Living the Policy Process PDF
Preview Living the Policy Process
Living the Policy Process This page intentionally left blank Living the Policy Process Philip B. Heymann Including extended case studies written by John Buntin, Kirsten Lundberg, and Esther Scott 1 2008 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heymann, Philip B. Living the policy process / Philip Heymann. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-19-533538-5; 978-0-19-533539-2 (pbk.) 1. Policy sciences—Case studies. 2. Political planning—United States—Case studies. 3. Military assistance, American—Afghanistan. 4. Stinger (Missile) 5. Iran-Contra Affair, 1985–1990. 6. Tobacco use–Government policy—United States. I. Title. JK468.P64H49 2008 320.6—dc22 2007029031 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Dedicated to my brother-in-law, Dr. Joseph Ross, who has taught us what living is all about. This page intentionally left blank Preface: The Logic of Governmental Policy Choice When we think about the decisions of a government offi cial, we often imagine a decision maker who has all the information she needs in order to apply her own set of values to the situation at hand. Conversely, we often deduce the decision maker’s values by imagining what values, when applied to predictions based on the best set of facts available, would have led to a particular decision. All of that was described decades ago by Graham Allison in his splendid book, Essence of Decision, as “Model One.” Allison also reminded us that decisions are not really owned and made by a particular offi cial; they are also organizational (his “Model Two”) and the product of political contests within bureaucracies (“Model Three”). Nor are the values that inform both decision making and the assessment of outcomes necessarily shared. Moreover, the information relevant to applying her values to a situation does not come to any decision maker (or player in a political contest) com- plete or without bias. No one has shown the distorting effects of systematic fl ows of partial information in a government (or any) bureaucracy better than Mort Halperin did long ago in his book Bureaucratic Politics.1 The fl ow is not merely subject to inevitable distortions; often it is carefully manipu- lated. Supporters lobby, legislators threaten, subordinates shape reports, and much more. Finally the information is processed by each individual— in other words, is placed to be analyzed—within a context of assumptions about the world and the people in it that result from a lifetime of particular experiences, different from others’ understanding of the same situation. Despite these complexities, and others almost as serious, there is in fact a logic to policy choice that is intuitive and familiar. That is the viii PREFACE subject of this book. I use richly detailed and, as far as humanly possible, accurate accounts of real decisions to illustrate that logic in highly con- crete situations. What makes this form of argument—and in particular its reliance on case studies—possible is that it builds on what we all know about the concerns and infl uences at work when individuals are mak- ing more familiar group decisions. In government, the institutional and democratic context reshapes that massive body of everyday experience in ways that are not so familiar to us. The argument of the book, illustrated by the case studies, is intended to bring what the reader already understands from his daily life to bear in the special governmental context. The case studies involve both foreign and domestic policy decisions. I have worked for years in each area. The differences, while real, are not critical. In each area the crucial and special characteristics of the setting to which an individual must relate are: • a stream of decisions over time • to be made by a shifting but overlapping group of players, largely defi ned by rules • each of whom has responsibility to the organizational units she heads or to which she belongs • as well as concern for her infl uence over future decisions. The First Three Parts: How Are Policy Choices in Fact Made in This Baffl ingly Complex Setting? The argument that follows has a number of pieces that connect in com- plicated ways. It may help to state it in summary form at the beginning, providing a blueprint before describing the more detailed specifi cations. The politics of policy choice—deciding what actions the government will take on proposals for government action—involves the rich rela- tionships among, as well as the individually held beliefs and values of, a group of people. So as good a starting point as any is to identify who par- ticipates. There are, essentially, two subgroups: First, there are those who are given a right and obligation to participate because of their assigned positions, that is, in order to establish an orderly and consistent process of group choice. Second, there are those who have resources to infl uence the fi rst group. The second group is wide enough to include everyone PREFACE ix from interested constituents to the person who deferred to your strong preferences last week and expects reciprocal concern now. In the middle are the press, organized interest groups, legislators, those who furnish cooperation or money, and more. Fortunately, not all of these potential participants will want to become involved in every decision; but, if they do, it will be important to know what will motivate them. The content of the proposal, the proposal’s salience and the timeliness of it, and exercises of infl uence by others can all affect the members of either of these groups. Such matters will affect a player in the game of policy choice if she sees the matter as related (in an important way, for they are busy) to the good of society, the welfare of her organization, her infl uence on future decisions, her moral commit- ments, or her personal welfare. Note that what is important for prediction is not so much what the proposal and those using infl uence for or against it actually mean to an actor, but what she perceives they mean. That requires us to also examine differences among players in their very understandings of the signifi cance of the shared situation in which the group is choosing a policy. There are only six or seven ways that one individual can infl uence the position that another will take in governmental choice. These range from authority and persuasion to bargaining and changing the situation by a fait accompli (with several others in between). Each of these ways of exercising infl uence has certain prerequisites; persuasion, for exam- ple, requires trust. Building and storing these prerequisites—which are the resources of infl uence—so that infl uence can be exercised over time and not just now is a central part of living the policy process. Using the resources effectively, designing and choosing a proposal that infl uential players will like, and timing the proposal for when it will seem responsive to a particularly salient demand, need, or opportunity are the three major tactics of a policy maker. Thus, Part I of this book is devoted to a careful description of the bureaucratic politics of decision making. That requires examining who takes part in any decision, what concerns them as they take a position, what options there are for the positions they can take on a proposal, what enters into their understanding of the relationship between their concerns and the situation that confronts them, and fi nally how they can seek to infl uence others in the structured process that will pro- duce a government decision. Merely making that list suggests that the politics of bureaucratic decision making is a subject worthy of a book
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