Critical Public Policy

Normative Analysis

Authoritative Choice

Policy practice is concerned with facultative decision-making. Colebatch (2006) comments that authoritative choice is the activity of authorised leaders (the decision-maker) and senior officials who work to them (the advisors). In this sense, authoritative choice is the discretionary act of the appointed officer and the voice of the politically vested participant, extending to concepts of:

• Sub-Government, a collective and interactive process among regular players (clique) linked by shared interests, mutual recognition and mutual dependence (also, termed regime, policy community, issue network, policy domain);

• Political Streaming, the politician as operative (initiator, facilitator, enabler) and policy entrepreneur concerned with reworking and renovating existing policy or instigating new policy; and

• Role of Stakeholders, the particularistic interests of private sector participants subject to the organisational capital (access to resources) and bargaining power (political leverage) (Bryce, 2005).

Evidence Based Policy v Policy Based Evidence

Both evidence-based policy and policy-based evidence serve to condition the political environment. In fact, evidence based policy is characteristically deployed within a best-practice ‘policy-cycle’.

Banks (2009) explains that evidence is utilised at every step of the cycle and with the recent introduction of higher analytical hurdles, including greater quantification benefits and costs, in conjunction with stronger sanctions for inadequate compliance, the line of least resistance for the bureaucracy is moving in favor of an evidence-based approach.

Similarly, policy-based evidence may be deemed the larger systemic feedback impulse that gives rise to benchmarking.

Positive Analysis

(a) Status-Quo: policy persistence may manifest when institutionalisation of policies makes it expensive to terminate, requiring political coalitions charged with overcoming path dependencies and policy legacies in the policy process (Howlett & Ramesh, 2003). In this case, the status quo becomes entrenched such as to necessitate an ideological shift in government and society in order to obtain a judgment for or against policy persistence. Policy persistence is thus ‘hidden’ and embedded in the landscape of the policy cycle until such time there is critical momentum for change.

(b) Positive Externalities: key positive externalities involve leverage of scale economies across future time and space:

• Inter-Generational Transformation: This typology of transformation refers to the possibility for governmental intervention to legitimise policy design for long-term change. Rotmans (2001) explains that judicious multi-level policy management at the socio-technical landscape (macro) level, regime (meso) level and niche (micro) levels can lead to transitions and transformational processes in which society changes in fundamental ways over a generation or more. However, Ibid cautions that this must be circumscribed by a complete understanding of the phenomenon of transitions and of goal-oriented agency;

• Inter-Institutional Positive Externalities: Institutional externalities indicate beneficial gains from network engagement with institutional counterparties; and

• Inter-Sectoral Positive Externalities: Inter-sectoral externalities denotes the complex adaptive systems approach of cross-disciplinary planning and development coupled with the concept of uncertainty. Here, Swanson & Bhadwal (2009) argue for Adaptive policies to address complexity, uncertainty, and sustainability; Adaptive policies anticipate the array of conditions that lie ahead through robust up-front design using (1) integrated and forward looking analysis; (2) multi-stakeholder deliberation and (3) by monitoring key performance indicators to trigger automatic policy adjustments.

Moreover, the constellation of positive externalities may be captured in policy design by sustainable policy development along the lines promoted by the OECD which recommends sustainability policy across five key areas of climate change, air pollution, water pollution, waste management and natural resource management. Going further, and using world class benchmark State Plans such as Tasmania Together, Oregon Shines and Minnesota Milestone, Crowley (2006) makes the case for sustainability as the headline prerogative of policy.

(c) Negative Externalities: the main negative externalities correspond in the obverse, to the positive externalities, namely: (i) Inter-Institutional Negative Externalities: the risk to exposed institutional counterparties, particularly of densely networked schemes; (ii) Inter-Sectoral Negative Externalities: the risk to cross-discipline counterparties of inter-sectoral inter-dependencies; and (iii) Failure, the possibility of:

• Contract Failure, whereby a contracted counterparty does not satisfy obligations according to schedule and stipulated standards;

• Market Failure, in which the marketplace does not produce competitive market outcomes of supply and demand; and

• Government Failure, in which government fails to meet legislated responsibilities.

Operant Analysis

Operant analysis refers to cognitive and cultural dimensionalities of policy practice, compelling the case for: (i) Network-Centric Thinking; and (ii) Policy Divide.

• Network-Centric Thinking: Subject to the increasing demands of complex systems analysis, Stewart-Weeks (2006) reiterates the trend toward decentralised and distributed decision-making, meaning that policy-making has become a network-process. Accordingly, operant analysis infers the requirement for new skills, methods, and concepts of network-centric thinking as well as new practices that are necessarily transparent and collaborative.

• Policy Divide: Parallel to the ‘holllowing out of state’, an increasingly technocratic dimension to policy making is undermining the capability for policy research, and complex and substantial policy analysis. The consequence is some level of disappointment and discredit of the business of policy, which necessitates active restorative and confidence building activities.

REFERENCES

Banks, G (2009) ‘Evidence Based Policy Making: What is it? How do we Get it? ANU Public Lecture Series, presented by ANZSOG. Canberra:Australian Government Productivity Commission.

Bryce, HJ (2005) Players in the Public Policy Process. Nonprofits as Social Capital & Agents. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Colebatch, HK (ed) (2006) Beyond the Policy Cycle. The Policy Process in Australia. NSW: Allen & Unwin Publishers.

Crowley, K (2006) ‘Participatory Policy – Making for Sustainability’ in Colebatch, HK (ed) Beyond the Policy Cycle. The Policy Process in Australia. NSW: Allen & Unwin Publishers. pp.143-161.

Howlett, M & M Ramesh (2003) Studying Public Policy. Policy Cycles & Policy Subsystems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rotmans, J et al (2001) ‘More Revolution than Evolution. Transition Management in Public Policy’ in Foresight Magazine. Vol.3. No.1. Camford Publishing Limited.

Stewart-Weeks, M (2006) ‘From Control to Networks’ in Colebatch, HK (ed) Beyond the Policy Cycle. The Policy Process in Australia. NSW: Allen & Unwin Publishers. pp.184-202.

Swanson, D & S Bhadwal (eds) (2009) Creating Adaptive Polices. A Guide for Policy-Making in an Uncertain World. Ottawa: Sage Publications.