POLS7140
Public Policy and
Governance
Lecture 2: Coordination
Instructor: Dr. Yiran LI
1
How to use Syllabus
General discussion to
address in in-group
discussion/presentation
Case that could be
used for your own
in-group
presentation 2
Objectives
• To identify, introduce and define some of the key concepts used in public
policy analysis (about public policy actors, the context in which they finding
themselves, their room for manoeuvre, the policy they produce and the
evaluation of this policy);
• To introduce, in the process, some of the issues and questions which divide
public policy analysts and theories of public policy;
• To suggest that how we think about public servants has changed in recent
years and that this influences what we trust them to do;
• To understand the nature of coordination: how to bring people together for
public goods.
3
Chapter 2: Key Concepts
4
Public Policy as Politics
• The design, formulation and implementation of public policy is an inherently political
process – public policy-making is politics, public policy is political;
• What makes something political? Many definitions we could consider:
➢‘politics as government – where government is understood as a formal decision-
making process the outcomes of which are binding upon members of the
community in question’ ;
➢‘politics as a process of public deliberation and scrutiny of matters of collective
concern or interest to a community’;
➢‘politics as the capacity for deliberation and agency in situations of genuine
collective or social choice’ (Hay 2007: 62, 77).
• Some of these definitions more formal than others – but some common factors:
politics is about choice (and deliberation), the capacity for action and the production
of consequences for others (Hay 2007: 65-70).
5
POLITY POLITICS POLICY
• Political context (and • Party competition • Policy design
wider socio-economic • Politicization of issues • Policy formulation
context – crisis, • Political conflict • Policy evaluation
austerity, etc.) • Policy paradigms
• Problem identification
• Place in MLG system • Policy interdependence
• Issue definition
(e.g.: EU, Eurozone)
• Agenda setting • Accountability/legitimacy
• Political system
• Discretion/rules-
• Party structure boundedness
• Electoral system • Policy evolution
• Government • Policy types
composition & structure ECONOMY &
(coalition or majority, SOCIETY
stable or unstable etc.)
• State structure/capacity
Figure 1: Polity-politics-policy
6
Structure and Agency in Public Policy
• Like all political behaviour, public policy is made by actors in contexts which they do
not choose and over which they have only a partial influence (and about which they
have incomplete information);
• Consequently, how we understand public policy is shaped by how we view those
actors – their rationality, their motivations for action, their competence and their
capacity to act … and also how by we view the constraints of the context upon them;
• Moreover, the public policy they make is shaped by the assumptions they in turn
make about public servants (those implementing policy), those the policy is
intended to benefit … and the context in which both find themselves;
• This sounds complicated – but it is simpler than it might seem – the issues involved
here are usually referred as the question (or problem) of ‘structure and agency’.
7
Structure and Agency
• Structure is context; agency is conduct or behaviour (the capacity to act) – the
question of structure and agency is about how they are related (typically how
agency is constrained or conditioned by context);
• An actor or agent has agency if she has the autonomy to act – the autonomy to
make a choice between options (policy A, policy B; strategy 1, strategy 2);
• If she (genuinely) has no choice (policy-makers often say this!) then she has no
agency (e.g.: ‘given the size of the budget deficit, cuts in state spending are
inevitable’);
• In this example the budget deficit is a structural constraint;
• All public policy is the product of structure and agency – the negotiation of
constraints by creative political actors seeking (presumably) to do the best they can
in the (difficult) context in which they find themselves.
8
Structure and Agency (con’t)
• This has implications for how we analyse public policy (or should have);
• If we think that public policy makers have little or no agency, we should concentrate
on the context(s) which constrains them;
• If we think they have considerable agency (and are relatively unconstrained), we
should concentrate on how they exercise such autonomy;
• And if we think structure and agency are in some kind of balance, we need to
consider both;
• There is a tendency in PP analysis to focus on actors and their agency and not to
consider enough the context (and the constraints with which it might be associated);
• This is why we will be looking at crisis, austerity, globalisation etc. in the final part of
this course (things you won’t find in the textbooks) .
