Program and Policy Design

This article will focus on program and policy design in the United States government. The article will describe and analyze the main types of program and policy design, the program and policy design process, and the rising trend in participatory program and policy design. The relationships between programs and policy design and public problems, public policies, and policy agendas will be introduced. Issues surrounding target populations and program and policy design will be addressed.

Keywords Policy Agendas; Program & Policy Design; Public Policies; Public Problems; Target Populations

Business & Public Policy > Program & Policy Design

Overview

Program and policy design refers to targeting candidate programs and policies to improve certain social conditions. The craft of policy design is an increasingly collaborative process between policymakers and citizens. Program and policy design is part of a three-stage policy analysis process including problem definition, policy design, and policy evaluation. The study of program and policy design cannot be separated from the related acts of problem definition and policy evaluation (Weimer, 1993).

Program and policy design is an act reflecting specific values and interests. Public issues, problems, and favored solutions are socially constructed entities. Program and policy design incorporates policy targets (socially constructed ideas about who will benefit from or be punished by the policy) and policy knowledge (socially constructed interpretations of reality) to solve public problems (Cahn, 1998). Policy makers use social constructions, constituted by values, symbols, images, and beliefs about the characteristics of the group, to determine the policy agenda and the actual design of the policy itself (Schneider & Ingram, 1993).

Ideas for program and policy design come from several sources including backward mapping, lateral borrowing and policy recycling. Backward mapping refers to the process of taking the ultimate targets of policy as the starting point. Lateral borrowing refers to modeling policies based on the policies developed in other jurisdictions facing similar problems. Policy recycling, also referred to as policy tinkering, refers to the idea of seeking better policy designs within the framework of a basic model such as the status quo policy (Weimer, 1993).

The following sections describe and analyze the main types of program and policy design, the program and policy design process, and the rising trend in participatory program and policy design. These sections will serve as the foundation for later discussion of the issues surrounding target populations and program and policy design.

Types of Program & Policy Design

Public administrators, in their capacity as policy makers, manage the public sector's problem solving and change process. Public administrators have the responsibility for designing the policies, processes, structures, and functions of public programs. Public administrators are policy designers who experiment with design in an effort to maximize results. Design refers to rational human action in which activity is aimed at realizing certain prescribed goals defined by a rational designer and for which a set of behaviors and actions are needed to implement them. Program and policy design, undertaken and overseen by public administrators, serves as a framework for solving problems through interactive processes. The effectiveness of program and policy design depends on how successfully the design solved the public problem.

There are four main approaches to program and policy design including crisis design, social design, incremental design, and rational design.

• Crisis design: The crisis approach to program and policy design refers to the effort of public administrators to design programs and policies that promote organizational survival during turbulent times. Organizational crises include increasing social demands, budget deficits, tax cuts, confusing policy directions, declining productivity, client anger, and depressed economy. Public administrators, engaging in crisis design, tend to emphasize rules, regulations, and standard operating procedure.
• Incremental design: The incremental approach to program and policy design refers to efforts by public administrators to design programs and policies that accommodate the economic, social, and political environment that actually exists rather than an idealized view of society. Incremental design refers to administration as art. Incremental design uses the tools and skills of negotiation, bargaining, trade-offs, and cooperation to achieve its program and policy goals and objectives. Public administrators engaged in the work of incremental design use knowledge, skill, creativity, and craft to design their policies and programs. Incremental designers acknowledge that and accommodate the diversity of values, special interests, and power fields that usually surround policy issues.
• Rational design: The rational approach to program and policy design refers to the effort of public administrators to use professional knowledge to design knowledge-based procedures that achieve prescribed goals. Rational design refers to administration as science. Rational design is used to promote administrative efficiency within organizations and society. Rational design is built upon the notions that public administrators can control the organizational environment and that behavior is predictable. Rational program and policy design is design for ideal systems and does not account for variation and unpredictability in political, economic, and social spheres. Examples of rational or scientific design include systems analysis and cost benefit analyses.
• Social design: The social design approach to program and policy design refers to the efforts of public administrators to use phenomenological and social considerations to solve public problems. The phenomenological perspective incorporates the shared experiences of multiple stakeholders. Social design incorporates an appreciation for competing policy agendas of actors and a practice approach to public problem solving and values citizen participation. Expert knowledge is appreciated but not necessarily valued or prioritized about the experiential knowledge of other design participants. Social design incorporates the tools of incremental design, such as negotiation, bargaining, and trade-offs, with the scope and clarity of rational design. Social design, more so than the other three design approaches, includes multiple design participants. Social design, developed through interaction between public administrators, experts, politicians, social groups, clients, and citizens, often produces multiple program and policy scenarios and options from which to choose. In the social design process, program and policy objectives and goals are developed from stakeholder interaction, dialogue, and mutual learning. The goal of social design is not consensus so much as the understanding of different positions and developing shared responsibility. Social design is a form of collective public problem solving.

