BOOK REFERENCE:
Dunn, W. N. (11/2011). Public Policy Analysis, 5th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from http://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781323081051/
Due Week 5 and worth 150 points
Write a five to six (5-6) page paper in which you:
(Note: Refer to Review Question 8 located at the end of Chapter 3 for criteria 1-3. Select two (2) editorials / essays / columns (by staff or freelance writers) on a current issue of public policy from two (2) different publications (large metropolitan or national newspaper such as Washington Post or the New York Times or national magazines such as Newsweek, Time, and The New Republic.)
1. Apply the procedures for argumentation analysis (located in Chapter 8) to display contending positions and underlying assumptions for the content of Review Question 8.
2. Rate the assumptions and plot them according to their plausibility and importance. (Refer to Figure 3.16, “Distribution of warrant by plausibility and importance.”)
3. Determine which arguments are the most plausible. Provide a rationale for your views.
(Note: Refer to Demonstration Exercise 1 located at the end of Chapter 3 for criteria 4-6. Examine Box 3.0 – Conducting a Stakeholder Analysis. Choose one of the following policy issues in the U.S. gun control, illegal drugs, medical insurance fraud, and environmental protection of waterways, job creation, affordable health care, or Medicare.)
4. Apply the procedures for stakeholder analysis presented in Box 3.0 “Conducting a Stakeholder Analysis” to generate a list of at least five to ten (5-10) stakeholders who affect or are affected by problems in the issue area chosen for analysis. (Note: Refer to page 111 of the textbook for a step-by-step process on stakeholder analysis.)
5. After creating a cumulative frequency distribution from the list, discuss new ideas generated by each stakeholder. (Note: The ideas may be objectives, alternatives, outcomes causes, etc.; ideas should not be duplicates.)
6. Write an analysis of the results of the frequency distribution that answers the following questions: (a) Does the line graph flatten out? (b) If so, after how many stakeholders? (c) What conclusions can be drawn about the policy problems in the issue area? (Note: Compare your work with Case Study 3.1 at the end of the chapter.)
7. Include at least two (2) peer-reviewed references (no more than five [5] years old) from material outside the textbook to support your views. Note: Appropriate peer-reviewed references include scholarly articles and governmental Websites. Do not use open source Websites such as Wikipedia, Sparknotes.com, Ask.com, and similar Websites are not acceptable resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
• Examine the nature, characteristics, models, and / or methods pertinent to the structuring of policy problems.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in policy analysis and program evaluation.
• Write clearly and concisely about policy analysis and program evaluation using proper writing mechanics.
Click here to view the grading rubric for this assignment.
For criteria 1-3
Select two editorials on a current issue of public policy from two newspapers (e.g., New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, Le Monde) or news magazine (e.g., Newsweek, The New Republic, National Review). After reading the editorial:
a. Use the procedures for argumentation analysis to display contending positions and underlying assumptions.
b. Rate the assumptions and plot them according to their plausibility and importance (Figure 3.16).
c. Which arguments are the most plausible?
For Criteria 4-6
Box 3.0—Conducting a Stakeholder Analysis
Definition
A stakeholder is a person who speaks for or represents a group that is affected by or affects a policy. Stakeholders include the president of a legislative assembly or parliament, a chairperson of a legislative committee, or an executive director or members of an organized interest or advocacy group such as the National Rifle Association, the Sierra Club, or Human Rights Watch. Policy analysts and their employers are stakeholders, as are clients who commission a policy analysis. Persons or groups who do not have a stake in a policy (e.g., an uninvolved college professor) are not stakeholders.
Assumptions
• Stakeholders are best identified by policy issue area. A policy issue area is a domain in which stakeholders disagree or quarrel about policies. Housing, welfare, education, and international security are policy issue areas.
• Stakeholders have specific names and titles—for example, State Senator Xanadi; Mr. Young, chairperson of the House Finance Committee; or Ms. Ziegler, a spokesperson for the National Organization of Women (NOW).
• A sociometric or “snowball” sample such as that described next is an effective way to estimate the “population” of stakeholders.
1. STEP 1: Using Google or a reference book such as The Encyclopedia of Associations,identify and list about ten stakeholders who have taken a public position on a policy. Make the initial list as heterogeneous as possible by sampling opponents as well as supporters.
2. STEP 2: For each stakeholder, obtain a policy document (e.g., a report, news article, e-mail, or telephone interview) that describes the position of each stakeholder.
3. STEP 3: Beginning with the first statement of the first stakeholder, list other stakeholders mentioned as opponents or proponents of the policy.
4. STEP 4: For each remaining statement, list the new stakeholders mentioned. Do not repeat.
5. STEP 5: Draw a graph that displays statements 1, 2, … n on the horizontal axis. On the vertical axis, display the cumulative frequency of new stakeholders mentioned in the statements. The graph will gradually flatten out, with no new stakeholders mentioned. If this does not occur before reaching the last stakeholder on the initial list, repeat steps 2 to 4. Add to the graph the new statements and the new stakeholders.
6. STEP 6: Add to the estimate stakeholders who should be included because of their formal positions (organization charts show such positions) or because they are involved in one or more policy-making activities: agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation, policy evaluation, and policy adaptation, succession or termination.
