Orphan Implementations of Public Policy for Conflict-Oriented Issues

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Shulamith Gertel Groome
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Field Level ◽  
High Level

This paper aims to broaden our understanding of public policy characterized by issues of non-consensus. The idea of flexible, independent administrative decision-making for a conflict-oriented policy-type is addressed in terms of chronological constructions of policy process. Distributions of limited resources are a source of public contention likely to draw ambiguous high-level policy decisions that lack practical administrative directives. Conflicting institutional, professional and stakeholder influences, at various levels of policy processes, illuminate circumstances fostering implementations incongruent with politically motivated macro-declarations. Yet, this does not necessarily represent failed policy. A reevaluation of administrative systems, by critical deconstruction of the dominant top-down discourse, provides a frame of reference for valid divergent implementations. A conceptual progression from field-level interpretation and adaptation of macro policy, initiatory orphan implementations emerge as policy itself. This revised bottom-up modality of the policy process implies a working balance of combined outputs, providing equitable outcome to serve largescale public interest.

Japan's Top-Down Policy Process to Dispatch the SDF to Iraq

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOMOHITO SHINODA
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
National Security ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up

In July 2003, Prime Minister Koizumi successfully passed the legislation to dispatch ground SDF units to Iraq in the Diet. His top-down policy process was completely different from Japan's traditional bottom-up system, which Aurelia George Mulgan calls the ‘Un-Westminster System’ in which the bureaucrats in the ministries play a central role with the LDP being the only political power to negotiate with them. Mulgan also argues that the system has not changed despite recent institutional changes. On the contrary, this paper illustrates how Koizumi and his Cabinet took advantage of the strengthened authority of the Cabinet Secretariat to initiate policies, and successfully pushed the controversial national security legislation through LDP decision-making organs and the Diet by gaining support first from the coalition partners, presenting a new style of Westminster system.

Prison Crowding and the Evolution of Public Policy

1985 ◽  
Vol 478 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOAN MULLEN
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Budget Constraints ◽  
The Public ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
Eighth Amendment ◽  
The Future ◽  
American Prison

While crowding has been a persistent feature of the American prison since its invention in the nineteenth century, the last decade of crisis has brought more outspoken media investigations of prison conditions, higher levels of political and managerial turmoil, and a judiciary increasingly willing to bring the conditions of confinement under the scope of Eighth Amendment review. With the added incentive of severe budget constraints, liberals and conservatives alike now question whether this is any way to do business. Although crowding cannot be defined by quantitative measures alone, many institutions have far exceeded their limits of density according to minimum standards promulgated by the corrections profession. Some fall far below any reasonable standard of human decency. The results are costly, dangerous, and offensive to the public interest. Breaking the cycle of recurrent crisis requires considered efforts to address the decentralized, discretionary nature of sentence decision making and to link sentencing policies to the resources available to the corrections function. The demand to match policy with resources is simply a call for more rational policymaking. To ask for less is to allow the future of corrections to resemble its troubled past.

Managing records and archives in a Hong Kong school: a case study

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric C.K. Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Record Management ◽  
Records Management ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type

Purpose This study aims to explore the principles and practices for managing records with the lens of functional analysis and knowledge management by using a case study that focuses on the experience of implementing records management at a public high school in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach A single case study is chosen as the research method for this paper. A series of qualitative interviews and documentary analysis were used to collect and triangulate the qualitative data. Findings The results show that the case school adopted a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach to record management, facilitate decision-making and manage knowledge. The school adopted the taxonomy provided by the quality assurance framework as the functional classification in a digital archive in the records management system. Practical implications This study provides a set of taxonomy and a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach to schools for ensuring that accurate information of all school activities is kept and can facilitate an effective and evidence-based, decision-making process. Social implications Identifying taxonomy and management practices for effective documentation in public schools can support planning, assist with organising the continuity of improvement plans and increase reporting and accountability to society. Originality/value This study offers a taxonomy and management approach to the literature of records management and the practices for promoting and improving records management in school.

scholarly journals Text as Discourse: The Chinese in Canada in Historiographical Perspective

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha J Scot
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
British Columbia ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Representations ◽  
Denise Chong ◽  
Compare And Contrast

As a historiographical analysis, this essay seeks to understand the idea of historical layering through the topic of Chinese immigration to Canada. It considers the following four works: In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia (1974) by James Morton, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Toward Orientals in British Columbia (1978) by W Peter Ward, From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada (1982) by Harry Con et al., and The Concubine's Children (1994) by Denise Chong. It does so in an effort to compare and contrast their approaches with regard to consensus and specialist histories, top-down and bottom-up approaches, as well as passive and active historical representations.

