Public administrators and policy legitimization: Policy analysis,politics and power

This article discusses the factors public administration faculty should incorporate into the curriculum in order to equip students to engage in the policy legitimization process. In order to produce leaders, public administration programs should emphasize the nature of the political system, an understanding of the legitimacy of subgovernments, the importance of coalition building and the psychological factors associated with policy choices.

Integration of policy analysis into the public administration curriculum requires that students be equipped with an in-depth understanding of both the political environment and the political process. This is true because public administrators are deeply involved in the stages of policy development, adoption, and implementation; activities which reach beyond the narrow confines of program management and into the realm of politics. Consequently, public administrators serve in a variety of capacities: as policy advocates, program champions, or as defenders of client interests. It is in these roles that public administrators move into the political arena. Policy analysis activities provide the discipline with the opportunity to move beyond an emphasis on a narrow concern with simply “managing” government and into the realm of policy choice, policy advocacy, political power and the exercise of leadership.

Public administration as a discipline, and teaching faculty in particular, face the challenge of increasing the relevance of the master's degree to policy leadership. Astrid Merget, past president of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, expressed this need for increased emphasis on policy leadership training quite eloquently in 1991:

“Our vision of the holder of a master's degree in our field is that of a leader, not merely a manager or an analyst. But we have not been marketing that vision.”⁽¹⁾

Merget attributes partial responsibility for the low public esteem of government service to the attitudes, teaching, and research activities of public administration faculty who have failed to link the “lofty” activities of government (environmental protection, health care, the promotion of citizen equality) with public administration. Accordingly, the academic standard of “neutrality” governing teaching and research acts as an obstacle to teaching the fundamentals of the goals of public policy. This professional commitment to neutrality places an emphasis on administrative efficiency at the expense of policy advocacy. The need, according to Merget, is to reestablish the linkage between policy formulation and policy management. Such a teaching strategy will enhance the purposefulness of public administration as a career. Failure to do so will relegate public administration programs to the continued production of governmental managers, not administrative leaders.

The integration of policy analysis into the public administration curriculum affords the discipline with the opportunity to focus on policy leadership and escape the limitation associated with an emphasis on program management. Teaching policy analysis skills cannot, and should not, be divorced from the study of politics and the exercise of political power. This is true because politics involves the struggle over the allocation of resources, and public policy is a manifestation of the outcome of that political struggle. Public policy choices reflect, to some degree, the political power of the “winners” and the relative lack of power by “losers.” The study of public policy involves the study of conflict and the exercise of power.

Teaching public administration students about the exercise of power cannot be limited to a discussion of partisan political activities. Public administrators serve in an environment steeped in the exercise of partisan and bureaucratic power.⁽²⁾ It is practitioners of public administration who formulate, modify and implement public policy choices. Such bureaucratic activity is appropriate, provided that it is legitimated by the political system. Legitimacy can be provided to public administrators only by political institutions through the political process.

Teaching public administration students about policy analysis and policy advocacy necessitates an understanding of the complexities associated with the concepts of policy legitimacy and policy legitimization.     

Public administrators and policy analysis: beyond political science

This article proposes using an analytical techniques approach to teaching policy analysis in public administration programs. It is organized using questions raised by journalists: who, what, why, where, when, and how. Although most attention is devoted to the content of such an approach, the initial portion of the article provides a rationale for taking that approach. The initial portion of the article concludes with a rejoinder to those who might be tempted to dismiss the argument out of hand because the proposed view of policy analysis is not a political science one.

It is desirable to go beyond a political science view of policy analysis in teaching public policy in public administration programs to a broader conception of policy analysis. Then, public policy can be fully integrated into public administration programs.

The antithesis is heard in required statistics and research methods courses where students complain that the material is irrelevant to their degree programs and career goals when the uses of statistics and research methods are not related to the practice of public administration. Integrating public policy into a public administration curriculum is most feasible in the area of policy analysis. Presentation of this argument follows the categories journalists use to ask questions and write stories: who, what, why, where, when, and how. Most attention is directed toward what.     