Retain the full list for further analysis. You now have an estimate of the “population” of key stakeholders who are affected by and affect the policy, along with a description of their positions on an issue. This is a good basis for structuring the problem.
Choose a policy issue area such as crime control, national security, environmental protection, or economic development. Use the procedures for stakeholder analysis presented in Procedural Guide 3 to generate a list of stakeholders who affect or are affected by problems in the issue area you have chosen for analysis.
After generating the list, create a cumulative frequency distribution. Place stakeholders on the horizontal axis, numbering them from 1… n. On the vertical axis, place the number of new (nonduplicate) ideas generated by each stakeholder (the ideas can be objectives, alternatives, outcomes, causes, etc.). Connect the total new ideas of each stakeholder with a line graph.
Does the line graph flatten out?
If so, after how many stakeholders?
What conclusions can you draw about the policy problem(s) in the issue area?
Compare your work with Case Study 3.1 at the end of the chapter.
Case 3.1 Structuring Problems of Risk in Mining and Transportation
Complex problems must be structured before they can be solved. The process of structuring a policy problem is the search for and specification of problem elements and how they are the elements are
• Policy stakeholders. Which stakeholders affect or are affected by a problem?
• Policy alternatives. What alternative courses of action may be taken to solve the problem?
• Policy actions. Which of these alternatives should be acted on to solve the problem?
• Policy outcomes. What are the probable outcomes of action and are they part of the solution to the problem?
• Policy values (utilities). Are some outcomes more valuable than others in solving the problem?
Most policy problems are messy or ill-structured. For this reason, one or more problem elements can be incorrectly omitted from the definition of a problem. Even when problem elements are correctly specified, relations among the elements may be unknown or obscure. This makes it difficult or impossible to determine the strength and significance, practical as well as statistical, of causal relations. For example, many causal processes that are believed to govern relations among atmospheric pollution, global warming, and climate change are obscure. The obscurity of these processes stems not only from the complexity of “nature” but also from the conflicting beliefs of stakeholders who disagree, often intensely, about the definition of problems and their potential solutions. For this reason, the possible combinations and permutations of problem elements—that is, stakeholders, alternatives, actions, outcomes, values—appear to be unmanageably huge.
Under these conditions, standard methods of decision theory (e.g., risk-benefit analysis), applied economics (e.g., benefit-cost analysis), and political science (e.g., policy implementation analysis) are of limited value until the problem has been satisfactorily defined. This is so because an adequate definition of the problem must be constructed before the problem can be solved with these and other standard methods. Standard methods are useful in solving relatively well-structured (deterministic) problems involving certainty, for example, problems represented as fixed quantities in a spreadsheet. Standard methods are also useful in solving moderately structured (probabilistic) problems involving uncertainty, for example, problems represented as policy outcomes with different probabilities. However, ill-structured problems are of a different order. Estimates of uncertainty, or risk, cannot be made because we do not even know the outcomes to which we might attach probabilities. Here, the analyst is much like an architect who has been commissioned to design a custombuilding for which there is no standard plan.79 The adoption of a standard plan, if such existed, would almost certainly result in a type III error: solving the wrong problem.
79 The architecture analogy is from Herbert Simon.
Public policies are deliberate attempts to change complex systems. The process of making and implementing policies occurs in social systems in which many contingencies lie beyond the control of policy makers. It is these unmanageable contingencies that are usually responsible for the success and failure of policies in achieving their objectives. The contingencies are rival hypotheses that can challenge claims that a policy (the presumed cause) produced one or more policy outcomes (the presumed effects). In such cases, it is usually desirable to test, and when possible eliminate, these rival hypotheses through a process of eliminative induction. Eliminative induction takes this general form: “Repeated observations of policy x and outcome y confirm that x is causally relevant to the occurrence of y. However, additional observations of x, z,and y confirm that unmanageable contingency z and not policy x is responsible for the occurrence of y.” By contrast,enumerative induction takes this general form: “Repeated observations confirm that the policy x is causally relevant to the occurrence of policy outcome y.”
Eliminative induction permits a critical examination of contingencies that are beyond the control of policy makers. Because the number of these contingencies is potentially unlimited, the process of identifying and testing rival explanations is never complete. Yet, precisely for this reason, it seems impossible to identify and test an unmanageably huge number of potential rival hypotheses. How is this to be done?
One answer is creativity and imagination. But creativity and imagination are impossible to teach, because there are no rules governing the replication of creative or imaginative solutions. Another answer is an appeal to well-established theories. However, the bulk of theories in the social sciences are disputed and controversial. “Well-established” theories are typically “well-defended” theories, and rival hypotheses are rarely considered seriously, let alone tested.
A more appropriate alternative is the use of boundary analysis and estimation to structure problems involving a large number of rival hypotheses. Boundary analysis and estimation look for rival hypotheses in the naturally occurring policy quarrels that take place among stakeholders. In addition to the policy analyst, these stakeholders include scientists, policy makers, and organized citizen groups. The aim of boundary estimation is to obtain a relatively complete set of rival hypotheses in a given policy context. Although boundary estimation strives to be comprehensive, it does not attempt the hopeless task of identifying and testing all plausible rival hypotheses. Although the range of rival hypotheses is never complete, it is possible to estimate the probable limit of this range.