Summary: Public Policy A New Introduction | 9781137573292 | Christoph Knill, et al

Read the summary and the most important questions on Public Policy A New Introduction | 9781137573292 | Christoph Knill; Jale Tosun

• 1 Introduction

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• What are the two fundamental issues of the study of public policy?

  -Policy variation: how are there differences between public policies in different sectors and countries?
  -Policy change: How or why are public policies remaining stable or changing over time?

• 1.1.1 Polity, Politics and Policy

• What is the difference between polity, politics and policy?

  - Polity: institutional structures of a political system.
  - Politics: political processes (e.g. Voting behavior).  
  - Policy: the content of policies, the analysis of the outputs of a political system.

• 1.1.2 Elements of Public policy

• What are two fundamental elements of public policy?

  1. The actions of public actors
  2. These actions focus on specific issues (scope of activities is restricted).

• What are the ways that public policy can be conceived?

  - as a problem-solving activity.
  - as a means of exerting power.

• 1.2.1 Basic theoretical perspectives on public policies: rational process design, muddling through or just chance?

• What are the three approaches of how public policies evolve?

  - Rationalist approach
  - Incrementalist approach
  - The garbage can model

• How does the rationalist approach understand policy-making?

  It prescribes how policymaking in the ideal world would be organized and how it would/should evolve, the goal being: achieving optimal solutions to the policy problems.
  Fully rational decision-making process.

• How does the incrementalist approach view policy-making?

  Political actors, possessing different types of information, interact which leads to a political result (public policy). The actors need to make concessions, therefore policy-makers primarily concentrate on aspects that are more technical (not as controversial).
  
  Not an ideal , but a realistic description of how policy-makers arrive at those decisions.
  
  Policy makers only have limited information, and the restrictions of their mind. So, decision-makers apply their rationality only after having simplified the choices available.
  So you're looking for a satisfactory solution rather than an optimal one.

• How does the garbage can model view policy-making?

  The involved actors within an organization go through the 'garbage' first and look for a suitable fix.  The solutions develop independetly of problems.
  A lot of solutions are produced but later discarded because of lack of problems.

• 1.2.2 Stages of the Policy Process

• What are the stages of the policy cycle?

  1. Problem definition and agenda-setting
  2. Policy formulation and adoption
  3. Implementation
  4. Evaluation (with potential consequence of policy termination or reformulation).    
  
  The policy cycle is continuous and unending

• Why use a different model?

  Tool to investigate the process of policy-making from different analytical angles.