PPM Lecture 2
What does the 'game' of politics entail?
The “game” of politics entails different arenas with competing and cooperating actors in an institutional setting against a socio-economic, cultural and legal background.
What are the policy subsystems?
Policy Subsystems are the geographical area, the policy issue, institutions and policy actors.
What are actors?
Actors are (groups of) individuals who participate in policy processes and whose preferences will ultimately determine the policy choice.
What are the key factors of corporate actors?
Key features are shared ideas or interests, acting in concert and often organized.
What are institutions?
Institutions are rule-bound entities. They can have formal rules or informal rules. Institutions explain why certain things happen, and constrain how actors can act.
What are formal and informal institutions?
Formal institutions are the sets of legal rules.Informal institutions are about ideas and practices. Informal institutions include world views, beliefs, norms, ideologies, and standard operating procedures.
What are three ways to influence intentional actions of agents?
Decision-making power, Avoiding formal decision, Influencing individuals’ beliefs.
How can decision-making power be explained?
Measurable and visible power that can be measured and empirically observed.
How can Avoiding formal decision be explained?
A non-decision (where there is a lot of uproar, but no policy made on the issue) and mobilization of bias (= on an institutional level, shaping the lense of how public policy issues are seen [what is a political issue and what is not)
How can Influencing individuals’ beliefs be done?
Ways to influence other people are information flows (tobacco advertisement) and societalization (the majority believes something so you start believing in it too because we live in an interconnected relationship with each other)
What does actors' power depends on?
Context (institutions and structures).
What do institutions and structures influence an actor's power?
The institutions constrain and enable a president. Structures, like laws and cultural norms, get power on a micro and macro level.
What does Foucault’s Governmentality mean?
Foucault’s Governmentality means that the intentional part of actors is not the only way power is used. Structure and structural ideas can use power in society without anyone being intentional. This leads to people practicing self-discipline and constraining themselves to the structural roles.
What are the two broad shifts of decentralization?
1) From Sovereign State to Multi-Level Government
2) From Government to Governance