PPA 503

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PPA 503 The Public Policy-Making Process

• Lecture 7a Legitimation and Decision-Making

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Policy Legitimation

• Legitimation is the official authorization of the
  policy decision or policy program
• Agreement on means.
• The purpose of legitimacy is to provide
  authorization for the basic processes of
  government. If the government acts with
  legitimacy in a society governed by popular
  sovereignty, citizens will follow government
  directives.
• But citizens have to believe that government
  actions are legitimate.
• Support.
• Support for the regime tends to be diffuse a
  reserve of favorable attitudes and goodwill
  toward the actions of government that helps
  members of the polity tolerate dissonance.

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Policy Legitimation

• Agreement on Means (contd.).
• Regimes maintain diffuse support by inculcation.
• The education system in any society builds
  support for its political processes. Sources of
  patriotism.
• Legitimacy can be managed through manipulation of
  symbols (the playing of the national anthem at
  every event). Through this process people learn
  to support government.

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Policy Legitimation

• Agreement on Means (contd.).
• Discontinuities can exist. But if the
  discontinuities are persistent, they can shake
  the underlying legitimacy.
• Civil Rights movement.
• Vietnam.
• Watergate.
• Clinton scandals.
• Iraqi prison scandals.
• Ultimately, you should recognize that the
  legitimacy of the regime and the legitimacy of
  the government are two different things. It is
  possible to question the current authorities
  without losing support for the U.S. governmental
  system.

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Policy Legitimation

• Approval majority building.
• Principle process of American democracy is
  majority building. Decisions by majority rule
  are granted more legitimacy than decisions by
  plurality (2000 election).
• But plenty of checks against majority tyranny.
• Legitimation by majority rule most closely
  identified with the legislature.
• But, bureaucrats, legislative liaison, lobbyists,
  state and local officials, the President also
  involved.
• Presidential veto or the threat of the veto.
• Split-ticket voting.

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Policy Legitimation

• Majority building in Congress.
• Collecting knowledge.
• Identifying interests.
• Maintaining a flow of communication.
• Congressional committee hearings, staff research,
  diversified representation, interest group
  contacts, research by agencies, requests for info
  from agencies and private research groups.

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Policy Legitimation

• Majority building in Congress (contd.).
• Other characteristics of the process.
• Serial consideration of alternatives.
• Several majorities have to be constructed.
• Excluding amendments and appropriations.
• House (subcommittee, committee, House Rules
  committee, vote on the rule, vote in the
  committee of the whole, vote on the bill, vote on
  recommital.
• Senate (subcommittee, committee, scheduling, vote
  on the bill, vote on reconsideration).

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Policy Legitimation

• Majority building in Congress (contd.).
• Other characteristics of the process (contd.).
• Different strategies may be need to build
  majorities for the same proposal.
• A number of nonmajoritarian and extramajoritarian
  considerations must be taken into account in
  analyzing legitimation processes in Congress.
• Committee and subcommittee power.
• Veto override.
• Filibuster in Senate.

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Policy Legitimation

• Majority building in Congress (contd.).
• Other characteristics of the process.
• Bargaining is central to all processes.
• Outcomes may not satisfy absolutely but will be
  politically acceptable.
• Parties facilitate, but do not guarantee majority
  coalitions.
• Legislative involvement differs across issues.
• Confirm a coalition elsewhere.
• Participate in developing a coalition.
• Legislative leadership in developing coalitions.
• Satisfy majority of the public.

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Policy Legitimation

• Other means of approval.
• Direct participation.
• More monitoring of government activity.
• More involvement in implementation.
• Initiatives and referenda.
• Bureaucratic rule-making.
• Legislative delegation and administrative
  discretion.
• Federal Register and public comment.
• Supervision by federal circuit courts.

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Policy Legitimation

• Other means of approval (contd.).
• Judicial decision-making.
• Reactive
• Lifetime appointment at federal level, election
  at state and local level.
• Judicial review.
• Trial courts.
• Appellate courts.

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Policy Legitimation

• Constraints on legitimation.
• Problem definition constraints.
• Ideological constraints.
• Structural constraints.
• Political constraints.

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Rational Model of Decision-Making

• State goals/ objectives explicitly and precisely.
• Adhere to the same goal throughout the analysis
  and decision-making process.
• Try to imagine and consider as many alternatives
  as possible.
• Define each alternative clearly as a distinct
  course of action.

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Rational Model of Decision-Making

• Evaluate the costs and benefits of each course of
  action as accurately and completely as possible.
• Choose the course of action that will maximize
  total welfare as defined by your objectives.

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Polis Model

• State goals and objectives ambiguously and
  possibly keep some goals secret or hidden.
• Be prepared to shift goals and redefine goals as
  the political situation dictates.
• Manage alternatives.
• Keep undesirable alternatives off the agenda by
  not mentioning them.
• Make your preferred alternative appear to be the
  only feasible or possible one.
• Focus on one part of the causal chain and ignore
  others that would require politically difficult
  or costly political actions.

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Polis Model

• Use rhetorical devices to blend alternatives
  dont appear to make a clear decision that could
  trigger strong opposition.
• Select from the infinite range of consequences
  only those whose costs and benefits will make
  your preferred course of action look best.
• Choose the course of action that hurts powerful
  constituents the least, but portray your decision
  as creating maximum social good for a broad
  public.

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Decision strategies

• Rational model.
• Cost-benefit analysis (outline).
• Tally up the negative and positive consequences
  of an action to see whether, on balance, the
  action will lead to a gain or a loss. The
  decision is then made according a single
  criterion or rule net benefit greater than zero
  or benefit-cost ratio greater than one.
• Risk analysis (outline).
• Exactly like benefit-cost analysis, but each
  consequence comes attached with a probability of
  its happening. Expected value or cost.
• Decision trees (outline).
• The concept of expected value is equally central
  to decision analysis, a framework for structuring
  problems when there is a great deal of
  uncertainty about the consequences of actions or
  when there are trade-offs between different
  consequences for the same action.

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Decision strategies

• Polis model.
• Ambiguity.
• Non-decisions.
• Hobsons choice.
• Issue framing.
• Labeling of alternatives.

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Vigilant Problem-Solving
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Vigilant Problem-Solving

• Key assumptions of the decision-making model.
• The quality of decision procedures used to arrive
  at a fundamental policy decision is one of the
  major determinants of a successful outcome.
• Most top-level leaders are capable of
  carrying-out the procedures that are essential
  for high-quality policymaking.
• Policymakers generally make no effort to use
  high-quality procedures for arriving at a policy
  decision if they regard the issue as unimportant.
• If one of the constraints is critical,
  policymakers will give the constraint priority
  even if the issue is very important.

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Vigilant Problem-Solving

• Procedural criteria for effective decision-making
• Surveys a wide range of objectives.
• Canvasses a wide range of alternatives.
• Intensively searchers for new information
  relevant to the alternatives.
• Correctly assimilates and takes account of new
  information or expert judgments.
• Reconsiders the positive and negative
  consequences of alternatives originally regarded
  as unacceptable.
• Carefully examines costs and risks of negative
  consequences.
• Makes detailed provisions for implementation and
  monitoring.

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Vigilant Problem-Solving

• Symptoms of poor decision-making.
• Gross omissions in surveying objectives.
• Gross omissions in surveying alternatives.
• Poor information search.
• Selective bias in processing information at hand.
• Failure to reconsider originally rejected
  alternatives.
• Failure to examine major costs and risks of the
  preferred choice.
• Failure to work out detailed implementation,
  monitoring and contingency plans.

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Vigilant Problem-Solving
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Decision constraints