9
Motivation and Agency in Policy Design
• But structure and agency is not just an issue for analysts … ;
• Public-policy is designed on the basis of assumptions about how those who
implement policy (and those it is intended to benefit) will behave;
• The consequences are well-explored by Julian Le Grand in Motivation, Agency and
Public Policy (2006);
• Le Grand focuses on two dimensions of this – motivation and agency;
• motivation: ‘the internal desires and preferences that incite action’
• agency: ‘the capacity to undertake [such] action’ (2006: 2).
Motivation: a national education system in which teachers are assumed to be
narrowly self-interested (‘knaves’) is going to be very different from one in which they
are assumed to be motivated solely by the desire to educate (‘knights’). Arguably
public goods are more difficult to extract from knaves than knights.
10
Motivation and Agency in Policy Design
• But it is not just motivational assumptions that matter in policy design;
• No less important are assumptions about agency – e.g.: the agency of those for
whom public goods are provided (welfare recipients, patients, students).
• Agency
- A national healthcare system in which patients are assumed to be passive
recipients with limited capacity for agency (‘pawns’) will give them no choice;
- It will insist that they are patient and deferential whilst their need is evaluated
(and might appear to them remote and paternalistic);
- A national health system in which patients are assumed active and well informed
(‘queens’ ) will seek to afford them choice;
- It might even ‘empower’ them to make informed choices about doctors,
hospitals and treatment;
- It is more likely to see market or quasi-market mechanisms as desirable (but
markets can fail too).
11
active & capable
neoliberal
public-private
marketised
welfare state
public choice theory
marketisation
MOTIVATION
knight/saint knave/rogue
post-war AGENCY
paternalist
welfare
state passive & incapable
Figure 2: Motivation & agency in the transformation of the welfare state
12
But what about structure?
• This is all rather agent-centred (characteristically) – what about structure (context)?
• Q. In what ways are public policy actors constrained by their context?
• Our answer depends on whether we are talking about the designers of public policy
or those responsible for its delivery;
• Though both are constrained by their context, they are constrained in different
ways;
• Indeed, public policy providers are doubly constrained – (i) by the constraints on
public policy they share with policy-makers; and (ii) by the constraints imposed by
the latter on them (principal-agent);
• Let’s take public policy providers first … focusing on the immediate and obvious
constraints they face when striving to deliver public goods.
13
Constraints on public policy providers
• These take a variety of forms, amongst which the following are perhaps the most
obvious (but this is by no means an exhaustive list):
➢The content of the policy itself (and the associated legislation);
➢The degree of discretion the policy (and supporting legislation) affords
(discretion v. rule-boundedness);
➢ Note, the more policy providers are seen as competent, capable,
knowledgeable (expert) and trust-worthy the more discretion they are likely
to be afforded;
➢Incomplete information/lack of relevant information;
➢Lack of resources and/or access to resources (e.g.: health care rationing in public
systems constrains doctors’ capacity to diagnose and treat certain conditions)
and budget constraints;
➢Procedures for ensuring accountability and legitimacy;
➢Scrutiny, monitoring, surveillance and performance targets (incentivising certain
forms of behaviour) etc.;
➢Norms, conventions, institutional cultures.
14
Constraints on public policy makers
• These, again, take a variety of forms, amongst which the following are perhaps the
most obvious (the list is similarly inexhaustive):
➢The condition of the public finances and the predominant fiscal policy (austerity
limits public finances);
➢Manifesto commitments and public opinion (legitimacy);
➢Lack of state capacity, personnel and/or resources;
➢Need to coordinate policy internationally/transnationally and lack of
‘competence’ in a trans-national political space (EU dynamics);
➢Policy interdependence – an ostensibly good policy may have negative
consequences (‘externalities’) in another policy field and policies in key domains
may have important ‘spill-over’ effects (e.g.: need for competitiveness);
➢Self-imposed constraints (fiscal rules etc.);
➢Lack of trust in the state/government as a public good provider;
➢Taxpayers’ revolts etc.;
➢Conditionality (e.g.: IMF or Troika loans);
➢Globalisation, ‘wicked’ problems and ‘super wicked’ problems.
