Evaluation of Stone’s Policy Paradox
Instructions:
1. Discuss and demonstrate understanding of the political community environment that Stone describes. Discuss how the political community approach is evident in the current policy environment? Provide current examples with some detail to support your response (examples that have occurred within the past few months to a year).
2. Provide one or more current examples in which strategically crafted arguments featuring metaphor, synecdoche, symbols and numbers are used to advance issues of concern. Assess the effectiveness of these “tools” through detailing a current or recent national or local issue (within past few months to a year). NOTE: Your examples can either be the same or different from example(s) in question #1.
3. Describe and assess Stone’s overall claim(s) made through this book. What weaknesses do you see in the author’s claims? What strengths are evident? What did you learn as a result of reading and assessing the author’s work? Thoughtful response to each question is required.
Solution.
Evaluation of Stone’s Policy Paradox
Introduction
Deborah stones start by stipulating a statement that a theory of policy politics must commence with a model of political society. She further explains that; the design is simple as it retains significant elements of politics. Furthermore, she outlines that there is a contrast between the market society and the political society. Stones defines a market as a social system comprising of individuals who pursue their welfares through exchanging with other parties where the benefit is mutual. Therefore, in this market, it is evident that is competition and individual will focus on maximizing their interest, especially connected with their families and friends. He outlines the community in a platform where politics and policies happen. Public policy is concerned with community’s initiative to achieve something. She explains that a political community, frequently termed as “polis “or a “city state” in Greek, is different from a market model. This is explained as the difference comes where, in the market, its commencement involves individuals and they assume no goals, preferences, or intentions other than those held by people. In a polis, people understand the collective will and effort. This paper will review Stones definition of a political community and current examples
Understanding of a Political Community
A community must have a participation and some method for characterizing who is an individual from the community and who is most certainly not. Membership is in some sense the inherently political issue, for membership definitions and guidelines to figure out who is permitted to take an interest in community exercises and who is represented by community principles and power. The Stones takes note of a critical refinement amongst living arrangement and citizenship. She proceeds with an exchange of the contrast between cultural community and political community. Stones defines a political community a gathering of individuals who live under the same political standards and structure of administration and offer status as nationals. On the other hand, the social community is a group of persons who share a society and draw their characters from a typical dialect, history, and customs. The political community can incorporate numerous assorted social community, and approach governmental issues is confronted with an inquiry how to coordinate a few cultural community into an isolated political community without obliterating or yielding their character and integrity.
Membership in a community characterizes social and economic rights, in addition political rights. She perceives that there is a part of “mutual guide” among community individuals. Mutual guide is a decent in itself that individuals make keeping in mind the end goal to cultivate and ensure a community. Sharing burdens unites and holds individuals. Also, in a bigger sense, sharing minding, and keeping up connections is in any event as solid a spark of human conduct as rivalry, partition, and advancement of one’s different self-interests. The idea of “open interest” may mean a singular interests held in like manner, individual objectives for the community, project or arrangements favored by a larger part, or things that are useful for the community as a community. It’s essential to note as to open intrigue that regularly individuals need things for their community that contention with what they need for themselves, (for example, lower expenses and great schools) and that what individuals need more often than not, changes after some time. Nevertheless, each community has the enthusiasm for governing them administer process and a few means for determining debate without viciousness, shielding itself from outcasts, and never-ending presence.
She stipulates that there is no practical full concurrence on the general public interest, yet it is important to make it a characteristically, common for the polis in light of the fact that such an extensive amount governmental issues is individuals battling about what people in general interest is and attempting to understand their own meaning of it. The idea of open premium is to the polis what self-premium is to the business sector. They are both reflections whose particular substance we don’t have to know keeping in mind the end goal to utilize them to clarify and anticipate individuals’ conduct. We basically expect that individuals act as though they were attempting to understand people in general intrigue or boost their self-interest. Basically inside a business sector the vacant box of open interest is filled as an untimely idea with the symptoms of different exercises. In the polis, by difference, individuals fill the container deliberately, with thinking ahead, arranging, and cognizant exertion.
Common issues are characterized as circumstances where self-interest and open interest conflict with each other. There are two sorts of common issues: activities with private advantages involve a social cost. For example, decisions made on disposing mechanical waste into a lake; and social advantages require private penances such the educational system of the US must pay taxes. Any circumstance can be depicted in both ways. For example, clean lakes are a social advantage requiring private expenses of non-polluting waste transfer and a poor educational system is the social expense of high private utilization. So whether a circumstance is marked as “social advantages and private expenses” or “social expenses and private advantages” is entirely a matter of perspective. Common issues are likewise called aggregate activity issues since it is hard to inspire individuals to embrace individual expenses or swear off private advantages for the total great, case in point, issues to deal with global warming.
