An Introduction to the Policy Process - Cap 6

8/6/2019 An Introduction to the Policy Process - Cap 6

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6

Policies and Po licy Types

~L .This chapter discusses the nature and substance of policies themselve~,~,==--Because a definition ofpolicy has not yet been outlined inthis book, thechapter begins with a broad definition of policy. The bulk of the chapterthen turns to a discussion of the different ways to categorize policiesinto different policy types. The effort to place policies into types hasconsumed a considerable amount of time and effort among political sci-entists, for good reason. Most political scientists seek to create policytypologies because we suspect, based on intuition and experience, thatsome policies will involve more groups, lead to more conflict, and willbe more visible than other types of policies. There is no final word onhow best to categorize policies, so when reading this chapter, it is im-portant not to simply learn how to pigeonhole policies into differentcategories, but to consider the strengths and weaknesses of each typol-ogy in telling us something meaningful about the way policy is madeand what its results likely will be.What Is a "policy"?As we discussed in Chapter 1, public policy is, in general, what thegovernment, acting on our behalf, chooses to do or hot to do. This sug-gests a working definition of policy that may seem obvious, but that i!i~bit more complex than the simplest definition.I definea policy as a statement by government of what it intends todo

or not to do, such as a law, regulation, ruling, decision, or order, or acombination of these. For example. a law that says thatthose caughtdriv-13 2

POLICIESAND POLICY TYPES 133ing while intoxicated will go tojai l for up to one year is a statement ofgovernmentalpolicy to punish drunk drivers. The National Environmen-tal PolicyAct (NEPA) is a statement of government policy toward theenvironment.Judicialdecisionsare also statements of policy: theSupremeCourt's decision inBrown v . Board of Education is a statement of policythatthegovernmentcannotandwill not support racially segregatedschools.Forms of PoliciesImagine if presidents made policy by decree. In such a world, thepresident's word would likely compel compliance, since the presidentwould bethe only actor towhom all policy implernenters would be ac-countable. If the president signed a law stating that the rivers will befishable and swimmable in five years, then all agencies would worktowardthisone goal. This would be a simple, effective way of declaringpolicy and seeing that it is-carried out.Clearly, the American political system is not this simple. A majortheme of any book on policy studies is the division of powers, both.among the three branches of government and among the various levelsof government. In addition, policies are often not implemented the waythe designers intended, as discussed in Chapter 7.Because the American system of government consists of three'branches of the federal government, plus fifty states each with threebranches,plus 80,000 local governments, many of which are themselvesorganizedalong the three branches, there is obviously considerable com-plexity indesigning and delivering a policy. Thus, a public policy is notsimply one document. It is a collection of documents, statements, deci-sions, and other elements.Let usreturn to an example used earlier in this book, the Turtle Ex-c1usionDevice (TED). A TED is part of a shrimp trawling net that.isdesigned to catch shrimp while allowing sea turtles to escape. The seaturtleis an endangered species under theEndangered Species Act, whichwas enacted as Public Law (PL) 93-205 codified as 16U.S.C. (UnitedStates Code) 742a et seq., 1361a et seq., and 1531-1544. This law isknown as the authority for regulations to be passed by the implement-ing agency toenforce the meaning of the Endangered Species Act. :Under theAdministrative Procedures Act (5 U.S.C. 500 etseq.) , thefederal government is required to follow particular procedures in itsdrafting and publishing of regulations. One way that the government


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1 34 AN INTRODU CTIO N TO TH E P OUCY PR OCESS

meets these obligations is by publishing notices of proposed rules(which people sometimes call regulat ions) , f inal rules, and other ma-ter ial in the Fede r al R egi st er . The Fede ra l R egi st er is the daily publi-cation offedera l regulatory activity and can be accessed on line and inmost university libraries.Once a federal law has passed, the implementing agency-in this case,

the National Marine Fisheries Service, a unit of the National Oceanic andAtmospher ic Administration-must implement the law by issuing regu-lations, which consist ofmore detailed guidelines and rules for putting theintent of the law into effect. The regulatory process requires that proposedrules be publ ished in the Federa l Registe r, and when the rules go intoeffect they are codif ied in the Code o f F ede ra l R egu l at io n s.Why doesn 't the Congress jus t draft and apply the rules? First , Con-

