Policy Design: Ubiquitous, Necessary and Difficult

Bobrow, Davis B.

doi:10.4135/9781848608054.n5

Cited by 70 publications

(49 citation statements)

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“…It is usually thought to involve the deliberate and conscious attempt to define policy goals and connect them in an instrumental fashion to instruments or tools expected to realize those objectives (Gilabert & Lawford-Smith, 2012;Majone, 1975;May, 2003). Policy design, in this sense, is a specific form of policy formulation based on the gathering of knowledge about the effects of policy tool use on policy targets and the application of that knowledge to the development and implementation of policies aimed at the attainment of specifically desired public policy outcomes and ambitions (Bobrow, 2006;Bobrow & Dryzek, 1987;Montpetit, 2003;Weaver, 2009Weaver, , 2010.…”

Section: What Is Policy Design?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However policy scholars have noted many instances in which processes of policy formulation and decision-making are governed less by considerations of self-interest, interest accommodation, bargaining or ideology than by concerns about criteria such as the practical efficiency and effectiveness of policy alternatives. These latter efforts involve policy actors in the process of thinking more systematically and analytically about the merits and demerits of policy options and alternatives from a functional or instrumental perspective (Bobrow, 2006;Bobrow & Dryzek, 1987).…”

Section: What Is Policy Design?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fervent wish of proponents of design orientation is generally to reduce instances of poor and non-design to as few as possible by promoting the kinds of orientations and dedication of resources required for better design processes to occur. This, is expected to result in policies more likely to solve pressing problems, correct social ills and better serve the public good through the improved mobilization of knowledge in the service of policy (Azuela & Barroso, 2012;Bobrow, 2006;Wildavsky, 1979). Table 1 presents a schematic illustrating how these two different aspects of policy-making-a design intention and the capacity to carry it out-create different policy formulation spaces which enable very different policy design processes.…”

Section: Modeling Non-design: Revisiting the Pre-conditions Of Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Policy Design and Non-Design: Towards a Spectrum of Policy Formulation Types

Howlett

Mukherjee

2014

SSRN Journal

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Public policies are the result of efforts made by governments to alter aspects of behaviour-both that of their own agents and of society at large-in order to carry out some end or purpose. They are comprised of arrangements of policy goals and policy means matched through some decision-making process. These policy-making efforts can be more, or less, systematic in attempting to match ends and means in a logical fashion or can result from much less systematic processes. "Policy design" implies a knowledge-based process in which the choice of means or mechanisms through which policy goals are given effect follows a logical process of inference from known or learned relationships between means and outcomes. This includes both design in which means are selected in accordance with experience and knowledge and that in which principles and relationships are incorrectly or only partially articulated or understood. Policy decisions can be careful and deliberate in attempting to best resolve a problem or can be highly contingent and driven by situational logics. Decisions stemming from bargaining or opportunism can also be distinguished from those which result from careful analysis and assessment. This article considers both modes and formulates a spectrum of policy formulation types between "design" and "non-design" which helps clarify the nature of each type and the likelihood of each unfolding.

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Section: What Is Policy Design?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is Policy Design?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modeling Non-design: Revisiting the Pre-conditions Of Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Policy Design and Non-Design: Towards a Spectrum of Policy Formulation Types

Howlett

Mukherjee

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…This multi-level analysis helps explain some of the real complexity and difficulties involved in successful policy design (Bobrow 2006;Bobrow and Dryzek 1987), while the fact that the choices and decisions made at each level can usefully be viewed as codetermining each other in a form of embedded or ''nested'' relationship helps explain the severely constrained nature of actual policy instrument choices (Veggeland 2008;Lodge 2008;Feiock, Tavares and Lubell 2008;Kooiman 2008). That is, the range of choices left at the micro-level of concrete targeted policy tool calibrations is restricted by the kinds of meso-level decisions made about policy objectives and policy tools, and both of these, in turn, are restricted by the kind of choices made at the highest or meta-level of general policy aims and implementation preferences.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Governance modes, policy regimes and operational plans: A multi-level nested model of policy instrument choice and policy design

2009

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“…Newman 2006;Sternberg 2011). In recent years, design principles have started to be applied in fields outside of those traditionally associated with engineering, such as business strategy (Vinnakota and Narayana 2014), policy formulation (Bobrow 2006), crime prevention (e.g. Duarte et al 2011), defence strategy (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Describing complex design practices with a cross-domain framework: learning from Synthetic Biology and Swarm Robotics

Chen

Crilly

2016

Res Eng Design

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This paper reports on the development of a cross-domain framework for describing complex design practices. The framework is grounded in studies of two different complex design fields: Synthetic Biology and Swarm Robotics. In the first study, we interviewed practitioners in Synthetic Biology, identifying three essential aspects of complex design problems and practices. The first of these aspects is the characterisation of system complexity, the second is the design objective taken with respect to this complexity, and the third is the design approach applied to realise this objective. In the second study, we interviewed designers in Swarm Robotics, confirming the domain generality of the three aspects identified in the first study and permitting a comparison to be made of how the two fields differ from each other in these aspects. Considered together, the two studies provide the basis for building a cross-domain framework for describing complex design practices. Such a framework is presented here, not to exhaust all possible descriptions of complex design practice but rather to provide a structured yet adaptable way of highlighting the important aspects of these descriptions. Indeed, each aspect of complex design can be can be broken down into different elements depending on the design contexts under consideration. Having such a framework enables designers to identify fundamental similarities and differences both between and within fields.

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Policy Design: Ubiquitous, Necessary and Difficult

Cited by 70 publications

References 0 publications

Policy Design and Non-Design: Towards a Spectrum of Policy Formulation Types

Policy Design and Non-Design: Towards a Spectrum of Policy Formulation Types

Governance modes, policy regimes and operational plans: A multi-level nested model of policy instrument choice and policy design

Describing complex design practices with a cross-domain framework: learning from Synthetic Biology and Swarm Robotics

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