Last week I started a short series of columns on how governments make decisions. I began with a well known model devised by a political scientist named John Kingdon. His model emphasizes traditional institutions of government as the central actors in the policy process: ministers and bureaucrats. I said that while these institutional actors are important we know that in today's world policy decisions are likely to include non-state actors. This week I want to talk about how the context of policy making has changed and how non-state actors have become part of the larger decision-making process.
First, I should say that it is difficult to make generalizations about all policy processes because different types of policies involve different types of complex issues and different policies involve different political actors. Education policy for example is largely an issue of domestic politics. It is a provincial area of jurisdiction and education policy is unlikely to be impacted by international events. While the federal government is certainly concerned about education, education policy falls under provincial jurisdiction. Other policy areas are more likely to be impacted by the larger national and international context and involve federal and provincial governments including a range of ministries.
Trade policy, for example, involves a wide variety of policy actors and governments around the world have undergone a change in their approach to trade policy as a result of a change in the idea about the role of state. Since about the 1980s, there has been a new kind of ideology that has been adopted in many countries about the world. The ideology is called "neo-liberalism." Many contemporary governments have accepted this new framework as the model by which they participate in the global market and in the process of globalization.
Neo-liberalism suggests that the best way for an economy to thrive is to give the free market more room to maneuver with less state restrictions. Neo-liberalism assumes more free trade and more open markets and, as a result, more corporate actors have become involved in the policy process. In fact, some non-governmental actors become providers of public services. These arrangements are made in the belief that the private sector can provide services in a less expensive and more efficient way than can governments.
In the context of a neo-liberal framework, corporations can make demands about what kind of regulations can be imposed. Moreover, national governments can be restricted from offering subsidies that support particular industries. There is a belief that restrictions on government subsidies will level the playing field for all participants in the market.
I have mentioned before in this column that governments have shifted from the role of "state builder" to the role of "global actor" working to bring more investment through trade and investment. With this change, private actors have more say in the way a policy is designed and implemented. The argument is that private actors or corporations need flexible rules to work in the global economy.
One of the issues that may arise as a result of this shift to non-state actors in decision making positions is the concern for the decline of accountability to the wider public good.
Other non-state actors have made their way into the policy process as well through the rise of social forces and the strength of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Environmental non-governmental groups (ENGOs), for example, have worked to change policies by aiming their campaigns directly at the public rather than lobbying government through traditional policy making channels. As John Kingdon suggests, one of the crucial parts of the policy process is the identification of a problem. ENGOs have been very successful at framing problems and changing public values. During the 1990s, they found their way into policy processes because ENGOs wielded considerable power not only with government but also with industry.
Decision making is still about weighing the pros and cons of particular approaches but the state is often constrained by the impact of ideas and value changes like neo-liberalism and environmentalism. Governments may have to include more actors in the policy process but governments still have to win elections, they still have to "sell" their ideas and they still have to be accountable to the public that they serve.