gress delegates the draf ting of rules to others, in this case the NationalMarine Fisher ies Service, because laws are not intended to specify ev-ery element of their implementat ion. Lawmaking would be difficult , i fnot impossible, if we asked the Congress to speci fy every aspect of theimplementat ion of every program or policy. In this example, there aremany endangered species, and many different agencies have topick thebest way toprotect these species. For example, you may remember that,in the early and mid-1990s, the United States Forest Service, a unit ofthe United States Department ofAgriculture, was embroiled in a seriouscontroversy involving protection of the northern spotted owl, a speciesthat l ives in the forests of the Pacific Northwest . This is considerablydifferent from the turt le issue, and it i s difficult , if not impossible, forCongress to draft highly technical laws for species as diverse as tur tlesand spotted owls. Even ifCongress wanted todraf t the detai led rules forevery aspect of legis lation, the public would demand opportunities forcomment and input into the rule making process, such that Congresswould find itself bogged down simply in the process of making rules .A second reason for having agencies draft rules is that the imple-menting agencies have considerably greater exper tise than does Con-

gress and considerably greater resources for designing rules andmanaging the process.A third reason is that the bureaucracy is depicted by many as being

more "neutral" than the more "polit ical" Congress. Congress can drawthe broad parameters of policy and leave the bureaucracy to fill in thegaps, us ing neutral exper tise rather than polit ical judgment. Of course,the degree towhich the bureaucracy is truly neutral is open to question.

Policy TypesPOLICIES AN D POLICY TYPES 135

An important element of the public policy process is an understandingof how various interests are organized and how various interes ts react todifferent kinds of policies. We C"onsider these two issues in one sectionbecause the two concepts are inextricably Iinked-one cannot profit-ably discuss pol icy types without understanding their apparent influ-ence on politics, including group organization, mobilization, and reaction.Like many elements of policy studies, work on creating typologies of

public policies started with a great deal of enthusiasm, but quickly boggeddown into some major problems. We will di scuss these problems, butwe wish to s tress that the value of at least thinking about policy typologiesis sti ll great; such typologies are useful in understanding how and whysome policies are made the way they are, and why some groups do bet-ter than others in policy debates and actual enactment. Again, as westress throughout the book, the application of these theories is oftenmore important than the internal consistency of the theor ies themselves.The earliest policy typologies generally separated policy intotopical cat-

egories: education policy, health policy, or transportation policy, for example.This system was useful for sort ing different kinds of policy domains, but i tdid not help us draw general conclusions about the politics that underliethese policies. The particular problem is that, by failing totell us somethingmore generalizable across the policy domains, these simple typologies made itdifficult to learn from other types of policies and their underlying politics: bylumping together all policy types in one category, we were no closer tounder- .standing similarities and differences among and between policies in all do-mains and were therefore no closer to a useful science ofpublic policy.Distributive, Redistributive, and Regulatory PoliciesOne of the most persistent efforts among policy scholars is the workintended to develop categories of public policies, or what we calltypologies. The modern era of developing policy typologies began in1964 when Theodore Lowi laid out the class ic policy types often taughtin undergraduate and many graduate courses today. 1 In simplest terms,Lowi divides policies into three categories: distributive, redistributive,and regulatory policy. Later, Ripley and Franklin updated the typologiesby dividing regulatory policyinto two categories, protective regulatoryand competitive regulatory? The updated Ripley and Franklin formula-tion is shown in Table 6.l.


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138 AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE POLICY PROCESS

Distributive PoliciesDistributive policies involve the granting of some sort of benefit to apar ticular interest group or other well-defined, relat ively small group ofbeneficiaries. Examples of distributive policy include farm subsidies andf ed er al s pe nd in g o n lo ca l i nf ra st ru ct ur e p ro je ct s li ke d am s , f lo od c on -t rol systems, aviat ion, highways , and schools. These benefits are usu-.ally distributed in the process of developing authorization andappropriat ions bil ls as par t of the budgeting process.'Distributive policy allows for a considerable amount of negotiation

and distribution of benefit s to members of Congress, because they ci tethe ir effectiveness in bringing home money from Washington in theirree lection campaigns. Because al l members benefit equally from this"pork-barrel" spending, there is a powerful incentive to engage in whatpolitical scientists call logrolling, in which members pledge to vote foreach other 's funding bil ls . For example, a member of an urban congres-sional dis tr ict may pledge to support a rural member 's farm subsidy bil lin exchange for support for a mass transportation bil l. This "horse trad-ing" isprobably necessary for the expedit ious passage of federal spend-ing bills, but Congress 's procedures and norms also encourage this sor tof negotiation, leading to more "pork-barrel" spending, which serves toal low members to "bring home the bacon" to their di st ri cts.Distributive policy making.is made even eas ier by the inabili ty , in this

