.
Activities of interest groups.
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Lobbying.
Campaign contributions.
Access (well-off).
Mass mobilization, protest, and litigation.
Riots and protest marches.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Political parties.
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Functions.
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Voting cues.
Transmission of political preferences.
Creation of packages of policy ideas.
Organization of the legislative branch.
Think tanks and other research organizations.
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Brookings, Cato, Urban Institute, Rand, American
Enterprise Institute.
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Ideological, scholarly, and methodological distinctions.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Communications media.
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The news media are important actors in the policy
process.
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Newspapers – National versus regional versus local.
TV is the central news medium. Older population, networks;
younger population, cable news.
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Entertainment programming can be equally important.
 Movies, t.v., videogames.
Media’s primary function in policy process is agendasetting. Media coverage correlates with institutional
attention.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Communications media.
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News media are not just passive actors.
Interest try to arouse media focus.
 Time and space constraints require discretion.
 Profit-driven businesses.
 Competitive biases of news gathering: dramatic
and narrative qualities of the story.
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Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Subgovernments, issue networks, and domains.
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Policy domain is the substantive area of policy over
which participants in policy-making compete and
compromise.
The political culture and legal environment influence
the domains.
Policy community inside the domain consists of the
actors actively involved in policy making in that
domain.
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Iron triangles one way of organizing the policy community.
Issue networks may be more accurate description.
Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in
Public Policy
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Subgovernments, issue networks, and domains.
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Prying open policy networks (major corporate
interests usually dominate).
But, policy change is possible by prying open a
domain.
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Focusing events.
Social movements and mobilization.
Exploiting the decentralization of American government.
Going public.