Technocracy and democracy as spheres of justice in public policy

There is a long-standing debate about the proper application of democratic versus technocratic approaches to decision-making in public policy. This paper seeks to clarify the debate by applying Michael Walzer’s notion of “spheres of justice,” wherein both democracy and technocracy could be seen as distinctive approaches to justice that need to be protected from the domination of the other. The paper shows how the debate on democracy versus technocracy has evolved in both theoretical and applied settings in a manner that reflects the “domination” of one approach by the other. It elaborates the argument through several concrete examples drawn from comparative politics, public policy, and public management. It then explores how the “spheres” approach implies the need for an interpretive mechanism in order to mediate the competing notions of justice in particular policy issues.     

Three views of the expert's role in policymaking: Systems analysis,incrementalism, and the clinical approach

This paper compares three approaches to improving policymaking: systems analysis, disjointed incrementalism, and the clinical approach (elsewhere referred to as the planned change or human relations approach or organization development). It pays particular attention to the way in which these three approaches view organizations and the role of the expert in reform-mongering.It is suggested that systems analysis and incrementalism are quite compatible and that, in fact, systems analysis has, in large measure, accepted the incrementalists' view of the policymaking process. But this acceptance has served not so much to strengthen policy analysis as to increase awareness of its weaknesses.The clinical approach, on the other hand, holds out the promise of strengthening policy analysis, since it focuses on changing organizations, an area in which both systems analysis and incrementalism are weak and, as action-oriented approaches, hampered by their weaknesses. The potential contributions of the clinical approach are considered as well as the likelihood of an eventual synthesis.The first version of this paper was prepared for presentation to the Systems Analysis Group, Canadian Treasury Board.     

Strategic Thinking,Shared Meaning‐Making and the Interpretive Turn in Policy ‐ A Case Study

Governments' demands for results in a complex and rapidly changing policy environment call for more strategic and nuanced ways of approaching policy. Drawing on the work of the British interpretive ‘turn’, evidenced in the network governance literature and the differentiated polity critique of Westminster narratives, and of Liedkta on strategy as design, this paper suggests that shared strategic narratives, more consciously applied to policy development and implementation, could deliver better results; that consensus from shared meaning‐making may have depth, and that it could emphasise the transformative over the conservative forces of individuals' traditions and beliefs. Data for the paper came from a micro‐study on the implementation of SmartGate automated border processing system in New Zealand.     

Interpretation in the Analysis of Policy

Interpretation is a critical element in both the analysis and the accomplishment of governing, and taking an interpretive approach to policy should not be seen as a methodological option for consenting adults, but as an integral element of political analysis. Understanding governing (whether by practitioners or analysts) raises questions about the shared meaning which makes action valid, and makes a reality of ‘the government’. This calls for attention to the ways in which this is done, and how this interpretive construction has been recognised in political science (and other social sciences) in Australia and elsewhere, and for a consideration of what this means for political scientists’ agenda of inquiry.     

Interpretive policy inquiry: A response to its limitations

With positivist and technocratic notions still prevalent, Paul Healy's (1986) insightful effort to advance “interpretive policy inquiry” both underscores the limitations of conventional analysis and helps us to grasp the policy process in human terms. Yet the article falls short of a systematic presentation of the interpretive position and, in doing so, reveals the limitations of that approach: the need for an explicitly critical posture becomes clear. This point is made with particular attention to a pre-positivist figure, Machiavelli. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Politics and the Public in Rawls' Political Liberalism

This paper is a critical discussion of a number of related themes in John Rawls' Political Liberalism. First, it considers whether Rawls' recent statement of his position proceeds from an adequate methodology for political theory. In particular, it questions whether Rawls has succeeded in accommodating both universalist, analytic and particularist, interpretive aspects of the political theoretical enterprise. Second, it engages in critical analysis of the conceptions of the political and the public which lie at the core of Rawls' theory. In this part of the paper, an important though not exclusive focus will be certain questions raised by Susan Moller Okin and other feminist critics of Rawls about the internal consistency of his conception of justice. It is argued that Political Liberalism neither addresses these questions explicitly nor, contrary to Okin's view, provides implicit conceptual tools which could allow a sympathetic interpreter of Rawls to do so. The direction of the argument will suggest certain preconditions for the development of a more substantively and methodologically adequate approach to political theory.     

Partisan views on the economy

In this paper it is argued that political parties may have incentives to adopt a partisan view on the working of the economic system. Our approach is based on a dynamical spatial voting model in which political parties are policy oriented. This model revolves around two interrelated issues x and y. The policy maker sets x directly. There exist two views on the relationship between x and y. Model uncertainty confronts policy makers with the problem of the selection of a model to base their actions on. We show that if voters have imperfect information about the working of the economic system that model selection contains a strategic element. Policy makers are inclined to adopt a view on the working of the economic system which fits in with their preferences. There is no inherent logic that places monetarists to the right of New Economists. They have different models of economic mechanism, but they need not have different political values. A conservative can be a Keynesian and a liberal a monetarist. These combinations are in fact surprisingly rare. James Tobin, 1974,The New Economics One Decade Older, p. 62.     