s tyle of policy making, to eas ily identify par ticular groups of people thatare benefiting from the policy, while the costs ofthe policy are more broadlyspread across society. Local officials and congressional representativesdepic t these pol icies as good for the locaf community, but as be ing paidfor by the entire nation through general federal funds. Indeed, local spend-ing programs are often just if ied as a way of gaining a community 's."fairshare" of federal taxes paid by the district ors tate 's taxpayers. Because ofthe actual or assumed benefits to particular people without anycountergroups seeking to s top spending, there is l it tle confl ict over dis-tributive policy. I t is usually made fairly quickly, eas ily, and with a mini-mum amount ofscrutiny of individual spending decisions. When the newsmedia or other members do scrutinize such spending, there may some-times be a cal l for reform of this system, but the benefits of the currentsystem of pork are so clear that the system of distributive policy endures.This type of policy making isproblematic in a democracy, asTheodore

Lowi notes in The End of Liberalism. 4 Because government programs

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POLICIESAND POLICY TYPES 139often create beneficiar ies and create groups to represent these benefi-ciaries, the United States isnow character ized by what Lowi calls inter-est group liberalism, in which all claims to federal support and fundingare assumed to be legitimate, and few, if any, decisions are made toseparate the most compelling ci~ims from the most minor. In such asystem, the elected branches of government are more interes ted in ser-vicing particula r interests than in servicing the public interest --or atleast something approximating it-as a whole.Regulatory PoliciesRegulatory policies are, in general terms, policies that are intended togovern the conduct of business. There are two broad types of regulatorypolicies. Competitive regulatory policy involves pol icies designed to"limit the provision of goods and services to one or a few designateddeliverers, who are chosen from a larger number of competing potentialdeliverers.P Ripley and Franklin cite the allocation of radio and televi-sion frequencies and the awarding of cable televis ion franchises as ex-amples. Another example is policies intended to regulate trades orprofessions, such as law, medicine, engineering, electrical and plumb-ing contractors , or hairs tyling. States general ly assign the power to li~cense profess ions to members of that par ticular profess ion: lawyers ,through the state bar associat ions, and physicians , through their statemedical associations, are licensed and regulated by their peers. This sys-tem assures professional oversight over the activities of professionals,who must be trained and regulated to assure competent service to theirclients . These policies, on the other hand, also create barriers to enter aprofess ion, thereby limiting the number of profess ionals who provide aservice and, possibly, maintaining high fees.For the most part, competitive regulatory policy is made without much

public scrutiny. Much of thispolicy ismade at the state level, further ensur-ing its lowvisibility, and the most active participants in such policies tend tobe at the legislative committee and trade group levels. Much of this type ofpolicy is relatively arcane and stimulates little public notice.

Protective regulatory policy, on the other hand, is intended to protectthy public at large from the negative effects of private activity, such astainted food, air pollution, unsafe consumer products, or fraudulent busi-ness transactions. While most businesses and their leaders are respon-sible Citizens who do 'not wish to hurt or alienate their customers,


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-:~~140 AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE POUCY PROCESS.,!businesses are also motivated by profit. Businesses often resist regula- 11t ion on cost grounds, saying that i t would reduce or eliminate profit .1margins, make products uncompetitive on the market, place firms atcompetitive disadvantages vis-a-vis their foreign competitors (or com- .petitors inother states, if the policy ismade at the state level), and so on. !Because businesses resist regulation while regulatory agencies insist 1that they are acting in the public interest, protective regulatory policy Itends to be highly contentious. Congressional committees and the full Jbody of Congress get involved, along with major trade organizations _>~ .~'=-(such as the National Association of Manufacturers or the American, i? '~ :~ I gBankinz Association). Decisions are reached based on negotiation and ~~:~ :.~ 1 gcomf?ro~ise, because, in ~ost cas~s, neither business.nor the r~gulators I ~ , : ' , : ~ ilcan entirely dominate policy making; Congress and Its committees are f f ' " " - ' , : ;often put in the position of broker, mediating between the goals of the ~ iregulatory agency and business interests. 1 . !Redistributive PolicyRedistributive policy ishighly controversial, involving the highest lev..iJels of goverrunent and the leaders of what are calledpeak association1in policy making characterized by a high level of conflict and difficulty-in changing policy.Redistributive policy is characterized by actions "intended to ma-nipulate the allocation of wealth, property, personal or civil rights, orsome other valued item among social classes or racial groups.,,6 Basedon this definition, obvious examples include welfare, civil rights forracial or social minorit ies, aid to poor cit ies or schools, and the like.While there has been considerable redistributive policy making in theUnited States since the Roosevelt administration, these policies are dif-ficult to pass because passage requires that the less powerful prevailover the more powerful interests or at least persuade more powerfulgroups that it is r ight and just to approve the redistr ibution of someresource to the less powerful.Itis worth noting, however, that redistributive policy can involve the

