Policy Design for Democracy

by Anne L. Schneider, Helen M. Ingram

How can democracy be improved in an age when people are profoundly disenchanted with government? Part of the answer lies in the design of public policy that unmistakenly works to advance citizenship by listening to, educating, and involving ordinary people. Rather than serve mainly the narrow interests of powerful groups who are socially constructed as "deserving" or issuing discipline and punishment to powerless people socially constructed as "undeserving," public policy needs to advance citizenship, solve problems, pursue justice, and balance the interests of individuals with a concern for the collective good.

Policy Design for Democracy is a theoretically sophisticated work that draws examples from a wide array of public policy arenas. It summarizes four current approaches to policy theory-pluralism, policy sciences, public choice, and critical theory-and shows how none offers more than a partial view of the policy design characteristics that support and perpetuate democracy. Schneider and Ingram then develop a theory of public policymaking predicated on understanding how differences in policy designs are related to differences in the contexts from which they emerge and how these designs have an impact on democracy.

One of the first books to examine systematically the substantive aspects of public policy, Policy Design for Democracy is written clearly and with sufficient examples to make it easily understandable by undergraduates. Its linkage of public policy to citizenship is an important antidote to the overly technical and goal-driven orientation adopted by the policy sciences and public choice, and to the overly self-interested and strategic political games found in pluralist theory. Schneider and Ingram close by recommending a series of reforms that will improve policy designs and help restore citizen confidence in government.

Genres: Politics

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[Zachary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won't rate it below 2 stars because I think it is valuable for studying public policy, but this one just did not grab me in the way other books in the field have, such as Deborah Stone's Policy Paradox. Worth it for those required to read it (it's worth digesting, rather than seeking summaries, for instance), but for the general public or a beginner in the policy field, I'd say this one can get a miss.

[Michelle Skowronek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as bland as everyone else considers. An abundance of information, truly a good piece of work.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important and challenging book, with some distressing implications. First, a couple basic definitions. Policy design, according to the authors, is (page 2): ". . the content or substance of public policy--the blueprints, architecture, discourses, and aesthetics of policy in both its instrumental and symbolic forms." There are several components of any policy design, including target populations (on which, more in just a bit), goals or problems to be solved, rules of engagement for the policy, rationales to legitimate the policy, and assumptions about the components of the design and how they work together to solve problems. With these points in mind, the authors state what is at stake in this book (page 5): "The central contention of this book is that policy designs. . .are strongly implicated in the current crisis of democracy." In short, policy designs are poorly structured to actually address problems.

Why would they say this? A handful of notions and assumptions are critical to their argument. Target populations are those people on whom policy focuses. If we're talking about the need to ensure continued healthy crops from farms, the target population for policy would likely be farmers. In their detailed discussion of target populations, Schneider and Ingram make a nice contribution to political analysis. They note that any population can be defined in terms of two characteristics--social construction (are groups viewed as deserving of government support or undeserving by the public) and power (does a group have power or not). From these two characteristics, they can define four different groups--the "advantaged," who have power and are viewed positively (e.g., the middle class, senior citizens, scientists); "contenders," who are powerful but not seen as so deserving (e.g., the rich, CEOs, heads of savings and loan banks); "dependents," who are deserving but rather weak (e.g., mothers, children, the poor); "deviants" (not a lot of power and undeserving, such as gangs, criminals, persons with AIDS).

Based on this, they infer, then, that government has great motivation to pass laws and create policies that are supportive of those who are viewed positively and who have power. So, quite a bit of policy is designed to help those who are already advantaged. And, conversely, the deviants are "beat up on" by policy makers. Criminals? Punish them as hard as you can--even if the results may not work. Why? Good politics. Decision-makers get credit for being tough on bad guys; the bad guys have no power. What a winner! The problem, according to the authors, is that such policy designs may not work. It may be that being tough is not the best way of dealing with those whom Ingram and Schneider label deviants.

A very interesting argument. If true, it means that many of the policies made by government are doomed to fail, because much emphasis will be delivering goodies to the powerful and well regarded (what social problems does that solve?) and beating up on the undeserving and powerless. The bottom line, though, needs to be established. Does their perspective work? Aye, there's the rub. Research results are rather mixed (including one piece that I wrote on AIDS policy and target populations). So, it is too soon to say that the authors have come upon a major contribution to policy studies. But their argument is, at the very least, provocative and makes one think, not a bad payoff for a book.

[David Sexton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished a class on Public Policy.

It was an excellent Intro course to Public Policy. I only scratched the surface of the material in this book. I can see myself going back to this book if I get more involved in Public Policy.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The literature review in chapters 2 and 3 is great and why I'll hang on to my copy, but I have some issues with the theory of policy design explicated in the rest of the book.

[Matthew Pierleoni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty predictable for a school textbook: dry but informative