Statecraft and Public Policy

MPP-1001
Lecture. 4
Policy Process
Ethics and Public Policy

Dr. Kalsoom Sumra

kalsoomsumra@gmail.com
 Basic Concepts in Public Policy
• What Is Public Policy? Public policy is the study of government
decisions.
• Positive policy analysis and value neutrality: Emphasis on value-
free policy analysis is referred to as positive policy analysis, which is
concerned with understanding how the policy process works. It strives to
understand public policy as it is. It also endeavors to explain how various
social and political forces would change policy.
• Normative policy analysis is directed toward studying what public
policy ought to be to improve the general welfare.
• Decisions and Policymaking: Ultimately public policy is about people,
their values and needs, their options and choices. The basic challenge
confronting public policy is the fact of scarcity.
• Social Choice: Resource scarcity sets up the conditions for social choice. It
is important to emphasize that choices are ultimately made by individuals.
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• Social Justice: Normative policy analysis is concerned with how the
individual justifies the use of state authority to pursue one purpose rather than
another. Because self-interest inevitably conflicts with the interest of others, it
is impossible to achieve an absolute moral consensus about appropriate
government policy.
• Politics and Economics: The classic definition of political science is a
study of “who gets what, when, and how in and through government.
Economics has been defined as “the science of how individuals and societies
deal with the fact that wants are greater than the limited resources available to
satisfy those wants.
• Public Policy Typology: One practical means of categorizing policies is
based on the method of control used by policymakers. Control can be exerted
through patronage, regulatory, and redistributive policies.
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• Patronage policies (also known as promotional policies) include those
government actions that provide incentives for individuals or corporations to
undertake activities they would only reluctantly undertake without the promise
of a reward.
• These promotional techniques can be classified into three
types: subsidies, contracts, and licenses.
• Regulatory policies allow the government to exert control over the conduct
of certain activities. If patronage policies involve positive motivation (the use of
“carrots”), then regulatory policies involve negative forms of control (the use of
“sticks”).
• Redistributive policies control people by managing the economy as a
whole. The techniques of control involve fiscal (tax) and monetary (supply of
money) policies. They tend to benefit one group at the expense of other groups
through the reallocation of wealth.
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• Fiscal techniques use tax rates and government spending to affect total or
aggregate demand. Each particular approach to taxing or spending can have a
different impact on the overall economy, so political entrepreneurs often
propose or initiate policies with the goal of achieving specific impacts.
• Monetary techniques, also try to regulate the economy by changing the
rate of growth of the money supply or manipulating interest rates.
• Basic Economic Systems: Traditional economies are those in which
economic decisions are based on customs and beliefs handed down from
previous generations. In these societies the three basic questions of what, how,
and for whom to produce are answered according to how things have been
done in the past.
Command economies (also known as planned economies) are characterized by
government ownership of nonhuman factors of production.
Pure market economies (also known as capitalistic economies) are
characterized by private ownership of the nonhuman factors of production.
Decision-making is decentralized and most economic activities take place in
the private sector.
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• Mixed capitalism combines some features of both types of economic
organization. It is a system in which most economic decisions are made by the
private sector, but the government also plays a substantial economic and
regulatory role.
• Why Governments Intervene: , also try to regulate the economy by
changing the rate of growth of the money supply or manipulating interest rates.
• Basic Economic Systems: Traditional economies are those in which
economic decisions are based on customs and beliefs handed down from
previous generations. In these societies the three basic questions of what, how,
and for whom to produce are answered according to how things have been
done in the past.
Command economies (also known as planned economies) are characterized by
government ownership of nonhuman factors of production.
Pure market economies (also known as capitalistic economies) are
characterized by private ownership of the nonhuman factors of production.
Decision-making is decentralized and most economic activities take place in
the private sector.
Methods and Models for Policy Analysis
 Use of various models of interaction in policy processes
• Rational Policy-making: This model, often named rational, constitutes a
core in the sequential model of policymaking a model with good heuristic
qualities, and a model that fits the picture which has dominated constitutions
separating politics and administration, as well as the minds of managers, and
their supporting management.
• Mutual adjustment in policy-making: Analysis of policy cannot be
understood in isolation from the ways politicians, administrators and
representatives of interest in society at large interact about themes of common
interest.
• The two models compared: Rational models are often seen as
commandand-control systems, featuring the (democratic and elected) top.
The model of mutual adjustment is basically one of interaction, but the number
of actors is an open question, dependent on the democratic procedures of
society. It requires a pluralistic society and a political system that allows various
societal interests to enter the policymaking processes and participate with a
prospect to win attention and influence now and then..
 Trends in Policy Network Analysis
• Traditionalists: The essence of the development of traditional policy
analysis is caught by referring to the struggles between top-down and bottom-
up analysis.
• New institutionalism: The most dominant trend of the 1980s involved new
institutionalism.
• The main difference between the two types of new institutionalism, then, was
rooted in opposite hypotheses about the behavior of actors. In addition, there
were strong normative differences, in that most rational theorists did not much
care about how services were provided and therefore might advocate for
privatization; structuralists to a much greater extent adhered to maintaining the
particular democratic values provided by public sector organization of
services. In policy terms, this became very visible in normative discussions,
e.g. about the pros and cons of new public management
 Governance
• Second major trend came in the 1990s, and its theme was labeled governance.
In many ways it was a natural sequel to the focus on institutionalism in the
1980s. There was an enduring competition between macro- and micro-
analytical approaches to conquer the right to be called new institutionalists
and there were tensions between new and old institutionalists, to say nothing
about those who still saw formal organizations as institutions.

