Policy Without Politicians

Policy Without Politicians PDF Author: Edward C Page
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191628301
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Have bureaucrats taken over the decision making role of politicians? This book offers a direct assessment of the role of bureaucrats in policy making by analysing how they shape policy in making decrees - laws that generally do not pass through full legislative scrutiny. These are often described as "secondary legislation" and are known by a variety of names (including décrets, arrêtés, administrative regulations, Verordnungen, statutory instruments). Such decrees offer an important vantage point for understanding bureaucratic power not only because they account for a large proportion of policy making activity within the executive, but also because they are made largely away from the glare of publicity. If bureaucrats have strong policy making powers and use them in a way that minimises political involvement in policy making, we would expect to find these powers especially evident in this "everyday" decision making. The book is based on research examining 52 decrees produced between 2005 and 2008 in six jurisdictions: France, the UK, Germany, Sweden, the United States and the European Union. The comparative perspective allows one to see how far different patterns of bureaucratic involvement in policy making are characteristic of particular political systems and how far they are a general feature of modern bureaucracies. The book asks three main questions about how these decrees are produced: when do politicians become involved in making them? What happens when politicians become involved? And what happens when they are not involved? The answers to these questions are provided by examination of primary source material as well as interviews with over 90 officials.

Policy Without Politicians

Policy Without Politicians PDF Author: Edward C Page
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191628301
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Have bureaucrats taken over the decision making role of politicians? This book offers a direct assessment of the role of bureaucrats in policy making by analysing how they shape policy in making decrees - laws that generally do not pass through full legislative scrutiny. These are often described as "secondary legislation" and are known by a variety of names (including décrets, arrêtés, administrative regulations, Verordnungen, statutory instruments). Such decrees offer an important vantage point for understanding bureaucratic power not only because they account for a large proportion of policy making activity within the executive, but also because they are made largely away from the glare of publicity. If bureaucrats have strong policy making powers and use them in a way that minimises political involvement in policy making, we would expect to find these powers especially evident in this "everyday" decision making. The book is based on research examining 52 decrees produced between 2005 and 2008 in six jurisdictions: France, the UK, Germany, Sweden, the United States and the European Union. The comparative perspective allows one to see how far different patterns of bureaucratic involvement in policy making are characteristic of particular political systems and how far they are a general feature of modern bureaucracies. The book asks three main questions about how these decrees are produced: when do politicians become involved in making them? What happens when politicians become involved? And what happens when they are not involved? The answers to these questions are provided by examination of primary source material as well as interviews with over 90 officials.

Policy Without Politicians

Policy Without Politicians PDF Author: Edward Page
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199645132
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Policy Without Politicians is a comparative study of the everday policy-making role of bureaucrats in six jurisdictions: France, US, Germany, Sweden, the EU, and the UK. It takes as its central focus the decrees and regulations that account for a large proportion of government activity and explores the role of civil servants in their production.

Making Politics Work for Development

Making Politics Work for Development PDF Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464807744
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.

Open Democracy

Open Democracy PDF Author: Hélène Landemore
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691212392
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, more than ever, urgently needed. -- Cover page 4.

Politics Without Vision

Politics Without Vision PDF Author: Tracy B. Strong
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226777464
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
Politics without Vision takes up the thought of seven influential thinkers, each of whom attempted to construct a political solution to this problem: Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Lenin, Schmitt, Heidegger, and Arendt. None of these theorists were liberals nor, excepting possibly Arendt, were they democrats—and some might even be said to have served as handmaidens to totalitarianism. And all to a greater or lesser extent shared the common conviction that the institutions and practices of liberalism are inadequate to the demands and stresses of the present times. In examining their thought, Strong acknowledges the political evil that some of their ideas served to foster but argues that these were not necessarily the only paths their explorations could have taken. By uncovering the turning points in their thought—and the paths not taken—Strong strives to develop a political theory that can avoid, and perhaps help explain, the mistakes of the past while furthering the democratic impulse.