These four approaches vary in their consideration for the values of relevant actors and their orientation toward problem solving and change (Jun, 1990).

Applications

The Program & Policy Design Process

Public programs and policies, of all kinds, are designed to solve particular public problems. Public problems such as poverty, child abuse, smoking, crime, aging, and terrorism, are characterized as undesirable conditions that impinge on a society. All undesirable conditions within society do not become classified as public problems. Citizens and their elected officials establish their public problem agendas based on their levels of tolerance for specific adverse conditions. Theoreticians use decision or choice theory, which studies how real or ideal decision-makers make decisions and how optimal decisions can be reached, to explain how public problems are solved in ideal circumstances. In reality, historical, social, and economic variables make many public problems difficult to solve if not intractable. Problem definition involves three main steps (Weimer, 1993):

• Exploring the characteristics, prevalence, and logical causes of the situation seen as inimical to society.
• Setting the situation up as a policy problem conceivably open to public intervention.
• Outlining pertinent goals for assessing candidate policy suggestions.

The U.S. government addresses and solves public problems through multiple means and strategies. In government, public administrators and politicians are responsible for solving many types of public problems. A common, generally applied problem-solving or decision-making model includes the following steps:

• Determine whether a problem exists.
• State decisional objectives, alleviations, or solutions.
• Identify the decision apparatus and possible action options.
• Specify alternatives.
• State recommendations.
• Ascertain ways to implement recommendations.

Public problems may be routine, out-of-the-ordinary, small-scale, or large-scale. Systematic decision-making processes may or may not be used in their entirety to solve or alleviate the public problem. Factors influencing the formal adoption and use of a problem-solving process or model include agency or department regulations, personal preference of the public administrator, and the variables of the public problem at hand (Hy & Mathews, 1978).

The public sector solves public problems through the design, formulation, and implementation of programs and policies. Public policy refers to the basic policy or set of policies that serve as the foundation for public laws. Public policy is often characterized as a social goal, enabling objective, or social solution. The public policy process is a problem-solving activity that solves or resolves a problem or conflict in society. Public policy, requested by society and enacted by government, unites and mediates the relationship between society and government. It is created within a specific historical context, socio-cultural context, and political system and encompasses and regulates nearly all areas of human and social behavior.

Public policy, including urban public policy, is created within or through a policy cycle. The policy cycle process involves both politics and administration. It includes four major stages: “agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation” (Skok, 1995, p.326). These steps are usually though not always sequential. There are numerous actors involved in each stage of the policy cycle. There is little agreement on the essences of these roles. The major players in the policy process are referred to as policy entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, issue initiators, policy brokers, strategists, fixers, brokers, or caretakers.

While public policy is created by politicians and legislative representatives, public administrators are responsible for policy implementation. In policy implementation, administrators are granted varying degrees of discretion in the details, range, and scope of the policy. Public policy administrators are allowed to perform the following acts: “fill in the details of legislation, define appropriate levels of program performance, and exercise other kinds of program judgment” (Skok, 1995, p.328). Examples of discretionary choices made by public policy administrators include “rule making, adjudication, law enforcement, and program operations” (Skok, 1995, p.328). In addition to the influence provided by implementation discretion, policy administrators may provide advice and counsel to political officials through reports, testimony, recommendations, monthly economic indices, and legislative proposals. Public administrators, in some instances, work in collaboration with judges and interest groups to pressure politicians to strengthen or create new public policies and services. Policy implementation, and public administrative actions in general, is watched over by the legislature, the chief executive’s staff, and agency political appointees (Skok, 1995).

In addition to the influence that public administrators exert on public policy formation and implementation, there are, at least, two other main policy-influencing groups: industry-driven interest groups and non-profit policy organizations. Ultimately, public policy, influenced by public and private forces and interests, is created, established, and assessed within policy issue networks. Policy issue networks refer to communities of specialists expressing public and private sector interests (Skok, 1995).