transfer of resources from the less well off to the better off. DuringtheReagan administration, the recipients offederal redistributive benefits-the poor, urban areas, economically depressed areas-were depicted asunworthy recipients, and the policies intended to help them were se-verely criticized. The growing dismay with relatively expensive federal

POLICIESAND POLICY TYPES 141socialprograms, coupled with thedisdain felt by many people for theseprograms' recipients, created a political atmosphere in which it becameeasier-and even politically acceptable-to propose policies such astax cuts that shifted benefits from the poor to the wealthy?Still,some people do speak for the less powerful, and any redistribu-tionof resources=-rnoney or rights-is expected to engender consider-

able controversy. Such policies include the classic welfare policies andalso civil rights and libertiespolicies. The civil rights example is a goodillustration of this notion of at least the perception of the redistributionof rights. When blacks began to demand the rights and resources guar-anteed them under the Constitution--rights such as equal educational,housing, and job opportunities, the right to vote, and the right to dueprocess in criminal proceedings)-many people resisted these policiesbecause they believed that they would somehow be losers if blacks were"winners" of these rights. Civil rightslegislation was passed in the mid-1960s, but only with high-level governmental participation and afterintense and rancorous debate that suffused political and social life fromWashington to Main Street. .Lowi's ideas continue to bequite influential, and for good reason. AsDaniel McCool argues, Lowi is a leading theorist of policy types be-cause he approaches policies not merely as outputs of government but

as somethingthat shapes andis shapedby political conflict. Thus, in thetypology described in Table 6.1, the nature and visibility of politicalconflict will differ considerablywith the type of policy in question.Youcan apply these ideas to your own policy interests to understandhow the politics of your issues of greatest interest will play out. Forexample, if you deeply appreciate the natural world, you may be veryinterestedin environmental policy.As you know, however, environmen-tal policies have been historically contentious, and the politics of envi- .ronmental policy often involves the highest levels of government in aparticular area.Environmental policy shares many of the characteristicsof protective regulatory policy: high levels of trade'association, execu-tive, and legislative involvement, high visibility, considerable conflict,but also a propensity to be addressed via compromise. You might con-clude that your participation in environmental policy making would be .most effective if youjoined with an existing environmental group, such.as theNatural Resources Defense Council or Sierra Club, to contributeyour.voice to the debate. This is because your lone voice would bedrowned out by the thousands of other voices in this policy domain.


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142 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLICY PROCESS

James Q. Wilson: Concenfrated and DiffuseCostsand Benefits

A persistent criticism of Lowi's typology of policies is thatit is difficultto assign policies tojust one category. Some policies have redistributiveand regulatory attributes, such as the regulation of consumer productsafety that redistributes the responsibility for risk away fromconsumersand tothe companies that manufacture products. This also has a strongregulatory component. James Q. Wilson, in response to these problemswith Lowi's conception of policy types, developed a policy typologythat rejects the use of ambiguous policy types and considers instead away of arranging policies in terms of the extent towhich their costsandbenefits are focused on one particular party or diffused, is spread acrossnumerous people or interests. This typology is depicted in Table 6.2.What might be the easiest policies to advocate and enact? In thistypology, a policy that provides an obvious benefit to one group wouldmotivate that group to press for enactment of the policy; its taskwouldbe made even easier if the costs of the policy are hard to assign to a

particular group, that is, if the costs are distributed broadly throughoutsome larger group. Wilson cites as examples theCivilAeronauticsBoard(CAB) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as twoagencies that administer this kind of clientele-oriented policy. In theaviation example, before the major airlines were deregulated in 1978,the CAB regulated airline routes and fares, and airlines had to applytoand gain approval from the CAB togain permission toflya new routeorto change fares. This system meant that the airlines enjoyed a substan-tial.benefit (protection against cut-rate competition) while the burdenofthis policy, in the form of higher fares, fel l on the flying public. In asimilar way, the FCC's policies for licensing broadcasters ensure thatthe number of radio and TV stations in a market remains relatively fixed, .thereby creating some stability at the expense of thegeneralpublic, whichmay favor a greater number of broadcast voices.On the other hand, if the costs are easily pinned toa particular groupor interest, it is likely that thecost-bearing group will take steps to op-

