Two main concerns of policy-making

1. Two main concerns of policy-making Power and policy-making: which groups control public policy making and who benefits from a particular policy making structure Rationality and policy-making: to what extent public policy making is, and more importantly should be, a rational process

3. Rational Model Rational decision-making involves the selection of the alternative which will maximize the values of decision-makers, the selection being made following a comprehensive analysis of alternatives and their consequences extremely influential in explaining foreign policy making e.g. why China crossed the Yalu river; why Soviet Union decided to deploy missiles in Cuba and why the U.S. decided to resort to sea blockade to demand the dismantling of the missiles

4. Rational Model Organizational and government action as choice Key concepts goals options consequences choice made on the basis of analyzing and comparing all alternatives

5. Dominant inference pattern of rational model If an organization perform a particular action, that organization must have had ends toward which the action constituted a maximizing means the explanatory power of the model stems from this inference pattern

6. Rational Model The main thrust of the rational model lies not in the fact that it is a correct description of the policy making process. In reality, the policy making process is markedly different from what is presented in the rational model the rational model is basically an ideal toward which organizational decision-making should approximate Hence, the real issue is whether the rational model should be taken as a good prescriptive model for policy making

7. Alternatives to the rational model As description of, and prescription for, policy making Herbert Simon: bounded rationality Graham Allison: organizational process model Charles Lindblom: incrementalism

8. Bounded rationality Rationality is bounded at the individual as well as the organizational levels Bounded rationality at individual level: satisficing rather than maximizing organizational processes give rise to even more constraints on rationality

9. Organizational constraints on rationality Routinization of activity through establishing programs and standard operating procedures specialization of activities and roles so that attention of attention is directed to a particular restricted set of values simultaneous and sequential pursuit of conflicting goals

10. Organizational constraints on rationality Factoring of goals and tasks into programs and departments that are semi-independent of one another to reduce interdependencies: restrict range of stimuli and situations that narrow perception and foster concerns with narrow interests training and indoctrination lead individuals to make decisions as the organization would like them to make

11. Organizational Process Model Mainly as a descriptive model Action as organizational output Key concepts factored problems and fractionated power parochial priorities and perceptions sequential attentions to conflicting goals standard operating procedures programs and repertoires

12. Dominant Inference Pattern of the Organizational Process Model If an organization performs an action of a certain type today, its organizational components must yesterday have been performing (or have had established routines for performing) an action only marginally different from today�s action.

13. Incrementalism Both as a descriptive and a prescriptive model criticism of the rational model: not adapted to limited problem-solving capacities of human being not adapted to adequacy of information not adapted to the costliness of analysis insistence on comprehensive analysis results in either inaction or neglect of important information. Hence, a strategy is required.

14. How does this model differ the analysis of Simon? Both descriptive and prescriptive Lindblom does not focus adequately on the organizational structures and processes that work to limit full rationality organizational structures and processes also make policy making incremental

15. Root and Branch Methods Root (rational): starting from basic issues o n each occasion and building from the ground up Branch (successive limited comparison): starting from the existing situation and changing incrementally. Hence incrementalism

16. Incrementalism is preferable because: It rests on a more realistic assumption of human intellectual capacities and possession of information corresponds more closely to the reality of democratic politics: relevance and realism a degree of comprehensiveness is achieved by the system of having each interest group to guard its interests avoids big mistake

17. Incrementalism and Strategic Analysis Rational model leads to unconscious neglect and inaction need for simplification and choice; incremental analysis is only a form of strategic analysis; other forms of strategic analysis are also in line with the spirit behind incrementalism.