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Policy Instruments and the Study of Public Policy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Kenneth Woodside
Kenneth Woodside
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
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Abstract

One of the most distinctive concepts for the study of public policy in Canada is that of policy or governing instruments. This article describes the origins of this literature, provides an overview of its theoretical claims, and evaluates some of these claims. It is argued, first, that the literature is too directly tied to particular theories of the state and of the policy-making process and that those ties are both unnecessary and constrain the usefulness of the concept of policy instruments. Second, the treatment of coercion as the central feature differentiating policy instruments is questioned and an alternative formulation is proposed.

Résumé

Un des concepts les plus distinctifs pour l'analyse de politiques au Canada est l'étude des instruments de la politique gouvernementale. Cet article décrit les origines de ces études, examine les théories sur lesquelles elles sont basées, et évalue leur validité. On démontre d'abord aue ces études sont liées trop étroitement à certaines conceptions précises de l'État et du processus de la formulation de politiques, et que ces liens, nullement nécessaires, diminuent l'utilité de ce concept des instruments de politique. En second lieu, on remet en question le rôle de la contrainte considérée trop souvent comme facteur déterminant dans toute discussion sur ces instruments, et on propose une nouvelle formule.

Type
Field Analysis/Orientations de la science politique
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 775 - 794
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1986

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References

1 These two terms are used interchangeably in the literature and we will follow this convention in this analysis. However, since one of the purposes of this article is to argue for the importance of the constituency or client for a policy instrument in shaping its characteristics in use, the term governing instrument would seem to be the less desirable of the two because of the implication in the term of an exclusive focus on choices made within the government.

2 Doern, G. Bruce and Wilson, V. Seymour (eds.), Issues in Canadian Public Policy (Toronto: Macmillan, 1974);Google ScholarPhidd, Richard W. and Doern, G. Bruce, The Politics and Management of Canadian Economic Policy (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978);Google ScholarDoern, G. Bruce and Phidd, Richard W., Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process(Toronto: Methuen, 1983);Google ScholarTrebilcock, M. J., Hartle, D. G., Prichard, R. S. and Dewees, D. N., The Choice of Governing Instrument (Ottawa: Ministry of Supply and Services, 1982);Google ScholarPrichard, J. Robert S. (ed.), Crown Corporations in Canada: The Calculus of Instrument Choice (Toronto: Butterworths, 1983);Google Scholar and Woodside, Kenneth, “The Political Economy of Policy Instruments: Tax Expenditures and Subsidies in Canada,” in Atkinson, M. M. and Chandler, M. A. (eds.), The Politics of Canadian Public Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), 173–97.Google Scholar

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7 A good overview of this literature can be found in W. T. Stanbury and George Lermer, “Regulation and the Redistribution of Income and Wealth,” Canadian Public Administration 26 (1983), 378–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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10 Lowi, “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” 299.

11 Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory,” 688–91.

12 Lowi, “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” 301–02. For a discussion of Lowi's work as well as that of others and an attempt to extend the approach to policiesthat do not involve expenditures, see Salisbury, Robert and Heinz, John, “A Theory of Policy Analysis and Some Preliminary Applications,” in Sharkansky, Ira (ed.), Policy Analysis in Political Science (Chicago: Markham Publishing, 1970), 39–60.Google Scholar

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20 Ibid., 300–11.

21 Ibid., chaps. 5, 12.

22 For a recent discussion of the pattern of growth in the use of policy instruments in Canada, see Doern, G. Bruce, “The Politics of Canadian Economic Policy: An Overview,” in Doern, G. Bruce, research co-ordinator, The Politics of Economic Policy, vol. 40Google Scholar of the Research Studies prepared for the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 1–109.

23 Trebilcock, Hartle, Prichard and Dewees, The Choice of Governing Instruments.

24 Ibid., 23.

25 Ibid., 34.

26 Ibid., 13.

27 Ibid., 11.

28 Ibid., 2, 22.

29 Forinstance, see Johnston, Richard, Public Opinion and Public Policy in Canada, vol. 35Google Scholar of the Research Studies prepared for the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986; Alt, James E. and Chrystal, K. Alec, Political Economics (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983):Google ScholarKiewiet, D. Roderick, Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: The Electoral Effects of Economic Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983);Google Scholar and Tufte, Edward R., Political Control of the Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

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38 Ibid., 44–45, 49, 50.

