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Sep. 12th, 2015
Political Reading
Sep. 12th, 2015 08:38 pmI'm finding that I'm really enjoying reading books and other literature about how governmental policy making functions. Who knew?
This evening, it's John Kingdon's "Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies," which is primarily focused on how things get put on the agenda for discussion, and how certain alternatives are selected for serious discussion.
There are three independent "streams" here, he writes. Politics, problems, and policies. An item is most likely to find a place on the agenda when all three of those things come together. The independent functioning of these streams has interesting repercussions. Problems do not beget solutions in a causal way. People with pet solutions go looking for problems. Shifts in the political winds open windows that lead officials to go looking for a suitable solution (and possibly a problem to go with it) before the opportunity flies away. Politics is fascinating.
This discussion is all on the national level. I wonder how it relates to sub-national scales.
This evening, it's John Kingdon's "Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies," which is primarily focused on how things get put on the agenda for discussion, and how certain alternatives are selected for serious discussion.
There are three independent "streams" here, he writes. Politics, problems, and policies. An item is most likely to find a place on the agenda when all three of those things come together. The independent functioning of these streams has interesting repercussions. Problems do not beget solutions in a causal way. People with pet solutions go looking for problems. Shifts in the political winds open windows that lead officials to go looking for a suitable solution (and possibly a problem to go with it) before the opportunity flies away. Politics is fascinating.
This discussion is all on the national level. I wonder how it relates to sub-national scales.
