Who is in charge here? Legislators, bureaucrats and the policy making process

Scholars in comparative politics often assume that political parties are the primary instruments for translating citizens’ preferences into specific policy outcomes. However, the crucial but often forgotten link between preferences, parties, and outcomes is the bureaucracy. Are bureaucrats able to affect policy outside of parties’ control? And, if so, how does this bureaucratic policy drift differ across institutional contexts? I argue that institutions that regulate the nomination process by which parties in government select bureaucrats (meritocratic versus partisan recruitment) determine the levels of bureaucratic influence on the policy making process, specifically in terms of policy change. I test my theoretical argument using two large cross-national datasets on budget allocations and policy stability. I find that bureaucratic professionalism partially explains changes in allocation to the “ideological” budgetary categories and is positively correlated with policy stability around the world.

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Integrating Ideas into Policy-Making Analysis

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/001041402237506 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 35 (9) ◽

pp. 1054-1076 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

Erik Bleich

Keyword(s):

Policy Development ◽

Policy Making ◽

Vital Role ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Policy Frames ◽

Policy Choices ◽

History Of ◽

The Impact ◽

History Of Race ◽

Cross National

This article argues that systematically integrating ideas into policy-making analysis greatly enhances our understanding of policy outcomes. Variables emphasized by other schools of thought—such as power, interests, institutions, and problems—often provide an inadequate explanation of policy choices. To demonstrate the contribution of ideas to policy-making analysis, this article examines the impact of policy frames, showing how they help actors define their interests, generate interpretations of pressing problems, and constrain actions. Retracing the history of race policy development in Britain and France reveals that each country's frames influenced domestic policy outcomes and thus played a vital role in explaining cross-national race policy differences.

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3. The European Policy Process in Comparative Perspective

10.1093/hepl/9780199689675.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Alasdair R. Young

Keyword(s):

Comparative Politics ◽

Policy Process ◽

Policy Making ◽

Policy Formation ◽

Comparative Perspective ◽

Legislative Politics ◽

Policy Cycle ◽

Policy Feedback ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

The Eu

This chapter examines the European Union’s policy-making process with a comparative perspective. It outlines the stages of the policy-making process (agenda-setting, policy formation, decision-making, implementation, and policy feedback) and considers the prevailing approaches to analysing each of these stages. It also shows how these approaches apply to studying policy-making in the EU. Themes addressed in this chapter include policy-making and the policy cycle, the players in the policy process, executive politics, legislative politics, and judicial politics. The chapter argues that theories rooted in comparative politics and international relations can help elucidate the different phases of the EU’s policy process. It concludes by explaining why policy-making varies across issue areas within the EU.

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Bureaucracy, Political Parties, and Political Development

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2009954 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 25 (4) ◽

pp. 600-607

Author(s):

Gerald A. Heeger

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Political Development ◽

Policy Making ◽

Political Systems ◽

Policy Making Process

The growing role of governmental bureaucracy has been one of the most noted and discussed characteristics of developing political systems. The phenomenon of bureaucratic intervention in politics, already discernible in the 1950's in many of these states, has, so it seems, become the rule rather than the exception in the years that have followed. Despite the prevalence of the politicized bureaucracy, however, and the amount of discussion engendered by the phenomenon, die sources of bureaucratic growth and dominance in the developing states remain obscure. Most analysts emphasize the superior organization of the bureaucracy and argue that this organization, reinforced by die transfer of techniques from abroad and uncontested because of weak indigenous political institutions, provides much of the explanation for the aggrandizement of the bureaucracy in die policy-making process.

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Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2010534 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 479-512 ◽

Cited By ~ 211

Author(s):

Thomas Risse-Kappen

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Public Opinion ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Policy Making ◽

Public Attitudes ◽

The United States ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Liberal Democracies ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

The Impact

The paper discusses the role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, public opinion matters. However, the impact of public opinion is determined not so much by the specific issues involved or by the particular pattern of public attitudes as by the domestic structure and the coalition-building processes among the elites in the respective country. The paper analyzes the public impact on the foreign policy-making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. Under the same international conditions and despite similar patterns of public attitudes, variances in foreign policy outcomes nevertheless occur; these have to be explained by differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures. Thus, the four countries responded differently to Soviet policies during the 1980s despite more or less comparable trends in mass public opinion.

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Forging an External EU Migration Policy: From Externalisation of Border Management to a Comprehensive Policy?

European Journal of Migration and Law ◽

10.1163/15718166-00002037 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 283-299 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Georgia Papagianni

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Policy Making ◽

Migration Policy ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Global Approach ◽

New Developments ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

External Dimension ◽

External Migration

Abstract This article presents a critical analysis of the new developments in the formation of an external dimension of EU migration policy. It seeks to offer comprehensive answers to why, how and who build(s) external migration policy. The author analyses the current institutional framework emphasising, first, the changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, second, the variety of actors involved and the relations between them, and third, the innovative character of certain recent instruments. Next, the comprehensive and balanced character of the new policy is questioned. Its fundamental principles and objectives, as those are described in particular in the new Global Approach on Migration and Mobility, the so-called GAMM, are presented and examined in depth. Readmission agreements, visa facilitation agreements and mobility partnerships are used as case studies that provide a thorough review of the policy-making process and an assessment of the respective policy outcomes.

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The Dynamics of Islamic Political Parties Amid Indonesian Multicultural Society

POLITEA ◽

10.21043/politea.v3i1.7288 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 35

Author(s):

Umi Qodarsasi ◽

Abdul Ghofur

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Political Party ◽

Policy Making ◽

Political System ◽

Multicultural Society ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

Political Recruitment ◽

Islamic Politics ◽

Important Position ◽

Islamic Political Parties

<p class="06IsiAbstrak">Islam is not limited to religion that only talks about God. Islam has a comprehensive concept in all aspects of life, one of the aspect is politics (siyasa) that discusses the concept of the state, the exercise of power, who deserves to exercise power, how much power they can have, and the characteristics and objectives of Islamic politics itself. Political party is a superstructure in a political system that carries out several strategic functions, including political socialization, political recruitment, political articulation and aggregation of interests. Political party also has an important position in the policy making process. This paper aims to analyze how the dynamics of Islamic politics in Indonesia in the middle of multicultural society by carrying out its function as an articulator and aggregator of interests.</p>

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Bridging Research, Public Debates, and Policies on Migration and Integration

Bridging the Gaps ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198834557.003.0015 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 241-254

Author(s):

Joakim Palme ◽

Martin Ruhs ◽

Kristof Tamas

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Framework ◽

Case Studies ◽

Policy Making ◽

Public Policies ◽

Specific Policy ◽

Public Debates ◽

Institutional Contexts ◽

The Media ◽

And Migration ◽

Theoretical Analyses

Based on the conceptual framework of the three-way relationships between research, public debates, and policy-making, this chapter identifies key insights and lessons that can be learnt from the diversity of national and international experiences discussed in the previous chapters. The chapter draws on the theoretical analyses and case studies to make a number of recommendations for researchers, policy practitioners, and other participants in public debates to help strengthen the links between them. We argue that when linking research to public debates and policy-making on integration and migration, actors need to recognize different national and institutional contexts in order to be effective. Engaging the media carefully and strategically is critical for success. Where research is conducted in response to specific policy questions, it is critical for the credibility and impact of the research that it remains independent. When the different actors contributing to research, public debates, and policy-making understand and appreciate each other’s constraints, such common understandings can pave the way for improved policy-making processes and better public policies that deal more effectively with the real challenges of migration and integration.

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Institutional Development through Policy-Making: A Case Study of the Brazilian Central Bank

World Politics ◽

10.1017/s0043887109000161 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 61 (3) ◽

pp. 487-515 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Matthew M. Taylor

Keyword(s):

Central Bank ◽

Policy Making ◽

Institutional Development ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Policy Choices ◽

Institutional Determinants ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

Over Time

A number of contemporary studies rightly emphasize the notion that policy outcomes result from institutional determinants. But as a growing literature on institutional development notes, these institutions are themselves impermanent. Sometimes, in crisis moments, institutions are replaced wholesale. More frequently, institutions evolve gradually over time. using the Brazilian Central Bank as a case study, this article illustrates that the policy-making process itself can be a central driver of gradual institutional development, with institutions evolving through the accumulation of policy choices made over many years and under different policymakers in response to contemporaneous events and unforeseeable economic and political challenges.

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6. How Policies Are Made

The European Union: How does it work? ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780199685370.003.0006 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Fiona Hayes-Renshaw

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

European Union ◽

Policy Making ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Eu Legislation ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

Legislative Procedure ◽

Ordinary Legislative Procedure

This chapter examines how European Union policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, under which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the Treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. EU policy-making is open to criticism on grounds of democracy, transparency, and efficiency, but it continues to deliver an impressive amount and array of policy outcomes. The chapter considers the basic rules and principal actors involved in EU policy-making and how the policy-making process works in practice. It also asks whether the EU policy-making process is democratic, transparent, and efficient before concluding with an assessment of the theory and practice underlying the process.

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6. How Policies Are Made

The European Union: How does it work? ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198807490.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 123-145

Author(s):

Daniel Kenealy ◽

Fiona Hayes-Renshaw

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

European Union ◽

Policy Making ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Eu Legislation ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

Legislative Procedure ◽

Ordinary Legislative Procedure

This chapter examines how European Union policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, under which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the Treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. EU policy-making is open to criticism on grounds of democracy, transparency, and efficiency, but it continues to deliver an impressive amount and array of policy outcomes. The chapter considers the basic rules and principal actors involved in EU policy-making and how the policy-making process works in practice. It also asks whether the EU policy-making process is democratic, transparent, and efficient, before concluding with an assessment of the theory and practice underlying the process.

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