Public administrators, also referred to as policy architects or program designers, make five main decisions when designing programs and policies to solve public problems (Robertson, 1984):

• Public administrators must decide on the nature and the direction of the change that they seek.
• Public administrators must choose what government resources they are willing to commit to the public problem solving effort.
• Public administrators must differentiate the population who will reap program benefits from those who will not.
• Public administrators must settle on the government organization that will supervise the program and the degree of operational responsibility it will be given.
• Public administrators must decide whether to delegate some operational responsibility to agents outside of the initiating sector of government.

Unanticipated results are a common result of program and policy design. In an effort to anticipate a wide range of policy outcomes, policymakers develop multiple alternative program and policy designs. The program and policy process involves developing policy alternatives from which the policymakers, stakeholders, or electorate can choose. The formulation of policy alternatives is often a collaborative and creative process. Concepts that influence the formulation of policy alternatives include desirable incentives, favorable structure, and habits and norms (Weimer, 1992):

• Policy alternatives should present desirable incentives such as “third-party enforcement through the creation of value; making commitments credible; and maintaining competition through tournaments.”
• Policy alternatives should be favorably structured by “fixing agendas behind the ‘veil of ignorance’; automating policy decisions; linking policy dimensions; and collapsing and unlinking policy dimensions.”
• Policy alternatives should recognize the “importance of habits and norms by adapting organizational routines; instilling and exploiting norms; and monitoring through reporting and diligence requirements” (Weimer, 1992, p.137).

Participatory Program & Policy Design

Current program and policy design is characterized by participation from multiple stakeholders. Participatory planning and policy analysis by multiple stakeholders has three main benefits: “improve the knowledge base for policy design; increase the likelihood of stakeholder compliance and support; and strengthen the democratic legitimacy of public policies” (Pelletier, 1999, p.103). Stakeholder deliberation, debate, and negotiation during the program and policy design process serves as a democratic means for defining individual and group goals and values along with the possible impacts of other policy options. The participatory approach to program and policy design relies on the ability and desire of citizens to engage policy issues (Pelletier, 1999).

According to Lukensmeyer and Torres, participatory program and public design, and citizen participation in general, include six general goals and objectives:

• Inform and educate the public on important policy issues.
• Improve government decisions by supplying better information upward from citizens to decision makers.
• Create opportunities for citizens to shape and, in some cases, determine public policy.
• Legitimate government decisions by ensuring that the voices of those impacted by government policy have been heard, considered, and addressed.
• Involve citizens in monitoring the outcomes of policy for evaluation.
• Improve the quality of public life by restoring trust and engagement of citizens in public life (Lukensmeyer, 2006).

One area where participatory program and policy design is succeeding and growing in popularity is environmental policy. Environmental decision making, which refers to choices and solutions for managing, preserving, and protecting the natural environment, is increasingly incorporating stakeholder-assisted modeling and policy design. The use of computer-assisted visualization and representation of complex socio-technical systems, from very early on in the process, has been found to increase the engagement of stakeholders. Computer simulation of an environmental system allows stakeholders to decide on the best strategies to address the policy issue on a more objective basis (Mostashari & Sussman, 2005).

Participatory program and policy design, realized through online and face-to-face meetings between policymakers and citizens, offers multiple gains including altering the public opinion towards the government, substantively improving policy and enhancing the opportunities for lasting, and effective policy implementation. Public participation in the program and policy design progress, and public administration in general, has increased as a result of media and communication technologies, new management thinking reflected in policies, and requirements for government accountability and transparency. Ultimately, participatory program and policy design is part of a trend in citizen engagement where the public is becoming more more interested and participatory in government which leads to a more deliberative democracy and increased collaboration between those who govern and those who are governed.

Issues

Target Populations

Social constructions may be understood as characterizations or stereotypes of people or groups created and promoted by politics, culture, socialization, history, media, and religion. “The social construction of target population refers to the cultural characterization or popular images of the persons or groups whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy. These characterizations are normative and evaluative, portraying groups in positive or negative terms through symbolic language, metaphors, and stories” (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, p. 334). Social constructions of target populations may be multiple and conflicting.

Policies create the boundaries of target populations by specifying eligibility criteria within the language of the program description or policy directive. Target populations, as specified within a program description or policy directive, are understood to have empirically verifiable boundaries. The social construction of target populations, and social problems in general, impacts agenda setting, legislative behavior, policy formation and design, citizen orientation, and style of political participation. The theory of social construction of target populations helps to explain how program and policy design reinforces or alters group advantages. The actual design of public programs and policies is fundamentally different for different targeted populations.

