Understanding Public Policy (in 1000 and 500 words)

About Understanding Public Policy (in 1000 and 500 words)

Paul Cairney, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of Stirling. This is the series of podcasts that accompany a series of blog posts (1000 word and 500 word) that accompany the book Understanding Public Policy. See: https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/500-words/

Publisher

Professor Paul Cairney

Category

government

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Jan 2021

Latest episode

14 Apr 2022

Latest episodes

34 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   14 Apr 2022

   Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol

   By James Nicholls and Paul Cairney, for the University of Stirling MPH (https://www.stir.ac.uk/courses/pg-taught/public-health/) and MPP (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/mpp/) programmes. There are strong links between the study of public health and public policy. For example, public health scholars often draw on policy theories (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/1000-words/) to help explain (often low amounts of) policy change to foster population health or reduce health inequalities (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2021/03/23/the-future-of-public-health-policymaking-after-covid-19-lessons-from-health-in-all-policies/). Studies include a general focus on public health strategies (such as HiAP (https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/1-23)) or specific policy instruments (such as a ban on smoking in public places (https://paulcairney.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/cairney-yamazaki-2018-tobacco-policy-ebpm-uk-japan.pdf)). While public health scholars may seek to evaluate or influence policy, policy theories tend to focus on explaining processes and outcomes,. To demonstrate these links, we present this podcast and blog post to (1) use an initial description of a key alcohol policy instrument (minimum unit pricing in Scotland) to (2) describe the application of policy concepts and theories and reflect on the empirical and practical implications. Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol | Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy (wordpress.com) (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/using-policy-theories-to-interpret-public-health-case-studies-the-example-of-a-minimum-unit-price-for-alcohol/)

2. 

   13 Jan 2021

   Policy in 500 Words: policymaking environments and their consequences

   The eight (and final) of a series of podcasts tying together multiple 500 Words (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/500-words/) posts. They’ll sound a bit different from the 1000 Words (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/1000-words/) podcasts because I recorded them in front of our MPP (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/mpp/)students. This brief lecture is on the role of policymaking environments and the theories that describe them (also based on text in Chapter 13 (https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/understanding-public-policy-paul-cairney/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137545183)): "The second part of our universal story is that people respond to bounded rationality within complex policymaking environments. We can describe this environment with reference to five or six constituent parts (John, 2003: 495; Heikkila and Cairney, 2018). First, there are many actors – including policymakers and influencers – spread across many types of policymaking venues. Second, each venue contains its own ‘institutions’, or formal and informal rules governing behaviour. Third, each venue can produce its own networks of policymakers and influencers, and the lines between formal responsibility and informal influence are blurry. Fourth, actors in each venue draw on a dominant set of ideas or beliefs about the nature of policy problems and the acceptable range of solutions. Fifth, natural, social, and economic factors limit policymakers’ abilities to address and solve policy problems. Finally, routine and non-routine events help set the policy agenda and influence the resources available to actors. Combined, these factors produce the broad sense that policymaking environments – or, in some accounts, ‘context’ or ‘systems’ – constrain and facilitate action and are out of the control (or even understanding) of individual actors. Figure 13.1 provides the simplest way to visualize these concepts, partly to compete with the visual simplicity of the policy cycle while maintaining the assumption of complexity" Relevant posts: Policy in 500 Words: The Policy Process (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/policy-concepts-in-500-words-the-policy-process/) Policy Concepts in 1000 Words: The Policy Process (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/policy-concepts-in-1000-words-the-policy-process/) Policy in 500 Words: if the policy cycle does not exist, what do we do? (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/policy-in-500-words-if-the-policy-cycle-does-not-exist-what-do-we-do/) (see also 12 things to know about studying public policy (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/12-things-to-know-about-studying-public-policy/) and 5 images of the policy process (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/5-images-of-the-policy-process/)).

3. 

   13 Jan 2021

   Policy in 500 Words: bounded rationality and its consequences

   The seventh of a series of podcasts tying together 500 Words (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/500-words/) posts. This lecture is on the distinction between comprehensive/ bounded rationality and how policy actors deal with bounded rationality. It is based on text in Chapter 13 (https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/understanding-public-policy-paul-cairney/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137545183), including: "Theories also describe different ways in which responses to bounded rationality affect policymaking behaviour: • Policymakers can only pay attention to a tiny proportion of their responsibilities, and policymaking organizations struggle to process all policy-relevant information. They prioritize some issues and information and ignore the rest (Chapter 9). Policy in 500 Words: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/12/06/policy-in-500-words-punctuated-equilibrium-theory/) • Some ways of understanding and describing the world dominate policy debate, helping some actors and marginalizing others. Policy in 500 Words: Power and Knowledge (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/policy-in-500-words-power-and-knowledge/) • Policy actors see the world through the lens of their beliefs. Beliefs allow them to select and interpret policy-relevant information and decide who to trust. Policy in 500 Words: The Advocacy Coalition Framework (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/policy-in-500-words-the-advocacy-coalition-framework/) • Actors engage in ‘trial-and-error strategies’ or use their ‘social tribal instincts’ to rely on ‘different decision heuristics to deal with uncertain and dynamic environments’ Policy in 500 words: uncertainty versus ambiguity (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/policy-in-500-words-uncertainty-versus-ambiguity/) Policy in 500 Words: Ecology of Games (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/policy-in-500-words-ecology-of-games/) Policy in 500 Words: the Social-Ecological Systems Framework (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/policy-in-500-words-the-social-ecological-systems-framework/) Policy Concepts in 1000 Words: Complex Systems (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/policy-concepts-in-1000-words-complex-systems/) • Policy audiences are vulnerable to manipulation when they rely on other actors to help them understand the world. Actors tell simple stories to persuade their audience to see a policy problem and its solution in a particular way Policy in 500 Words: the Narrative Policy Framework (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/policy-in-500-words-the-narrative-policy-framework/) • Policymakers draw on quick emotional judgements, and social stereotypes, to propose benefits to some target populations and punishments for others Policy in 500 Words: Social Construction and Policy Design (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/policy-concepts-in-500-words-social-construction-and-policy-design/) • Institutions include formal rules but also the informal understandings that ‘exist in the minds of the participants and sometimes are shared as implicit knowledge rather than in an explicit and written form’ Policy in 500 Words: Feminist Institutionalism (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/policy-in-500-words-feminist-institutionalism/) • Policy learning is a political process in which actors engage selectively with information, not a rational search for truth Three ways to encourage policy learning (https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/three-ways-to-encourage-policy-learning/)

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