Mayors in Seven European Countries: Part II – Performance and Analysis

In their search for innovative policy solutions to complex social problematics, local governance practitioners will look to synergising specific policy guidance from government departments with conceptual scientific research outputs. UK academics are also now expected to emphasise the relevance of their research and to increase its utilisation by practitioners. Away from utilitarian pressures, academics from applied discipline, such as Public Administration and Local Government Studies are increasingly drawn to the benefits of co-produced research. Despite the pressure for more co-research there are few opportunities for practitioners and academics to nurture relationships that would support close collaboration. This paper looks at the opportunity for closer collaboration when practitioners undertake research degrees, in order to enhance their cognitive skills and develop greater scientific knowledge of particular policy domains. If this route to closer collaboration is to succeed, it will require academics to think differently about their relationship with practitioner-students.     

From population control to "reproductive rights": ideological influences in population policy

The author examines some of the ideological influences which have shaped population control policy in recent decades and considers the growing critique of what is now regarded as a narrowly focused policy, one which is based upon a simplistic definition and analysis of population growth in the less developed world. Focus is given to the important role of professional demographers in the US, who tailored their theories to provide a respectable justification for questionable policy intervention. The emergence of a population establishment in the US, based upon interconnected networks of foundations, private population organizations, and university population centers is outlined. These institutions provide a willing conduit for US government funding through the US Agency for International Development. Relevant interdisciplinary literature has raised concerns over issues such as the outside intervention in national sovereignty, ethical aspects associated with the implementation of fertility control programs, the exclusion of Third World scholars from research programs conducted in their own countries, and the unwillingness of programs to consider complex social and cultural dimensions of high fertility.     

Social policy as nation-building: identity formation,policy feedback,and social citizenship in Ghana

Beyond economics-centric discourses about issues like “social investment,” in recent years scholars have argued that social programs, like education, healthcare, and income support arrangements, can be instrumental in the construction and reconstruction of national identities and solidarities at both the ideational and the institutional level. Drawing on this scholarship, this article makes a direct contribution to the comparative politics and policy literature by examining the trajectories of nation-building and social policy development in Ghana. It extends existing scholarship by providing an in-depth study of Ghana while using that case to further explore the understudied connection between social citizenship, identity formation, and policy feedbacks from existing social programs.     

Strategies for dealing with policy ambiguities

Ambiguities often weave through policies, leading to conflict and confusion over the intents and purpose of said policy and how it may manifest in any specific instance. Given that policy management is a core function for most public service agencies, the challenges here are almost universally experienced as public servants balance the political, legal, and technical requirements of policies against their functionality in practice. To this end, the authors use a grounded theory approach to identify themes in how practitioners cope with policy ambiguities. Relying on data from program evaluation reports and interviews with practitioners, the authors triangulate five themes: interpretation as a collaborative endeavor, teach people how to think, processes simplify and guide, consistency comes from horizontal communication, and policy interpretation evolve. Conclusions argue that ambiguity is a key theoretical and practical challenge that impacts the quality and character of democratic governance.     

Adapting to democracy: Societal mobilization and social policy in Taiwan and South Korea

Democratic transition and institutional change do not necessarily guarantee greater political inclusion, particularly when it comes to the policy influence of civil society groups. Rather, political inclusiveness requires strategic adaptation among societal actors. Actors need to seize upon opportunities endemic to political change. This article provides a comparative analysis of health care reform in democratizing Taiwan and South Korea, focusing on two social movement coalitions, the National Health Insurance Coalition in Taiwan and Korea's Health Solidarity. Both movement coalitions were critical in shaping welfare reform trajectories in Taiwan and South Korea during the late 1990s, despite having been shut out from earlier episodes of health care reform. I argue that these groups (1) strategically adjusted their mobilization strategies to fit specific political and policy contexts, (2) benefited from broad-based coalition building, and (3) effectively framed the issue of social welfare in ways that gained these movements ideational leverage, which was particularly significant given the marginal place of leftist ideas in the postwar East Asian developmental state model. Joseph Wong is assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is the author ofHealthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea, published by Cornell University Press. Wong received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author thanks Edward Friedman, Jay Krishnan, Ito Peng, Richard Sandbrook, Linda White, along with the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to Uyen Quach and Nina Mansoori for their research assistance.     

