Policy Change and Learning. Class Notes.

NATO model (howlett el all, 2009) ● Nodality ○ Information collection and release ○ Advertising ○ commissions - Wide range of information - Provide advice , targeting specific people and seek specific response - Use information to not just inform them but influence their behavior and actions - There are alot of challenges when using information alone to influence specific behavior and response ● - ● - ● - Authority ○ Command and control regulation ○ Standard setting and delegated regulation ○ Advisory committees and consultations Requiring people to have licenses such as fishing, driving, settings. Some regulation are enforced by police like speeding There are regulation by non-governmental such as bar regulation Commission like the first nation, providing commission on issues, it mostly engages with people who are concerned with these issues. They are mostly put to stale action and delay immediate actions. And beneficial for the government because it buys them time. Treasure ○ Subsidies (eg. grants, tax incentives, loans) ○ Financial disincentives (eg. taxes, user fees) ○ Interest group and think- tank funding Tex are hidden and hard to find, there are specific organization that deals with taxes When subsidies are established, it is hard to get rid of because people get attached to them. Court challenges program was established in the 70s, which helped interest groups to challenge cases regarding language etc in supreme court. Organization ○ Direct provision of goods and services ○ Public enterprises ○ partnerships Focus on providing service than relying on government to do so later To remain accountable Political madelnes may occur because government have some control over agencies Public enterprises means the government have majority of control and power over the organization - Canada post - Cbc - National museums - It can be beneficial for government when need to apply any regulation to ensure complying Evaluating policy options: - Demands some kind of forecasting or prediction of future conditions with and without public action - Various methodologies used to evaluate and compare policy options which range from formal and informal - Eg. cost benefit analysis, environmental scans, cross-impact analysis. Policy diffusion and policy design: - Policy diffusion - one government's policy choices influence the policy choices of another government - Competition, learning, imitation, and coercion - Policy design vs. non-design - Policy design - “ involves the deliberate and conscious attempt to define policy goals and connect them in an instrumental fashion to instruments or tools expected to realize those objects” Evidence- based policymaking - Evidence based or evidence informed policy making - efforts to reform the policy process and policy formation to prioritize evidential decision making - Criticisms: - Evidence cannot overcome non-rational features of policymaking - Data collection and analysis is not necessarily better than experiential knowledge - Systematic reviews of random clinical trials and other methodologies are not well suited to all policy areas - Increases analytical expenditures of the government Policy analytical capacity refers to the ability to: - Acquire relevant knowledge via qualitative and quantitative research, - Effectively generate and evaluate policy options, - Evaluate medium and long-term goals, - Engage stakeholders and the public, - And communicate policy options to decision-makers - Reflexive learning and policy innovation - Reflexive learning “describe (s) processes of collective…. Week 11 (9): Decision-Making - Decision making - Decision making (policy adoption) is about the ‘selection of a course of action’ - Closely tied to other stages of the policy process - Steps: - Policy proposal(s) come before decision makers - Some set of criteria used to select amongst proposals - Piecemeal nature of decision-making - Scope or impact of decisions: - Negative decisions - Positive decisions - Pre-stage = assessing and forming a decision - Authoritative decision makers: - Who are the ‘authoritative’ decision makers? - Legislatures and executives - Role depends on the structure of the political system (institutional rules) - Members of the bureaucracy that are designated legal rights or authority by legislatures or executive: - Ex: in Canada, There are 13 triburnals makes decisions: interpret laws, resolve issues, make decisions on how legislation is implemented but not high decicsion. - Judges who can overrule decisions of legislatures and executives - - Legislatures and executives: - Elected politicians have short sighted concerns (eg, political gains, clientelistic politics, re-election) - Decisions can be lengthy due to negotiation - Role of federalism in policymaking Members of bureaucracy - Members of bureaucracy that re designated legal rights or authority by legislators or executives - Especially concerned with