pose the policy. There are two examples of this inWilson's typology.Ifthe costs are concentrated and the benefits are concentrated, a styleofpolicy making involving interest group conflict becomes prominent.Wilson's example is the battle between labor and business interests inthe field of occupational safety. In particular, both the enactment and

,PO LICIES AND PO LICY TYPES 1 43

T ab le 6 .2W ils on 's C os t-B en efit P olic y T yp olo gy

Benefi tsCo r icen tr a te d amongv e ry f ew p eo p le D i st ri b ut e d amongma ny p e op le

Co r .: : en t ra t ed amongv e ry f ew p e op le I n te r es t g r o up po li ti c s:confl ict be tween groupst ha t w o ul d b e ne fi t a ndt ho se th at w ou ld b ea rt he c os ts . T re at ed a s azero-sum game.

Entrepreneur ialp o li ti cs : g ro u ps a ndt he ir l ea d er s s ee kt o p er su ad e p o li cyma ke rs t o r eg u la tei n t he p u bl ici nt er es t, i n t he f ac eo f o p po s lt lo n f ro mth e g ro up s th atw ou ld b ea r t hecost.

Costs D is tr ib u te d amo ng ma nypeople Cl i en te le o r i en tedpo li ti c s: c l ose " c li en t el e "r e la t io n sh ip s be tweenpO li cy make rs . r e gu la -t o rs , a nd t he r eg u la te dinterest.

Major i tar ianpo l i ti cs : re la ti ve lyl oo se g ro up s o fp e op le . o r t ho s ea c ti ng o n t he irb eh alf, w ho s ee k as ub s ta nt iv e o rs ymbol ic s t at emen to f p o li c y. O f te nl ea ds t o w e ak .ambiguouspolicies.

Source: D e r iv e d f r om JamesQ. Wilson, Political Organizations ( P ri n ce t on : P r in c et o nUniversi ty Press . 1995) .implementation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and its ad-ministration by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration(OSHA), have led to fierce battles between labor unions and business,because the participants in this debate believe that the benefits of thispolicy flow to a relatively small number of interests (labor) and arepaidfor by a relatively small number of interests (business)..Another example involvingconcentrated costs involves regulation ofbusiness in the interest of public safety. Wilson uses highway safetypolicy, as administered by theNational Highway Traffic SafetyAdmin-

istration (NHTSA), as an example of a policy that distributes benefits(safercarsjvery broadly across the driving public, but that places the


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144 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POUCY PROCESSmore immediate burdens on the automobile manufacturers. In this case,NHTSA isconfronted with a hostile target of regulat ion, and polit ics are .-.=~.'''''ir"-",,b.",,!,likely to remain fai rly content ious. This pol icy type is cal led entrepre-neurial policy because policy entrepreneurs and interest groups, such asRalph Nader and his publ ic interest organizat ions, seek openings to ad-vance these policies in the name of a diffuse but s ti lI real public interest .The auto safety example may not be the most apt today, however, aspublic demands for safety, asexpressed in consumer choices for antilockbrakes and airbags, have made safe ty a mainst ream feature of cars, andmanufacture rs tout the safety of the ir vehicles in their adverti sing. It i snot difficult , however, to find contemporary examples of policies thatseek toregulate industry and that are promoted by entrepreneurial groupsand their leaders , such as environmental policy.What results, however, if both the costs and benefits of a policy are

diffuse? Wilson uses as an example the Sherman Antit rust act. This lawprohibits firms from creating anticompetitive "trusts." Since so few firmsare at anyone time prepared to create a trust, there are very few firmsthat feel the cost of this policy; at the same time , the benefits of pro mot-ing competition are often diffuse, affecting lots of people a little bitrathe r than having a major influence on our individual economic deci -sion making. This sort of policy i s therefore ca lled majori tarian pol icymaking because majoriti es of the public want antitrust legislat ion as .away of curbing big business power or at least as a means of symboli-cally reining in business. This sentiment was translated to policy wi th-out much heated opposition, in large part because the language of thelaw was so ambiguous-prohibiting "combinations in restraint oft rade"--tha t "it was not exac tly clear what was aimed at."sThe value of Wilson's typology isnot in the names of the policy types.

