Public Policy Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The incremental model was developed by Charles Lindblom (spelt 'Lindbloom' in the paper).

In 'The Science of Muddling Through' (1959), Lindblom argued that policy makers do not make comprehensive rational choices but proceed by small, successive changes to existing policy, comparing only a few alternatives that differ marginally from the present.

Yehezkel Dror proposed the normative-optimum model, combining rational and extra-rational elements. Thomas Dye is known for his definition of public policy and his account of the elite model and other models of policy making. Herbert Simon developed bounded rationality and satisficing, which influenced but is distinct from incrementalism.

Answer: D

The two approaches were identified by Harold Lasswell (spelt 'Laswell' in the paper).

Lasswell, who founded the policy sciences, distinguished knowledge of the policy process (studying how policies are made and carried out) from knowledge in or for use in the policy process (applying research to improve policy decisions).

Vilfredo Pareto is known for elite theory and Pareto optimality, and the other two names are not associated with this distinction.

Answer: A

Command and control regulation is an authority based policy instrument.

Christopher Hood classified the tools of government by the resource they use: nodality (information), authority, treasure (money) and organisation (the NATO scheme). Command and control regulation, where the state sets binding rules and penalises breaches, draws on the government's legal authority.

Information based tools persuade through publicity and advice, treasury based tools use grants, subsidies and taxes, and organisation based tools use the government's own staff and agencies to deliver directly. Regulation by command fits none of these.

Answer: A

The objective approach aims at determining the extent to which laid down objectives are achieved.

Objective-based (goal-based) evaluation measures a policy against its own stated objectives: did it achieve what it set out to do, and to what extent?

Understanding a policy's objectives is a preliminary step, not the evaluation itself, so 'Both (A) and (B)' overstates it. Understanding the government's efforts looks at inputs and activities rather than at results measured against objectives.

Answer: D

The definition is David Easton's.

In The Political System (1953), Easton defined politics, and by extension public policy, as the authoritative allocation of values for a society as a whole. Public policies are the outputs of the political system that allocate values, such as goods, rights and status, authoritatively, that is, in a way accepted as binding.

Thomas Dye defined public policy as 'whatever governments choose to do or not to do'. Yehezkel Dror is known for the normative-optimum model of policy-making, and Peter Self for work on administrative theories and politics. Easton's phrase is the one quoted.

Answer: B

The view that policy analysis is both art and craft is Aaron Wildavsky's (printed 'Wildvasky').

His book Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis (1979) argued that policy analysis cannot be reduced to a technique or a science. It requires the creativity of an art, in imagining problems and solutions, and the practical skill of a craft, in fitting analysis to the political and organisational setting in which decisions are made.

William Dunn wrote a standard textbook on public policy analysis, Charles Lindblom developed incrementalism, and E.S. Quade wrote on systems analysis and policy analysis at RAND, but the art-and-craft formulation is Wildavsky's.

Answer: A

The three criteria are policy design, policy process and policy achievement.

Thomas B. Smith, in his article on the analysis of policy failure, builds a three-dimensional framework: the design of the policy (whether it has a sound basis and agreement among those who implement it), the process (the balance of benefits and costs, and whether it can be put into effect and kept up) and the achievement (how far the policy is effective in solving the problem). The summary I checked is secondhand, an editorial on the article.

The other options mix stages of the policy cycle: making, approval, implementation, plan and evaluation. Those are steps of the policy cycle, not the criteria on which a policy is judged.

Answer: C

The feature that is not a hallmark of the post-positivist approach is quantitative analysis.

Post-positivist policy studies, associated with writers such as Frank Fischer, John Forester and the 'argumentative turn', reject the idea that policy can be analysed as a purely technical, value-free exercise. They stress subjective reflection on the analyst's own position, normative analysis of values and goals, and argumentation and deliberation among stakeholders.

Reliance on quantitative, statistical analysis is characteristic of the positivist, rational-technical approach that post-positivists criticise. They do not reject numbers altogether, but quantification is not their hallmark.

Answer: B

The critic who found Lindblom's incrementalism conservative and unsatisfactory is Y. Dror.

In his 1964 article 'Muddling Through: Science or Inertia?' and in Public Policymaking Reexamined, Yehezkel Dror argued that incrementalism reinforces the existing state of affairs and resists innovation. It suits stable conditions where past policies are broadly satisfactory, but in times of rapid change it acts as an ideological reinforcement of inertia. He proposed instead a normative-optimum model combining rational and extra-rational elements.

Amitai Etzioni also criticised incrementalism and proposed mixed scanning, but he is not among the options. Lasswell, Easton and Dye are known for other contributions to policy science.

Answer: C

The policy streams perspective is John Kingdon's.

In Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (1984), Kingdon argued that three largely independent streams flow through the political system: the problem stream, the policy stream (proposals developed by experts and advocates) and the political stream (public mood, elections, interest groups). When they converge, a 'policy window' opens and a policy entrepreneur can couple them to place an issue on the agenda.

Roger Cobb and Charles Elder wrote together on agenda-building, distinguishing systemic and institutional agendas, and James Anderson wrote a standard text on public policy-making. Neither proposed the streams model.