There are four main social constructions of target populations used in program and policy design: advantaged, contenders, dependents, and deviants.

• Advantaged: Advantaged target populations include the elderly, business people, veterans, and scientists.
• Contenders: Contender target populations include the rich, big unions, minorities, cultural elites, and the moral majority.
• Dependents: Dependent target populations refer to children, mothers, and the disabled.
• Deviants: Deviant target populations refer to criminals, drug addicts, communists, flag burners, and gangs.

These four socially constructed target populations have different connotations and levels of political power. The advantaged have a positive association and strong political power. The contenders have a negative association and strong political power. The dependents have positive association and weak political power. The deviants have negative associations and weak political power. The four socially constructed target populations receive different benefits and burdens from programs and policies.

Program and policy design or formulation includes “statutes, guidelines, implementation structures, and direct service delivery processes” (Schneider & Ingram, 1993). There is much debate about why certain program and policy designs are chosen over others. What impact do different program and policy design choices have on target populations? The choice of target population influences the choice of program and policy rationale and tools.

“Policy tools refer to aspects of policy intended to motivate the target populations to comply with policy or utilize policy opportunities” (Schneider & Ingram, 1993). Policy tools for powerful and positive target groups include capacity building, inducements, and voluntary measures and participation. Policy tools for dependent groups include numerous agency-run and agency-generated solutions such as subsidies, outreach programs, and welfare programs. Eligibility requirements are common. Policy tools for deviants include sanction, force, incarceration, and death. Programs and policies aimed at deviant target populations tend to exert authoritarian force rather than address structural problems.

Public policy, within a representational democratic government, is intended to create and promote discourse between stakeholders. Public programs and policies do not serve all of society when target populations are served so very differently by different program and policy designs. Program and policy design impacts target populations' willingness to comply with policy directives, perceptions of democracy, and inclination toward political participation. Ideally, the power of target populations will shift and evolve to become more equal. Social constructions of populations, which currently structure and inform program and policy design, will hopefully become more positive for all groups or less relevant to the program and policy design process (Schneider & Ingram, 1993).

Conclusion

In the final analysis, the program and policy design process must be understood as part of a multi-stage policy development effort and a collaborative and participatory process. Program and policy analysis development involves the stages of legitimization of policy issue, design or formulation, and implementation (Roberton, 1984):

• Program and policy legitimization: Legitimization of programs and policies involves institutional decisions.
• Program and policy design: Design, also referred to as formulation, of programs and policies involves collaboration within and between issue networks.
• Program and policy implementation: Implementation of programs and policies usually involves numerous stakeholders such as local governments, businesses, non-profits organizations, representatives of the initiating government, and issue networks.

The program and policy design process creates policy alternatives, need for program and policy redesign, solutions to public problems, and opportunities for civil engagement and partnership.

While the opportunities for participatory program and policy design exist, challenges to participatory program and policy design, and civil engagement in general, slow the process. Challenges and barriers to public participation in the program and policy design process includes lack of trust from public administrators, uncoordinated and inconsistent policy guidelines, and "insufficient intentional citizen engagement knowledge-building and sharing" (Lukensmeyer, 2006). Ultimately, the future shape of program and policy design rests in the collaborative efforts of policy architects and the electorate. Citizens and their elected officials develop program and policy designs that reflect their personal and group values, priorities, and beliefs.

Terms & Concepts

Program & Policy Design: The targeting of candidate programs and policies to improve certain social conditions.

Policy Cycle: The four major stages of the policy-making process including agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation.

Policy Issue Networks: Communities of specialists who express public and private sector interests.

Policy Knowledge: Socially constructed interpretations of reality.

Public Policy: The basic policy or set of policies that serve as the foundation for public laws.

Policy Targets: Socially constructed ideas about who will benefit from or be punished by the policy.

Public Problems: Undesirable conditions that impinge on a society.

Public Problem Solving: The approaches and strategies that citizens and their elected representatives undertake to solve or alleviate public problems.

Social Construction: The cultural characterization of popular images of the persons or groups whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy.

Values: Personally and culturally specific moral judgments.

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Suggested Reading

Arnold, P. (1995). Reform's changing role. Public Administration Review, 55, 407.

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Folz, D., & Hazlett, J. (1991). Public participation and recycling performance: explaining program success. Public Administration Review, 51, 526. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=9204062016&site=ehost-live

Smetters, K. (1999). Three key design issues in analyzing the trust fund investment policy. National Tax Journal, 52, 531-539. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=2387459&site=ehost-live