The perspective of multi-religious Society on Islamization policy in Malaysia

Support for Islam has often been described as part of the Malaysian government’s drive for Islamization, commonly known as ‘Islamization policy’. The concept of an ‘Islamization policy’ is contested, open to various interpretations since it is not officially defined in any government blueprint. This paper highlights the perspectives of a number of religious groups on Islamization policy. The study covered the period from 1981 until 2009, which includes the Mahathir Mohamed and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administrations. Using a policy analysis lens, the paper focuses on the perspective of the groups regarding the idea of Islamization as a public policy; the meaning and status of Islamization policy. The patterns indicate that the views are more complex than just ‘for’ and ‘against,’ although the patterns of perception are based on two divergent views: those who support the policy (the proponents) and those who oppose it (the opponents). This diversity is significant in that it helps to provide a better understanding of some multi-religious perspectives towards Islamization policy, as well as highlighting the different interests and concerns of both Muslim and non-Muslim communities towards the policy.     

From population control to 'reproductive rights': Ideological influences in population policy

This paper is a review of the interdisciplinary literature examining ideological influences which have helped to shape population control policy in recent decades. A powerful critique of what has become a top-down, ethnocentric approach towards a narrowly focused policy has emerged both from scholars within the Third World itself and from those in the more developed regions. Concerns with issues such as outside intervention in national sovereignty, ethical aspects associated with the implementation of fertility control programmes, the exclusion of Third World scholars from research programmes within their own countries, and the unwillingness of programmes to consider complex social and cultural dimensions of high fertility, are among those which this literature has raised. The role of professional demographers, as part of the population establishment network within the USA, in providing respectable justification for questionable policy intervention, is also examined.     

From extractivism towards buen vivir: mining policy as an indicator of a new development paradigm prioritising the environment

This article analyses mining policy as an indicator of a larger question: are some Third World governments starting to steer away from plunder ‘extractivism’ towards a paradigm that prioritises the environment? We begin with the cases of El Salvador and Costa Rica, which have major mining bans in place. We then present the results of our research in which we find five other countries with noteworthy mining-policy shifts: Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand. A sixth country, Honduras under President Zelaya, stands as a recent historical case of how sensitive such a policy change can be. A key take-away from our article is that critical development scholars and practitioners need to look more closely at the mining sector – not simply to analyse case studies of specific mining protests and resistances to extractivism, although these are of course important. Rather, there is a need to investigate policy changes that just might be indications that the era of unquestioning extractivism has ended and that at least some governments are initiating policies to incorporate environmental externalities, policies that suggest a changing development paradigm in the direction of environmental – and concomitant social and economic – ‘well-being’ as envisioned in buen vivir.     

Public administrators and policy implementation--a social work perspective

Professional social workers in both macro and micro settings are vitally concerned with public policy, particularly that of social welfare policy, and its implementation. They are keenly aware of the quality and quantity of services and other end products of policy implementation. Social workers serve as public administrators and staff many public and private agencies that form the delivery system network. They are also concerned with social problem-solving as is the public administrator, and see themselves as behavior change agents. Their generalized value perspective addresses the political conflicts arising from the nature and causes of poverty and inequality, the role of government in society, and the nature and methodology of the decision-making process. Organization and administration become means to ends, not ends in themselves.

The conclusions arise that public administrators will have to assume more governmental responsibility, rather than less. This is seen as a natural evolutionary outgrowth of the need to regulate increased conflict fueled by growing interdependence and rapid societal change. While public agencies are continuing results of governmental intervention, they are condemned to operate in the midst of paradox.     

Inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China: A comparative case study

Classic theoretical research on the diffusion of policy innovation is usually based on decentralized democratic regimes. However, in authoritarian centralized countries such as China, questions such as, ‘What are the driving forces and the structural dynamics behind local government policy innovation and inter-regional diffusion?’ and ‘How do the governmental structural factors lead to the different patterns of diffusion of policy innovation across local governments?’ are interesting research topics. The theoretical framework proposed in this study highlights the roles of the contingent vertical and horizontal governmental relations in innovation diffusion. I extract two key properties: vertical mandatory intervention from the central government and horizontal political competition among peer governments. This research uses four models to develop a new typology of the inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China: (1) the enlightenment model, (2) the championship model, (3) the designation model, and (4) the recognition model. A comparative case study is conducted in this research, with four policy cases showing that China has developed diversified mechanisms to encourage local governments to perform policy innovation and inter-regional diffusion.     

The emotive effect of government branding on citizens' trust and its boundaries: Does the personal relevance of the policy issue matter?

Recent studies have demonstrated the potency of government branding to enhance citizens' trust in government organizations and policies. In addition, studies have pointed to the detrimental implications of this emotive effect, mainly its ability to compensate for organizations' poor functioning, and accordingly to elicit undue trust. In light of these concerns, this study explores the boundaries of governments' persuasion of citizens through branding and symbolic communications. Building on social psychology and marketing research, I hypothesize that citizens are less susceptible to persuasion by branding the more they perceive the policy issue as personally relevant. I test this expectation through a survey experiment, focused on air pollution policy in Israel, exploiting the natural variation in the perceived personal relevance between citizens residing in a polluted area in the country and others. The results indicate that even high levels of perceived personal relevance do not attenuate the effect of symbolic brand elements. This means that the boundaries of persuasion and manipulation through branding are wider than expected.     

Public policy and quality of community life in american cities: a search for linkage

The purpose of this research is to identify and examine linkages that exist between public policy and quality of life in American cities. A review and analysis of public policy research and social indicators research over the past twenty years is included. Social indicators are further defined into both objective and subjective indicators. The developing confluence of the two areas of research constitutes the basis for the remainder of the paper.

The data for this study are derived from a nationwide survey conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., in late December, 1977 and early January, 1978, for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Interviews were conducted for a sample of 7,074 adults, asking them about their perceptions on the quality of community life, government services, social problems, and future possibilities. The findings are analyzed through use of a frequency distribution of the quality of life measures and the quality of public service variables.

The pattern of statistical relationships indicates that the nine public service variables are sharply divided into two groups. One, seven variables (police, garbage, street lighting, fire, public schools, parks and playgrounds, and road and street maintenance) are all highly inter-correlated. The correlation coefficients among them range from a high of .411 (police and fire) to a low of .218 (garbage and public schools). The other, public transportation and public health service are also closely inter-correlated, but their relationships with the other seven are all uniformly weak.

These two groups of public services have distinct political and policy implications. The first group of services tends to represent those traditionally well-established public services that are considered “vitally important” for the well-being of the general public. The second group, in contrast, tends to represent those public services that are relatively new and serving primarily the needs of low income or minority groups in the community whose political influence is most likely to be marginal.

A few generalizations may be drawn from the statistical relationships. First, the general indicators of community life quality such as feelings about the overall community and neighborhood are more strongly correlated with the quality ratings of public services than the quality indicators of specific life domains. Second, some of the strongest relationships are found between specific public services and specific domains of life quality that might be expected logically to have close association such as police and safety (r=.317) and public schools and child raising (r=.427). Third, those public services that are considered part of mainstream local services and important for the daily life of the general public (such as police, fire, public schools, parks and playgrounds, etc.) tend to be very strongly correlated with the measures of community life quality. Fourth, in contrast, those services that are primarily affecting underprivileged groups in the community and not considered part of the mainstream of local services are poorly or insignificantly correlated with the measures of community life quality.     

Population growth and foreign policy

Australian foreign policy is examined in light of the population issue and its relationships to its developing Asian neighbors. Rapid population growth has been a 20th-century phenomenon. In the ESCAP region, almost all governments are anxious to reduce growth rates and welcome international assistance for population programs. The motivation of these governments seems to be both political and economic. Asian countries do not share the view expressed at Bucharest by Latin American and African representatives that high population growth rates are not a problem. Results of national family planning programs in 16 developing Asian countries are assessed. Major fertility decline has only occurred so far in the most prosperous of these countries. Future fertility trends are hard to predict. Present inadequate knowledge of the determinants of human fertility and limited knowledge regarding fertility limitation techniques hamper progress in population reduction. Australia has aided these countries in demographic training and data collection. For both economic and humanitarian reasons, this aid should be extended to program implementation.     