Citizens’ use of policy symbols and frames

This paper argues that citizens are capable of developing and promoting complex policy symbols, and that these symbols include supporting frames that explain and justify them. Based on a long-term study of education policies in Los Angeles, California, the paper uses interpretive methods to reconstruct and analyze these frames. Citizens developed two specific policy symbols while the district was engulfed in a desegregation debate; citizens identified schools as places where students gained academic knowledge and as institutions that affected broader race relations. However, education policy in Los Angeles could not support these two symbols over a long period of time, and a political movement to end mandatory busing eventually caused the academic symbol (originally the weaker of the two symbols) to become dominant. This trend reflects broader national discussions, in which education is now discussed in terms of standards and accountability and is evidence of continuing racism in US policy.     

‘These are your Title I students’: Policy language in educational practice

Based on a qualitative study of the United States federal compensatory education policy, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, this article uses interpretive policy analysis to investigate the ways in which policy language influences practitioners' understanding of students who are eligible for policy-funded services. Focusing on the situated interpretations of practitioners in nine urban elementary schools, the study shows how policy-generated categories shape practitioners' conceptualizations of students as they determine how to provide services. The aricle considers possible consequences of policy labels on teacher expectations and ends with an appeal for the collective, reflective interrogation of policy language in educational practice.     

Civil society organizations and deliberative policy making: interpreting environmental controversies in the deliberative system

This paper argues that while research on deliberative democracy is burgeoning, there is relatively little attention paid to the contributions of civil society. Based on an interpretive conceptualization of deliberative democracy, this paper draws attention to the ways in which civil society organizations employ “storylines” about environmental issues and deliberative processes to shape deliberative policy making. It asks, how do civil society organizations promote storylines in the deliberative system to change policy? How do storylines constitute policy and policy-making processes in the deliberative system? I answer these questions through an empirical analysis of two environmental controversies in the USA: environmental justice in New Mexico and coalbed methane development in Wyoming. Findings indicate that civil society organizations used storylines in both cases to shift the dynamics of the deliberative system and to advance their own interpretations of environmental problems and policy-making processes. Specifically, they used storylines (1) to set the agenda on environmental hazards, (2) to construct the form of public deliberation, changing the rules of the game, (3) to construct the content of public deliberation, shaping meanings related to environmental policy, and (4) to couple/align forums, arenas and courts across the system. These findings suggest that promoting storylines through accommodation and selection processes can be an important mechanism for shaping policy meanings and for improving deliberative quality, although these effects are tempered by discursive and material forms of power, and the competition among alternative storylines.     

Postclassical realism and Japanese security policy

The recent domestic constructivist studies characterize Japanese security policy as a serious anomaly to realism and a crucial case vindicating their approach to the larger study of world politics. The present paper challenges this view. It advances a postclassical realist interpretation of Japan's core security policy in the past quarter century. Japan's military doctrine expressed in the 1976 National Defense Program Outline (NDPO) is consistent with postclassical realism's predictions, as opposed to neorealism's predictions, which focus on the dynamics of the regional security dilemma and the question of financial burden resulting from military build-up. In addition, postclassical realism offers a more compelling theoretical guide for understanding Japan's core security policy than defensive realism or mercantile realism. This paper backs up its argument with the empirical evidence that Takuya Kubo, the author of the NDPO, himself intentionally based the NDPO on a postclassical realist line of thinking.     

Mitigation Targets,Burden Sharing and the Role of Economic Modeling in Climate Policy

Within Australian climate policy, the dominant framework for determining national emission reduction targets has been ‘burden sharing’. The prevailing view, both within and outside government, has been that there should be a rough equivalence in the costs that countries bear in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, at least where countries share similar wealth and capacity traits. This article looks at the practical problems with this approach that stem from its reliance on economic modeling. It is contended that any principled approach to target setting should strive for objectivity but that burden sharing based on projected welfare losses cannot provide this. To illustrate the fallibility of the economic projections that are done for these purposes, the article reviews how one of the greenhouse reporting sectors, known as land use, land‐use change and forestry, has been dealt with in the modelling exercises that have been done in Australia for climate policy purposes.     

Dispersed communication by central bank committees and the predictability of monetary policy decisions

The paper asks whether members of central bank decision-making committees should communicate with the public in a collegial manner, by conveying the consensus or majority view of the committee, or in an individualistic way, by providing the diversity of views among the committee members. It finds that more active as well as more consistent communication by committee members improves the predictability of monetary policy decisions significantly. This effect is sizeable as communication dispersion across committee members accounts on average for one third to one half of the market’s prediction errors of FOMC policy decisions. Moreover, more active and more consistent communication are found to also reduce the degree of uncertainty about the future path of interest rates. These findings suggest that a collegial communication which stresses the consensus view on policy inclinations can enhance the effectiveness of central bank communication.     

