PSCI 3201 Environmental Policy 091107

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PSCI 3201 Environmental Policy09/11/07

• Agenda setting, contd
• Policymaking limits
• C. Policy design

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Agenda Settingand the Environment
What makes people in and around government
attend, at any given time, to some subjects and
not to others?
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Three streams (or processes) affecting the
likelihood that a particular issue will arise on
the policymaking agenda

• 1. Problems
• 2. Policies
• 3. Politics

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3. The Political Stream

• What kinds of political circumstances are most
  conducive to policy change?
• a new administration
• shifts in party balance
• swings in national mood
• changes in interest group activity

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Kingdons InsightAn issue is most likely to
move onto the decision agenda when

• Window of opportunity
• B. Policy Entrepreneur
• C. Coupling packaging
• of the separate
  process
• streams
• gt
  problems
• gt
  policies
• gt politics

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Limitations of the SystemUnderstanding the way
politics usually operates

• Agenda setting waiting for a window of
  opportunity
• Policy process incremental versus innovative
  change
• Policy design designing a feasible solution

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Policy Process

• Should policy be made in a certain way?
• Coming to terms with idealistic versus realistic
  models of the policy process

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The root model versus the branch model of the
policy process
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Root model(rational-comprehensive)

• Policy makers should
• Identify values
• Isolate the ultimate goal
• Search all alternatives
• Choose the best option
• Test for good policy

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Branch model(successive-limited incremental)

• Policy makers
• Make sequential and repetitive changes
• Focus on remediating known problems
• Review through feedback
• Test for good policy through agreement

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Comparing the root (rational) modelversusthe
branch (incremental) model

• Clarifying values can we identify these in the
  abstract?
• Capabilities where you want to go depends on
  your ability to get there
• Priorities competing perspectives makes this
  nearly impossible
• Interacting values values are relative

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Comparing the root (rational) modelversusthe
branch (incremental) model

• Clarifying values can we identify these in the
  abstract?
• Choosing the best means to the ends
• is there really one best way to get from here to
  there?

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Comparing the root (rational) modelversusthe
branch (incremental) model

• Clarifying values can we identify these in the
  abstract?
• Choosing the best means to the ends
• Political feasibility
• the perfect policy will fail without
  sufficient political support
• need to build political support at sufficient
  levels to overcome opposition

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Limitations of the SystemUnderstanding the way
politics usually operates

• Agenda setting waiting for a window of
  opportunity
• Policy process incremental versus innovative
  change
• Policy design designing a feasible solution
• Goals
• Targets
• Agents
• Linkages

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Elements of Policy Design

• A. POLICY GOALS
• 1. May be implicit or explicit
• 2. May be normative or
• instrumental
• 3. May change