With friends like these: foreign policy as personal relationship

Governments are run by humans who have sympathies and moods. The study of leaders' personalities, albeit not widespread, is an important tool for foreign policy analysis. Plus, friendship is a feeling that decision-makers like to express for each other. This paper analyses the activity of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's three times premier, who has made ‘friendship’ a central tenet of his personal foreign policy. Three cases are considered, namely, Berlusconi's relationship with George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin. The paper concludes that his friendship-based foreign policy has somehow worked; but, because he decided to ignore Italy's structural constraints in the international arena, he ended up wasting opportunities and resources.     

Constituting 'the public' in public participation

The emphasis on public participation in contemporary policy discourse has prompted the development of a wide range of forums within which dialogue takes place between citizens and officials. Often such initiatives are intended to contribute to objectives relating to social exclusion and democratic renewal. The question of ‘who takes part’ within such forums is, then, critical to an understanding of how far new types of forums can contribute to the delivery of such objectives. This article draws on early findings of research conducted as part of the ESRC Democracy and Participation Programme. It addresses three questions: ‘How do public bodies define or constitute the public that they wish to engage in dialogue?’; ‘What notions of representation or representativeness do participants and public officials bring to the idea of legitimate membership of such forums?’; and ‘How do deliberative forums contribute to, or help ameliorate, processes of social inclusion and exclusion?’     

The Mutual Obligation Policy in Australia: The rhetoric and reasoning of recent social security policy

Since 1997, the Australian Federal Liberal Government has introduced policies which have sought to reduce rates of unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment. The policy, known as Mutual Obligation, increased the expectations on unemployed people in return for their social security payment. At the same time, previous labour market programmes and government assistance schemes were scrapped or privatised. This article explores the justification of the term 'Mutual Obligation' by examining both the language and the underlying principles of the policy. By defining the problem of unemployment in terms of flaws in the previous social security system, the stage is set for the government to introduce policies which remedy those flaws by emphasising self- reliance in favour of government assistance. Further, by invoking notions of fairness and mutuality, the article argues that the term 'Mutual Obligation' masks both the extent and the strength of the obligations imposed on unemployed people.     

Redefining Who’s ‘In’ and Who’s ‘Out’: Explaining Preferences for Redistribution in Bolivia

How does welfare state expansion reconfigure political coalitions? This paper challenges traditional accounts that pit social policy ‘insiders’, who univocally oppose policy expansion, against ‘outsiders’ who favour it. It argues that labour market vulnerability and partisan cues can play a critical role in shaping the preferences of both insiders and outsiders, and thus produce new pro-expansion coalitions. To test this claim, it employs historical analysis of key social insurance configurations in Bolivia over the last 30 years, as well as an original survey carried out in Bolivia following that nation’s 2007 extension of a noncontributory national minimum pension.     

Migration,Reconfigurations of Family Relations and Social (In)Security: an introduction

This introduction reviews the contributions this collection of articles makes to understanding migration, social reproduction and social protection. Migration necessarily involves reconfigurations of family relations and these entail changes in the patterning of social (in)security. Our expansive interpretation of the concepts of social reproduction and social protection situate the reorganisation of gendered family lives as integral to the migration–development nexus. Life-course thinking informs analysis of how migrants ‘do family’ and what this means for gender, identity and (in)security. The collection explores how ‘care deficits’ are managed, both discursively through the negotiation of gendered ideologies about gender identity and the family, and through the everyday practice of social reproduction. The resulting reorganisation of social security involves taking on new risks and vulnerabilities for migrants and their families. For both internal and international migrants the challenges involved in securing social reproduction are powerfully shaped by welfare and migratory regimes and raise important questions about the relationship between social protection and broader social policy and citizenship issues.