Public Policy: A science and/or a Field?

Rouhani, Omid (2023): Public Policy: A science and/or a Field?

Abstract

“The Public Policy Theory Primer” book, by Ken Smith and Chris Larimer, investigates public policy theories and examines a key question: Does this scientific field really exists? The book's answer is yes, but in a plural format. The book’s conclusion is that public policy is more art/craft rather than science, at least not yet. Overall, the book is informative, especially for a person with limited knowledge regarding fundamental public policy theories.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Public Policy; Political Science; Policy Analysis; Policy Process
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H0 - General; H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government; H - Public Economics > H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents; H - Public Economics > H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents > H30 - General; H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations > H75 - State and Local Government: Health ; Education ; Welfare ; Public Pensions

References

Bardach, Eugene. 1977. The Implementation Game: What Happens After a Bill Becomes Law. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Beheshtian, A., Geddes, R.R., Rouhani, O.M., Kockelman, K.M., Ockenfels, A., Cramton, P. and Do, W., 2020. Bringing the efficiency of electricity market mechanisms to multimodal mobility across congested transportation systems. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 131, pp.58-69.

Celik, A. and Versavas, F., 2007. Evaluation of the PATRIOT Act: Section 215. NATO SECURITY THROUGH SCIENCE SERIES E HUMAN AND SOCIETAL DYNAMICS, 22, p.221.

Coleman, J.S. and Fararo, T.J., 1992. Rational choice theory. Nueva York: Sage.

Crick, B., 1962. In defence of politics. A&C Black.

Daher, N., Yasmin, F., Wang, M.R., Moradi, E. and Rouhani, O., 2018. Perceptions, preferences, and behavior regarding energy and environmental costs: the case of Montreal transport users. Sustainability, 10(2), p.514.

Davis, Otto A., M. A. H. Dempster, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1966. A Theory of the Budgetary Process. American Political Science Review 60: 529–547.

Derthick, Martha. 1972. New Towns In-Town: Why a Federal Program Failed. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.

Do, W., Rouhani, O.M., Geddes, R.R. and Beheshtian, A., 2020. A comprehensive welfare impact analysis for road expansion projects: A case study. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 8(3), pp.1053-1061.

Do, W., Rouhani, O.M., Geddes, R.R. and Beheshtian, A., 2021. Social impact analysis of various road capacity expansion options: a case of managed highway lanes. Journal of transportation engineering, Part A: Systems, 147(7), p.04021033.

Doerrenberg, P. and Peichl, A., 2014. The impact of redistributive policies on inequality in OECD countries. Applied Economics, 46(17), pp.2066-2086.

Dryzek, J., 1989. Policy Sciences of Democracy. Polity 22: 97–118.

Easton, D. 1953. The Political System. New York: Knopf

Edelman, M. 1990. Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Elmhirst, R., 1999. Space, identity politics and resource control in Indonesia's transmigration programme. Political geography, 18(7), pp. 813-835.

Erickson, P., Klein, J.L., Daston, L., Lemov, R., Sturm, T. and Gordin, M.D., 2013. How reason almost lost its mind: The strange career of Cold War rationality. University of Chicago Press.

Figueroa, R. and Verma, R., 2023. Constituent-driven health policy informed by policy advocacy literature. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 13(5), pp.338-342.

Fuguitt, D., Fuguitt, D. J., & Wilcox, S. J. (1999). Cost-benefit analysis for public sector decision makers. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Gigerenzer, Gerd, and Reinhard Selton. 2002. Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Goggin, Malcolm, Ann O’M. Bowman, James Lester, and Laurence O’Toole Jr. 1990. Implementation Theory and Practice: Towards a Third Generation. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown.

Goodin, R. E., Moran, M., & Rein, M. 2006. The Oxford handbook of public policy (Vol. 6). Oxford Handbooks of Political.

Helco, Hugh. 1978. Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment. In The New American Political System, ed. Anthony King, 87–124. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute

Hibbing, J. and Theiss-Morse, E. (2002) Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Belief About How Government Should Work. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Hirschman, D. and Berman, E.P., 2014. Do economists make policies? On the political effects of economics. Socio-economic review, 12(4), pp.779-811.

Howell-Moroney, Michael. 2008. The Tiebout Hypothesis 50 Years Later: Lessons and Lingering Challenges for Metropolitan Governance in the 21st Century. Public Administration Review January/February: 97–109.

Ingram, Helen M., and Anne L. Schneider. 2005a. Deserving and Entitled: Social Constructions and Target Populations. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Jann, W. and Wegrich, K., 2007. Theories of the policy cycle. Handbook of public policy analysis: Theory, politics, and methods, 125, pp.43-62.

Jochim, A.E. and May, P.J., 2010. Beyond subsystems: Policy regimes and governance. Policy Studies Journal, 38(2), pp.303-327.

Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Jones, Charles O. 1970. An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Kingdon, John W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown.

Kuran, T. 1995. Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lasswell, H. D. 1968. The policy sciences. Stanford University Press.

Lasswell, H., & Lerner, D. 1951. The policy orientation. Communication Researchers and Policy–Making.

Lewis, C.W. and Hildreth, W.B., 2011. Budgeting: Politics and power. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lindbolm, C.E. 1959 The Science of Muddling Through. Public Administration Review 19: 79–88.

