(Online Course) Pub Ad for IAS Mains: Chapter: 10 Public Policy - Models for Policy Analysis (Paper -1)

Models for Policy Analysis

A model is simplified representation of some aspect of the real world. It may be an actual representation - an airport model. The models used in studying the public policy are conceptual models. Models serve many purposes:

1. This simplifies and clarifies one’s thinking about public policy and politics.

2. They identify important aspects of policy problems.

3. They help one to communicate with others by focussing on the essential features of political life.

4. They direct one’s efforts to a better understanding of public policy by suggesting what is important and what is not.

5. They suggest explanations for public policy and predict its consequences. There are various models to help understand public policy.

The major ones are:

1. Institutional model

2. Process model

3. Group model

4. Elite model

5. Rational model

6. Incremental model

7. Game theory model

8. System model

9. Optimal model

10. Market exchange model

Thrust of Public Policies Analysis

• Process of Policy-making
  o Elite Mass Group Model
  o Systems Model
  o Institutionalist Model

• Output and Effects of Public Policy
  o Incremental Model
  o Rational Model

The Elite Theory of Model

The classic enunciation of the elite theory is to be found in Gaetano Mosca’s The Ruling Class: Among the constant facts and tendencies that are to be found in all political organisms, one is so obvious that it is apparent to the most casual eye. In all societies - horn societies that are very meagrely developed and have barely attained the dawnings of civilization, down to the most advanced and powerful societies - two classes of people appeared - a class that rules and a class that is ruled. The first class, always the less numerous, performs al political functions, monopolises power and enjoys the advantages that power brings, whereas the second, the more numerous class, is directed and controlled by the first, in a manner that is now more or less legal, now more or less arbitrary and violent, and supplies the first in appearance, at least, with material means of subsistence and with the instrumentalities that are essential to the vitality of the political organism.

The elite theory of policy making is most closely related to public servants. They are perceived by this theory as a ruling elite rather than public servants. This theory contends that most people are apathetic and do not possess the requisite information to equip them for policy making. “They are thus passive, and the small ruling elite makers the policies which reflect the rulers’ values. The emphasis of the policies is on status quo. C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite provides the classic enunciation of the elite theory.

The Group Model

A.F. Bentley’s The Process of Government (1908) propounds the group theory. This theory argues that a society is divided into a number of organised groups and lobbies. The thrust of the group model is towards the legislature rather than the bureaucracy though the bureaucracy ‘too’ is buffeted by pressure groups.

Researches show that many regulating agencies in public administration have been captured by the groups that are meant to regulate: In other words, the ‘regulated’ in practice, emerges as the regulator! According to this theory, public policies really benefit the groups, which are most directly affected by these policies. This particularly happens in the absence of countervailing organised groups. An example is the public policy on drugs in India: many think that the pharmaceutical industry controls the drug bureaucracy whose ostensible task is to police the former.

The Systems Theory of Policy-Making

This theory draws heavily on David Easton’s The Political System.

The concept of system implies an identifiable set of institutions and activities in society that function to transform demands into authoritative decisions requiring the support of the whole society. This concept also implies that elements of the system are interrelated, that the system can respond to forces in its environment, and that it will do so in order to preserve itself. Inputs are received into the political system in the form of both demands and support. Demands occur when individuals or groups in response to real or perceived environmental conditions, act to affect public policy. Snpport is rendered when individuals or groups accept the outcome of the elections. obey the laws, pay their taxes and generally conform to policy decisions. Any system absorbs a variety of demands into output public policy; it must conceive settlements and enforce them upon the parties concerned. It is recognised that output public policies may have a modified effect in the environment and the demands arising from it, and may also have an effect of the political system. The system preserves itself by:

1. producing reasonable satisfying outputs,

2. Relying upon deeply rooted attachments to the system itself and

3. Using or threatening to use force.

The Incremental Theory of Policy Making

The word ‘increment’ means ‘a small increase in quantity’, ‘to add a small to’, often at regular intervals. The fundamental concept of incrementalism is contained in `organisational drift’, ‘satisficing’, `bounded rationality’, and `limited cognition’. The incremental theory contends that only limited policy alternatives are provided to policy makers and each of these alternatives represent only a very small change in the status quo. The incremental theory puts the bureaucracy in a conservative mould, ever tied to the past and slow to change. ‘Sunk costs’ also rule out radically new course of action.

