Exploring Bounded Rationality in Public Policy Decision-Making
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The University of Hong Kong**We aren't endorsed by this school
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POLITICS 3069
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Psychology
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Dec 10, 2024
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54 Understanding Public Policy They also highlight the role of structure and agency. The exercise or effect of power relates to the resources of individuals, but they do not operate in a vacuum. They are sur- rounded by an audience more important than themselves. They engage with institutions and systems — representing the rules, beliefs, and actions of many others - that amplify or undermine the impact of their actions. Indeed, ideas often resemble structures, as the dominant ideologies that restrict debate and the rules of policymaking that limit popular participation and expression of meaningful consent. As the remaining chapters suggest, theories of public policy address these issues of method and evidence well. However, in analysing individual approaches, it is easy to lose sight of the issues raised when we focus directly on themes such as power and inequality. Studies of key actors — such as ‘policy entrepreneurs’ - may connect their success too much to individual skill rather than the nature of the policymaking environment that gives more opportunities to some people. Or studies of systems may focus more on complexity, unpre- dictability, and minimal central control than the endurance of major inequalities within complex systems. Therefore, the more critical reader should note the specific language of each policy theory and the power-based context in which we can understand them as a whole. 4 Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking Key themes of this chapter: * ‘Bounded rationality’ describes the limits to gathering and processing policy- relevant information. * It suggests that ‘evidence-based policymaking’ is a misleading ideal. Policymakers need to find ways to ignore most evidence. * They use cognitive shortcuts to gather enough evidence and make what they believe to be ‘good enough’ choices. ' ¢ Classic debates examined if bounded rationality would, and should, produce incrementalism in political systems. C * Modern theories focus more on ‘fast thinking’ and its potential to produce radi- cal policy change. ’ ¢ The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) describes actors telling stories to set the agenda and influence policy change. ¢ Social Construction and Policy Design (SCPD) shows how policymakers use emo- tion and social stereotypes to reward some populations and punish others. INTRODUCTION: THE PROFOUND IMPORTANCE OF BOUNDED RATIONALITY Chapter 3 suggests that some actors are powerful because they can exploit the ways in which other people think. Therefore, studies of power link strongly to studies in psy- chology about the cognitive ‘biases’ on which all people rely. In a complex world beyond our understanding, we all have to rely on efficient ways of thinking, ignoring almost all information available to us, to allow us to make choices decisively. Cognitive shortcuts can be described provocatively as ‘rational’, when we seek systematic methods to identify the best information and ‘irrational’ when we rely on gut instinct and emotion to act almost instantly (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017). However, the use of emotion and morality to take care of one’s loved ones without weighing up the costs and benefits is perhaps the most reasonable action of all (Gigerenzer, 2001)! A more relevant worry is that cognitive shortcuts leave us vulnerable to error and manipulation. Policymakers are no exception to this problem. 55
56 Understanding Public Policy Comprehensive rationality - an ideal- type of policymaking in which policymakers translate their values and aims into consist- ent policy choices following a comprehen- sive study of all choices and their effects. Bounded rationality - a more realistic model which identifies the factors — such as uncertain aims and limited To understand policymaking, policy studies compare the classic ideal-type, comprehensive ratiomality, with bounded rationality in the real world. Comprehensive rationality is an unrealistic simplification of reality that we can use to explore what really happens. For example, it is not real- istic to expect policymakers to (1) possess the organizational and cognitive capacity to gather and process all information relevant to their decisions and then (2) make clear, consistent, and well-ranked choices, in (3) a policymaking system over which they have full knowledge and control. Rather, they face bounded rationality, in which their possession and grasp of evidence, and their ability to make and implement consistent policy choices, and know and control their effects is limited. They have to rely on cognitive and organizational shortcuts. Even though it is an impossibility, comprehensive ration- ality also seems to be an ideal to which many people aspire. information - that undermine comprehen- sive rationality. Many advocates of ‘evidence-based policymaking’ seem to criticize the need for policymakers to ignore most informa- tion when they make decisions. Or, they display a passionate objection to any ‘irrational’ means to do so (Cairney, 2016a)! More broadly, comprehensive rationality sums up a common-sense view of how democ- racies should operate: elected policymakers employ reason to identify problems and clarify their aims, produce and process evidence comprehensively to assess the societal costs and benefits of solutions, use this evidence to make and legitimize their choices, and evaluate policy success after a comprehensive search for evidence (Cairney, 2019a). This double-ideal is what makes policymaker psychology and the debate on ‘incre- mentalism’ (Box 4.2) so interesting. It prompts us to think about the effect of bounded rationality on system-wide policymaking, and what we should do about it. Classic accounts describe different ways to adjust to bounded rationality. Simon focuses on the need for policymaking organizations to ‘satisfice’, combining systematic searches for information with efficient procedural shortcuts to reach an acceptable proximity to the comprehensive ideal. However, when discussing the nature of policymaking systems, Lindblom appears to promote the practical and normative value of departing from the ideal of comprehen- sive rationality. Incrementalism suggests that a good strategy for boundedly rational policymakers with limited policymaking resources is to make a succession of incremental changes to public policy based on the lessons of past decisions. In a pluralist political sys- tem, it makes sense to limit information searches only to politically feasible options, learn from trial and error, and not depart radically from decisions based on a previous consensus (compare with Chapter 3 on pluralism). Modern policy theories add two profound insights. First, many theories link major policy change to bounded rationality (or they identify inertia that is not caused by plural- ism). For example, punctuated equilibrium theory identifies incremental change and rapid and profound shifts of policy (Chapter 9). Second, theories identify new normative issues that arise from the use and abuse of cognitive shortcuts. In this chapter, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) identifies the ability of actors to tell stories to influence their audience. Further, Social Construction and Policy Design (SCPD) shows how policymakers draw on their own biases, and exploit social stereotypes, to make quick choices that reward Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 57 some populations and punish others. Such responses to bounded rationality produce manipulative politics and ‘degenerative’ political systems rather than consensus-driven incrementalism. Overall, modern theories suggest that advances in science and informa- tion technology have not solved - and cannot solve — the problem of bounded rationality. Instead, politics and power will always matter. COMPREHENSIVE AND BOUNDED RATIONALITY A focus on comprehensive rationality prompts us to question our assumptions about the power of the ‘centre’ to cause policy change: ¢ Do individual actors at the ‘top’ have the ability to research and articulate a series of consistent policy aims, and then make sure that they are carried out? « Can an organization act in the same manner as a ‘rational’ individual? Comprehensive rationality suggests that elected policymakers. seek to translate their val- ues into policy, aided by organizations that operate in a ‘logical, reasoned and neutral way’ (John, 1998: 33). The model includes a series of assumptions: 1. Organizations can separate values (requived by policymakers to identify their aims) from facts (required by organizations to assess the best way to achieve those aims). 