Reaganism,pluralism, and the politics of pesticide regulation

A key priority of the Reagan Revolution was an attack on the system of health, safety, and environmental regulation that arose in the 1970s. This article evaluates Reagan's regulatory reforms through the lens of one particularly important case study, the regulation of pesticides. This case will be used to explore two issues: (1) an empirical question about the magnitude of policy change achieved by the Reagan administration in the area of environmental regulation; and (2) a conceptual and theoretical question about the dynamics of subgovernments or issue networks, and their relationship to policy change. The analysis reveals that while the Reagan administration has produced important changes in both policy style and substance, in comparison to the changes that occurred around 1970, they have been relatively modest. Reagan's reform efforts failed largely because the President only controls a subset of the relevant components of the policy regime. Environmental interests were strongly entrenched in regime elements beyond Reagan's immediate control - in particular Congress, the courts, and the ruling public philosophy - and were thus able to thwart many of Reagan's initiatives.     

Implicit theories in policy discourse: An inquiry into the interpretations of reality in German technology policy

Interpretations of reality are an important, sometimes even decisive, dimension of the policy process. This essay seeks to demonstrate this point in the field of technology policy. Empirical research shows that government support for technology transfer in Germany is based on a concept of technology that is shared by neither companies nor academic researchers. These different concepts become reified interpretations of what technology means. They are referred to here as implicit theories. Interviews with academic researchers and business people demonstrate how inquiries into the realm of policy theories can be carried out.     

Ideas,interest and institutions in policy change: Transformation of India's agricultural strategy in the mid-1960s

Over the last ten years, policy change in the third world has become a matter of considerable intellectual and practical importance. For the theoretically inclined, how one explains changes in the behavior of the state is the main issue. Both Marxian and liberal orthodoxies had a tendency to read off state behavior from the power relationships at the level of the society, though differing in the way they conceptualized power. The return of institutional and state-centric explanations over the last decade has attempted to reverse this bias by looking more closely at the power struggles within the state institutions. For the practically inclined, the powerful intellectual rationale behind so many policy recommendations has often been puzzlingly lost in the maze of politics. What interests impede the implementation of good ideas, what institutions block getting policies right - these are some of the key questions on the agenda of international development institutions. Responding to these varied concerns, this paper analyzes a particularly successful case of policy change. While most of third world was still experimenting with land reforms and cooperatives as the ways to develop agriculture, India in the mid-1960s switched to producer price incentives and investments in new technology, a change that is widely believed to have turned India from a food-deficit to a food-surplus country. The focus is on how ideas, interests and institutions interacted to produce the change.     

Policy analysis: some observations on the West German scene

The article provides an overview on the development and the state of policy analysis as applied public policy research in West Germany. The developmental sketch shows that, similar to the upsurge of policy research in the United States since the mid-1960s, policy research in the Federal Republic of Germany is an offspring of the reformist period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, carried by a virtual reformers' coalition among politicians, bureaucrats, and researchers. Due to extradisciplinary demands and also intradisciplinary shifts in research foci, public policy research became almost a growth industry in the course of the 1970s.The article goes on to explore which repercussions the economic crisis, the new conservative moods and majorities and the end to reforms has had on the state and the orientation of policy analysis. The argument is presented that, no matter which majorities have the day, policy research remains socially and politically indispensible to detect and test corridors and niches for public action under ever narrower financial restraints and to identify the costs and benefits of such policies in a changing world.     

Wildavsky on budget reform

A large part of the literature on budgeting in the United States is concerned with reform. The goals of proposed reforms are couched in similar language - economy, efficiency, improvement, or just better budgeting ... However, any effective change in budgetary relationships must necessarily alter the outcomes of the budgetary process. Otherwise, why bother? Far from being a neutral matter of better budgeting, proposed reforms inevitably contain important implications for the political system, that is, the who gets what of governmental decisions (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 186). ... budgeting is a subsystem of politics, not vise versa - because of the current tendency to overload budgeting. As much as I respect the importance of budgeting and the talents of budgeteers, to substitute budgeting for governing will not work (Wildavsky, 1992b: p. 439).     