feasibility, legality, and the political manmandate of the government - More long-term perspective - - Judges - Judges who overrule decision of legislature and executives - Concerned with precedents, legalitty, and assessing facts - Canadian context: interpretation of the Constitution, Charter - More advisory opinions, but judicial supremacy is a ‘myth’ - Dialogue theory - Importance of institutional legitimacy - Acts as a check on elected and non-elected officials involved in making and administering policy Constraints: - Decisions are not made in a vacuum - Decision makers must consider their legitimacy - - How will the decision be perceived by the policy community, bureaucracy, as well as the wider public? Whose interests are being served? Non-state actors and non-authoritative decision makers influence decisions through ‘voice’ but not ‘vote’ Models of decision making: - The rational decision making model - Focused on logical reasoning and evidence - Selecting a policy option that maximizes attainment of goals and values - Assumes perfect and complete information - Assumes that decision makers frame the problem in the same way - The incremental model - Decisions are made through a process of bargaining and compromise among self-interested decision makers and through ‘successive limited comparisons’ - Decisions tend not to diverge from the status quo - - Existing arrangements reflect compromise among interests Discussion of goals and means are intertwined What about crises? What counts as ‘incremental’? Local government context: - Decision making in the (Canadians) local government context: - Lack clear political executive - - Local governments are not sovereign - - Mayors are one among equal on local councils Subject to higher levels of government Typically responding to external pressure Rely heavily on the guidance of municipal staff and CAO wen making decisions ASSIGNMENT: ● What we are doing a government style brief, ○ Imagine that you are a senior servant!!!! While making a recommendation of why chose this option over the other, u can say that there are group of interest people who are supportive of this option more than the other because of that that that …. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Week 12 (10): Implementation Recap: - Decision making - authoritative decision makers decide on a course of action - Usually, several decisions contribute to a policy or court of actions - Authotitative decision makers are: - L - L Implementation: - Execution of policy - “Actors attempt to convert policy interventions and resources into actions resulting in specific policy output and ultimately in the acheive or not of intended policy outcomes” - This definition is vague so …. - “The process by which policies enacted by the government are put into effect by the relevant (department and)....” - Policy implementation: ● The bureaucracy play a large role in policy implementation ○ Operational planning ○ Services delivery ● Cabinet ministers - who head departments are assigned policy to implement within their portfolios ○ Agencies working at lower levels of government play a key role in service delivery ● Tribunals ● Involvement of non-governmental actors varies: police, teachers, etc. - Actors’ behavior in the implementation process: ● Implementation create competition for resources ● Coordination of many actors and organization (eg. agencies, depts) ● Inter-and intra-bureaucratic competition and conflict ● Tensions between groups involved or interested in being involved in implementation ● Public attention, administrators and organized special interest has been decreased. ● - Implementation can have ripple effects on the arrangement and power of actors in the policy process Problem tractability ● Problem tractability has implications for policy implementation ○ Defining a tractable problem 1. Clear understanding of the necessary behavioral change required to address the problem 2. The target group is relatively sma;;, compare to the population 3. Only modest behavioral change required of thai reality small group ● Tractable Problems addressed by policy are more likely to have measurable improvements and easier to maintain political support for .. For example: - Obesity in Canada! Vs. noice! = - Effective implementation: ● Attention to implantation concerns and considerations during policy formulation/design: ○ Clear causal understanding of the problem ○ Clear and consistent policy objectives ○ Target group is identified and scope of expected behavioral change reasonable ○ Priorizationand framing of policy objectives ○ ‘Pilot’ implementation ● Clear defined implementation plan/strategy ● Ongoing support for the policy - from: ○ Support form within the bureaucracy eg. front-line bureaucrats ○ Elected officials ○ Stakeholder and interest group sn ○ Pubick support - role of the media ● Capacity ○ Bureaucratic capacity - financial resources and personnel ○ Favorable institutional arrangements