2. Organizations and policymakers can produce consistent policy preferences, and rank them, to help maximize societal gain (in the same way that an individual ranks preferences to help ‘maximize utility’). 3. Policy is made in a linear fashion, as in a policy cycle. First, policy aims are identified in terms of the values of the policymaker. Second, all means to achieve those aims are identified. Finally, the best means are selected. There are clear-cut stages to the process — such as between agenda setting (identifying aims), formulation (identifying choices and making decisions), and implementation (carrying them out). 4. Analysis of the decision-making context is comprehensive. All relevant factors and possibilities have been explored, and all theories regarding how the policy process works have been considered (Lindblom, 1959; Simon, 1976; Jordan and Richardson, 1987: 9-10; John, 1998: 33; Hill, 2005: 146). Since this is an idealized version of the policy process, the assumptions are deliberately unrealistic. Most approaches begin their analysis by identifying the limitations to com- prehensive rationality and the presence of bounded rationality. First, it is impossible to separate facts from values in such an artificial way. Simon (1983: 8) argued that the best way to demonstrate this point is to read the alleged ‘facts’ in Hitler’s Mein Kampf (see also Brinkmann, 2009; Douglas, 2009; Etzioni, 1967: 386). More generally, the cause of policy problems is always subject to interpretation and debate, and there is no objective way to evaluate the success of a policy solution (McConnell, 2010). Second, policymakers have multiple, and often unclear, objectives which are difficult to rank in any meaningful way. Therefore, they tend to pursue a small number of those aims that command their attention at any one time. Policy aims can also be contradic- tory: choosing a policy to address aim A may mean undermining a policy to address aim B,
58 Understanding Public Policy producing clear winners and losers from the policy process. These problems are multiplied when extended to organizations. Governments contain a mass of organizations pursuing policy aims relatively independently of each other, with little regard to the idea of central- ized and ranked preferences or the trade-offs in policy choices (there is no ‘holistic’ or ‘joined-up government’). Third, the policy process is not linear and it is difficult to separate the policy cycle into discrete stages. The ‘garbage can’ model and ‘multiple streams’ analysis (Chapter 11) pre- sent the most significant departure from an assumption of linearity, suggesting that three processes — problem definition, solution, choice - appear to act almost independently, with the potential for a completely different order. Policymaking often begins with solutions that ‘chase problems’. Finally, policymakers are faced with incomplete knowledge of the policy environment and the likely consequences of their solutions, and cognitive and time constraints limit their ability to consider and understand every possible solution. Organizations do not have the capacity to consider every fact and solution; the cost of research forces them to set priorities. The search for theories to explain policy problems is limited by the values and emotions of policymakers (which predispose them to consider only some solutions) and organizational rules. Consequently, Simon (1976: xxviii) presents a more realistic view of policymakers and policymaking organizations based on bounded rationality: 1. Individuals and organizations cannot ‘maximize’ their utility; instead, they ‘satisfice’, or seek ‘a course of action that is satisfactory or “good enough’".l 2. They have neither the ability nor the inclination to consider all facts. Instead, they combine intense searches for information with efficient approximations to focus on the factors considered most relevant and important. ' Simon expressed the aim to, as far as possible, use ‘administrative science’ (or, in Lasswell's language, the ‘policy sciences) to reduce the problem of bounded rationality within organizations by: training officials in policy analysis to open their mind to new possibili- ties; fostering the development of specialization and expertise in information processing; teaching officials the most appropriate informational shortcuts to make organizations more effective; and, supporting the long-term goals of an organization by providing the right incentives (1976: 242~43; 1960). His term ‘satisfice’ sums up the need to be prag- matic when facing limits to the cognitive power of individuals and coordinative capacity of organizations (Hill, 2005: 146-47; Parsons, 1995: 273-84). Bounded Rationality Is More Important Than Ever We might be tempted - wrongly - to think that bounded rationality is less of a problem now than when first identified in the policy sciences (Cairney and Weible, 2017). Our ‘evidence-based age’, involving major advances in scientific research methods and informa- tion technology, has given ‘a new breath of life’ to hopes for comprehensive rationality and evidence-based policymaking (Botterill and Hindmoor, 2012: 367). Yet, when we revisit the four conditions for comprehensive rationality, we see that the accumulation of new evidence does not come close to solving the problem of bounded Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 59 rationality (Cairney, 2016a: 14). It addresses the problem of gathering policy-relevant knowledge somewhat (point 4 above). However, the most pressing policy issues are char- acterized by ‘radically uncertainty’; their complexity makes them difficult to define and manage, partly because so many aspects are interdependent, producing too many possible outcomes to predict (Tuckett and Nicolic, 2017). Further, more evidence does not help us adjudicate between unclear preferences (point 2) or simplify the policy process in which they are considered (point 3). Indeed, Chapter 11 suggests that the garbage can model is as relevant as ever. Modern science remains value-laden (point 1) even when so many people employ so many systematic methods to increase the replicability of research and reduce the reliance of evidence on individual scientists. The role of values is fundamental. Anyone engaging in research uses professional and personal values and beliefs to decide which research meth- ods are the best; generate research questions, concepts and measures; evaluate the impact and policy relevance of the results; decide which issues are important problems; and assess the relative weight of ‘the evidence’ on policy effectiveness (Cairney, 2018a: 16; 2019a). We cannot simply focus on ‘what works’ to solve a problem without considering how we used our values to identify a problem in the first place (Botterill and Hindmoor, 2012). It is also impossible in practice to separate two choices: (1) how to gather the best evidence and (2) whether to centralize or localize policymaking (see Cairney, 2017b; Cairney and Oliver, 2017). Most importantly, as Chapter 3 suggests, the assertion that ‘my knowl- edge claim is superior to yours’ symbolizes one of the most worrying exercises of power. We may decide to favour some forms of evidence over others, but the choice is value-laden and political rather than objective and innocuous (compare Douglas, 2009; Pielke, 2007; Jasanoff, 2008). Further, our growing knowledge of psychology has reinforced the importance of bounded rationality and challenged a lot of the mid-twentieth-century optimism about the prospect of comprehensive searches for information: ‘People are “cognitive misers” (Kam, 2005), using informational shortcuts and heuristics to gather just enough information to make decisions’ (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017: 2; Cairney and Weible, 2017; Vis, 2019). Modern studies of psychology suggest that: People use short cuts to gather enough information to make decisions quickly: the ‘rational’, by pursuing clear goals and prioritising certain kinds of information, and the ‘irrational’, by drawing on emotions, gut feelings, values, beliefs, habits, and the famil- iar, to make decisions quickly. (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017: 2) All people - including policymakers — address bounded rationality by thinking ‘fast and slow’: ‘System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations’ (Kahneman, 2012: 20). Haidt (2001: 818; 2007, 2012) distinguishes between the ‘intuitive system’ and ‘reasoning system’ to explain ‘moral reasoning’ as a retrospective process. In theory, moral reasoning could represent an archetype of ‘rational’ judgement to determine what is right or wrong in a society. However, in practice, people often engage with policy issues using gut instinct and ‘when faced with a social demand for a verbal justification, one becomes a lawyer trying to build a case rather than a judge searching for the truth’ (2001: 814). Box 4.1 identifies how people Himit their exposure to information before making choices.
