POLI 342 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Actor Model, Cuban Missile Crisis, Rational Agent
11 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLI 342
02.28.2018
THE POLICY CYCLE
Step 1: Issue Identification
•agenda setting, how do items make it to the agenda
foreign policy agenda:
•how to handle shock in the international system (9/11,
ex.) : automatically appears on the agenda’
•trying to understand via looking back in records and
history, why certain nice/non-urgent topics appeared
on agenda (certain region, event, etc.)
Step 2: Research and Analysis
Step 3: policy formulation and development
Step 2 and 3 are the research sections, developing a
related policy.
Step 4: Policy decision by the government
Step 5: Implementation and delivery
4 and 5: Some policies are really good but are not
implemented for various reasons
•organizational constraints
•individual preferences
•multiple organizations that have the right to implement
or not, each of these has different variables attached to
it
Focusing mainly on 4 and 5
Step 6: performance, assessment
Everyday policy making in government, the process of
refining policies and tweaking different points.
• this leads back into step one, issue identification
Overall:
•this is just a guide
•in reality, steps can be done out of order, crossed over,
etc.
•helps us organize and analyze policy making
STUDYING PROCESS
Who is involved? Who do we look at, what are we looking
for?
1. Key actors, and their interests?
•just ministers? or MPs and public servants too?
•Public organizations, committees
•are there actors outside the government who can affect
the PM and others?
2. What is the nature of the process? How is it
realized?
•these are the different steps (above), diff techniques
of 1 6
•niche issues: process of persuasion to push this item
onto the agenda
3. What are the conditions of the process?
•conditions of the world: climate change, war, etc.
•what is the context → constraints of the system
Example: Procurement in Dept. of Defence
(not tested on this, just to show how challenging decision
making process can be)
Theres a lot of overlapping with other Depts, such as
Public Works with contracts, and the Dept of Innovation.
Our system is decentralized — more watchdogs around
watching how the money is spent / making sure it is not
wasted
We need to:
•identify different options, evaluate risk
•get approval, persuade others for support
•implement the final decision
There are also external factors that influence the needs
and conditions + internal factors (budget, individual
interests)
•graph on slide shows the complicated web of all the
actors involved
Complex interactions and multiple actors
There are administrative & political dynamics
Foreign policy is a series of small actions occurring every
day that have big impacts overall. Our role is to analyze
these to make cohesive explanations for what is
happeneing. We’ll miss the big pictures if we don’t look at
these small actions
What analysts look at in terms of interest
•Defence
•Decentralized and complex process: there are many
steps before the decision reaches the top level.
Everyone involved here has their own interests
•Senior officials
•identify the stakeholders
•Interests of the bureaucratic actors
THEORIES OF POLICY PROCESS
PRINCIPLE-AGENT THEORY
Rational Actor model: decisions made at highest level
by most qualified people, in timely matter, rationally →
everything goes smoothly.
• principle-agent is based on this
This theory looks at relationship between the principle
and the agent.
•public administration understood as agents: diff agents
have different interests, do not fluctuate with which
political party is in power, permanent
•principle is government/cabinet
of 2 6
Document Summary
Step 1: issue identi cation: agenda setting, how do items make it to the agenda foreign policy agenda, how to handle shock in the international system (9/11, ex. ) : automatically appears on the agenda": trying to understand via looking back in records and history, why certain nice/non-urgent topics appeared on agenda (certain region, event, etc. ) Step 2 and 3 are the research sections, developing a related policy. 4 and 5: some policies are really good but are not implemented for various reasons: organizational constraints, individual preferences, multiple organizations that have the right to implement or not, each of these has different variables attached to it. Everyday policy making in government, the process of re ning policies and tweaking different points: this leads back into step one, issue identi cation. Overall: this is just a guide, in reality, steps can be done out of order, crossed over, etc, helps us organize and analyze policy making.