In business sector hypothesis, regular issues are thought to be the particular case instead of the standard. In the polis, by differentiation, primary issues are everything. Most critical arrangement issues are common problems. The significant difficulty of arrangement in the polis is the means by which to inspire individuals to offer supremacy to these greater outcomes in their analytics of decisions, particularly in a period when the dominant society commends private utilization and personal addition. Luckily, the incomprehensible hole between self-interest and open interest is connected in the polis by some exceptional strengths: impact, participation, and reliability. Activities, not as much as thoughts are affected by others through the decisions others have made and the ones we anticipate that they will make, by what they need us to do, and by what they expect we will do. As a general rule, the Stones contends, our decisions are contingent.
Impact additionally prompts fascinating aggregate conduct, for example, “fleeting trend effects” in races when a competitor’s underlying lead cause more individuals to bolster him since they need to back a champ or when frenzies happen when people fear a financial breakdown, surge out to money out their ledgers or offer their stocks, and in this manner realize the disruption they dreaded. One cannot downplay that impact in every one of its assortments and degrees of quality is one of the focal components in legislative issues. In the polis, participation is as vital as rivalry for the accompanying reasons. First, legislative issues include looking for associates and sorting out assistance, keeping in mind the end goal to contend with rivals. Each contention joins a few people as it partitions others and governmental issues have as much to do with how organizations together are made and held together as with how individuals are separated. Besides, collaboration is vital to control and is regularly a more important type of subordination than intimidation in cases like wardens and detainees
Participation involves collisions, and partnerships are in any event fairly persevering. In the entire market, a purchaser will switch suppliers in light of a cost or quality change. In governmental issues, connections are not all that liquid. They include endowments, favors, backing and a significant portion of every, future commitment. Political collusions tie individuals after some time. In the business sector, individuals are “purchasers” and “merchants”. In legislative issues, they are “adversaries” and “companions”. Fellowships are excusing in a way that immaculate business connections are not, or ought to be. In the polis, history means lots; in the corporate sector, it means nothing is a business and not an individual. This does not imply that political unions are flawlessly steady or that people never surrender companions and join with previous adversaries. In any case, it means that in the polis there’s an assumption of unsavory nature. It takes a unique occasion something that triggers a profound dread or offers a limitless chance to inspire them to switch their loyalties. There is a danger of breaking old organizations together, and individuals do not do it gently.
Given the compelling strengths of impact, participation and dedication, gatherings and associations, instead of people are the building pieces of the polis. Conferences are critical in three ways: First, individuals have a place with foundations and organizations, notwithstanding when they are not associations mold regular people and their assessments, and they rely on upon relationships to speak to their requirements. Second, the Stones affirms, strategy making is about taking care of open issues, as well as about how gatherings are framed, part, and re-shaped to accomplish public purposes. Third, meetings are imperative since choices of the polis are aggregate.
In the perfect business sector, data is impeccable, which means it is precise, finished and accessible to everybody at no expense. In the polis, by difference, data is interpretive, deficient, and deliberately withheld. Right data exists, yet in the governmental issues, the critical thing is the thing that individuals make of such reports. Understandings are more productive than realities. Consequently, the much political action is a push to control such agreement, case in point, when initiating turn control. In the polis, data is never finished. All the more vitally for a model of the polis is that critical information is purposely kept the mystery for the reason that one anticipates that another person will carry on diversely once the data is made open for example Fred Thompson joining the race for administration. It is evident that secrecy and disclosure are devices of the political process and data by its exceptional nature is esteemed and famous.
Stone’s structure for policy analysis is characterized through the scientific, issue, and arrangement way to deal with the investigation. Thus, this process takes into account accomplished and altogether thoroughly considered critical leadership in the polis. A good example is the of the situation of No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind as an approach issue in the polis must consider all youngsters’ ideal enthusiasm for the request to give predominance in instructive practices inside the learning environment (Rotherham, 2010; Cohen, 2010). It is because that all understudies paying little heed to race, financial status; dialect talked or exceptional necessities, will be offered a chance to accomplish greatness through qualification in the quest for a sound basis in scholastics and the attitudes required to be an achievement on the planet. The objective of the No Child Left Behind arrangement is to take a stab at fairness in administrations rendered, proficiency in the how to convey enhanced instruction to understudies, also, security that they can learn in a sheltered setting where understudies can don’t hesitate to take a chance and beware of issues (McGuinn, 2006). No Child Left Behind has noted benefits, for example, expanded information also, truths about every individual understudy, which will have the capacity to furnish teachers with the right region of focus expected to enhance while as yet stressing qualities to play upon for self-regard fabricating and setting up academic establishments (Cohen, 2010). This technique has demonstrated valuable time and again, and the utilization of information can still be joined into best practices.