60 ~ Understanding Public Policy Box 4.1 Cognitive biases and fast and frugal heuristics Kahneman (2012) describes a series of cognitive shortcuts, many of which feature in policy theories (Lewis, 2013: 7; Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017): + Cognitive biases are at the heart of agenda setting, attention, and the competi- tion to resolve policy ambiguity: ‘framing effects’, based on emotional and moral judgements; the ‘representativeness heuristic’, when people overestimate the probability of events because of their vivid nature; and the ‘availability heuristic’ (or ‘processing fluency’), when people relate the size, frequency, or probability of a problem to how easy it is to remember or imagine (Chapters 9 and 11). + ‘Prospect theory’ describes people valuing the losses they fear more than the equivalent gains they might receive. It helps explain why advocacy coalitions think that their competitors are more powerful than they are (Chapter 10). « A ‘need for coherence’, to identify patterns and causal relationships, helps explain the power of narratives with a simple hero and moral (Jones et al., 2014). * Policymakers use exemplars of social groups to represent general experience and describe why they reward and punish populations (Schneider et al., 2014). Status quo bias, the ‘sunk costs fallacy’, and ‘optimism bias’, in which unrealistic expectations about our plans working out well when we commit to them, all help explain inertia and the endurance of institutions (Chapter 5). + ‘Groupthink’ and other aspects of organizational psychology place crucial limits on comprehensive searches for policy-relevant information. * Some issues may heighten public and policymaker anxiety, contributing to a sense of urgency or panic, which limits information searches dramatically (Pepin-Neff, 2019). However, we are still scratching the surface of the links between psychology and policymaking (and indeed physiology and policymaking). For example, we know that ‘emotion and cognition are part of the same internal mental process’ but we have not considered how organizations might use this insight to modify policy processes (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017: 3). Nor do we agree on the positive or negative aspects of psychology. While it is cus- tomary to describe cognitive ‘biases’ negatively, with reference to the comprehensive ideal, Gigerenzer (2001: 37-38) provides a more positive description of how actual humans ... make decisions, as opposed to heavenly beings being equipped with prac- tically unlimited time, knowledge, memory, and other unlimited resources’. ‘Fast and frugal heuristics’ are the ‘computationally cheap’ methods people use to make choices. An ‘adaptive toolbox” helps people ‘to experiment using trial and error, use emotions to limit needless searches for new choices (such as considering the costs/benefits of keep- ing one’s children), and make choices based on a small number of simple rules rather than trying in vain to weigh all costs and benefits’ (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017: 3; see also Gigerenzer, 2015; Tuckett et al., 2015; Durnova, 2018). One source of rules may be a core set of moral values in a political system to which policymakers can refer. Such well-thought-out values are more difficult to describe as ‘irrational’ compared to action driven by fire and fury. Or, we may find that emotions are crucial to political mobilization, such as to maintain campaigns to challenge injustice (Reger, 2004). Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 61 Further, the application of studies of psychology and cognition to policymaking systems suggests that governments struggle to process policy-relevant information proportion- ately (Koski and Workman, 2018). Policymakers set goals but ‘they are not generally effec- tive in judging the connections between [their] goals and the complex reality they face’ (Jones and Thomas, 2017: 49). Individuals communicate their narrow expertise within a system of which they have almost no knowledge (Sloman and Fernbach, 2017). In any situation, ‘most members of the system are not paying attention to most issues most of the time’ (Baumgartner, 2017: 72). This scarcity of attention helps explain, for example, why policymakers ignore most issues in the absence of a ‘focusing event’ (Shaffer, 2017), organizational searches for information miss key elements routinely (Workman et al, 2017), organizations fail to respond to events or changing circumstances proportionately (Epp, 2017), and the ‘centre’ will always lack coordinative capacity and the ability to make policy from the top-down (Cairney et al., 2019a). This description of policymaking must inform prescription: seeking comprehensive rationality is like trying to fly unaided rather than designing and using a plane (Lindblom, 1964). INCREMENTALISM We want to know how policymaking systems operate — and should operate - when responding to bounded rationality. In that context, incremt:mtalism is a key attempt to co?solidate empiti- | 1.4 ector egone when cal and normative aspects (Box 4.2). It describes the need to | we pursue option A respond to bounded rationality pragmatically, by (1) gathering | For example, the co.st information efficiently (note the opportunity cost of research) of a decision to study and (2) situating this activity within a real policymaking envi- | many policy options ronment. When we focus on comprehensive ratignality and is the foregone chance evidence-based policymaking we should not forget that choice | tostudy fewer, more is inherently political; it is about winners and losers. A policy- realistic, options in maker has to consider their values, the balance of power within | moe depth. the legislature, and the reaction to policy change by interest groups. Policymaking is costly: it takes time and political will to persuade political parties, vested interests, and the public that major policy change is appropriate (and to ensure that policy is implemented). It is also unpredictable: policymakers often react to events or solve problems caused by previous policies rather than devote their time to major new initiatives. Consequently, boundedly rational policymakers are much more likely to introduce incre- mental policy changes — based on learning from experience and addressing the unintended consequences of previous decisions - than introducing radically new initiatives. Opportunity cost - the value of option B, Box 4.2 The meaning of incrementalism The meaning of incrementalism is often unclear in three main ways. First, ‘incre- mental’ is often equated with small. However, Lindblom (1979: 517) argues that increments can be large or small. The crucial distinction is between radical and non-radical change: does it follow logically from existing policy or mark a significant
62 Understanding Public Policy departure? This argument solves one problem but raises another: can we distinguish between radical and non-radical change? Second, incrementalism can be a descrip- tion of how policy is made or a prescription of strategies to pursue (or a confusing mix of both). Third, incrementalism can refer to analytical strategies, in which organizations try to overcome problems related to comprehensive rationality: * Simple incremental analysis. Analysis limited to a small number of policy choices that diverge incrementally from the status quo; it is better to analyse those issues comprehensively than seek comprehensive coverage of all issues. * Disjointed incrementalism. The simplifying strategies used by organizations, including simple incremental analysis, trial and error, and ‘parallel processing’. * Strategic analysis. Realistic policymaking strategies (including disjointed incre- mentalism and ‘mixed scanning’} used as an alternative to the ‘futile attempt at superhuman comprehensiveness’ (Lindblom, 1959: 88). Or, it can relate to strategies to reach agreement. ‘Partisan mutual adjustment’ is a process in which actors pursue their interests and respond to other actors doing the same (by researching their positions, using persuasion, and seeking allies) (Lindblom, 1959: 85). Policymakers do not begin by articulating their values, transléting them into policy aims in rank order, and seeking the best means to achieve them. Their willingness to trade-off one aim for another only becomes clear when they make decisions. The analy- sis is not comprehensive, considering all of the empirical and theoretical implications (Lindblom, 1965). Organizations analyse the effects of incremental change and ignore many important possible outcomes, alternative policies, theories, and values. Indeed, it is efficient for government organizations to spend most of their time focusing on the effects of incremental departures from current policies. Taking the comprehensive ideal seriously would ‘paralyse’ an organization by frustrating its staff and exhaust- ing its resources on many radical options that are rarely acceptable to major political parties (Lindblom, 1964: 157; Etzioni, 1967: 386). It is also sensible for policy change to take place through a series of steps, to reduce the chance of making ‘serious lasting mistakes’. The effects of non-incremental decisions are unpredictable and difficult to solve (1959: 86). Further, any test of ‘good’ policy shifts from the ability to satisfy a comprehensively rational policymaker’s objectives to whether or not it commands agreement within the political system (Lindblom, 1959: 81). An incremental strategy works in that context: if a previous policy commanded widespread respect, then policymakers recognize the ana- Iytical and political costs of a radical departure from it. To change policy radically may be undemocratic. In a pluralistic system, existing policy is based on a long-term process of negotiation, bargaining, and adjustment. No single actor commands the policy process as a whole (Lindblom’s comparator to the USA was Soviet command-and-control). Rather, mul- tiple actors and agencies pursue their interests and command their own powerful ‘watch- dogs’ to anticipate or redress ‘damages done by other agencies’ (1959: 85). It encourages ‘partisan mutual adjustment’ (Box 4.2). Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 63 These suggestions prompted one of the most significant post-war public policy debates in the USA (see Cairney, 2012a: 100-4). Lindblom’s critics suggested that incremental- jsm represents a more realistic model than comprehensive rationality, but has less to offer as a policymaking ideal. First, it relies on pluralism or the assumption of an equal balance of power to produce widely supported policy. In unequal societies, non-radical change preserves policies produced by elites (Dror, 1964; Etzioni, 1967: 387). Lindblom (1977; 1979) accepts this problem, but argues that ‘partisan mutual adjustment’ may be a preferable response: ‘strong central authority can be - and historically is, in case after case - an instrument for protecting historically inherited inequalities’ (1979: 523). Indeed, actors may use the appearance of a comprehensively rational process to minimize public, parliamentary, and pressure group attention to inequalities. Putting power in the hands of the few does not guarantee that they will use it wisely and in the spirit of benevolent neutrality. Second, debates focused on how to manage more radical change for the long term in ‘fundamental’ policy areas, by encouraging policymakers to plan their activities more effi- ciently, clarify their values, and identify alternative policies and issues worthy of compre- hensive analysis (Dror, 1964: 156; Lindblom, 1979). Lindblom’s proposal - ‘one can make changes in the social structure as rapidly through a series of incremental steps as through drastic - hence less frequent - alterations’ (1964: 157) - helped distinguish incremental- ism from inertia (Lindblom, 1979: 520). It also signalled a greater role for central plan- ning to ensure a consistent series of incremental steps towards a clear goal (Etzioni, 1967: 387-88; Cairney, 2007a). However, it did not help us make a clear distinction between incremental and radical change. Since the nature of policy problems is open to interpreta- tion and debate, there is no objective way to identify ‘fundamental’ decisions (Smith and May, 1993: 203; Hill, 2005: 151). The incremental/radical policy change distinction seems | obvious in theory, but where is the dividing line in practice? Is Incrementalism ‘Universal’ and Inevitable? Incrementalism was based initially on a study of US politics, so how relevant is it to policy- making in other countries? When making such comparisons, it is important to avoid con- fusing the proposed advantages of incrementalism (the management of policy by consensus and the minimization of unintended consequences) with forms of inertia made more likely by veto points in particular political systems (Chapter 6). Hayes (2001) suggests that incrementalist strategies are used in many political systems characterized by bargaining and compromise between actors who have different information, interests, and views; and the need to build on past policies (Hayes, 2001: 3). Indeed, the identification of incremen- talism as a routine ‘policy style’ - in majoritarian and consensus democracies - was a key theme of Richardson’s (1982b) Policy Styles in Western Europe. Incrementalism transcends formal political structures because it results from routine responses to bounded rationality (see Chapter 5 on ‘network institutionalism’ and Chapter 9 on ‘policy communities’). Consider, for example, how we might explain an incrementalist style in a system, such as the UK, which enjoys a reputation for ‘majoritarian’ and ‘top-down’ government (Cairney, 2019b). Most policy decisions are beyond the reach of elected policymakers such as UK ministers. The sheer size of government necessitates breaking policy down into more manageable issues involving a smaller number of interested and knowledgeable
~ 64 Understanding Public Policy participants. Therefore, most public policy is conducted primarily through specialist ‘pol- icy communities’ which process ‘technical’ issues at a level of government not particularly visible to the public or Parliament, and with minimal ministerial involvement. These arrangements exist because there is a logic to devolving decisions and consulting with certain affected interests. Ministers rely on their officials for information and advice. For specialist issues, those officials rely on specialist organizations. Organizations trade infor- mation, advice, and other resources (such as the ability to implement or ‘deliver’ a large group membership) for access to, and influence within, government. Further, the logic of this relationship holds regardless of the party of government, and we are unlikely to wit- ness radical policy change simply because there is a change of UK government (Richardson and Jordan, 1979; Jordan and Richardson, 1982; Jordan and Maloney, 1997; Jordan, 2005; Cairney, 2008; Jordan and Cairney, 2013). When comparing political systems, commentators are often expressing unrealistic expectations about how quickly policy can change, then complaining about unusually high inertia compared to countries like the UK (Burns, 1963; Krauss and Pekkanen, 2004; Fabbrini and Gilbert, 2000: 28; Kitschelt and Streeck, 2003: 2). The implication is that a majoritarian political system puts power in the hands of the few and gives them more opportunity to pursue the comprehensive rationality ideal. Yet, as Chapters 5 and 6 describe, inertia is not caused solely by veto. Rather, the effect of decades of cumula- tive policies is that newly elected policymakers inherit a huge government with massive commitments (Rose, 1990; 1986; Rose and Davies, 1994). The size and scope of the state is such that any ‘new’ policy is likely to be a minor revision of an old one, partly because policy builds up its own clientele resistant to change {Hogwood and Peters, 1982; 1983; Geva-May, 2004). Or, when a commitment to a policy has been established and resources devoted to it, it becomes increasingly costly to choose a different path (Pierson, 2000a). : In other words, the abstract theme with which incrementalism engages — the lack of comprehensive rationality and its impact on political systems ~ is universal (it applies to all times and places). Further, incrementalism as a policy style can be found in many systems, and the reasons for policy inertia are not restricted to systems with many veto points. In general, all policymakers face bounded rationality and a policymaking environment over which they have limited control. The differences associated with individual political sys- tems relate more to the specific ways in which actors make sense of this problem. In some cases, policymakers appreciate the benefits of incrementalism. In others, they seek quicker, more radical change. However, modern theories suggest that incrementalism as a policy style is not inevitable. Bounded rationality is universal, but it often helps to explain two forms of activity that we should not confuse with incrementalism. 1. Policy obstruction driven by fast thinking Policy inertia often relates to the exercise of power to reinforce ‘fast’ responses to bounded rationality. Actors rely on ‘quick gut, instinct, emotional, and moral choices’ and become ‘biased’ or ‘motivated’ reasoners devoted to the status quo despite evidence that might support policy change (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017: 3). For example, Chapter 10 describes the ‘advocacy coalitions’ who romanticize their own cause, demonize their opponents, and often try to obstruct policy change (Sabatier et al.,, 1987). Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 65 9. Incrementalism co-existing with sudden and profound policy change Many theories highlight the links between bounded rationality and non-incremental change. Punctuated equilibrium theory shows that political systems produce ‘hyper- incremental’ and radical change. Boundedly rational policymakers have limited resources (including time, knowledge, and attention) and cannot deal with all policy problems. So they ignore most and promote a few to the top of their agenda. This lack of attention to issues helps explain why most policies do not change dramatically, while intense periods of attention to some issues may prompt new demands for change. By ‘reframing’ issues, policy actors can draw the attention of policymakers to new ways of seeing and solving problems. Successful persuasion prompts ‘positive feedback’, in which policymakers pay disproportionate attention to the issue, and a ‘bandwagon effect’, in which multiple actors in the policy process all suddenly pay attention to, and seek to influence, the same issue (Chapter 9; Jones, 1999, 2003). Multiple streams analysis (MSA) suggests that radical policy change happens when there is a ‘window of opportunity’ for three processes: a new or reframed problem gains attention, a feasible solution gains currency within policy networks, and policymakers have the motive and opportunity to translate the idea into policy. MSA predicts policy continuity and pro- found change (Chapter 11; Kingdon, 1984). ’ Studies of policy diffusion demonstrate that non-incremental change can happen when one region emulates another on the assumption that it was successful. The policy trans- fer literature suggests that some governments feel pressure to engage in non-incremental policy change, often driven by anxiety that they are not keeping up with their neighbours (Chapter 12; Berry and Berry, 2007; Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000). In such cases of policy change, we can detect the role of cognitive misers driven by fast ’ thinking rather than comprehensive analysis. People can understand policy problems in many different ways, but focus only on one, with the potential for their attention to lurch dramatically following a disproportionate response to new information. A key strategy is to encourage pecple to pay attention to policy problems and potential solutions in a par- ticular order (Box 4.3). Box 4.3 Heresthetic and the manipulation of choice William Riker (1982; 1986) uses the term ‘heresthetic’ to describe the importance of a particular kind of manipulation: ‘one can help produce a particular choice if one can determine the context of, or order in which people make, choices’. In other words, we may conclude from studies of psychology that we cannot change people’s minds when they engage in fast thinking to entrench their positions. However, we can exploit the fact that they possess many different - and often contradictory ~ preferences. If so, the aim is to draw their full attention to one issue or preference at the expense of another. Additional strategies may involve exploiting their cogni- tive miserliness to make sure that they do not engage in a full enough analysis to compare their preferences systematically. For example, one can present information in ways that increase the cognitive load and dissuade people from analysis, such
66 Understanding Public Policy Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 67 as by presenting abstract concepts or excessive detail (Drew, 2019). Put simply, if Box 4.4 Narrative versus frames you want to make something happen, it may be better to influence the rules that people use to make decisions - such as the order in which we consider each choice, or the ways in which we present limited choices - than change their minds about their preferences. This strategy includes the restriction of options during ‘the selec- tion of ... policies to which there are majority preferred alternatives’ (Riker, 1982; Hindmoor, 2006a: 80-87; Ward, 2002: 66; McLean, 2002; Ward and Weale, 2010). Many policy preferences are ‘intransitive’ or inconsistent: if A is preferred to B and B to C, A is not necessarily preferred to C (Chapter 7, p.117). Therefore, the order of the vote is crucial. This approach seems to contrast markedly with Aristotle’s logos, ethos, pathos approach: there is minimal appeal to pathos to persuade, or ethos to follow rules on policy debate. Instead, heresthetic is manipulation ‘concerned with the strat- egy value of sentences’ (Riker, 1986: x). Similarly, it may contrast with modern trends in ‘evidence-based policy’ to communicate evidence as simply as pos- sible. Herestheticians may exacerbate the cognitive burden of choice to get what Framing and narrative are not the same. This point is confusing because its authors did not always make the distinction (Shanahan et al., 2018a: 204), and both terms are ambiguous and overlap greatly (Weible and Schlager, 2014: 242; see also Lakoff, 2014). In policy studies, framing is the definition of a policy’s image; how issues are portrayed and categorized (Chapter 9). Yet ‘framing’ is also a looser metaphor to describe the ways in which we understand and use language selectively, Many disci- plines describe the metaphor differently, but in two key ways. First, akin to a photo. The photographer decides what you see (where the lens points, how much to zoom or Photoshop). Framing describes our reliance on someone else to describe reality. Second, akin to a building’s timber frame, providing essential structure. It describes less visible assumptions (Chapter 3). Combined, framing sounds like storytelling. We limit information to influence how people understand the world, the issues to which they pay attention, and how they understand policy problems. The difference comes from the way in which the NPF (1) describes narrative to (2) conduct - generally quan- titative — empirical research to test the effects of strategieé (Shanahan et al., 2013; they want. 2018b). To count as narrative, it must have a structure akin to a literary narrative: set- ting, character, plot, moral. In contrast, framing analysis could quantify the frequency of keywords rather than whole phrases (although narratives can contain few words THE NARRATIVE POLICY FRAMEWORK (Merry, 2016) and NPF studies can use framing analysis (Lawlor and Crow, 2018)Y). i There is far more to bounded rationality than a technical response in which governments seek ways to gather and process more evidence more effectively (Jones and Crow, 2017). People use narratives to manipulate or persuade their audience to see a policy problem . Rather, all people - including policymakers — ‘develop quick and easy emotional renderings and its solution in a particular way. Such strategies, and the context in which they appear, of the world that fit with who they think they are and what they know’ (Crow and Jones, can vary markedly in ‘rich and unique policy contexts’, but a narrative has the same basic 2018: 217). If so, the shortcuts they use to limit their attention — and the small number of structure containing four key elements (Shanahan et al., 2018a: 176-77): issues to which they pay attention ~ really matter. Our focus on agenda setting and ‘fram- ing’ (Chapters 3 and 9) would be irrelevant if everyone had the willingness and ability to 1. Setting. It relates to a specific policymaking context consisting of ‘policy phenomena understand and compare all possible frames of reference! Instead, their attention to one such as legal and constitutional parameters, geography, evidence, economic conditions, way of seeing the world, at the expense of another, can prompt them to support radically norms’. The nature of some settings may be taken for granted, while others are highly different policies than if they had full information. However, we can draw two very differ- contested. ent lessons from this starting point: 2. Characters. It contains at least one actor, such as a hero, villain, beneficiary, or victim. 3. Plot. A plot establishes a timeline or story arc. Common arcs include stories of heroes 1. People may be highly vulnerable to manipulation if they rely on other actors to help going on a journey or facing and overcoming adversity, often relating to villains causing them understand the world. trouble and sympathetic victims suffering tragedy. 2. People are resistant to a lot of manipulation because they do not pay attention to or 4. Moral. A story’s simple take-home point describes the cause of, and hence solution to, trust many sources of information. the policy problem. For example, we must protect the lives of victims of mass shootings or the rights of gun owners to defend themselves (Merry, 2018). Put more simply, the stories that we tell people can reinforce or compete with the stories they tell to themselves (Tuckett and Nicolic, 2017). The same story can motivate some From this starting point, we can identify different strategies and factors that cause the rel- audiences, if it chimes with their beliefs or pulls their heartstrings, but backfire with oth- ative success of a narrative (Shanahan et al., 2018a: 177-78; 2014: 70). Strategies to foster ers, if it grates with their view of the world (o if they feel they are being manipulated with support from groups or coalitions include describing policy issues as private or in need of stories). In that context, the NPF identifies the strategies of actors to exploit other actors’ government intervention (see Box 3.2 (p 43) on Schattschneider); establishing the cause cognitive biases (described in Box 4.1). Then, it tries to measure their success empirically of a problem by (for example) assigning blame to a character; or romanticizing the work of (Box 4.4). your own coalition while demonizing others (see Chapter 10).
