7 - Are Policymakers Solving Problems or Imposing Values?

Summary

Democrats prize experts in staffing the Executive Branch while Republicans prefer political operatives and media spokespersons. But across the issue spectrum, policies are increasingly complicated and technical, requiring knowledge of many previous rounds of institution-building and policymaking. New social problems require remixing of complex policy tools, often led by research and experts. Addressing climate change and public health, for example, requires professionalized expert workforces and technical analyses. Even seemingly value-based areas of policymaking such as economic development and racial discrimination increasingly require subject-matter experts and formalized training. And the issue of higher education itself has increasingly divided the parties. Chapter 6 documents how each policy area is increasingly dominated by complex proposals from liberals accompanied by conservative suspicion of expert-led governance. Policy knowledge and evaluation capacity have become increasingly tethered to the Democratic Party, with believably nonpartisan expertise now in short supply.