As No Child Left Behind is drawing nearer reauthorization, it should likewise be viewed as that we have to cultivate discovering that will get ready understudies to be prepared for school or a vacation (Rotherham, 2010). Thus, teachers should be given better preparing and apparatuses to have the capacity to execute enhanced direction. In essential arrangement leadership, we should dispose of the adverse impact of particular vested parties limited dreams based upon individual motivation as it does not enhance training for all. Different causes should be assessed to quench hindrances for change. Understudies should be at last furnished with the abilities required as they graduate from the K-12 arrangement of instruction and move into the actual or higher instructive frameworks all through America and the world. The fuse of truths, power, rights and standards will all be vital as the state and national government work helpfully with instructors, managers, group individuals, guardians, and even understudies to better enhance instruction for all substitutes alike through significant arrangement improvement and all around arranged keen choice making.
Critique of Stone’s Claim
Stone’s claims revolve around her aim of providing a realistic view of the operation of politics in the world. Through criticizing “The Rationality Project”, she asserts that various concepts and assumptions of marketing rationality have been in control of policy analysis. This brings an understanding of why there should not be a substitution of politics with the rationalist logic embraced within the classic market economics. The reason she highlights is that economics are different from the policy. The failure of separation of the two concepts has given rise to the real paradoxes. Moreover, lack of understanding the formulation of policies within the political system renders persons unable to explain the policy paradoxes (Stone, 2002).
The Strength of these claims revolves around the ability of the author to use the persuasive argument to show concisely the different interests marketers and politics pursue. In the marketing field, persons seek maximization of self-benefits. They exhibit limited concern for the public interest, an aspect that policymakers should embrace during the formulation of policies. Additionally, another prime concern for marketers is competition. Instead of the development of policies that target at meeting the needs of the people, they opt to compare the information of the available options and base their decision on the one that presents more benefits to the public. Since it is impossible to get access to all the necessary information, this approach is more contested that the assumptions an economist might hold. Evidently, Stone (2002) embraces a realistic model approach to politics than that of the marketers. She can demonstrate significant aspects such as community formation, claims on public interest, and the strategic use of information.
Besides the use of persuasive argument and the realistic approach, Stone has limited focus on the practicality of the models in the real world. Most communities do not rely on only one type of design; rather they embrace both. The model choice depends on the perception of the policy makers and the citizens. For example, for workers to strike because of poor wages, the decision is based on self-interest. However, if they opt to go on strike because of practices the organization embraces that leads to environmental pollution, they would be acting in the interest of the public. Therefore, policy makers, the government, and citizens should not limit their operations to only one model; rather they should embrace both concepts to maximize the advantages both present (Dye, 2014).
From Stone’s (2002) work, one can draw several lessons, one of them being that public interest
often conflicts with self-interest. This is because while public concern focuses on the welfare of the society, self-interest
only expresses the concern for an individual. Thus, the political system is often faced with
the conflict between these two sets of interests. However, by the use of
loyalty, influence, and cooperation, the members of the community can work
towards bridging these gaps. Thus, the polis model superior to the rational
model since marketers focus on negative co-operations such as price-fixing and
collusion. Another important lesson is that policymakers
should focus on development a balance between equality and efficiency since
equity inhibits efficiency. In a society where people receive equal treatment,
they are contented with their environment, and therefore do not focus on self-development.
Moreover, promotion of equality results in wastage of government resources.
Promotion of equality without equal distribution of resources would thus aid in
the increase of the efficiency level within a community.
References
Cohen, M. (2010, January). States are Leading the Way on Shared Approaches. U.S. News & World Report,, 34-36.
Dye, T. R. (2016). Understanding Public Policy. New York: Pearson Education.
McGuinn, P. J. (2006). No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005. Univ Pr of Kansas.
Rotherham, A. (2010). Moving from ‘what’ to ‘how’ in educational policy. U.S. News & World Report,, 147(1), 37.
Stone, D. (2002). Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