Indeed we should think of the concentration of benefits and costs astendencies or as ends of two continua rather than as two dichotomiesadding up toa four-cell matr ix . This said, we can see some relationshipsbetween Wilson's and Lowi's ways of thinking about pol icy types andthei r connections to i ssue networks or subgovernrnents. For example,cIientelism is closely associated with Lowi's dis tr ibutive policy type, inwhich interest groups gain benefits that are "paid for" (financially orotherwise) by the bulk of society. This in tum is associated with thesubgovernment or "iron triangle" model of interest relationships, in whichinteres t groups, bureaucracies, and congressional subcommittees worktogether ina mutually reinforcing relat ionship.f On the other hand, poli-

POLICIES AND P OL IC Y T YP ES 145cies t~at seek to re~istribute costs and benefits-redistributive policy--are highly contentious because they are often perceived as zero-sumsituations, inwhich any gain for one interes t isaccompanied by anequaland opposite loss by the other. __But it is important to understand that this distribution of cost; andbenefits may be as much a social construction as the result of a real

calculation of costs and benefits. If a group believes or is convincedthat it will bear the costs of a policy, it is likely to act against thepolicy. Thus, a policy that seeks to reduce youth crime by providingafter-school services may be resisted by a large number of citizensbec~use they be lieve that they are paying a high cost for a less-than-~bVl.OUSbe?~fit to themselves. This illustration shows the difficulty ofl inking policies to actual benef its, but also illus trates how benefits andcosts seem to be as much in the eye of the beholder as a carefullycalculated accounting exercise.If these attributes of policy (cost/benefit, distribution/redistribution)

are .so prone to perception, then what good is any exercise in ass igningpolicy types? Lowi noted in 1964 that "it is not the actua l outcomes butthe expectations as to what the outcomes can be that shape the issuesand determine their politics."? Peter Steinberger also addresses this is-sue by "conceptual izing some of the ways in which participants tend todefine policies."!' In other words , policies may not have inherent mean-ings in terms of any policy typology, but may gain their meanings onlywhen groups discern meanings and propagate them among friendly andhostile audiences. For example, many safety innovations in automobilesand other consumer products cos t relat ively lit tle per i tem produced, butmanufacturers and their allies believe that the addit ional cos t will maketheir products unprofi table. This argument wil l help persuade groups tomobilize in a par ticular way based on a perception of policy.Other Policy TypologiesThe Lowi and Wilson typologies are not the only ways to categorizepublic policies. Following are four additional and not mutually ex-clusive ways we can categorize policies. Of course, as in any typol-ogy, policies may not fi t into perfectly delineated boxes or cell s, burthinking about policies in these different ways may help you gaininsight into the features of policy that are most important from ananalytic perspective.


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146 AN INTRODUCTIONTO THEPOUCY PROCESSSubstantive and Procedural PoliciesJames Anderson reminds us of the very important difference betweenpolicies that set the rules for policy making and the more familiar poli-cies that actually provide the goods and services we expect from gov-e rn m en t. H e d ef in es t he d if fe re nc e b et we en sub s ta nt iv e and proceduralpolices as what government does versus how it does it. ~evertheless,procedural policies are very important and actually have, In the end, a. I" 12substantive effect on po ItiCS.Anderson cites the federalAdministrative Procedures Act (APA) of1946 as a particularly importantprocedural policy; the states also havesimilar laws. The AYAestablishesthe procedure by which governmentazencies make, issue, andenforce rules and regulations as.they irnple-rnent the laws passed by Congress. I f a regulation (or a "rule," in thelanguage of the act) is establishedby an agency following the proces~eslaid out by the APA,then i t is assumed to have the force of law (l ikestatute or c as e l aw ). TheAPAgovernshow federal agencies let citizensknow that they are going tomake a rule and how the public cancommenton the rule and offer suggestionsorexpress their opposition to the rules.While the details of federalrulemaking sound pretty dry,overall wecan say that the APAis a very important policy. How would Americangovernment be different ifthere wasno one way for the federal govern-ment tomake rules in the open,accessible to public comment andoppo-sition? Could certain interests be benefited and others harmed if theregulatory process were kept a secret? It would seem so, which is why,in future enactments, Congress amended the APA to make governmenteven more open through the Freedom ofInformation Act of 1974, theGovernment in the Sunshine Act, and the PrivacyAct of 1974.The over-all goal, while procedural, isto ensure fairness in governmental dealingwith citizens, which issubstantively important as well.P : 'Material and Symbolic PoliciesAnother way to categorize policies is to examine whether the policy ismaterial or symbolic. While the distinction between these two is notabsolute, one can distinguish betweenmaterial policies, which providea material (that is, tangible and obvious) benefit to people, and symbolicpolicies, which simply appeal to people's values without any resourcesor actual effort behind them. A material policy, for example, may be a