~ 68 Understanding Public Policy In each case, such strategies are constrained but not determined by the firmly held beliefs of the narrator’s audience (Chapters 10 and 11). NPF empirical studies suggest that combi- nations of the following techniques or factors seem to improve narrative success: ¢ using an audience’s fundamental belief (e.g. in the value of the market) to influence a more malleable belief (e.g. business leaders will solve climate change) (Box 4.3); ¢ generating admiration for a hero in favour of policy change or empathy for a victim of policy failure/inaction; ¢ helping an audience imagine a problem and relate it to their own lives; ¢ exploiting trust in the narrator; and ¢ making sure that ‘micro level’ strategies (aimed at individuals) and ‘meso level strategies (aimed at coalitions) relate to ‘macro level' or ‘grand narratives’ which capture fundamental societal beliefs, such as in the relative merits of capitalism/ socialism or freedom/security ( Shanahan et al. 2018a: 188-95; Jones, 2014). The latter strategy is crucial. It suggests that you need to know your audiences to know how to influence it, and that this influence is bounded by context. In some cases, there are only brief ‘windows of opportunity’ in which a narrative will have the desired impact (Chapter 11). This window can relate to (1) the emotional state of the audience or (2) a series of events in political systems (Cairney and Kwiatkowski, 2017: 5). In other cases, nar- rative success relates to the attitudes of left- and right-wing populations. Some audiences are relatively open to government action to solve problems, while others only accept arguments that emphasize individual responsibility. For example, the Framéworks Institute experi- mented with a personal story of a woman to highlight the difficulties of eating healthily as a family when poor, only to find that one audience engaged emotionally and sympathized, while another judged the victim harshly and assumed they could do better (Cairney, 2016b). Jones and Song (2014) also find that, in climate change debates, the stories with the big- gest short-term impact — ‘egalitarian’ (it is caused by overconsumption) and ‘individualist’ (it is exaggerated by idealists and the self-interested) — affected the audiences predisposed to accept them (compare with Fadlallah et als (2019) evaluation of narrative in health policy). The potential impact of NPF insights is not undermined by the fact that some find- ings seem obvious. There is a big difference between assuming that some stories matter and measuring their effect over the short and long term (Box 4.5). Further, it may not seem important that stories have most impact when telling people what they already think, but it could make the difference between thought and action, such as when people turn out to vote or pay attention to one problem at the expense of the rest. We may struggle to persuade people to change their minds, but we can encourage them to act by prioritizing their attention to one belief over another (Box 4.3; Jones and Crow, 2017: 3). Box 4.5 NPF positivism vs. interpretivist postpositivism To count as an NPF study, research should be ‘clear enough to be wrong’ (Jones and McBeth, 2010; Jones et al., 2014: 3-4). Its ‘positivist’ approach to science is driven by empiricism, hypothesis testing, generalizing findings, and replicating research (Sabatier, 2007b: 326-31; Eller and Krutz, 2009: 1; Cairney, 2013a: 10). It Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 69 has provoked debate with ‘postpositivist” scholars of narrative (Jones and Radaelli, 2015, 2016; Lejano, 2015; compare with ‘critical’ scholarship in Chapter 3, p.50). NPF authors hope that many people can conduct their empirical studies systemati- cally to accumulate knowledge (Pierce et al., 2014), unlike some other theories which lack coberence and coordination (Cairney and Jones, 2016: 50). It requires repli- cability: two different people could use the same method and get the same results (Chapter 13). Its critics suggest that the policymaking context is too complex to boil down into such a basic description of narrative, and that researchers are sub- ject to the same cognitive biases that the NPF ascribes to policy actors. Therefore, ‘researchers cannot escape the world they inhabit to make sense from some external position’; they tell one of many possible truths in each study rather than accumulate knowledge of the truth over time (Dodge, 2015: 362; compare with Jones, 2018). Yet NPF studies may not always provoke such intense debate or require such a strict approach. Gray and Jones’ (2016: 199) call for more qualitative NPF studies takes us from ‘clear enough to be wrong’ to consistent enough to seem credible to a critical reader, partly by reflecting continuously and openly about the application of NPF concepts (Jones, in correspondence, 2018). Some NPF articles encourage scientists to focus more on their narrative and less on.the alleged superiority of their knowledge (Jones and Crow, 2017; Crow and Jones, 2018; Jones and Peterson, 2017). Further, McBeth's (2014) story is that the NPF's architects began as postmod- ernists ground down by the US positivist academic system. Its expansion outside of the USA (McBeth et al,, 2018a: 198) changes the audience and maybe the story. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND POLICY DESIGN SCPD identifies the profoundly ‘degenerative’ effect of narratives and other ways to exploit people’s beliefs to make policy. Policymakers describe and use their value judgements to make fundamental choices about which social groups should be treated positively or negatively by government. When addressing highly politicized issues, they seek to reward ‘good’ groups with government support and punish ‘bad’ groups with sanctions (Schneider et al,, 2014). In psychology, such ‘moral reasoning’ (Haidt, 2001) is ‘motivated reasoning, in which policymakers make quick, biased, emotional judgements, then seek to back up their actions with selective facts: Likes and dislikes ave not the result of individual or collective reason and deliberation but mainly the product of emotion and heuristics ... judgments begin with emotional reactions ... and reason is used mainly to justify initial emotion responses. (Schneider et al., 2014: 106) Yet social constructions can also be based on conscious bias and the strategic exploitation of social stereotypes and other people’s emotions for political gain. Policies reflect the goal-driven use of constructions ‘strategically manipulated for political gain ... to create political opportunities and avoid political risks’ or, at least, an anxiety by politicians ‘not to be caught in opposition to prevailing values’ if it affects their pexformance in elections