Regulatory Rationales Beyond the Economic: In Search of the Public Interest

2010 ◽  
pp. 38-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Feintuck
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Political Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Market Driven ◽  
Market Economics

This article contends that regulation in certain fields should incorporate and give emphasis to values beyond those of market economics. It is argued here that the frame of reference of the market is too narrow to encompass properly a range of social and political values which are established in liberal democracies and can be seen as constitutional in nature. Examples from fields such as environmental regulation and regulation of the media are used here to illustrate a range of non-economic values which have been, are, or should be reflected in regulatory theory and practice as a means of recognising and reflecting principles related to social justice. Such principles extend beyond, and may be antithetical to the practices, values, and outcomes of market-driven decision-making.

Top Down or Bottom Up? A Study of Grassroots NGOs’ Approach

2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biswambhar Panda
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Community Participation ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Advocacy Activity ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Government Authority

NGOs deploy multiple approaches to achieve their objectives. These may broadly be classified as bottom up and top down. While a bottom-up approach emphasises local decision making, community participation and grassroots mobilisation/movements, the top-down approach focuses on lobbying and bargaining with the decision-making authorities such as government agencies, building up of pressures through various campaign mechanisms, advocacy activities, etc. This article draws insights from the literature and begins with a discussion on approaches undertaken by grassroots NGOs to meet their objectives. At the outset, the article ponders over a set of questions such as whether grassroots NGOs essentially follow a bottom-up approach. If so, why? Do they also intend to establish rapport with the state officials and thereby have say in the decision-making process? If so, how do they pursue it? This article, however, operationalises the bottom-up approach in terms of an array of indicators such as awareness building efforts of NGOs, people's participation in different phases of projects, and people's involvement in creating people's institutions. Similarly, it defines top-down approach on the basis of indicators such as NGOs’ participation in advocacy activity, obtaining support from government authority and obtaining favourable court verdicts. Despite the rhetoric, this article conclusively finds that no grassroots NGO practices either a bottom-up or top-down approach exclusively.

Modelling an ongoing design process utilizing top-down and bottom-up design strategies

2008 ◽  
Vol 223 (5) ◽  
pp. 547-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Fathianathan ◽  
J H Panchal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Design Process ◽  
New Products ◽  
Dynamic Decision Making ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Computational Environment ◽  
Successful Design ◽  
Product Design Process

The product design process plays a central role in ensuring that new products are realized with improved quality, in a short lead-time and with costs kept to a minimum. It is identified that making decisions dynamically on how the design process should proceed is not trivial. A computational environment that aids dynamic decision making on the design process would be useful in ensuring successful design of new products. A key component of analysing and making decisions on the progression of the design process is a model that captures an ongoing design process. In this paper, an approach to modelling an ongoing design process is proposed based on the use of design nodes. The approach allows an ongoing design process to be modelled that facilitates dynamic decision making on how the design process should progress and accounts for the state of the design problem. The approach allows top-down and bottom-up design strategies to be modelled.

scholarly journals “Doing Good” Scholarship: Considerations for Building Positive Social Change Through the Emerging Field of Public Interest Communications

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Edward Downes
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Public Policy Process ◽  
Interdisciplinary Scholarship ◽  
Multiple Actors ◽  
Relative Concept

Recognizing the birth and potential of the emerging field of public interest communications (PIC), and building on Fessmann’s work summarizing the field’s foci presented elsewhere in this journal, this article offers 10 considerations for PIC’s proponents to think about as the field’s body of knowledge begins to grow. These considerations suggest we consider that: doing good is a relative concept; interdisciplinary scholarship has great value; understanding practitioners’ lives in the field will enhance PIC scholarship; organizing PIC scholars will empower them; social media empower advocacy; a humanistic philosophy should drive the field’s research and teaching; multiple actors in the public policy process influence PIC; and being a do-gooder might not be such a bad thing.

scholarly journals Subjective Importance of a Common Feature Decides Its Consideration in Multi-attribute Decision-making

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziyi Wang ◽  
Guibing He
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Multi Attribute Decision Making ◽  
The Common ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Subjective Importance

One of the interesting research questions in multi-attribute decision-making is what affects the consideration of shared information (i.e., common features) between two alternatives. Previous studies have suggested two approaches (bottom-up and top-down) in finding what characteristics of common features affect their consideration. Two bottom-up factors (salience and interdependence) were found, but no top-down factors were discovered. In the current study, we followed the top-down approach and investigated how subjective importance (SI) of a common feature affects its consideration. In two studies, we consistently found that, on both the general and individual level, the level of consideration increased with the SI of the common feature. This result provided a new explanation for the effect of common feature consideration and its individual difference; it also provided insights in explaining the underlying process of multi-attribute decision making.

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