Lowi, T.J. 1972 Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice. Public Administration Review 33 (July–August): 298–310.

Lyons, W. E., David Lowery, and Ruth Hoogland DeHoog. 1992. The Politics of Dissatisfaction: Citizens, Services, and Urban Institutions. New York: M. E. Sharpe

Madani, K., Rouhani, O.M., Mirchi, A. and Gholizadeh, S., 2014. A negotiation support system for resolving an international trans-boundary natural resource conflict. Environmental modelling & software, 51, pp.240-249.

Mazmanian, Daniel, and Paul Sabatier. 1983. Implementation and Public Policy. Glendale, IL: Scott, Foresman.

McBeth, M.K., Shanahan, E.A., Hathaway, P.L., Tigert, L.E. and Sampson, L.J., 2010. Buffalo tales: interest group policy stories in Greater Yellowstone. Policy Sciences, 43(4), pp.391-409.

McDermott, R. 2004. The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific Advances for Political Science. Perspectives on Politics 2: 691–706.

Mirchi, A., Hadian, S., Madani, K., Rouhani, O.M. and Rouhani, A.M., 2012. World energy balance outlook and OPEC production capacity: implications for global oil security. Energies, 5(8), pp.2626-2651.

Mishchuk, H., Samoliuk, N. and Bilan, Y., 2019. Measuring social justice in the light of effectiveness of public distributive policy. Administratie si Management Public.

Newell, Allen, and Herbert A. Simon. 1972. Human Problem Solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Theory of Collective Action, Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997. American Political Science Review 92(1): 1–22

Pressman, Jeffrey, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1973. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Quackenbush, S., 2004. The rationality of rational choice theory. International interactions, 30(2), pp.87-107.

Rouhani, O.M. and Gao, H.O., 2014. An advanced traveler general information system for Fresno, California. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 67, pp.254-267.

Rouhani, O.M. and Niemeier, D., 2014. Resolving the property right of transportation emissions through public–private partnerships. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 31, pp.48-60.

Rouhani, O.M., Gao, H.O. and Geddes, R.R., 2015a. Policy lessons for regulating public–private partnership tolling schemes in urban environments. Transport Policy, 41, pp.68-79.

Rouhani, O.M., Gao, H.O., Zarei, H. and Beheshtian, A., 2015b, January. Implications of fuel and emissions externalities, spillovers to the outside, and temporal variations on zonal congestion pricing schemes. In Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting (No. 15-0905).

Rouhani, O.M., 2016. Next generations of road pricing: Social welfare enhancing. Sustainability, 8(3), p.265.

Rouhani, O. M., and A. Beheshtian. 2016 Energy Management. Book chapter in Multi Vol. Set on Energy Science and Technology.

Rouhani, O.M. and Gao, H.O., 2016. Evaluating various road ownership structures and potential competition on an urban road network. Networks and Spatial Economics, 16, pp.1019-1042.

Rouhani, O.M., Niemeier, D., Gao, H.O. and Bel, G., 2016a. Cost-benefit analysis of various California renewable portfolio standard targets: Is a 33% RPS optimal?. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 62, pp.1122-1132.

Rouhani, O.M., Geddes, R.R., Gao, H.O. and Bel, G., 2016b. Social welfare analysis of investment public–private partnership approaches for transportation projects. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 88, pp.86-103.

Rouhani, O.M., 2018. Beyond standard zonal congestion pricing: A detailed impact analysis. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems, 144(9), p.04018052.

Rouhani, O.M., Geddes, R.R., Do, W., Gao, H.O. and Beheshtian, A., 2018. Revenue-risk-sharing approaches for public-private partnership provision of highway facilities. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 6(4), pp.439-448.

Rouhani, O.M., 2019. Transportation Project Evaluation Methods/Approaches. MPRA_paper_91451.

Rouhani, O.M., 2021. Public policy theories for transportation project evaluations: A book review. Case Studies on Transport Policy 9(2), pp. 497-499.

Rouhani, O.M., 2022. Road pricing versus political philosophies: A book review. Case Studies on Transport Policy 10(2), pp. 1453-1456

Schneider, Mark, and Jack Buckley. 2002. What Do Parents Want From Schools? Evidence from the Internet. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24(2): 133–144.

Schwartz, A.J., 2023. Laboratories of Democracy. JAMA Network Open, 6(6), pp.e2315584-e2315584.

Shulock, Nancy. 1997. The Paradox of Policy Analysis: If It Is Not Used, Why Do We Produce So Much of It? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 18: 226–244

Simon, H.A., 1990. Bounded rationality. Utility and probability, pp.15-18.

Smith, K. B. and Larimer, C. 2018. The public policy theory primer. Routledge.

Stone, D. 2002. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: W. W. Norton.

Tausanovitch, C. and Warshaw, C., 2013. Measuring constituent policy preferences in congress, state legislatures, and cities. The Journal of Politics, 75(2), pp.330-342.

Tiebout, Charles M. 1956. A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures. The Journal of Political Economy 64: 416–424.

Walker, J.L., 1969. The diffusion of innovations among the American states. American political science review, 63(3), pp.880-899.

Wynne, B., 1992. Carving out science (and politics) in the regulatory jungle. Social studies of science, 22(4), pp.745-758.