#23: The Policy Process
Discussion Questions for November 11, 2009
Related Readings: Lindblom, The Policy Making Process and Belkin, "The School Lunch Test"

These writing assignments are meant to help you think about the readings and to prepare you for class discussions. For that reason, when you write a response it is important that you give your opinions and that you relate your thoughts to the reading. Remember that these are exam questions and that they are graded as such. You ought to write them as though you are writing questions on a midterm or a final exam.

Respond to one of the following questions by writing a response on the class Discussion Board on Blackboard at least one hour before class on the date the question is listed. Put your name in the text of the question and give the question number as listed below. Without these I can't tell who wrote the question or what you are responding to. You then have until Midnight on the following Sunday of that week to revise your response if you wish to do so and to submit it for grading. To submit your responses, send them via email to milofsky@bucknell.edu.

Your final version of this question is due by midnight, Sunday, November 15.

 

23-1 Lindblom has described the development and implementation of social policies as "the science of muddling through" or as "disjointed incrementalism" (for those of us who love the sound of jargon). This aspect of the policy-making process makes him think that rational knowledge about how to best carry out some social project usually is not the most important determinant of how a policy will be chosen and implemented. Why does Lindblom discount the importance of high quality knowledge?

23-2 What makes it difficult to reform school lunch programs, according to Belkin, and why is this consistent with Lindblom's picture of the challenges of policy reform?

23-3 What does it mean to say that policy making is a process? Why does emphasizing the process aspects make for an important contrast with other ways people develop and seek to implement policies?

When I first ran across this idea as an undergraduate I found the idea of "process" very confusing. I could not really understand what my professor was trying to emphasize or how it differed from, for example, education reform plans or health care reform plans I had learned about in other classes. If you look back at, for example, Chubb and Moe's discussion of choice in education or Light's discussion of international comparisons of health care arrangements and the ideal plan for the U.S., how are these thinkers different from Lindblom? The key thing to recognize is that the difference does not have to do with what they recommend or a notion that their recommendations might differ from what Lindblom might recommend. The differences rather have to do with what it is that we are trying to do when we are trying to alter and improve publicly provided social service programs. Lindblom sees this as a long term, adjustive process (go back and look at our definition of pragmatic liberalism) where the other thinkers tend to think in terms of idealized plans that by nature are static and not changing.