• So the more the field of analyzing policy networks developed, the more the
search for more adequate concepts intensified. Increasingly, the concept of
governance gained momentum: it could be seen as something other than
government, and it had a processual flavor to it.
 Deliberative policy analysis
• The third major trend in policy analysis began in the 1990s and is
gaining momentum in these first years of the third millennium. It
is very comprehensive since it involves both theory and
methodology, not to say foundations of social science.
• It concerns deliberation and discourse in policy processes, and
thus it has one leg in the governance tradition, but it also reflects
something more.
 Categories of Public Policies
• There are two main categories of policy.
• Substantive policy constitutes legislation and policy leading to programs such
as income security, childcare services, and employment initiatives, while
administrative policy constitutes the gathering and evaluation of information in
society.
• Both substantive and administrative policy can be either vertical or horizontal.
• Vertical policy is the traditional process within a single organizational
structure or governmental department, where a broad framework policy is
created at the head office to guide subsequent decisions down the chain to
those implementing policy in the creation of programs.
• Horizontal or integrated policy is developed and implemented across two or
more departments at a similar hierarchical position facilitating their co-
ordination and co-operation to better address complex matters that are beyond
the scope of a single department or jurisdiction.
 Examples of Horizontal Policy
• An example of horizontal policy would be an international treaty such as
the Kyoto Protocol or a government dictating a new procedure to the civil
service on how to report departmental expenses.
• Policy may also be formal or informal: a formal policy might take the
form of a planned policy document that has been discussed, written,
reviewed, approved and published by a policymaking body. It could be a
government’s national plan on HIV/AIDS for example.
• An informal policy might be an ad hoc, general, unwritten but widely
recognized practice or understanding within an organization that a course
of action is to be followed. Even though this policy may not be made
explicit in writing it still exists in practice
THE PUBLIC POLICY PROCESS
 Public Policy Process
• When new public policies are being created, there are generally
three key things involved in the process: the problem, the player,
and the policy.
• The problem is the issue that needs to be addressed, the player is
the individual or group that is influential in forming a plan to
address the problem in question, and the policy is the finalized
course of action decided upon by the government.
• Six key phases which result in public policy. These six stages
overlap each other, with additional mini-stages, in a process that
never really ends.
 Stakeholders in The Policy Cycle
• The policy cycle links a variety of key players in the policy
process through their involvement with the different stages.
Individuals, institutions and agencies involved in the policy
process are called actors.
• Government is often thought of to be the only entity involved in
policy making. Government does have the ultimate decision
making and funding power, but there are many other actors that
contribute to public policy, often in a network on which
government relies for the delivery of complex policy goals.
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• Key stakeholders in policy development process: Government:
social control of behaviour, power of coercion Cabinet: monopoly over supply
of legislation, locus of power- few people make decisions Public Servants:
technical knowledge and policy advice,
service providers Political Parties: develop relationships in exchange for
political support Media: report information to the public, generate interest,
shape public opinion
Interest Groups: seek to advance interests of members, can have a major
influence- can force policy network to react Legal system: interpret laws, acts
independently Public: elects government, forms opinions, joins interest groups
and coalitions, relies on the media for information
 Policy Instruments
• Policy instruments as techniques at the disposal of the government to implement
policy objectives.
• After the issue/ problem is defined, tools are found to achieve the desired
outcome. Examples of policy instruments used are expenditures, regulations,
partnerships, exchange of information, taxation, licensing, direct provision of
services, doing nothing, contracts, subsidies and authority.
• The purpose of policy instruments are to: • Achieve behaviour change within
individuals • Realize social, political or economic conditions • Provide services
to the public Government’s choice of policy instruments is bound most
importantly by past actions (policy instruments the current government has used
in the past).
• Other restraints include financial, social, international and cultural pressures.
The political framework may be the largest constraint.
Ethics and Public Policy
 Ethical foundations of public policy
• The relationship between ethics and public policy: in what ways is ethics
relevant to policy makers and those who advise them?
• There are at least two issues that are central to policy analysis and that are
fundamentally ethical in nature. First, what is policy for? Or, to put it
differently, what ends should governments strive to achieve?
Second, what are the appropriate means or policy instruments for achieving
these ends? Bear in mind that ends and means are closely interrelated: some
ends, for instance, are simultaneously the means for achieving other purposes.
The only alternative, therefore, is to embrace a particular ethical stance – whether
one wants or not. This applies to all levels of government – including national
and sub-national government, and to both the political and bureaucratic levels
(that is, departments and agencies).
