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Public Policy: Back to the Beginnings | |||||||||||||||||
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In the beginning of the semester, we talked about politics as: the authoritative allocation of values for a society
that authoritative allocation takes place through the political system and the end product (ie., the actual values allocated) is public policy
Each of the three theoretical approaches say different things about how and what is allocated Remember redemption vs. convenience? What do you think each of the three theories would say about what should be allocated and how it should be allocated?
Let's look at some basic evidence to see if we can make a conclusion about which of the three theoretical frameworks best describes public policymaking in the us!
Types of Domestic Policy:
Distributive grants a specific good or service to a specific subset of the population AFDC, school loans capitalization (policies designed to increase productive)
Redistributive rearranging one or more of the economic or social rewards in society taxes
Regulatory policies designed to prescribe how people or institutions should behave speed limits toxic waste disposal regulations competitive regulatory (policies designed to encourage or protect competition--both within the uS and between the US and other countries
Ethical/ Moral policies which attempt to regulate behavior based upon a specific set of moral premises abortion prostitution drugs
Public Policy As Tradeoffs It is often argued that all public policies choices are really a choice or tradeoff between at least two of four basic values.
These values are: equity efficiency liberty security
equity can be equity defined in terms related to recipients, process, or items
equality of essence vs. equality of treatment vs. equality of results
Are there times when people can be treated inequitably? Perhaps to achieve a particular purpose? (For example: are scholarships a form of inequitable item?)
efficiency government action vs. the mechanism of markets
liberty is the only restriction on individual liberty harm to others? freedom vs. responsibility liberty as negative---freedom from
Security types of security physical, economic, psychological
The "Big" Tradeoffs
liberty vs. security
liberty vs. equity
security vs. efficiency
equity vs. efficiency
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