2. Objectives
• To show the details of the processes involved
in public policymaking;
• To present the various influential theories that
have contributed in shaping the process of
public policymaking
3. Simplifying a Complex World with Theories
and Frameworks
• The policy process is enormously complex:
1) It involves many varied actors;
2) It takes a long time, sometimes spanning decades;
3) It involves dozens of different programs in any specific
policy domain (i.e., pollution) over multiple levels of
government (local, state, federal);
4) It involves policy debates that are often quite technical
5) It involves and, sometimes colored by deeply held
values and interests
4. SIMPLIFYING THE POLICY PROCESS
• To understand the policy process, analyst
must find a way to simplify it through a set of
presuppositions
• These set of presuppositions help in:
– 1) figuring out what to look for and
– 2) how to classify or categorize the information
5. SIMPLIFYING THE POLICY PROCESS
• Example:
– Institutional Rational Choice tells us to look at
institutions, individual actors and how they
strategically maneuver institutional rules to
pursue self-interested goals.
• How do we develop these presuppositions?
1) common sense: via experience we can set up
assumptions and expectations
2) science: developing a set of propositions and
relationships via a public method of deata collection and
analysis and clearly defining the concepts and logically
connecting them.
6. SIMPLIFYING THE POLICY PROCESS
• The scientific method is considered superior
because it is more open and provides a
method that produces propositions that are
“clear enough to be proven wrong” (note key
term: empirically falsifiable) and is designed to
be self-consciously, error seeking, and thus
self-correcting.
7. Terminology
• Conceptual Framework: a set of variables and
description of how they are related used to
account for a phenomena.
• Theory: A theory provides a “denser” and more
logically coherent set of relationships.
• Model: A representation of a specific situation. It
is usually much more narrower in scope than a
theory but more precise in its assuptions.
8. What is a good theory?
1) scientific (open, clear, well-defined, give rise
to falsifiable hypotheses);
2) should be subject to recent use and empirical
testing;
3) Be a positive theory (explain something), not
just normative (judging something);
4) should address a broad range of factors
considered important to political scientists.
9. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF THE
POLICY PROCESS
• Punctuated-Equilibrium Framework
– developed by Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D.
Jones
– policy process tends to feature long periods of
incremental change punctuated by brief periods of
major policy change.
– The latter come about when opponents manage to
fashion a new “policy image or images” and exploit
the multiple policy venues of the U.S.
– Originally, developed to explain changes in legislation
10. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF THE
POLICY PROCESS (cont’d)
• The Advocacy Coalition Framework
– developed by Paul Sabatier and Hank C. Jenkins-
Smith
– focuses on the interaction of advocacy coalitions -
each consisting of actors from a variety of
institutions who share a set of policy beliefs-
within a policy subsystem
– Policy change is a product of the competition and
interaction between these coalitions.
11. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF THE
POLICY PROCESS (cont’d)
• Policy Diffusion Framework
– developed by Frances Stokes Berry and William D.
Berry
– developed to explain variation in the adoption of
specific policy innovations, such as the lottery,
across political jurisdictions
– it argues that adoption is a function of both the
characteristics of the specific political systems and
a variety of diffusion processes.
12. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF THE
POLICY PROCESS (cont’d)
• The Funnel of Causality and Other
Frameworks in Large-N Comparative Studies
– explain variation in policy outcomes (e.g.
budgetary expenditures) across large number of
localities
– These began as very simple frameworks dividing
up the variance among background
socioeconomic conditions, public opinion, and
political institutions
13. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF THE
POLICY PROCESS (cont’d)
• Omitted Frameworks
– Arenas of Power
– Cultural Theory
– Constructivist Framework
– Policy Domain Framework