 Ethical issues
• Ethical issues permeate the design, implementation, and evaluation of many
public policies, particularly those policies that regulate some of the most
personal and intimate decisions individuals make, shape the distribution of
essential resources, determine national and personal security, and influence the
natural environment that makes life itself possible.
• One critical challenge for policy makers, policy analysts, and others who care
about how policy making decisions are made, is how to integrate the analytic
tools and approaches used in analyzing policy options with reasoning that is
rooted in views about what actions are morally right and wrong.
• This explores the intersection of policy analysis and moral reasoning by
examining how cost-benefit analysis, the predominant methodology of policy
analysis, can help illuminate ethical issues underlying policy choices.
 The Problem: Integrating Competing Methods of Policy Analysis
• Public policy and ethics converge in a number of ways. At one level,
ethical considerations are expected to guide the conduct of policy
analysis.
• Policy analysts should conduct their professional activities with
analytical integrity and provide objective advice about policy
options and consequences and make predictions as accurately as
possible, ensure the transparency of their assumptions, and clarify
value choices, but leave such choices and trade-offs to policy
makers.
 A Framework for Ethical Decision Making
• Ethics really has to do with all these levels-acting ethically as individuals,
creating ethical organizations and governments, and making our society as a
whole ethical in the way it treats everyone.
• What is Ethics? Simply stated, ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us
how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find
themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers,
professionals, and so on.
• Ethics is not the same as feelings.
• Ethics is not religion.
• Ethics is not following the law.
• Ethics is not following culturally accepted norms.
• Ethics is not science.
 Why Identifying Ethical Standards is Hard
• There are two fundamental problems in identifying the ethical
standards we are to follow:
• On what do we base our ethical standards?
• How do those standards get applied to specific situations we face?
• If our ethics are not based on feelings, religion, law, accepted
social practice, or science, what are they based on? Many
philosophers and ethicists have helped us answer this critical
question. They have suggested at least five different sources of
ethical standards we should use.
 Five Sources of Ethical Standards
• The Utilitarian Approach
Some ethicists emphasize that the ethical action is the one that
provides the most good or does the least harm, or, to put it another
way, produces the greatest balance of good over harm.
• The ethical corporate action, then, is the one that produces the
greatest good and does the least harm for all who are affected-
customers, employees, shareholders, the community, and the
environment.
• Ethical warfare balances the good achieved in ending terrorism
with the harm done to all parties through death, injuries, and
destruction.
• The utilitarian approach deals with consequences; it tries both to
increase the good done and to reduce the harm done.
 The Rights Approach
• Other philosophers and ethicists suggest that the ethical action is
the one that best protects and respects the moral rights of those
affected. This approach starts from the belief that humans have a
dignity based on their human nature per se or on their ability to
choose freely what they do with their lives.
• On the basis of such dignity, they have a right to be treated as
ends and not merely as means to other ends. The list of moral
rights -including the rights to make one's own choices about what
kind of life to lead, to be told the truth, not to be injured, to a
degree of privacy, and so on-is widely debated; some now argue
that non-humans have rights, too. Also, it is often said that rights
imply duties-in particular, the duty to respect others' rights.
 The Fairness or Justice Approach
• Aristotle and other Greek philosophers have contributed
the idea that all equals should be treated equally. Today
we use this idea to say that ethical actions treat all human
beings equally-or if unequally, then fairly based on some
standard that is defensible. We pay people more based on
their harder work or the greater amount that they
contribute to an organization, and say that is fair. But
there is a debate over CEO salaries that are hundreds of
times larger than the pay of others; many ask whether the
huge disparity is based on a defensible standard or
whether it is the result of an imbalance of power and
hence is unfair.
 The Common Good Approach
• The Greek philosophers have also contributed the notion that life
in community is a good in itself and our actions should contribute
to that life. This approach suggests that the interlocking
relationships of society are the basis of ethical reasoning and that
respect and compassion for all others-especially the vulnerable-are
requirements of such reasoning.
• This approach also calls attention to the common conditions that
are important to the welfare of everyone. This may be a system of
laws, effective police and fire departments, health care, a public
educational system, or even public recreational areas.
 The Virtue Approach
• A very ancient approach to ethics is that ethical actions ought to
be consistent with certain ideal virtues that provide for the full
development of our humanity. These virtues are dispositions and
habits that enable us to act according to the highest potential of
our character and on behalf of values like truth and beauty.
• Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, tolerance, love,
fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all
examples of virtues. Virtue ethics asks of any action, "What kind
of person will I become if I do this?" or "Is this action consistent
with my acting at my best?"
 Putting the Approaches Together

