Policy Making

Presented by: Melissa Hyde Jenalyn Pirosch Leila Beckham Greg Batore

Summary of Chapter

Key Concepts• The political agenda determines which issues will

receive consideration in formulating new policy

• Costs and benefits determine who supports a

policy, who opposes it, and the coalitions that form

to compete over a policy

• Business regulation is an excellent case study of

the different types of policies and policy-making.

• Perceptions, beliefs, interests, and values all play

a critical role in the policy-making process.

Vocabulary• client politics: some identifiable, often small group will benefit, but a large part of

society will pay the price.

• costs and benefits: costs = burdens people must bear from the policy. Benefits = any

satisfaction that people expect to receive from the policy.

• entrepreneurial politics: large part of society benefits greatly from a policy that costs

an unidentifiable, small group a great deal.

Vocabulary, cont.

• interest group politics: policy benefit a small, relatively unidentifiable group, and will

cost other small, unidentifiable groups.

• majoritarian politics: policy that benefits a large groups of people with a large cost to

a lot of the same people.

• policy entrepreneurs: public entrepreneurs who, from outside the formal positions of

government, introduce, translate, and help implement new ideas into public practice.

• political agenda: determines which issues will receive consideration in forming new

policy. It can change because of shifts in popular attitudes, elite interest, critical

events, or government actions.

Types of Policies

Majoritarian Politics

• Pit the general public against itself, as it considers or

reconsiders programs with broadly distributed costs

and benefits.

• Majoritarian politics are fought out through broad

public debate. They address basic ideological beliefs

and occur in the visible institutions of governments,

particularly elections and legislative debates.

• Ex. Social Security and Military Defense

Interest Group Policy• Pit special interest against special interest.

• Interest-group politics take place "behind the scenes," in executive agencies and legislative committees. They stimulate the organization of client groups to promote programs, and are characterized by changing alliances as issues and influence shift.

• Ex. Bills requiring business firms to give benefits to labor unions

Client Policies• Pit special interests against the general public by distributing costs and concentrating

benefits. They typically support health programs benefiting special groups and

financed by general taxes.

• Client politics, like special-interest politics, are behind the scenes.

• A crucial aspect of client politics is the extent to which the relevant executive branch

agency is captured by the interest groups (as in some pollution control), which may

squeeze out the health interests (as was the case in tobacco policy).

• Ex. Regulated milk process benefit dairy farmers but increase the cost of milk to

consumers.

Entrepreneurial Politics • Pit the general public against special interests by distributing benefits widely while more

narrowly concentrating the costs.

• Entrepreneurial politics are the reverse of client politics

• Entrepreneurial politics are occasional, short lived, facilitated by mass media, and involve

political entrepreneurs who identify and exploit an opportunity.

• Ex. Antipollution and safety requirements for automobiles, proposed as ways of improving

the health and well-being of all people but at the expense of the automobile manufacturers.

Legislation To Examine

Hatch act of 1939 • Restricts the ability of civil service, or federal, employees to participate in partisan

political life

• Goal was to ensure that civil service would remain politically neutral. Many believed

that it infringed upon federal employees rights.

• Recent amendments give government employees the rights to speak, organize, and

act peacefully to carry out their own personal political views. All while at the same

time ensuring that the public administration of government is carried out in an

efficient and neutral manner.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Forbids discrimination against those with disabilities.

3 Parts

• No entity that is covered shall discriminate against a qualified with a

disability because of said disability. This applies when the qualified disabled

person is in the job application process, hiring, advancement, or termination.

Also included is job training, employee compensation, and other terms,

conditions, and privileges of employment.

ADA Title 1

ADA Title 2

• Any individual that has a disability

cannot be excluded from benefits of

the services, programs, or activities of

a specific public entity because of said

disability.

ADA Title 3• No individual can be discriminated against on the basis of their

disability when being applied to the enjoyment of the goods,

services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of

any place that is public. This applies regardless of whether or not

the person owns, leases (or leases to), or operates the public place.

Unfunded Mandate Reform Act 1995

• The purpose of this act is to strengthen the partnership between the

Federal, state, and local governments.

• It’s also used to assist Congress in its consideration of proposed legislation

that is establishing or revising Federal programs that contain Federal

mandates that affect State, and local governments.

No Child Left Behind 2001

• Federal law to help improve the education for all children

by holding the schools responsible for results

• Gives the parents more choices and promotes better

teaching methods.

Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002

• Way to ban ‘soft money’ given to candidates for

campaigning.

• Soft money is money given to the political party rather

than the candidate it represents.