70 Understanding Public Policy (Schneider and Ingram, 1997: 6; 192). They seek support from the populations they describe as ‘deserving’, as well as a wider public satisfied with describing others as ‘unde- serving’ (1997: 6). These judgements have an enduring ‘feed-forward’ effect (Ingram et al.,, 2007: 112; feed-forward means feedback — Schneider and Ingram, 2019: 230). Choices based on values are reproduced in ‘policy designs’: Policy designs are observable phenomena found in statutes, administrative guide- lines, court decrees, programs, and even the practices and procedures of street level bureaucrats ... [they] contain specific observable elements such as target populations (the recipients of policy benefits or burdens), goals or problems to be solved (the values to be distributed), rules (that guide or constrain action), rationales (that explain or legitimate the policy), and assumptions (logical connections that tie the other elements together). (Schneider and Ingram, 1997: 2) Examples of positive feed-forward effects include policy designs that signal that ‘elderly citizens are worthy of respect and deserving of the funds they receive’, and prompt ‘a level of political participation rivaled by no other group’ (Schneider and Sidney, 2009: 110). Negative actions include signalling to welfare recipients that they have themselves to blame and deserve minimal support; and restricting voting rights directly or introducing convoluted rules to diminish participation (2009: 111). Policy designs based on moral choices often become routine and questioned rarely in government because they are ‘automatic rather than thought through’ (Schneider et al., 2014: 124). Emotional assignments of ‘deservingness’ act as important ‘decision heuris- tics’ because this process is ‘easy to use and recall and hard to change’ (2014: 124). In this respect, SCPD builds on classic discussions of actors exercising power to reinforce or chal- lenge attitudes (Chapter 3; Pierce et al,, 2014). Policy designs are difficult to overcome because a sequence of previous policies, based on a particular framing of target popula- tions, helps produce ‘hegemony’: the public, media, and/or policymakers take this set of values for granted, as normal or natural, and rarely question them when engaging in politics (Pierce et al,, 2014). For example, if most people assume that people in poverty deserve little government help, because they are largely responsible for their own fate, policymakers have little incentive to intervene. In such cases, powerlessness relates to the inability of disadvantaged groups to persuade the public, media, and/or government that there is a reason to make policy or a problem to be solved. O, people may take for granted that criminals should be punished because they engage in deviant behaviour. Since policy design sends a powerful signal to the recipients of benefits or punish- ments, target populations participate more or less according to how they are characterized by government (Schneider and Ingram, 1993: 334). To challenge policy designs, groups often have to challenge fundamental public assumptions, reinforced by government policy, regarding what constitutes normal and deviant behaviour. Yet only some have the resources to mobilize to influence the way they are described by policymakers (Schneider and Ingram, 1997: 21-24; 2005b: 444; Pierce et al, 2014), or to persuade the public, media, and/or government that there is a reason to act on their behalf. Social constructions are - in theory - ‘inherently unstable’ but few groups are catego- rized differently over time, at least in the absence of long-term change in social attitudes (Ingram and Schneider, 2005a: 10). For example, it can follow a major external event such Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 71 as an economic crisis or game-changing election, exploited by ‘moral entrepreneurs’ to influence the way that policymakers view particular groups (Ingram and Schneider, 2005: 10-11; Nicholson-Crotty and Meier, 2005). Or, it can be prompted by policy designs which suit powerful populations but produce spillover effects for the relatively powerless. For example, a shift to drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration, designed for white people, benefits people of colour unintentionally (Schneider and Ingram, 2005a: 639). Ingram et al. (2007: 102) depict this dynamic with a table in which there are two spectrums (Table 4.1). One describes the positive or negative ways in which groups are portrayed by policymakers. The other describes the resources available to groups to challenge or reinforce that image. There are four categories of target population: the advantaged are treated positively and are powerful, so they receive benefits publicly. Deviants are their polar opposite. Dependents are treated positively in public but do not have the power to exploit their image, while contenders are treated negatively in public but powerful enough to secure benefits behind the scenes. Most issues are not politicized in this way because people can only pay attention to a small number of issues (Chapter 9). Yet low salience can exacerbate problems of citizen exclusion. Policies dominated by bureaucratic interests often alienate citizens receiving services (Schneider and Ingram, 1997: 79). Or, the pursuit of ‘evidence-based policymak- ing’ (Box 2.2) helps experts dominate policies, and many, government agencies, when there is high scientific agreement and wide acceptance that the ‘public interest’ is served largely through the production and use of evidence. The process does not include ordinary citizens routinely. Rather, ‘experts with scientific credentials aid and abet the disappear- ance of the public sphere’ (1997: 153). Issues ‘with important social value implications’ transform into ‘a matter of elite scientific and professional concern’, such as when official calculations of economic activity override personal experiences (1997: 153, 167). Overall, SCPD describes a political system with major potential to diminish democracy. Politicians politicize issues to reward or punish populations or depoliticize issues with reference to science and objectivity. Policy designs are not informed routinely by citizen participation. Schneider and Ingram (1997: 3) argue that, although the US political sys- tem may ‘meet some standard of fairness or openness’, the policies they produce may not be ‘conducive to democracy’. They describe an increasingly individualistic US system with declining rates of collective political participation (in elections), a tendency for actors to seek benefits for their own populations, and ‘degenerative’ policy which produces major inequalities along sex, race, and ethnicity lines (Ingram and Schneider, 2005: 22-26). For example, Soss (2005: 294-95) describes a ‘two-tier’ social security system to help some and humiliate others (compare with Herd and Moynihan, 2018). Public policies have Table 4.1 Social construction and power Described positively Described negatively High power advantaged, treated positively in public contenders, treated negatively in public and receiving benefits publicly but negotiating benefits privately Low power dependents, treated positively in public deviants, treated negatively in public but unable to mobilize to negotiate and punished by policy benefits Source: adapted from Schneider and Ingram (1997).