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POLICIES AND POUCY TYPES 147federal grant that provides money to local communities to hire policeofficers, as was implemented in the Clinton administration. Examplesof symbolic policies include antidrug efforts such as the "just say no"andDARE campaigns and legislation andproposed constitutional amend-ments that would prohibit burning the flag (such laws were held uncon-stitutional by the Supreme Court in T ex as v . Johnson+y: As Andersonnotes, these policies appeal to our values and our sense of idealism, butdo not really deliverany particular benefit, whether they claim to or not.Sometimes symbolic policies claim to have an impact, but this is oftenbased on faulty causal reasoning. For example, the system ofTY showratings was developed in response to a widespread belief that varioussocial ills, particularly among children, result from violent or sexuallyexpressive TV shows. There is little research to substantiate this, but theTVindustry implemented a voluntary ratings scheme to preempt fed-erallegislation. In this case, TV ratings systems are the symbolic poli-cies intended to address the perceived problem.

Public VersusPrivate GoodsOneof themain ways we distinguish between what should be provided bygovernment and what isbetter provided bythe private sector is by analyz-ing whether a good isa public good versus a private good. Again, publicgoods are goods that, once provided for one user, are available to all in asociety and that cannot be exclusively consumed by a single person orgroup of people. Private goods are goods that can be used byonly theimmediate consumer and whose enjoyment is then denied to others.Laws thatprovide for clean air and water are classic examples ofpublic

goods: a decision to clean up the air or water for one person requires thateveryone be provided with a better environment. Similarly, it would bedifficult to set up a system of police protection in which only those whosubscribe to police services receive protection against crime.The public-private goods distinction, like most typologies, is not a

fine distinction. There are other factors to take into account besides theconsumption of a particular good. For example, the United States PostalService (USPS) is a quasi-governmental corporation' that provides docu-ment and package delivery services. FedEx, United Parcel Service, Air-borne, and other firms are also in the same business. Why, then, shouldthe USPS continue in business ifprivate firms can do the job? After all,mail and parcel delivery has all the hallmarks of a private good: the


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14 8 A J \ l IN TR OD UC TIO N T O T HE P OU CY P RO CE SS

service is consumed individually, v...hen a person decides to send a letteror package. ...But the USPS exists because ofa goal that the private sector f irms do

not pursue: universal service. A person can send a let ter from Key West,Flor ida, to either Miami (about 150 miles away) or to Kotzebue, Alaska(thousands of miles away), for the same thirty-three cents. Many privatefirms would not serve Kotzebue , a remote vil lage on the shores of theBering Sea, because it is not profi table. Federal law therefore requirestha t certain kinds of mai l can be carri ed only by the USPS, because theprofits made on easily delivered mail, such as from Manhattan to Queens,covers the costs of deliver ing remote mail . When categorizing a good aspublic orpr ivate, the system of providing that good may beas importantas the good itself.Liberal and Conservative Policies

This is perhaps the most commonly employed typology in everydaydiscussion of polit ics. In fact , to many people, the tenus themselves areterms ofpr ide or der ision. During the 1980s, the term "liberal" was usedby President Reagan and his all ies asa term of scorn for the fai led socialpolic ies of the 1930s and 1960s, while se lf-desc ribed l iberals use theterm to identify themselves as believing in the power of government tobetter the lives of everyone, r ich or poor. In today's usage, a conserva-t ive isone who believes inthe primacy of individual ini tiat ive and effor tover government action. Conservatives are likely to believe that govern-ment is too big, that it tends to be as much or more an instrument ofmischief as of progress. Liberals, on the other hand, believe that govern-ment can and should work to equalize differences between the wealthypowerful and the poor and less powerful .Of course, this description is written in remarkably broad strokes. Not.

all conservatives think that government is evil, justas no liberals believethat government is always a force for good. Indeed, when we analyze thesor ts of policies that people who self-style themselves as l iberal or con-servative propose, i t becomes clear that these dis tinctions become veryblurry. Conservatives prize individual liberty, yetoften propose more striri-gent anticrime measures than liberals. Liberals pursue governmental ini-tiative tosolve problems, yet are often the most concerned with governmentincursions on privacy and liberty. Inthe end, i t isquite hard to-character-ize a policy as merely liberal or conservative.

