No single academic discipline owns public policy. As a field of study, its roots can be traced to the historical investigation of the political institutions that were engaged in making policy: the Presidency, Congress, and hopefully less so, the courts (especially the Supreme Court) and the sprawling federal bureaucracy.
Before the field of public policy assumed an identity within political science, public policy was studied through the legislative history of specific case studies. This traditional approach focused on the legal authority, procedural rules, and functional activities of the three branches of American government. The legislative history method left little legacy. The traditional approach accumulated discrete case studies but no body of theory or even a comparative perspective.
Most contemporary textbooks in the field of public policy reflect this legacy. Typically, such textbooks offer a brief but general introduction (typically around 20 pages), then launch into chapter-length discussions of some of the major substantive areas of public policy: the economy, the environment, agriculture, international trade, crime, health, taxation, foreign affairs, national defense, energy, social welfare, education, social and legal equality, civil rights, intergovernmental relations, consumer protection, business regulation, and so on. The list varies but no clear rationale dictates the choice of topic. Professors who ask students to purchase these (expensive) texts pick and choose among the (ephemeral) topics according to their interests and training. The textbooks need to be constantly updated.
Case by case descriptions provide, at best, a rich tapestry but they offer neither a set of general statements about policy making nor a framework of analysis. The specifics change annually, particularly with a new presidential administration. The textbooks must be upgraded frequently, a daunting task. Books go out of print within a few years.
The academic world reinforces specialization among scholars within the narrowed department-based academic division of labor. Public policy does not fit neatly into this organizational structure. No academic field "owns" public policy, which discourages commitment. Yet, few inside higher education or outside in the "real world" would deny the importance of public policy.
Further, scholars themselves rarely participate actively in the rough and tumble of politics and policy advocacy. They look at the policy process from the sidelines, and much will simply not reveal itself from a distance. There is no laboratory and the process does not lend itself to quantitative methods of analysis, the particular skill acquired by many researchers. So, public policy is a bad fit for the academic context.
Let's examine the background of analysts and practitioners.
Economists bring skills at rigorous quantitative analysis and decision -making under specific, often abstract and narrow, criteria. The awkward fit of policy into the training of economists and the professional reward structure that values theory over practice pushes economists to the margins. Economists rarely claim expertise in the study of political institutions or dynamics. Their grand theories, such as economic globalization (treated later in our course) don't fit except as general declarations.
Political scientists offer rich insights and perspectives that explain how political and governmental institutions work, but generally cease their study after the policy is formulated. Unlike economists, they have no universally accepted set of rigorous technical or analytical tools by which effective policy analysis can be achieved. Still, political science has kept at policy work and has the most to offer.
Practitioners generally offer inadequate scholarship and provide biased, self-serving witness. Professional politicians at the national level are often attorneys familiar with the procedural rules and legal context of legislative maneuvering. Much of their work must take place in private under the cloak of attorney-client privilege and will not be accurately or completely reported.
Into the breach come a variety of individuals who find a niche in a specific specialization, such as agriculture, business regulation, or environmental protection. These may be attorneys practicing in that area or social scientists who have built a particular expertise. Their contributions, like those of economists and political scientists, are significant, but reinforce the ad hoc nature of the field.
Is there then a field of public policy or policy analysis? If so, what is its foundation? Sadly, there is no definitive answer. Consider the following statement by an acknowledged master of the art of policy analysis, Aaron Wildavsky:
The technical base of policy analysis is weak. In part its limitations are those of social science: innumerable discrete propositions, of varying validity and uncertain applicability, occasionally touching but not necessarily related, like beads on a string. Its strengths lie in the ability to make a little knowledge go a long way but combining an understanding of the constraints of the situation with the ability to explore the environment constructively. unlike social science, however, policy analysis must be prescriptive, arguments about correct Policy, which deal with the future, cannot help but be willful and therefore political.
Wildavsky founded a Ph.D. program in public policy at a highly respected university, the University of California at Berkeley. Presumably there is something in the field to study, even if its specific methodologies remain elusive.
What is hard to dispute is that the field of study is important, for public policy itself is important. Recall the introduction to this chapter which explained the scope and breadth of public policy.
Over the last two decades or so, political scientists have offered a more systematic approach to the subject, the policy process, or, as we will use here, the public policy cycle, the title to this web site. Let's take a look at that.
The Public Policy Cycle Web Site | Page: © Wayne Hayes, Ph.D. | ™ ProfWork |
wayne@profwork.com
Initialized: June
16, 2001 | Last Update:
05/29/2014