Incremental theory is conservative. It does not question the validity of past policies which were formulated in a piecemeal way under parochial considerations. It is historical and a theoretical also: the increment list theory assumes - wrongly - that the present limits of knowledge and prediction would ever continue. But it is politically expedient. As it is difficult to have agreed upon societal policies, there is easy agreement on increment list theory: existing policies thus get continued.

Incrennentalism

Incrementalism has been increasingly used in public administration since the sixties when Charles L. Lindblom popularised it in 1959 in his paper The Science of Muddling Through’, published in Public Administration Review (Vol. 19, spring I9597 What incrementalism means is the gradual and modest increase in specific governmental allocations, that is_ budget. Since the seventies, a reverse g trend in public administration in most-Countries is in evidence which goes by the name of ‘cutback management’. This has induced some like George H. Frederickson to coin the antonym ‘decrementaIism’. Decrementalism signifies gradually decreasing financial allocations.

According to Lindblom’s theory, public administration is not governed by principles nor is administration separated from politics in a unified administrative system. Nor does Lindblom think that an administrator is the optimal rationaliser of efficiency and effectiveness. The truth is that public administration is the art of the possible _in the modern _pluralistic world of competitive interest groups. An administrator muddles, not manages. Negotiation and strategy are his operational-tools as he aims to devise an ‘agreeable’ compromise-. Ibis confused manner of incremental decision-making produces social harmony, unity, stability and equilibrium in a fluid environment of ever-changing interest-groups.

The incremental model has its advantages, but its limitations are no less obvious. First and foremost, this approach is inherently conservative, even status­quoist. It makes it very difficult for the government to direct the society it wants, for its penetrative strategy is diffused, multi-dimensional and mutually contradictory. Incrementalism tends to be reinforcing: every interest group builds up support in the corresponding governmental department, which lobbies for the former’s continuance. This leads to involvement of more and more agencies, rendering difficult the problems of co-ordination. Secondly, as incrementalism believes in adoption of small steps in changing a policy, it may end up in unintended and unforeseen consequences. American scholars site the case of the American Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 as the culmination of incremental approach. This approach is notoriously weak in organisational memory the original motivating considerations get overlooked. Thirdly, where the challenge is to re-direct and re-construct the entire society, the incremental model of decision-making is not to the preferred and adopted.

The rationalist theory of policy making

In a sense, the rationalist theory is the opposite of the incrementalist theory. The rationalist theory seeks to find out all the value preferences extant in a society, assign each value a weightage, find out all the alternatives as well as all the consequences of each alternative and in the end make the final selection in terms of’ the costs and benefits of social values. The rationalist model is reflected in Operations Research, Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). Critical Path Method (CPM) and Zero-based budget.

A rational policy is one which maximises social gain. This is another way of saying that no policy should be adopted if its costs exceed its benefits. Secondly, the policy-maker should choose that policy that produces the greatest benefits. A public policy is rational when the difference in its benefits and disadvantages is greater than that in any other policy. A rational policy would thus involve:

1. Knowing all value preferences of society.

2. Knowing all the policy alternatives available.

3. Knowing all the consequences of each policy alternative

4. Evaluating the ratio of benefits to costs for each policy alternative

5. Selecting the most efficient policy alternative, that is, the one that brings the greatest benefits and the least disadvantages.

Rational policy making is possible only by ‘Economic Man’. In contrast, public administration has ‘Administrative Man’ who ‘satisfices’, does not ‘maximise. Moreover, in the world in which we live what prevails is ‘bounded rationality’ even though the information revolution made possible by computers makes available more and more information.

Other barriers also confront rational policy making:

1. When policy-makers make policies, their basic instinct is self-preservation and organisational survival.

2. Search behaviour for alternatives stands foreclosed by policies and decisions. This is ‘sunk cost’.

3. Information collection itself faces limits. Not only is there the problem of cost, the time involved in collecting information sets a limit as well.

4. The segmental nature of policy-making in government organisations stands in the way of co-ordination of decision-making. As a result, contradictory policies are seen to be in operation in government.

5. The techniques of cost-benefit analysis cannot apply where diverse political, social, economic and cultural values are at stake.