15
Policy Cycle
• Thus far we have looked at public policy actors, the context in which they finding
themselves, their room for manoeuvre and the constraints on both policy they
produce and their capacity to implement it;
• In the final part of this lecture I turn to public policy evaluation;
• But before doing so, it is useful to place policy evaluation in the context of the
broader ‘policy cycle’ (Harold Lasswell 1951);
• This seeks to identify, in a simplified and generic way, the sequence of stages in and
through which policy development typically takes place;
• It is a general model (though it takes different forms) and it is far from universally
applicable, but useful in that it focuses our attention on policy change and how that
takes place (and the role of evaluation in that process).
16
problem policy
(re)definition & adoption
(re)formulation (legislation)
agenda policy
failure policy
setting &
implementation
problem
& evolution
identification
policy
evaluation
Figure 3: A stylised model of the policy cycle
17
Problems with policy cycle model
• There is quite a lot that is problematic about this model – even with the addition of
the policy failure pathway and the various other minor adjustments that I have
incorporated;
• These are issues we will consider in much greater detail later in the course – so, for
now, just a few obvious points:
➢An elite-centred view of policy-making – little sense of the role of public opinion,
issue contestation and the wider political context;
➢An agent-centred view – focusing on what actors not context;
➢It fails to take account of issue-inter-linkage and policy-inter-dependence;
➢It assumes significant state capacity and gives no role for international or trans-
national processes;
➢The ordering of the stages identified is questionable (and probably varies
between policies and cycles and over time);
➢Doesn't’distinguish between major reform and minor tinkering.
18
Policy Evaluation
• Arguably the crux of the policy cycle is policy evaluation – the mediation or
transition point between one cycle and the next;
• Policy evaluation is, in a sense, a moment of realisation – in which the performance
of the policy in question is gauged and, esp. where it is judged to be failing, a
process of policy re-design is initiated;
• We will focus later in the course in much more detail on the processes involved here
– for now we introduce merely some of the criteria relevant to the evaluation of
policy;
• Unremarkably, perhaps, the key criteria here are success and failure;
• It might sound easy to establish whether a policy has succeeded or failed (and in
some cases it is), but many complex issues arise when applying such criteria to real
world cases.
19
What counts as (outcome/output) success?
• Potential criteria might include:
• Have the policy goals been met?
• Has value for money been achieved – goals achieved within budget?
• Do the intended beneficiaries perceive a benefit?
• Is the policy popular – and amongst whom?
• If the policy was designed to resolve a problem, does it persist and, if
so, has it got better?
• How do outcomes compare with those achieved elsewhere?
20
What counts as (outcome/output) success?
• Issues and considerations:
• Success is perspectival and contestable – some benefit more than
others (how even was the distribution of gains)
• Counterfactuals are crucial – what if there had been no such policy?
• Were the policy goals realistic in the first place? Have they been
revised?
• How do we know the policy is responsible for the effect?
• Might an alternative have performed even better?
• Is the (good) outcome likely to prove stable?
• What (transferable) lessons can be learned?
• Unanticipated effects and externalities.
21
What counts as (outcome/output) failure?
• Potential criteria might include:
• The stated goals have not been achieved
• Cost-escalation from the initially assigned budget
• Little evidence of the effect being noticed and attributed to the policy
• The resolution of the problem has generated or reinforced other
problems (displacement and ‘spill-over’ effects, negative
externalities)
• The good outcomes achieved are unsustainable (or increasingly
costly)
• Though successful in its own terms the policy is unpopular and is
resisted
• When set in a comparative context, improvements appear modest
22
What counts as (outcome/output) failure?