~ 72 Understanding Public Policy failed to solve major problems - including inequality, poverty, crime, racism, sexism, and unequal access to effective healthcare and education - and policy failure contributes to the sense that the political process serves special interests at the expense of the gen- eral public (Schneider and Ingram, 1997: 4-7). Policy designs ‘are strongly implicated | in the current crisis of democracy’ (1997: 5-8), because they have failed, and they dis- courage many target populations (the ‘undeserving’, ‘deviant’, or ‘demons’) from public participation: These designs send messages, teach lessons, and allocate values that exacerbate injus- tice, trivialize citizenship, fail to solve problems, and undermine institutional cultures that might be more supportive of democratic designs. (1997: 192) Is Social Construction and Policy Design ‘Universal’ and Inevitable? SCPD began as a study of US politics, and there are few direct international comparisons. Still, we can see that US-style ‘degenerative’ politics is more or less apparent in other political systems. The UK contains comparable processes. Hunter and Nixon's (1999: 166) study of housing policy identifies the same ‘advantaged’ status for homeowners as in the USA. Media, court judges, and politicians express sympathy for owner-occupiers affected by a system over which they had minimal control, but describe disadvantaged social hous- ing tenants as feckless individuals. In contrast, in their study of poverty policies in two provinces in Canada, Mondou and Montpetit (2010) argue that the worst excesses of degenerative politics are associated with adversarial contexts. Consensual policy styles, associated with proportional electoral systems and multi-party politics, produce less incen- tive to reward advantaged and demonize deviant groups. Such applications help us reflect on the ways in which abstract concepts have ‘univer- sal’ relevance but very different results in different contexts. In the abstract, key SCPD processes are likely to be found anywhere: policymakers combine cognition and emotion to define highly salient problems and populations, their choices are reflected in policy design, and policy design sends signals to target populations, and only some popula- tions can mobilize to exploit or challenge their image and seek government rewards. Further, the tendency to process most other policies out of the public spotlight is a key feature of political systems (Chapter 9). However, different political systems and policymaking environments constrain and facilitate such behaviour, producing different results. Compared to the NPF and most other theories in this book, we may be relatively likely to find SCPD-style applications, in studies of other countries, which do not cite the foun- dational authors (Schneider and Ingram). For example, a large literature on the social construction of ‘problem’ families in the UK has direct parallels with SCPD and its depic- tion of degenerative US politics. Politicians have long blamed parents or an ‘underclass’ for family breakdown or dysfunction and its relationship to social problems such as school truancy, anti-social behaviour, crime, and low employability (Crossley, 2017; Cairney and St Denny, 2020: 188-94). This overlap of study, but not citation, partly reflects SCPD’s intellectual connection to ‘critical’ scholarship (Chapter 3) which is relatively diverse and does not require the same reference to a foundational text (compare with Chapter 11 on Kingdon). Bounded Rationality and the Psychology of Policymaking 73 CONCLUSION Comprehensive rationality is an ideal-type. The task is to identify its assumptions and consider the implications when these conditions are not met. Policy theories build on the concept of bounded rationality, which highlights the inability of organizations to separate facts from values; unclear and conflicting political objectives; a non-linear decision-making process; and an incomplete search for knowledge combined with limited resources, time, and cognitive abilities. From this starting point, we can explore what happens (descrip- tion) and what should happen (prescription). For example, policymakers ‘satisfice’ and use informational and cognitive shortcuts to make their task more manageable. While Simon uses this discussion to seek improvements to policymaking, Lindblom extends the analysis to a political context in which policymak- ers bargain with other actors and treat high levels of agreement in the political system as an indicator of good policy. Lindblom advocates this approach because it reduces the chances of governments making big mistakes that are relatively difficult to reverse, and ensures that they do not use resources — including political will ~ unwisely. The argument that incrementalism does and should happen produced a US-specific debate focused on unequal power and inertia. Yet key themes are universal. The use of incrementalist strategies to address the limits to comprehensive rationality is common to many political systems. Most political systems face some need for bargaining and com- promise, and to build on past policies. More generally, a focus.on comprehensive ration- ality helps us focus on the big questions of political science: if comprehensive rationality cannot be achieved, what happens and what should happen? Should we spread analytical resources in an attempt to cover most areas, or focus those resources on the issues most likely to receive policymaker attention? How do we identify the issues to which everyone . should pay most attention versus those we leave to the experts? Modern theories still focus on bounded rationality, but have taken forward two pro- foundly important insights. First, when policymakers respond to bounded rationality, it produces a combination of incremental and radical policy change. Second, all people - including policymakers and influencers - combine cognition and emotion to make deci- sions. Both points undermine the idea that we can get closer to the comprehensive ideal summed up in mythical discussions of ‘evidence-based policymaking’, or that policymaking is simply incremental. Incrementalism may seem appropriate to actors who want to be able to reverse mistakes more easily, establish ‘stable expectations in a complex and uncertain environment’, and address the spirit of compromise, particularly in political systems which have a formal separation of powers and ‘overlapping, conflicting and interacting institutions’ (Jones and Baumgartner, 2005: 119). Non-radical policy change may also be the norm if all policy actors must ignore almost all policy issues almost all of the time. Yet the desire by some for consensus-driven policy does not ensure that governments will act that way. Emotionally or ideologically driven governments may still make radical policy choices even if their ability to produce a consistent and well-researched plan is out of reach (Hill, 2005: 152). Radical change may follow a window of opportunity, dispropor- tionate attention to one issue at the expense of others, or international emulation and coercion to transfer policy, all of which suggest that bounded rationality does not necessar- ily cause policymaking stability, policy continuity, or incremental change.
74 Understanding Public Policy Further, the NPF suggests that, although people are relatively susceptible to stories that reinforce their beliefs, an effective narrative can mobilize policymakers to act to protect or challenge the status quo. More worryingly, the SCPD equates policy inertia with a combina- tion of emotional policymaking and profound inequalities of power. Lindblom’s image of pluralistic and consensus-driven incrementalism compares with Schneider and Ingram’s elitist and degenerative politics. If so, we can no longer fool ourselves that policymakers routinely produce good policymaking when dealing with bounded rationality. 5 Institutions and New Institutionalism Key themes of this chapter: o Institutions are formal and informal rules that influence political behaviour. ¢ Formal rules are usually written and visible, such as the ‘structures of govern- ment’ that vary across policymaking systems. ¢ Informal rules are unwritten, less visible, and profoundly important but difficult to detect. ¢ ‘New institutionalism’ is the study of ‘institutions’, but both terms are difficult to define. We know that institutions matter but_often struggle to define institutions. ' ¢ Instead, we focus on the different messages provided by key variants of insti- tutional studies: historical, rational choice, normative, constructivist, feminist, empirical, network. e Almost all approaches associate institutions with rules or practices, not specific organizations (a key exception is punctuated equilibrium theory, or PET, in Chapter 9). INTRODUCTION: INSTITUTIONS MATTER, BUT WHAT ARE INSTITUTIONS? ‘New institutionalism’ identifies the rules, norms, practices, and relationships that influ- ence patterns of behaviour in politics and policymaking. ‘Institution’ once described policymaking organizations such as legislatures, courts, and executives (Judge, 2005: 2). Now, it describes the formal and informal rules that guide action. Institutions are not the buildings or arenas within which people make policy. They are the rules of behaviour that influence how they make it. Formal rules of political systems include the US federal model and its constitution which sets out the rules governing the separation of powers between the executive, leg- islative, and judicial branches and guarantees a degree of sub-national policymaking autonomy. We may compare these rules with those of other political systems, such as the ‘Westminster model’ which has an executive, within the legislature, and less automatic sub-national autonomy. Or, a focus on particular formal rules may allow comparisons of policymaking ‘styles’. For example, Lijphart (1999) differentiates between the styles in ‘majoritarian’ systems with first-past-the-post electoral rules and ‘consensus’ democracies which use proportional representation.