Speaking Truth to Power-Ethics_PPOL614.pptx

1. Prof. Steel
Hanan Alsadi

2. Overview
Speaking Truth to Power (Aaron Wildavsky)
Chapter 1 – Policy Analysis vs. Management Information Systems
Chapter 2 – Strategic Retreat on Objectives – Learning from Policy Failures
Chapter 3 – Policy as its own Cause
Chapter 4 – Coordination without a Coordinator
Key Points
Questions

3. Chapter 1 – Policy Analysis vs. Management Information Systems
• Wildavsky contrasts Policy Analysis with MIS (opposites)
Management
Information Systems
Policy Analysis
Focus: goals / objectives Focus: comparing
programs and finds
solutions to problems
Untheoretical Theoretical
Non-organizational Organizational
Ahistorical Historical

4. Chapter 1 – Policy Analysis vs. Management Information Systems
• Analysis focuses on finding a solution to errors or problems in a policy of
program
• Policy analysis
• Based on theory (tests hypotheses and adjusts theory as needed)
• Examines organization (analysis = change / organizations = stability)
• Learns from history (corrects past mistakes and adjusts)
• Data (used in MIS) is not the same as Information (Policy Analysis)
• CH 1 TAKEAWAY: Policy Analysis has the advantage over MIS because policy
analysis examines programs, uses historical information to adjust policy, works
within organizational frameworks, and creates policies more likely to achieve
intended results.

5. Chapter 2 – Learning from Policy Failures
• Retreat on Public Policy Objectives – changing preferences
• Crime = shift from safety to equity
• Health = shift from improving health care to increasing access
• Education = improving student results seems unobtainable – alternative?
• Abandon unattainable objectives and find attainable ones
• Retreat from objective not always the solution
• Redefining the problem can help
• CH 2 TAKEAWAY: Policy failures provide an opportunity to review the
problem itself and look for innovative, measurable solutions to the problem
and accomplish either an existing or redefined policy objective

6. Chapter 3 – Policy as its own Cause
• Law of Large Solutions
• Difficult to solve big problems – focus on smaller parts to find
solutions
• Policies that try to solve parts of large problems often interact and
affect each other – policies depend on each other
• Correcting policies is a challenge
• People become dependent on policies – even “bad” policies
• Hard to adjust a policy without addressing the dependence
• Unanticipated consequences
• Solutions to one problem create a new problem for a related sector
faster than they can be predicted or controlled

7. Chapter 3 – Policy as its own Cause
• Pluralism and Corporatism
• Pluralism = combined voices of many
• Corporatism = combining public agency interests with private interests –
hierarchy
• Combine the two approaches
• Divide government into sectors
• Makes addressing issues easier to develop policy
• CH 3 TAKEAWAY: Policies are interrelated and can impact other
policies, sometimes producing intended consequences, but taking
the federal government into sectors makes the problems more
manageable.

8. Chapter 4 – Coordination & Coordinators
• High level budget priorities – war or peace?
• Defense spending - decreased slightly
• Entitlement program spending – more than doubles
• Coordination without a coordinator
• Can there be coordination without a coordinator?
• Wildavsky says, “Yes, when interaction over policy takes place within
a moral consensus specifying the rules for resolving conflicts.” (p. 90)
• Rules for Resolving Uncertainty about Values
• High level values for programs
• Understanding broad state goals
• Understanding sources of uncertainty

9. Chapter 4 – Coordination & Coordinators
• Programs and Cost
• Must manage cost – use of private sector
• Cost increases over time – scale of the program
• Tension over who pays – local, state, or federal government
• Much of cost comes back to federal government
• Policy mistakes / misunderstandings increase cost (examine
hypotheses)
• Programs as a response to other political / social issues (Great society
and civil rights movement)
• CH 4 TAKEAWAY: If the stakeholders have the same values,
the policy will be coordinated even without one specific
coordinator