• Issues and considerations:
• Failure is likely to lead to a sense of crisis unless decisive action is
taken
• Failure of a policy may lead to a perceived failure of wider structures
• Failure tends to lead to a process of blame attribution and
displacement
• Where success and failure are contested, the court of public opinion
may be more important than that of expert evaluation
• Unanticipated effects may take a long time to be realised
• Failure is likely to provoke scrutiny and a cycle of growing media
attention.
23
Evaluation beyond the judgement of outcomes
• One may think of policy evaluation is whether a policy has achieved its stated
objectives. But policy evaluation can (and should) also include an assessment of the
policy-making and implementation process (the entire ‘policy cycle’).
•Amongst the relevant considerations here might be the following:
• How did the policy goals come to be set – were a sufficient array of
‘stakeholders’ considered?
• Were the goals ‘good’ goals with the benefit of hindsight?
• Was sufficient attention paid to the opportunity to draw lessons from elsewhere
(policy transfer)?
• Were policy providers adequately consulted before and during implementation?
• Was policy development and implementation sufficiently accountable to
maintain legitimacy?
• Was the use of expertise in policy design appropriate and was this expertise
adequately held to account?
• Was the rationale for policy, policy design and implementation clearly and
effectively communicated?
24
Conclusion
• My aim has been to introduce and begin to explore some of the central
concepts of public policy analysis;
• We have looked, in particular, at the assumptions we make about public
policy providers (and those made about them by public policy designers)
and how these are likely to shape the type of public policy programmes
we make;
• But we have also sought to correct a characteristic bias in public policy
analysis towards agents (and the agency they display), by considering
the constraints that context imposes upon them;
• Finally, we have started to examine a little the so-called ‘policy cycle’ and
the criteria appropriate to evaluating not only public policy outcomes
but also the process through which policy is made and implemented.
25
Chapter 3: Coordination
26
The nature of coordination
• We often assume people are happy to work together, and that working
together a natural thing for humans to do because we are social animals
Coordination: the organization of
the different elements of a
complex body or activity so as to
enable them to work together
effectively. (source: OED)
27
Altruism and the selfish gene (Dawkins 1976)
• Dawkins: “a gene can achieve its
own selfish goals best by fostering
a limited form of altruism at the
level of individual animals”. Genes
are truly selfish when they are
cooperative, as that benefits
other “copies” of oneself.
28
Distributed coordination in social systems
(Lansing 2006)
• In Bali, how water is distributed in
the whole system is aggregated
from local decisions taken by the
water temples, which in turn
follow very simple rules involving
feedback from neighboring
villages only – coordination that
sustains large social systems can
arise from highly “atomized”
actions
Irrigation canals in Bali, Indonesia
29
The nature of coordination
• In politics, people belonging to the same coalition find it difficult to coordinate over
strategies to expand or at least protect their shared interests.
• but, at least in settings most relevant to policymaking, cooperation happens only
when risks of defection are properly mitigated by informal and formal rules
• so, the wrong institutional setup may create a suboptimal level of competition and
cooperation, leading to coordination failures in policy processes
• Poor coordination can create many social problems, making everybody worse off
• - infighting distracts group, displaces shared goals, weakens common interests
• - public services are not properly delivered, undermines gov support overall
• - common resources are unsustainably exploited, leading to general depletion
30
Tragedy of the Commons
• Let’s consider the challenge of providing resources in a commons
efficiently when people are selfish, fallible as a classic policy problem in
coordination
• In a commons, access to resources is non-exclusive but consumption is
rivalrous.