Politicians Don't Pander

Politicians Don't Pander PDF Author: Lawrence R. Jacobs
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226389837
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
In this provocative and engagingly written book, the authors argue that politicians seldom tailor their policy decisions to "pander" to public opinion. In fact, they say that when not facing election, contemporary presidents and members of Congress routinely ignore the public's preferences and follow their own political philosophies. 37 graphs.

Responsible Parties

Responsible Parties PDF Author: Frances Rosenbluth
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300241054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

 PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 087154668X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description


Administrative Burden

Administrative Burden PDF Author: Pamela Herd
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448782
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Winner of the 2020 Outstanding Book Award Presented by the Public and Nonprofit Section of the National Academy of Management Winner of the 2019 Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration Bureaucracy, confusing paperwork, and complex regulations—or what public policy scholars Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan call administrative burdens—often introduce delay and frustration into our experiences with government agencies. Administrative burdens diminish the effectiveness of public programs and can even block individuals from fundamental rights like voting. In AdministrativeBurden, Herd and Moynihan document that the administrative burdens citizens regularly encounter in their interactions with the state are not simply unintended byproducts of governance, but the result of deliberate policy choices. Because burdens affect people’s perceptions of government and often perpetuate long-standing inequalities, understanding why administrative burdens exist and how they can be reduced is essential for maintaining a healthy public sector. Through in-depth case studies of federal programs and controversial legislation, the authors show that administrative burdens are the nuts-and-bolts of policy design. Regarding controversial issues such as voter enfranchisement or abortion rights, lawmakers often use administrative burdens to limit access to rights or services they oppose. For instance, legislators have implemented administrative burdens such as complicated registration requirements and strict voter-identification laws to suppress turnout of African American voters. Similarly, the right to an abortion is legally protected, but many states require women seeking abortions to comply with burdens such as mandatory waiting periods, ultrasounds, and scripted counseling. As Herd and Moynihan demonstrate, administrative burdens often disproportionately affect the disadvantaged who lack the resources to deal with the financial and psychological costs of navigating these obstacles. However, policymakers have sometimes reduced administrative burdens or shifted them away from citizens and onto the government. One example is Social Security, which early administrators of the program implemented in the 1930s with the goal of minimizing burdens for beneficiaries. As a result, the take-up rate is about 100 percent because the Social Security Administration keeps track of peoples’ earnings for them, automatically calculates benefits and eligibility, and simply requires an easy online enrollment or visiting one of 1,200 field offices. Making more programs and public services operate this efficiently, the authors argue, requires adoption of a nonpartisan, evidence-based metric for determining when and how to institute administrative burdens, with a bias toward reducing them. By ensuring that the public’s interaction with government is no more onerous than it need be, policymakers and administrators can reduce inequality, boost civic engagement, and build an efficient state that works for all citizens.

The Unelected

The Unelected PDF Author: James R. Copland
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1641771216
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
America is highly polarized around elections, but unelected actors make many of the decisions that affect our lives. In this lucid history, James R. Copland explains how unaccountable agents have taken over much of the U.S. government apparatus. Congress has largely abdicated its authority. “Independent” administrative agencies churn out thousands of new regulations every year. Courts have enabled these rulemakers to expand their powers beyond those authorized by law—and have constrained executive efforts to rein in the bureaucratic behemoth. No ordinary citizen can know what is legal and what is not. There are some 300,000 federal crimes, 98 percent of which were created by administrative action. The proliferation of rules gives enormous discretion to unelected enforcers, and the severity of sanctions can be ruinous to citizens who unwittingly violate a regulation. Outside the bureaucracy, private attorneys regulate our conduct through lawsuits. Most of the legal theories underlying these suits were never voted upon by our elected representatives. A combination of historical accident, decisions by judges and law professors, and self-interested advocacy by litigators has built an onerous and expensive legal regime. Finally, state and local officials may be accountable to their own voters, but some reach further afield, pursuing agendas to dictate the terms of national commerce. These new antifederalists are subjecting the citizens of Wyoming and Mississippi to the whims of the electorates of New York and San Francisco—contrary to the constitutional design. In these ways, the unelected have assumed substantial control of the American republic, upended the rule of law, given the United States the world’s costliest legal system, and inverted the Constitution’s federalism. Copland caps off his account with ideas for charting a corrective course back to democratic accountability.