What Is the Purpose of Public Policy?

As we set about doing policy analysis, it is worth pausing to reflect on the purpose of public policy. What is the point of it, what is our overarching objective, and what might success look like? People have different ideas about this. When working as a policy analyst, you will find yourself engaging with colleagues, managers, politicians, and other stakeholders whose vision, purpose, and values may differ from your own. To help you prepare for this, the chapter introduces six big ideas about the purpose of politics and public policy, with summary assessments of their strengths and weaknesses and some implications for public service. In many ways, these different ideas build on and correct one another. They provide different lenses to apply to defining policy problems and identifying and assessing potential solutions. As you advance in your policy career, you can expect to have greater opportunities to engage in explicit discussions with decision-makers about vision and values—and the why as well as the who, what, where, when, and how of policy-making.

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Notes

Bentham’s utility principle challenges distributive distinctions based on, for example, class, sex, and ethnicity (cf. Sect. 9.2.3). Bentham’s theory suggests that the utility of a man should not receive a greater weighting than the utility of a woman. The utility of someone who can trace ancestry back to the first inhabitants of a territory should not receive a greater weighting than the utility of a recent (legal) migrant.

The unit of value is usually monetised; i.e., converted to a monetary value, for example, a dollar, euro, or pound.

After his death, Bentham’s Panopticon did influence prison design around the world, including the Pentonville Prison in London (built 1840–42), the 1853 “Separate Prison” at Port Arthur in Van Diemen’s Land [Tasmania], Australia (built 1848–53); the Stateville Correction Center in Illinois (1925); and Cuba’s Presidio Modelo (built 1926–31).

Foot originally designed the thought experiment for an article about abortion and the doctrine of double effect. For an introduction to variations on the trolley problem, see Edmonds (2010). For an extended reflection on the trolley problem and a contemporary defence of utilitarianism, see Greene (2013). The trolley problem can prompt thinking about difficult questions of moral and legal liability in relation to new technologies, including self-driving cars and other forms of autonomous transport.

Haidt’s point, following Hume (Sect. 8.3.2), is that “moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog” (Haidt, 2012, p. 48). We first react emotionally, intuitively, then apply reasoning, somewhat after the fact, to explain and justify our moral judgments.

On discounting (accounting for the time value of money), see Dunn (1981, pp. 262–266), Meltzer & Schwartz (2018, Chap. 5). On the problem of determining a social discount rate, see Argyrous (2013), Moore et al. (2004). On discounting and short-termism, see Fisher (2023, pp. 222–224).

A “categorical imperative” is an unconditional moral obligation on everyone, everywhere, at all times, regardless of a person’s inclination, purpose, or goals. An example is: “Do not treat a person as a means to an end; persons are always ends in themselves, no matter who they are.”

Rawls (1971, pp. 453–462, 2001, pp. 19–21, 135ff.) explains that his theory of justice as fairness is a political conception of justice designed for the basic structure of a “well-ordered society”; it is not intended as a comprehensive moral doctrine.

For a recent summary of Rawls’s theory of justice and an interpretation of how it might inform and shape contemporary policy-making with particular reference to the United Kingdom, see Chandler (2023).

Adam Smith coined the metaphor of an “invisible hand” in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part IV, Chap. 1, and used the metaphor again in discussing tariffs on foreign imports in The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chap. 2. In economic theory, the metaphor generally refers to unintended positive consequences for the public good of self-interested behaviours operating within a competitive market environment.

On market failures and rationales for government intervention, see Mintrom (2012, Chaps 9–11), Weimer & Vining 2016, Chaps 5 –9) and Sect. 7.2.

See MacIntyre (1988, 2006, 2011); Sandel (1984, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2009, 2012, 2020). Other political theorists who have sought to think together both individual liberty and community belonging (or identity) include Appiah (2005, 2007, 2019), Benhabib (2006, 2018), Etzioni (1996, 2015, 2018a, 2018b), Kukathas (1991, 2003), Kymlicka (1989, 2001, 2003, 2007), Raz (1986), Taylor (1989, 1992, 2007) and Walzer (1983, 2008, 2019, 2023).

Nussbaum (2011, Chap. 3) introduces the capabilities approach as a counter-theory to (1) measuring national progress by GDP per capita; (2) measuring quality of life as either total or average utility (understood as the satisfaction of preferences); and (3) resource-based approaches (for example, Rawls’s theory of “primary goods”). She then shows how a capabilities approach relates to human rights approaches.

For an introduction to social choice theory and Sen’s extension of Kenneth Arrow’s framework, see List (2022).

Cf. the UN’s Development Programme and Human Development Index. Nussbaum (2009) recounts some of the history of this, and the formation of the Human Development and Capability Association.

Nussbaum (2000, pp. 78–80) identifies ten basic capabilities that should be supported by all democracies: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one’s environment. She argues that this list may be realised in many different ways, leaving room for a reasonable pluralism in how the basic capabilities are specified concretely in accordance with local beliefs and circumstances. Sen (2005) disagrees, arguing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to specify basic capabilities since our values are so divergent, and that it is preferable to define capabilities democratically in a given context through the exercise of practical reason and open impartiality.

The United Nations held a Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 and founded the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1983 which resulted in the Brundtland Report (Our Common Future) in 1987 with its definition of sustainability: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, Sect. 6.1. II. Para. 49). On applying a sustainability lens to policy analysis, and governing for the future, see Chap. 10 and Linquiti (2023, pp. 411–421).

“Satisficing” seeks to satisfy the minimum requirements necessary to achieve a particular goal (cf. Sect. 2.1.3). Related ideas are “bounded rationality” and the limits of comprehensive rational choice, and of “sufficiency” as an economic goal, rather than growth. For literature reviews on sufficiency and sustainable development, see Jungell-Michelsson & Heikkurinen (2022), Lage (2022).

On objectives, decision criteria, using a criteria-alternatives matrix, and multi-criteria decision analysis, see Linquiti (2023, Chap. 1), Meltzer & Schwartz (2018, Chap. 4).

Bardach and Patashnik (2019, p. 62) remind us that the analyst typically is not one of the parties who have to bear the costs of their mistakes.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington | Te Herenga Waka, Wellington, New Zealand David Bromell

1. David Bromell