• Example include pasture for communal grazing
• shared water source for farming
• fish stocks in the open seas
31
Hardin (1968): “Freedom in a commons brings
ruin to all.” users may increase consumption, leading
others to do the same because consumption is
rivalrous
overconsumption is the aggregate outcome of
when supply is greater than demand: all good the individual decision to maximize
consumption, collective welfare suffers
solutions: marketize the resource or use government regulation
32
Policy solutions:
coordination by fiat or profit motives
1.gov-enforced ban on fishing, restrictions on
methods, etc
- drastic fall in fish stocks led govt agencies in
Mainland China to adopt a blanket fishing
ban in 1999
- no policy in place to control fishing
activities in terms of frequency and method
- since implementation, stocks have
recovered to early 1990s figures
the fish ban: eggs hatch around June, ban from
May and August in the S. China Sea protect
fingerlings (exemptions for low- impact
operations such as gill-netting, long- lining,
hand-lining and cage trapping)
33
Hardship for fishing operations, idle boats
need maintenance, gov sets aside resources to
fund subsidies.
Enforcement and sanctions against ban
violations are costly and ineffective, some
resort to extreme methods that create more
damage to ecosystem (electrofishing)
supply of certain fish types highly unstable during ban, seabreams (紅衫魚), tilefish (馬
頭), flatfish (撻沙)
34
2. carbon trading
using market mechanisms to encourage
efficient allocation of carbon emission rights,
where:
- high polluters exceeding emissions limits
purchase credits from low polluters
- protecting clean air as a resource by
making emissions costly, so that externalities
are properly internalized in production
decisions and costs
Enterprises try to evade oversight, data
fabrication by local officials, agencies
- high info cost for monitors -
equality/competition issues
Managed market: carbon credit market
collapsed in Europe due to oversupply of
credits
35
Tragedy of the Commons
• Better coordination in a commons may emerge if conditions are right for institutions
to be developed by stakeholders, rather than privatizing ownership or imposing
third-party control.
• In a self-organized system, users come to agree over how resources can be used and
set up rules to govern themselves in joint allocation. Examples include
• - associations to manage water extraction
• - forestry groups to enforce rules
• - fishermen councils to manage activities
36
• Ostrom (1996): “resource users
frequently develop
sophisticated mechanisms for
decision-making and rule
enforcement to handle conflicts
of interest, and she
characterizes the rules that
promote successful outcomes.”
solution: self-organization can resolve social dilemmas, leading to
sustainability and greater resource effectiveness
37
rule-making Users had created boundary rules for
autonomy allows determining who could use the
users to create resource.
rules knowing
1. define clear boundaries
that they can be
enforced 2. match rules to local conditions
3. modification rights extend to affected parties
4. rule-making autonomy
5. oversight by community members
6. graduated sanctions
7. accessible and low-cost conflict resolution
8. nested tiers of governance system
conflict resolution to address
disputes quickly conflict needs graduated sanctions allow users to correct
to be resolved for behavior
coordination to work, high- Blomquist et al. (1994) find that boundaries are often
cost conflict resolution creates clearly defined in self- organized commons.
room for abuse
positive feedback loops vital to institutional adjustment,
reciprocity built upon repeated interactions, not harsh
sanctioning 38
policy solutions based on self-organization
lobster fishing in Maine - overfishing
1997 seven zones and boundaries rules are proposed, discussed and voted on in
were established and zone zone council meetings, and are passed by a
councils were established vote of two-thirds of the lobstermen in a zone.
The council then informs the Commissioner of
Marine Resources of the results
39
Coordination: summary and reflection
• coordination is often desirable, but also not the natural state of things
• failure to coordinate is a central problem for policymakers
• many problems come from social dilemmas
• individual incentives contradict collective welfare
• free riders, prisoner’s dilemma, etc
• examples in env protection, resource extraction...
• traditional emphasis on top-down control and regulation
• imposing bans, prohibiting certain activities, etc
• rules determined by central authorities
• huge investments in monitoring and enforcement required
• but intervention has hidden costs, may return suboptimal outcomes
• self-organized solution could lead to sustainability at low cost (Ostrom)
40
