“Understanding
Public Policy:
A Primer”
Daniel Griswold
Cato University
Annapolis, MD
July 25, 2011
The Cato Institute
Washington, D.C.
What is Public Policy?
• Complex and dynamic
process – not what you
learned in high school
civics class
• What government does
to and for society
• Collective action
through the
government
Public Policies May:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Regulate behavior
Extract taxes
Distribute benefits
Organize bureaucracy
Make war
Some combination of the above
Why Care about Public Policy?
“Just because you do not take an interest in
politics doesn't mean politics won't take an
interest in you.” – Pericles
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to
yield, and government to gain ground." –
Thomas Jefferson
“I am interested in politics so that one day I will not
have to be interested in politics.” – Ayn Rand
Analyzing Public Policy: a Framework
Michael Munger, Duke University, Analyzing Policy:
Choices, Conflicts, and Practices (2000)
1. Problem formulation
2. Selection of criteria
3. Comparison of alternatives
4. Political and organizational
constraints
5. Implementation and
evaluation
Problem Formulation
Selection of Criteria
• What do we want to accomplish?
• Test of a good policy
a.Moral argument
b.Incentives
c.Constitutionality
Comparison of Alternatives
Munger’s Criteria/Alternatives Matrix (CAM)
Political and Organizational Constraints
“The Overton Window”
• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy
Implementation and Evaluation
•
•
•
•
Did the program accomplish its goals?
Good intentions not enough.
Market outcomes, political acceptance,
expert analysis
Charles Murray’s Losing Ground;
immigration enforcement; government K-12
school spending
Education Spending vs. Performance
How is Public Policy Made?
“Laws are like
sausages, it is
better not to see
them being
made.”
– attributed to
Otto von
Bismarck
The Players:
Voters
Think tanks
Politicians
Capitol hill
Bureaucrats
Researchers
The courts
Consultants
Academics
Interest groups
Administration
The media
Public opinion
Experts
Civil servants
Models of Policy Analysis
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Institutionalism
Process model
Rationalist model: policy as maximum
social gain
Incrementalism: policy as variations on the
past
Group theory: policy as a group equilibrium
Elite theory: policy as elite preference
Public choice theory
Public Choice Theory
•
•
•
•
“Politics without
romance”
Public officials as
self-interested
actors
Rent seeking
Concentrated
benefits, diffused
costs
Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
• A rational individual who prefers
Pepsi over Coke, and Coke over
Dr. Pepper, will prefer Pepsi over
Dr. Pepper.
• Arrow showed there is no “fair”
voting method for constructing
social preferences from arbitrary
individual preferences.
• Society may not be a “rational
chooser”
A ‘Fair’ Voting System
1. Each voter can have any set of rational preferences.
This requirement is called “universal admissibility.”
2. If every voter prefers choice A to choice B, then the
group prefers A to B. This is sometimes called the
“unanimity” condition.
3. If every voter prefers A to B, then any change in
preferences that does not affect this relationship
must not affect the group preference for A over B.
4. There are no dictators.
Public Preferences:
Trade Policy with China
Voter
Group
Blues
Unilateral
Trade
Free Trade Agreement
1
2
Trade
War
3
Reds
2
3
1
Whites
3
1
2
Note: Rank order of preferences for each group
The Outcome: Collective Irrationality
Unilateral Free Trade > Trade Agreement
Trade Agreement > Trade War
Trade War > Unilateral Free Trade
Endless Loop! No transitive preferences.
What You Can Do
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Vote, or not
Fund think tanks
Write letters to your congressmen
Blogging/social media
Take a career in ideas
Write op-eds and letters to the editor
Encourage other people to become
engaged
Q&A & Discussion …
•
•
•
•
•
www.cato.org
www.freetrade.org
dgriswold@cato.org
Facebook
Twitter:
@DanielGriswold
• 202-789-5260