Culture without the State? Reinvigorating Ukrainian Culture with Diasporic Efforts

This article explores the efforts of diaspora groups to reinvigorate culture. Cultural policy studies tend to focus on efforts of the state to fund and support the maintenance, enhancement, and preservation of national culture(s). This article contributes to this area of research by noting the effects of diaspora groups in achieving many of the same ends as official cultural policy through unofficial means. Using Ukraine as an interpretive case study, the article explores diasporic efforts to respond to a lack of cultural policy at home by invigorating Ukrainian culture abroad. Through the use of social networking tools, Ukrainian diaspora groups in the United States and Canada have been successful in maintaining their culture without the state. This study suggests that cultural policy research should involve not only official state‐centric efforts, but nonofficial diaspora‐centric efforts of cultural invigoration.     

Policy Design and Nodal Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Determinants of Environmental Policy Change in a South African City

Abstract

This contribution focuses on a policy paradox, a failed attempt to introduce a Solar Water Heater bylaw in a South African city in spite of much initial support, both politically and professionally. The paper combines a policy design and a nodal governance perspective to explain why the law failed to materialise. It uses categories developed by the nodal governance approach to characterise the mentalities and technologies of the public agencies involved in the policy process, and explore how distinct policy cultures are nurtured by the networked relations and concomitant learning contexts of these agencies. The analysis shows how the agencies differ sharply on philosophical and practical grounds as to how they typically think about policy values and interventions. This tends to make the collaboration between them difficult as each of them experiences the other as seeking to frustrate rather to assist the policy process. The paper documents how “superstitious learning” became a predominant trait of the bylaw process, as each of the agencies tended to look for evidence in the actions of officials in the other department that confirmed their stereotypical view of them, and reinforced it during the process of interaction. Insufficient attention was given, early on in the bylaw process, to the fact that these departments would have to cooperate closely and that “buy-in” from both was a critical condition for success. Due to this, unfortunate policy design choices fed forward through the implementation process and disabled opportunities for co-learning and collective problem-solving.     

TRENDS IN THE LOGIC OF POLICY INQUIRY: A COMPARISON OF APPROACHES AND A COMMENTARY

This paper provides an overview of trends in the logic of policy inquiry. It compares Harold Lasswell's view of the policy sciences with the applied social science approach articulated by James Coleman and revised into multiplism by Thomas Cook. Alternative approaches presented by Trudi Miller (design science) and Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Cuba (naturalistic inquiry) are also examined. Commonalities existing among them are identified.     

Owning the issue agenda: Party strategies and vote choices in British elections

Explanations of party competition and vote choice are commonly based on the Downsian view of politics: parties maximise votes by adopting positions on policy dimensions. However, recent research suggests that British voters choose parties based on evaluations of competence rather than on ideological position. This paper proposes a theoretical account which combines elements of the spatial model with the ‘issue ownership’ approach. Whereas the issue ownership theory has focused mainly on party competition, this paper examines the validity of the model from the perspective of both parties and voters, by testing its application to recent British general elections. Our findings suggest that as parties have converged ideologically, competence considerations have become more important than ideological position in British elections.     

Epistemic contestation and interagency conflict: The challenge of regulating investment funds

Scholarship on regulating global finance emphasizes the importance of national and bureaucratic interests, but less attention has been devoted to epistemic sources of regulatory conflict. We address this by analyzing the failure of regulators to agree tougher rules for large investment funds after the 2008 crisis. The article suggests this outcome was the result of epistemic contestation between prudential regulators and securities regulators, rooted in divergent interpretive “frames.” We show that US and EU prudential regulators pushed for entity-based regulation of investment funds by escalating the issue to global standard-setting bodies. But this was successfully resisted by securities regulators that exercised epistemic authority through recursive practices—appeals to expertise, jurisdictional claims, and alliance building—to defend their transaction-based approach. The article demonstrates how an interpretivist perspective can provide new insights into inter-agency conflict and regulatory disputes in other policy fields.     

The rhetorics of policy analysis

This paper claims that policy analysis is inherently rhetorical, that it cannot be fully understood apart from the audiences to which it is directed and the styles in which it is communicated. Defining rhetoric as persuasive discourse within and between interpretive communities, I argue that policy analysts are embedded in a complex rhetorical situation created by the interaction of three primary audiences (scientists, politicians, and lay advocates), each of which has its own normal discourse and agreed-upon conventions of persuasion, and that failure to persuade any one of these audiences will cause analysts to appear incompetent, impractical or illegitimate. To support and illustrate this claim I reconstruct the theoretical literature about policy analysis in rhetorical terms, then review events that occurred at Love Canal, New York, in the late 1970s. I conclude by suggesting that policy analysts need to actively mediate the policy discourse between scientists, politicians, and advocates.