and procedures ○ Networks within the bureaucracy ● Accountability mechanisms ○ Reporting on challenges and successes ○ Information for stakeholders --------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 13: Policy Evaluation Policy implementation recap: - Execution of policy - The process by which policies enacted by government are put into effect by the revelation and agencies” - Central role of the bureaucracy in policy implementation - Problem tractability can affect implantation - Strategies for effective policy implementation Policy evaluation: - Policy evaluation is “all the activities carried out by range of state and societal actors to determine how a policy has fared in practice and to estimate how it's likely to perform in the future” - This process comes before the policy is adopted or a decision is made! - Focus of academic literature is on formal, regularized administrative evaluation conducted by bureaucrats and consultants working for the government. Characteristics: ● Not overly systematic or technically sophisticated in most cases ● Partisan, one-sided and or biased Examples: ● Citizens as voters at election time conduct informal, aggregate judgment of a government’s policy performance. ● Parliamentary and congressional committees Judicial evalutations: ● Charactific: ○ Conducted by judges ○ Evaluated ● L Administrative evaluations: ● Characteristics: ○ Conducted primarily by the bureaucracy and independent auditors ○ Focused primarily on evaluation the efficiency of service and delivery ● Types of administrative evaluations: 1. Input evaluations a. Measure the amount of effort being put in to meet goals i. Ex, measuring personnel, office space ii. Baseline data 2. Process evaluations a. Evaluate organizational process (eg, rules and operating procedures) used to deliver programs 3. Output evaluations a. Examine what a policy is producing i. What is produced by the input and activities of the policy? ii. Performance data 4. Outcome and impact evaluations a. Gross outcomes: all observed changes in outcome measure b. Net outcome: all observed changes in outcome measure that are directly attributed or caused by the policy c. Avoids commenting on normative value of policy d. Empirically testing the causal claim between the state objectives other policy and the outcome e. Measures medium term and long term consequences of the policy Evaluations in Canadian federal departments: - Requirements for various departmental and spending oversight evaluations required primarily by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat - The Policy on Results (2016) replaces Policy on Evaluation (2009) - 2016 policy expands the scope of evaluations and allows for a wider range of evaluation types - Traditional focus: process, outputs, impact and outcome evaluation - New policy allows for: - Economic evaluations - Theory of change evaluation - Pre-evolutions (ex ante evaluations) - Innovation evaluations Policy evaluation, in many cases, assess whether a policy is a success or filature and evaluation can inform future policies How can evaluations inform future policy decisions? 1. Policy is judged successful and continue in its current form 2. Policy is judged as required some sort of reform 3. Policy is judged as a failure \(success) and is terminate entirely ● Rare, because : ○ Wicked problems ○ Strong, established beneficiaries of policies/programs ○ Requires that the policy issue is no longer relevant, issue has been solved, or approach to the issue has changed (paradigmatic change) Challenges in policy evaluation: ● Technical and organizational challenges ○ Lack of policy analytical capacity (eg, trained individuals within the bureaucracy, but also, data issues) ○ Narrow perception of the scope or type of evaluation ● Political challenges ○ Unclear policy goals (a lingering problem) ○ Success and failure are highly subjective ○ Self-interests of individual conducting evaluations ● https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_201805_09_e_43041.html 1) Briefly summarize the focus of the audit (eg. policy, program, specific service, government department, crown corporation). 2) Describe the type of evaluation conducted. (Eg. does the audit/evaluation focus mainly on processes, outputs, or both?) What is not the focus on the evaluation? - Process evaluation 3) What methods were used to conduct the evaluation? Provide a few examples. - Review documents Tip: read sections titled “Focus of the audit” and “About the audit” 4) Summarize one or two key findings from the report. - none received Government of Canada approval, leaving the Corporation without an updated strategic direction supported by the Government of Canada. found weaknesses in risk mitigation and in risk monitoring and reporting. found that the Corporation had several good practices, such as in performance measurement, monitoring, and reporting _________________________________________________Week 14: