Public Policy 2

This class will focus more on how ideas influence public policy. It seems most of you enjoyed the Cornel West speech which I am glad to see, and I think it is valuable as sort of an introduction to politics and specifically public policy, but now we will dive deeper into how ideas influence public policy.

The introduction to the book, Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, edited by Daniel Béland and Robert H. Cox provide arguments why ideas are important in understanding how political institutions work, and their influence in social science (economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc.). They also feature chapters by several theorists who focus on ideas in public policy, like Jal Mehta, Vivien Schmidt, Mark Blyth, and others. 

Ideas are important because they determine how we see and interpret the world. Ideas themselves do not come out of nowhere but emerge from the dominant culture of a society, or in some cases from alternative cultures. Most researchers used to think they were able to get objective truth using statistical methods. Now, most researchers have realized that statistics are just one means of obtaining knowledge, and that statistical data still needs to be interpreted and put into context. The dominant view of public policy was policies are crafted by impartial bureaucrats in their various fields and are only concerned with the technical aspects of policy. It is fairly obvious to see however, that bureaucrats are not totally neutral and impartial, but like everyone else are influenced by their own backgrounds and social environments. 

As it relates to the study of public policy, communication helps determine the range of choices that people have for policy. As they say:

Types of ideas commonly discussed in the social science literature on politics include “policy prescriptions, norms, principled beliefs, cause-effect beliefs, ideologies, shared belief systems, and broad worldviews. They can thus range from quite specific, concrete, programmatic ideas (for example, abolition of nuclear weapons) to broader, more general ideas” (Tannenwald 2005, 14) central to ideologies such as communism and liberalism (p. 6).

Communism and liberalism are examples of political ideologies that also provide a way of viewing the world. In turn, leading to different policy choices and preferences. As these are both fairly old political ideologies, a lot of writers have written stuff from these points of view on most issues you can think of.

Ideas are the foundation of all social institutions, since all institutions are human constructs, whether it be politics, the economy, or other social institutions:

From this perspective, ideas are the foundation of institutions. As ideas give rise to people’s actions and as those actions form routines, the results are social institutions. The ideas then are enshrined in the institutions. As people interact with institutions, the founding ideas are reproduced. Through repeated interaction with institutions, people are confronted again and again with the founding ideas. This confrontation can serve to reinforce and reproduce these ideas. To borrow a notion from David Easton (1953), institutions engage in the “authoritative allocation of values.” Consequently, institutions do more than establish routines that rational individuals must negotiate; they also nurture people’s identities, helping them to construct their fundamental values, which, in turn, shapes their beliefs and interests (p.9).

In this sense, there is a historical argument here: the past dictates the present. Institutions establish routines that people follow, or act out, whether it be government, business, the arts and religion, etc., but these are also more than just routines as they also shape identity, or how people see themselves. However, ideas can also be used to change institutions as well, like during the New Deal in the 1930s, and the civil rights movement in the 1950s-60s, sometimes ideas can be used for radical change like in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Since the 1980s, neoliberal ideas on the economy and public policy, have been the dominant ideas in the US and elsewhere. Neoliberalism is essentially a return to the ideas of the free market that dominated public policy up until the 1930s. The 1930-1980s then represented a different era in policy where, although still capitalist, there was an attempt to regulate and control the market through public policy, this is what created the modern middle class. 

It is a curious definition of free market, however, although undoubtedly taxes and regulations on business and finance have decreased. The reality is the economic sector is highly dependent on the state to provide bailouts, as we saw in 2008, and again in 2020 (or for that matter in the 1930s) and since 2008 the economy has been on what I like to call "life support" since it is dependent on extremely low interest rates on borrowing (near zero levels) and injections of money into the financial system from the Federal Reserve totaling 9 trillion dollars. In other words the economy is artificially being kept alive by the government through the Federal Reserve, and has been since 2008. Of course, most of the public is unaware of this as they are constantly being distracted by whatever superficial nonsense is put forward in the media, and what passes for political discourse in this country.

Ideas can support and undermine institutions, and can lead to many conflicting interpretations, even of basic ideas like liberty and equality. They go on to say:

Although ideas are embedded in institutions, those ideas might not always be coherent. Numerous policy ideas lend themselves to many, sometimes conflicting, interpretations. Equality, for example, can be interpreted by some as requiring formal or procedural equality, while others might understand equality to apply in a material sense. This distinction is at the center of the difference between social democratic and neoliberal ideas about the purpose of welfare assistance. Ambiguity and incoherence in ideas opens space for politics as people seek to make policy decisions reflect their preferred interpretation. 

Ideas, therefore, afford power to actors, and when the ideas are embedded in institutions, they also institutionalize, even legitimize, power differentials. Sometimes power differentials legitimize the oppression of specific populations, as was the case in the South of the United States during segregation. Studying institutionally embedded ideas can help explain the reproduction of inequalities and asymmetrical power relations. Because these institutionalized ideas participate in the definition and the reproduction of group boundaries and inequalities, the study of these ideas can directly contribute to our under- standing of power and domination. As suggested above, this is a major issue that students of gender and race have long addressed (Fraser 1989; Jenson 1989; Lieberman 2002; Orloff and Palier 2009). The politics of ideas can intersect with institutional struggles that participate in the making and the unmaking of political and social inequalities, which does not mean that ideas simply reflect such inequalities (pp. 9-10).

As they explain, many studies on ideas in politics have focused on racial ideologies that supported slavery and segregation. For example, white supremacist ideas are expressed in political institutions in the US, literally built into how these institutions work, ranging from voting to the legal system, etc.

Another term for political communication, or debate, is discourse. One of the contributors to this book who focuses on discourse is Vivien Schmidt:

 Ideas provide elegant linkages between institutions and political processes. In chapter 2, Vivien Schmidt outlines how ideas are the currency for discursive political processes. Discourse begins among people who hold different opinions and interpretations and who learn and refine their ideas as they share them with others. Viewing politics as a discursive process means that it is not a mechanical process whereby actors formulate a goal, devise a strategy to achieve the goal, and struggle with others as they employ their strategy. Rather, drawing on existing cultural and ideological symbols, actors develop a set of ideas and share them with others, who may challenge these ideas and provide some alternatives. The discursive interactions prompt them to refine, reframe, and reinterpret these ideas. Not only is this iterative and sometimes contentious discourse in play between actors, but it also informs the evolution of political institutions. The ideas upon which institutions are formed are also subject to discursive revision as actors reinterpret and debate the meanings of the ideas upon which existing institutions are constructed. The ideas that define institutions, as well as the ideas shared by political actors, are in flux, often at odds, and malleable (p. 10).

Schmidt is a theorist who we will return to. She argues that most research on political institutions lack this kind of focus on discourse. For example, challenging white supremacist ideas, a theme that West explores as well. The idea being that as African Americans thinkers, activists, artists, and athletes from DuBois, King, X, West, Coltrane, Baldwin, Ali, and many more forced the dominant white majority to confront their own ideas, and the vast difference liberal ideals ("all men are created equal" as it says in the Declaration of Independence) and actual reality, they caused a reinterpretation of these ideas that since the 1960s, while far from perfect, has at least forced liberals to somewhat close the gap between their values and reality.

It is important not to exaggerate the changes since the 1960s. There are many middle-class African Americans and other non-white groups, with some even ascending into positions of power in politics, the corporate world, and media/arts/entertainment. However, the wealth disparity between blacks and whites is still great and the wealth disparity between the poorest blacks and richest blacks is greater than the disparity between the poorest whites and richest whites. Rather than continue implementing policies that would improve the material conditions of black and brown people, politics has increasingly moved into the symbolic realm, for example the recent issue over tearing down Confederate statues. My take on this is tear them down, but let's not pretend this is actually doing something to improve people's lives, but symbolic issues like this increasingly dominant politics which has been incapable for decades now of doing things to improve the material living standards for most people in this country.

The Biden administration has already backed off from its promise to increase the minimum wage. When you look at who would benefit the most from increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, in other words what is the largest segment of the workforce who makes less than $15 it is women, specifically women of color. Also, to be clear, $15 an hour over a 40 hour work week comes out to just slightly more than $30,000 a year which is not enough to live in not only NYC but most American cities, so even if they were to pass this it would be inadequate, the fact that they cannot even pass this should tell you something. According to the economist Richard Wolff if the minimum wage had kept pace with the growth of productivity in the economy (and remember it is the efforts of workers who create productivity/value/wealth) then the minimum wage would be $24 an hour. This supports the Marxist argument that capitalists cannot make profits without paying the worker less than what they produce. Of course, over this same period corporate and financial profits have skyrocketed to unprecedented heights while wages have been mostly stagnant since the late 1970s!

Back to Béland and Cox. Ideas help understand changes, even radical changes, not just in a mechanical sense, but in relation to new ways of thinking:

Besides the issue of incremental change discussed in Wincott’s chapter 7, a key challenge for many approaches to the study of politics, and especially of public policy, is to account for radical, path-departing change (Weyland 2008). For institutional as well as rationalist explanations of politics, path-dependent change is assumed to be the norm, while radical change often is treated as exogenous. Radical change happens when external forces disrupt the institutional stability and the balance of interests that keep the political system in a state of equilibrium. It is a reaction to changing, objective circumstances (Pierson 2000; for a critical discussion, see Streeck and Thelen 2005). By contrast, the ideational approach we outline in this book problematizes radical change as a response to new perceptions and ways of thinking. It might be reactive to changing circumstances, but it often is a proactive effort by political actors to reexamine their surroundings, reconsider their positions, and develop fresh new approaches (p.11).

Just as important, however, is understanding how dominant ideas can prevent changes as well.

Part of the challenge of studying public policy is to understand political discourse, or debate, and how discourse interacts with economic forces. For example, how the Occupy Wall St. movement changed the discourse over how we talk about inequality, and popularizing terms like the 1% and the 99%. 

This also played a role in the Sanders campaign of 2016. The approach of this book gives a high value to debate, and thus choices (agency) made by political actors:

This focus on change identifies ideational perspectives as agency-centered. What things change and how they change are all the result of what people choose to do in response to the world in which they find themselves. To be sure, things happen in the world, but politics is about how people interact with the world and with one another. There is no politics without human agency. The nature of change, whether it is slow or rapid, radical or incremental, is largely the result of choices people make. The unique claim of ideational scholars is that these choices are shaped by the ideas people hold and debate with others. These ideas, in turn, are based on interpretations people have of the world and of those around them. There is a material reality, but it lends itself to many interpretations that open endless options for human agency. For this reason, the outcomes of any process of change are contingent. They are not predetermined and cannot be predicted (p.12).

In reality, choices are limited by external forces, and it is unrealistic to assume political debate is totally free and unstructured, in other words political actors have to be aware of the objective conditions around them, that shape who they are as well.

For the next class, I want to focus on another of the interviews I posted on Blackboard. This time it will be the debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault.

Next class, we will talk more about the Foucault/Chomsky debate, and how ideas like truth and justice impact debates on public policy. The next assignment should be on this interview, similar to how you did the Cornel West interview. Choose a quote from the interview, write out the quote, what it means, and why you chose it.