The lessons of learning: Reconciling theories of policy learning and policy change

Several different explanations of policy change based on notions of learning have emerged in the policy literature to challenge conventional conflict-oriented theories. These include notions of political-learning developed by Heclo, policy-oriented learning developed by Sabatier, lesson-drawing analyzed by Rose, social learning discussed by Hall and government learning identified by Etheredge. These different concepts identify different actors and different effects with each different type of learning. Some elements of these theories are compatible, while others are not. This article examines each approach in terms of who learns, what they learn, and the effects of learning on subsequent policies. The conclusion is that three distinct types of learning have often been incorrectly juxtaposed. Certain conceptual, theoretical and methodological difficulties attend any attempt to attribute policy change to policy learning, but this does not detract from the important reorientation of policy analysis that this approach represents.     

The dynamics of policy change: Policy succession

This paper suggests that the policy model assumed by most writers on policy analysis neglects the implications of the fact that most new policies in contemporary Western political systems are in fact replacing old policies, and that this is increasingly likely to be the case. Similarly, the recent interest in policy termination is partly misplaced since it fails to follow through adequately the implications of the fact that most policy terminations lead to policy succession. Accordingly, there is a need to study and analyse the processes involved in policy succession. This paper places policy succession in the context of policy change, sketches a model which describes the distinctive features of the policy succession process, outlines the various kinds of policy succession which occur, and draws out some implications for policy makers resulting from the increasing importance of policy succession.This article is a revised version of a paper entitled The policy succession process: Implications of policy change, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 28–31 August 1980.     

Crime,punishment and human nature

In Thinking About Crime James Q. Wilson brings a new dimension to crime policy research by explicating the failure of criminologists to adequately consider the philosophical perspectives on man and society which underlie alternate policy options. As a result, they rarely appreciate the inherent limits on government efforts to deal with crime. Wilson's consideration of these limitations, together with a critique of causal analysis in criminological thinking, lead him to propose an alternate conceptual framework, policy analysis. Our inspection of Wilson's own thinking reveals, however, that policy analysis is no less problematic and shortsighted than causal analysis, a result we attribute to serious flaws in his critique of criminological thinking and to the incorporation of his own biases about human nature into his conceptual framework. We seek in the concluding section to remove this bias and to demonstrate how policy analysis may be expanded into a more flexible, multi-dimensional framework, one which accounts for different assumptions about human nature and different policy goals.     

Food safety regulation: is the Delaney clause the problem or symptom?

The Delaney anticancer amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 is a prominent example of zero risk legislation. The relevant clauses prohibit a finding of safety for any relevant substance found to induce cancer in humans or animals. It is argued that the Delaney approach to safety regulation is not only misguided, but that relaxation of the law - for example, to permit substances that pose insignificant cancer risks - would produce only marginal improvement in regulation. A major shift in regulation that permits some form of cost-benefit analysis is the only way to move toward rational policy choices.Professor of Economics, Rutgers University. I am grateful to William Ascher, Richard A. Merrill, and two referees for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

The meaning of party labels

To determine the meaning(s) of the concepts Republican, Democrat, and Independent, the most frequently cited attributes of each party label were scaled in terms of their semantic centrality. An analysis of the magnitude scale values demonstrates that the labels Republican and Democrat have unique cognitive properties which easily discriminate one label from another. The most characteristic and discriminating properties refer to (1) voting, (2) electioneering, and (3) other forms of electoral behavior. Although these two labels have many strong properties over which there is considerable agreement, such consensus is lacking for the fewer and weaker properties which characterize and discriminate the label Independent. Whereas Republican and Democrat are sharply delineated, semantic inversions of one another, the concept Independent is ambiguously defined and only weakly distinguishable from other concepts.     