• Each of the approaches helps us determine what standards of

behavior can be considered ethical. There are still problems to be
solved, however. the first problem is that we may not agree on the
content of some of these specific approaches. We may not all
agree to the same set of human and civil rights.
• We may not agree on what constitutes the common good. We may
not even agree on what is a good and what is a harm.
• The second problem is that the different approaches may not all
answer the question "What is ethical?" in the same way.
Nonetheless, each approach gives us important information with
which to determine what is ethical in a particular circumstance.
And much more often than not, the different approaches do lead to
similar answers.
 Making Decisions
• Making good ethical decisions requires a trained sensitivity to
ethical issues and a practiced method for exploring the ethical
aspects of a decision and weighing the considerations that should
impact our choice of a course of action. Having a method for
ethical decision making is absolutely essential. When practiced
regularly, the method becomes so familiar that we work through it
automatically without consulting the specific steps.
• The more novel and difficult the ethical choice we face, the more
we need to rely on discussion and dialogue with others about the
dilemma. Only by careful exploration of the problem, aided by the
insights and different perspectives of others, can we make good
ethical choices in such situations.
 A Framework for Ethical Decision Making

• Recognize an Ethical Issue: Could this decision or situation be damaging to

someone or to some group? Does this decision involve a choice between a
good and bad alternative, or perhaps between two "goods" or between two
"bads"? Is this issue about more than what is legal or what is most efficient? If
so, how?

• Get the Facts: What are the relevant facts of the case? What facts are not
known? Can I learn more about the situation? Do I know enough to make a
decision? What individuals and groups have an important stake in the
outcome? Are some concerns more important? Why? What are the options for
acting? Have all the relevant persons and groups been consulted? Have I
identified creative options?
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• Evaluate Alternative Actions: Evaluate the options by asking the
following questions:
• Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm?
(The Utilitarian Approach)
• Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake?
(The Rights Approach)
• Which option treats people equally or proportionately? (The
Justice Approach)
• Which option best serves the community
as a whole, not just some members?
(The Common Good Approach)
• Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be?
(The Virtue Approach)
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• Make a Decision and Test It: Considering all these
approaches, which option best addresses the situation?
• If I told someone I respect-or told a television audience-
which option I have chosen, what would they say?
• Act and Reflect on the Outcome
• How can my decision be implemented with the greatest
care and attention to the concerns of all stakeholders?
• How did my decision turn out and what have I learned
from this specific situation?
 Assignment
There are several institutional Built-in
Systems of Policy-making in Pakistan. Like
Executive Committee of National Economic
Council (ECNEC)
Write down at National, Provincial and local
level agencies/institutes that perform certain
stages of public policy process.