6. Even otherwise, it is very difficult to assess accurately the benefits and costs of each policy alternative. Simply because the predictive ability of the social and behavioural sciences as well as of the physical and biological sciences is not all that advanced

The Game Theory of Policy-Making

The game theory is an abstract and deductive theory or model of policy­making. It is a form of rationalism applied in competitive situations where the outcome depends on what two or more participants do. A conflict situation is called a game. The game theory is the study of rational decisions in situations in which two or more participants have choices to make and the outcome depends on the choices each of them makes. The theory is put into application in policy-making situations where there is no independently best choice which one can make and where, moreover, the best outcome depends on what others do. In the conflict situation all participants try to maximise their gain and minimise their losses.

The game theory is applicable to competitive problems, that is, conflict sitnations. It can be applied to decisions about war and peace, international diplomacy, bargaining or coalition in parliament or the United Nations. The idea underlying the game is that policy-makers are involved in choices which are independent. Each player in the conflict situation must adjust his conduct to reflect not only his own desires and expectations but also his assessment about what other will do.

The games considered are games of strategy, not games of chance. The game strategy of a participant includes all possible options for contingencies arising from a strategy of other participants. Strategies are evaluated in terms of payoffs. Numerical values are assigned to the outcomes of particular moves. The motivation underlying the game theory was to provide information on strategies that should be adopted. Employment of an optimal strategy is called ‘rational’ behaviour in game theory.

Prisoners Dilemma

Prisoners’ dilemma is a special type of game in game theory. It entails rational selection of’ strategies which. though, may be less profitable than non-rational selection. It makes certain assumptions.

The game theory is usually set around two prisoners, kept in separate cells, unable to communicate with each other. The prosecution needs a confession in order to secure conviction. The prosecutor promise each prisoner the following: if one prisoner confesses but his partner does not, he will get a very light sentence; if both confess, both will get a moderate sentence; if he does not confess but his partner does he will get heavy sentence; if neither confesses, the light sentence for the minor charge will be imposed.

This is non-zero sum game. The game can be represented thus:

                                Prisoner A
                                        No             Confe
                                     Confes           ssion
Pri                                   sion
son
er             No                 (1, 1)             (1/2,
B              Confes                                  7)
                 sion
               
                Confes            (7, 1/2)          (3, 3)
                sion

The prisoner’s dilemma is a game in which both participants must take a risk and be prepared for a minor loss to avoid disastrous consequences to both. This is an example of a game to study participants’ responses in conflict situations. The game theory’s chief value lies in encouraging thoughtful examination of options prior to action, which is obviously useful to policy-makers. At the same time, a rigid and simplistic faith in it could be counterproductive.

Even distinguished experts present completing scenarios. The club of Rome’s famous The Limits to Growth (1972) predicted.

‘The basic behaviours mode of the world system is exponential growth of population and capital, followed by collapse’. The book argued that the earth’s interlocking resources - the global system of nature in which we all live - can not support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100.
Sir Charles Cunningham has rightly warned: ‘Policy is rather like the elephant - you recognise it when you see to but cannot easily define it.’

Peter Self defines public policy as ‘changing directives as to how tasks should be interpreted and performed.

Strategic Planning Paradigm of Public Policy Making and Implementation - By Alfred Chandler.

Strategic planning is done by top line officers through the upper levels of middle management. It is not done by planners and strategic plan does not substitute members for important intangibles such as human emotions but it does uses computer and quantification to include these variables.

Strategic planning is an attempt to reconcile the incremenlalist and rationalist approach to the problem of public policy formulation. It places line decision makers in an active rather than in a passive position about the future of the organization. To do this it requires that strategic planning be highly participative and tolerant of controversy.

Public policy in practice is a process including a complex array of actors and interactions inside and around it. It is a dynamic process and as such it is also flexible. An integrated model of public policy was proposed by Jenkins with seven stages:

1. Initiation

2. Information

3. Consideration

4. Decision

5. Implementation

6. Evaluation

7. Termination

Advantage of Jenkins Model

1. It suggests that public policy is a rational and implicit process.

2. Policy processes are mostly continuous process of evolution in which the starting point may be in the past.

3. Policy initiation may start anywhere in the political system. Stages does not mean that a particular policy necessarily formulate at a unified predictable way.

4. Stages may overlap and feedback loops may be between them.

5. The most accepted model of policy process is the Tour stage model:
   1. Agenda setting
   2. formulation
   3. Implementation
   4. Evaluation

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