Growth controls: policy analysis for the second generation

The 1970s spawned a first generation of growth controls which featured explicit (or implicit) restrictions on residential housing construction. These restrictions were typically implemented in small, affluent, and predominantly white suburban communities. Policy analysis responded by focusing almost singlemindedly on how such supply-side restrictions might increase housing prices and drive out the poor. The 1980s and 1990s have, however, given birth to a more comprehensive second generation of controls which many major cities and metropolitan areas are considering. This generation ties commercial and industrial as well as residential development to the reduction of the negative externalities and congestion costs associated with growth. To fully evaluate this second generation, policy analysis must take into account not only housing price effects and the rate of job creation but also the full range of amenity effects associated with differing rates of growth and attendant levels of traffic congestion, air pollution, and other public bads. We develop a framework for such second generation growth control analysis using San Diego as an example.     

Science and the climate change regime

Given rapidly increasing losses from extreme climate events, the world community already has a common interest in action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. However, this common interest is not well served through continued promotion of either mandatory (legally-binding) policies or do nothing policies by various participants in the regime established by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The common interest would be better served by a third way, comprised of voluntary no regrets policies that are commensurate with the limited political power of the regime and already have succeeded on small scales in reducing vulnerabilities to extreme climate events and in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Both mandatory and do nothing policies, as well as the regime itself, have depended upon scientists for political support in the past. But scientists might better serve the common interest of the world community through support of a third way in the future.     

Positivist beliefs among policy professionals: An empirical investigation

A group of scholars argue that mainstream policy analysis ispositivistic in its theory and practice. This paper reports the resultsof an e-mail survey that was conducted to investigate the extent,dimensions, and determinants of positivist beliefs among policyprofessionals. The survey results show that policy professionals aremore positivistic in their abstract beliefs and less so in their beliefsabout the role of politics and analysis in the policy process.Educational background is the most important factor determining beliefs:The economists and mathematicians/scientists are most positivistic intheir beliefs, while political scientists are least positivistic. Also,practitioners take more positivistic positions than academics. Overall,the largest percentage of the respondents see the postpositivistfacilitator role as the proper role for policy analysts,but there is also a significant percentage of those who prefer thepositivist problem solver role.     

Policymaking and technology transfer: The need for national thinking laboratories

The objectives of this paper are to understand what is meant by better policymaking and more efficient technology transfer, to explore what is needed for their achievement, and to suggest an operational mechanism for improving the two processes.The author introduces a few new terms: (1) Inter-context information is defined, and its importance in decisionmaking, policymaking, technology transfer and education is pointed out; (2) a distinction is drawn between incidental technology transfer—initiated by the donor—and organized technology transfer—initiated by the recipient.The author suggests that National Thinking Laboratories should be established to promote organized technology transfer and to act as catalysts to organized policymaking. Their charter should be to match needs in one context to capabilities in another context. This charter is outlined in operational terms by five general objectives listed by the author. The National Thinking Laboratories are most urgently needed, particularly in the developing countries.     

Political arenas,life styles,and the impact of technologies on policymaking

Public policies are often founded upon or employ specific technologies. Two basic types of technology are distinguished—behavioral and physical technologies—and their contributions to policy and policymaking are discussed. The attractiveness of a technology to policymakers depends on how politically significant groups view the technology's impact on life styles and its implications for the allocation of values. Following Theodore Lowi's groundwork, behavioral technologies generally are perceived to redistribute values (power, respect, wealth, status) and regulate styles of living, while physical technologies generally appear to distribute values, opportunities, and freedom to pursue desired life styles. The policy sciences are given separate treatment as a behavioral technology with both distributive and redistributive aspects. The creative use of physical technology, development of multidisciplinary policy studies, and efforts towards more distributive behavioral technologies are discussed as more relevant and productive for policymaking.     

The senate agriculture committee produces a homeostat

Agricultural policy making between 1960 and 1973 is examined drawing on Herbert Simon's conception of procedural rationality. The basic structure of current agricultural policy evolved during the period studied. The paper suggests that policy and policy making interact narrowing the search for a law until it achieves a combination of provisions that is an equilibrium. The computational routines used in calculating consequences of provisions of legislation are extracted from the text of committee hearings and analyzed as a system of inequalities. The paper also discusses what satisficing means in this policy making process.     