ConclusionPO LICIES AND POLICY TYPES 1 49

There are many ways to think about how decisions are made on what todo about a policy problem. These theories of how decisions are madelead explicitly to theories of how decisions should be made. As youstudy and parti cipate in public policy, it is worthwhile to ask yoursel fwhether the dec isions tha t are being made could be made bet ter. Whenyou do so, however, remember to think carefully about wha t you meanby "better." The theorists really do not have an opinion about what abetter policy is; a rat ionalis t would argue that the bes t policy is the policythat is most likely to solve a problem; you might have different goalsand values tha t would make defining the "best" policy as much a pol iti -cal as it i s an analyti cal problem.


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7

Policy Design and Policy Tools

Once a problem has been identif ied and decision makers place the issueon the agenda for active considerat ion, there is sti ll more to do to movean idea from a successful contestant on the agenda toa fleshed-out policy.This chapter reviews two more aspects of the policy process. The first iswhat policy scholars call policy design, which is the process by whichpolicies are designed, both through technical analysis and the polit icalprocess, to achieve a particular goal . Afte r the pol icy is designed, it isenacted and then implemented, at which point the adminis trat ive agen-cies trans late the will of the executive and legis lative branches into ac-tual policy outcomes.Like many treatments of the policy process, this description is greatly

s implified. I discuss policy des ign first , but i t is impossible to separatethe process of designing policies from thei r implementa tion-much asall the stages of the policy process are hard to separate. Design andimplementation are very closely related toeach other because the choicesmade inthe des ign ofa policy will profoundly inf luence the way a policyis implemented, which then inf luences the outcomes of these pol icies .In fact, policy des igners often base their policy des igns on exper iencewith similar policies that have already been implemented.Another reason why des ign and implementat ion are hard to separate

from the rest of the policy process is tha t the policy process continuesduring design and implementat ion. As the Turtle Excluder Device caseillustrates, Congress's enactment oflaw does not result in a simple trans-lation from Congress's will to agency action. Rather, the administeringagencies must take what Congress has passed and figure out what it15 0

POLICY DESIGN AND POLICYTOOLS 151requires or allows them to do. The process of trans lating vague legis la-t ive commands into rules and regulat ions can be aI110ng the most con-tentious and difficult act ivit ies in the entire policy process .While pol icies a re be ing implemented, experience with the policy

and with similar policies will often change the policy design, even whenthe policy and goals are supposedly in place and operating. For example,federal targeted spending on particular urban problems was often grantedbased on very focused federal goal s and programmat ic interests; thiswas changed because, to a considerable extent, implementat ion was notas successful as was hoped. This more targeted policy was replaced byblock grants, in which states and loca l governments are freer go makechoices about how the money is spent, provided that relat ively broadfederal goals are met.Some General Concepts 1Systems models of the policy process call laws, decisions, regulat ions ,and the like outputs of the policy system. We can also think of outputs ofgovernment: the goods and services produced by government. One canthink about outputs in two ways, one of which is easy to measure andthe other of which is quite difficult to measure.The first way is to consider outputs as the effort that government

expends to address problems. The harder way is to try to measure theoutcomes of all thi s effort. Both of these things are important tomea-sure, but for di ffe rent reasons. Agood example is found in a state trans-portat ion department. (This is a good example because I used to work insuch a depar tment!) Many transportation departments today claim thatthei r mission i s to fac ilit ate the safe and effic ient movement of peopleand goods to, through, and from the state. This mission gives us a c lueas to the outcomes we are seeking in t ransportation pol icy. We wouldneed tof ind information on safety (say, number ofaccidents per 100,000miles driven) and eff iciency (hours spent wait ing in gridlock, perhaps).These numbers are somet imes hard to come by and, even when they

are accessible, may be pol iti cally embarrassing to an agency that i snotmeeting its s tated goals . In eithe r case, many agencies measure theireffort by simply measuring their outputs-that is, they measure whatthey do, not what i ts impact is on a system. For example, transportat ion. departments might measure how many miles of road were paved andhad stripes painted on them or how many potholes were fil led. These

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