39 Woodside, “The Political Economy of Policy Instruments.”

40 Ibid. Also see the special issue of Canadian Taxation (Vol. I, No. 2, Summer 1979).

41 Stanbury, William T. and Fulton, Jane, “Suasian as a Governing Instrument,” in Maslove, Allan M. (ed.), How Ottawa Spends 1984: The New Agenda (Ottawa: School of Public Administration, Carleton University, 1984), 282–24.Google Scholar

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43 Ibid., 284–93.

44 Ibid., 297–301.

45 Ibid., 297.

46 Consider, for example, the differing approaches to tax evasion and social securityabuse. Punishments for social security abuse are much more severe. This not onlyreflects differing degrees of concern on the part of government but also that thegeneral public seems to be less antagonistic to tax abuse than social security abuse. See the special issue “Comparing Tax and Social Security Abuse,” in Canadian Taxation (Vol. 2, No. 2 Summer, 1980), 82–111.Google Scholar Also see Lewis, The Psychology of Taxation.

47 For a useful discussion of the privileged position of capital and big business withinpluralist democracies see Lindblom, Charles E., Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1977).Google Scholar Also see Panitch, Leo (ed.), The Canadian State (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977).Google Scholar

48 While Doern and Phidd suggest part of this argument as a qualification to anyassessment of instrument choice, they present it more as a problem of policyco-ordination. While this is undoubtedly true, it is also important as a factor inunderstanding restraints on instrument choice within government and this needsmuch more emphasis than it usually receives. See Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 132–33.

49 Doern and Phidd are more guarded and careful in their discussion of the reasonsbehind the choice of a policy instrument, suggesting a range of factors such asideology, constitutional and legal considerations that are important. However, thesefactors are raised more as qualifications to their argument than as central features inthe use of these instruments. See Doem and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 131–35.

50 Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory,” 690ff.

51 Good, David A., The Politics of Anticipation: Making Canadian Federal Tax Policy (Ottawa: School of Public Administration, Carleton University, 1980);Google ScholarGillespie, W. Irwin, “Tax Reform: The Battlefield, the Strategies, the Spoils,” in Canadian Public Administration 26 (1983), 182–202;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kenneth Woodside, “The Symbolic Politics of Corporate Income Taxation: Canada and Britain 1945–1980,” in Stoneand, AlanHarpham, Edward J. (eds.), The Political Economy of Public Policy, Sage Yearbooks in Politics and Public Policy, Volume 10 (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982), 189–210.Google Scholar Also, see Eisenstein, Louis, The Ideologies of Taxation (New York:The Ronald Press, 1961);Google Scholar and Manley, John F., The Politics of Finance: The House Committee on Ways and Means (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970).Google Scholar

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53 In the area of telecommunication, for instance, see Schultz, Richard J., “Regulationas Maginot Line: Confronting the Technological Revolution in Telecommunications,” Canadian Public Administration 26 (1983), 203–18;CrossRefGoogle ScholarJanisch, Hudson and Irwin, Manley, “Information Technology and Public Policy: Regulatory Implications for Canada.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 20 (1982), 610–41.Google Scholar

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56 Tupper, Public Money in the Private Sector, and Richard Schultz and Alan Alexandroff, Economic Regulation and the Federal System, chap. 4.

57 Huffmann, K. J., Langford, J. W. and Neilson, W. A. W., “Public Enterprise and Federalism in Canada,” in Simeon, Richard(research coordinator), Intergovernmental Relations, vol. 63Google Scholar of the Research Studies commissioned by the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 131–78.

58 Chandler, “The Politics of Public Enterprise,” 206ff.

59 Stanbury and Fulton, “Suasion as a Governing Instrument,” 284ff.