A tale of two policies: The politics of climate forecasting and drought relief in Ceará, Brazil

This paper evaluates the use of climate-based information in drought mitigation in Ceará, Northeast Brazil. It examines two policies – a seed-distribution program (Hora de Plantar) and the Emergency Drought-Relief Program – that use climate information produced by FUNCEME (Cearás Foundation for Meteorological and Hydrological Resources) to implement drought planning. It argues that, in politically charged policy-making environments, the use of climate forecast information may go beyond its problem-solving function to influence broader issues of accountability and democratization. In Cearás politically charged environment, technocrats rely on scientific information about climate to insulate policy-making from both political meddling and public accountability. However, insulation afforded by the use of climate information has played different roles in the policy areas examined in this study. While in drought emergency-relief planning the use of climate information critically contributed to the democratization of policy implementation, in agricultural planning, it worked towards further insulating decision-making from public accountability and client participation. Thus, the use of climate information is context-dependent, that is, the distribution of costs and benefits associated with information use in policymaking depends on the social, political, and cultural context in which information producers and users work. Moreover, climate information can be used in ways – positive or negative – significantly different from the use that information producers intended.     

Postmodern policy analysis: Discourse and identity in welfare policy

Postmodern inquiry into the discursive construction of identity has the potential to make a distinctive, democratizing contribution to public policy analysis. More so than conventional approaches, a postmodern policy analysis offers the opportunity to interrogate assumptions about identity embedded in the analysis and making of public policy, thereby enabling us to rethink and resist questionable distinctions that privilege some identities at the expense of others. Public policy analysis can benefit from postmodernism's emphasis on how discourse constructs identity. A review of postmodernism and postmodern approaches to interrogating identity is followed by an exercise in postmodern policy analysis. Social welfare policy in contemporary postindustrial America is shown to participate in the construction and maintenance of identity in ways that affect not just the allocation of public benefits, but also economic opportunities outside of the state. Mired in old, invidious distinctions (e.g., independent/dependent, contract/charity, family/promiscuity), welfare policy discourse today helps to recreate the problems of yesterday, particularly as a critical factor in reproducing women's poverty.     

Occupational safety and health in Poland in the 1990s: A regulatory system adapting to societal transformation

The societal transformation underway in Poland createda fundamental challenge to the occupational health and safety system, as the ideological and administrative principles on which it was founded vanished along with the communist-dominated regime. This paper examines the regulatory reform in Poland during the 1990s: its structural elements, implementation record and future prospects. Drawing on five case studies of privatized firms, a mailed questionnaire, and policy and institutional analysis, we find that Poland had considerable success in developing an effective regulatory system for managing occupational health hazards in privatized sector while also achieving considerable socioeconomic progress. The fundamental legitimacy of the regulators and regulatory process, the availability of information about firms and regulatory intents, and the capacity for case-specific decision making, are among the key explanatory factors. The case-specific implementation in Poland is consistent with models advocated by several authors in relation to other industrialized European economies (termed variously as negotiated compliance, tit-for-tat, cooperation-deterrence), despite a uniquely Polish context related to the continuing legacy of the communist era. The study also shows how in Poland a good fit between regulatory institutions and policies on the one hand, and their social context on the other hand, contributes to the effectiveness of the regulatory system.     

The welfare of the elderly: A systems analysis viewpoint

A methodology is offered to analyze for policy purposes the services offered to the elderly. Best policy is defined as that policy which maximizes the benefit to the elderly, given budgetary and other constraints. To measure the benefit to the elderly, a scale is devised, consisting of a set of states describing the degree of dependency of the elderly. This ordinal scale is converted to a cardinal scale by assigning weights to the states, these weights being an expression of the social-value judgments of the administrators. The change in weights over time, induced by the intervention of services, is the benefit of the services. Mathematical techniques are described for relating benefit to cost, modeling the flow of elderly among institutions, making a sensitivity analysis, and deriving the best policy.