Excise Taxes
Source: Howlett, Michael. Designing public policies: Principles and instruments. Routledge, 2010.
Excise taxes are another treasure-based tool, one that acts as a disincentive to individuals, organizations, and groups to undertake specific actions and activities. Cnossen (2005:2) defines these as ‘all selective taxes and related levies and charges on good and services’. They have several general purposes: (1) to raise revenue for general purposes, (2) to offset ‘external costs’, (3) to discourage consumption, and (4) to pay for public goods (Nowlan 1994).
Raising revenue through taxes is, of course, the oldest technique of government practised, from taxes placed on road use by the Romans to the tea tax US colonists rebelled against at the Boston Tea Party. In this form, excise taxes typically supported legal modes of governance. Using taxes to offset costs of production – to pay for pollution clean-up or health consequences of tobacco use in order to correct production or consumption ‘externalities’ like pollution or carbon emissions which otherwise would be passed onto the general public – is a much newer form and is more compatible with market governance modes (Mandell 2008; Toke 2008; Pope and Owen 2009). A similar effort involves so-called ‘vice taxes’ for activities such as gambling, alcohol consumption, lotteries, or, more frequently in recent years, various forms of ‘virtuous’ ‘green’ taxes such as those designed to govern the cost of recycling car batteries or used oil or paint, or even returnable bottle deposits, all designed to offset the costs of the activities concerned (Cnossen 2005; Eloi 2009). The use of motor fuel taxes to cover the cost of road construction or mass transit is an example of the fourth of Nowlan’s purposes.
Such taxes generally discourage [...]
The Question of Legitimacy
Issalys (2005) argues that given the relationship and interdependence between democracy, law and values, the question of legitimacy is both a relevant and important consideration in the question of choosing between forms of public action. This argument is made in the context of what Issalys (2005) calls the “challenge of explosion”, referring to the wide proliferation of complexity and uncertainty, resulting from 1) the proliferation of legal forms of public and 1) the proliferation of perspectives from which we consider the legitimation of the forms of public action.
Issalys (2005) argues that “among the forms of public action, there must be criteria for concluding that one of them is more legitimate because it is better adapted to the characteristics of the situation at hand. The three perspectives on legitimation described above suggest their own: the formalism of legality, technical or political rationality, and the application of values. Competition between these perspectives must not force us to decide among them. It suggests instead that the desired legitimacy of public action is in fact plural. None of these perspectives should, it seems, exclude the others. Each must be taking into consideration and put to debate when preparing to choose the form of public action. The choice of that form will emerge from a critical examination of the recommended solutions based on each opposing perspective. The justification of this choice will thus be an argued justification.” (pg 169). Table 1 outlines the justificatory criteria Issalys identifies. Table 2 present a proposed method for implementing the justificatory approach.
Table 1 (From Issalys, 2005):
Perspectives
Criteria
Principles
Values
Forms
Political leader’s perspective
Political control
The impetus of public action belongs to public action.
Collective self-government
Forms that are directly or indirectly under Parliament’s effective control.
Citizen’s perspective
Quality of public space
Public [...]
Organization-Based Tools: Scenario Planning and Strategic Foresight
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
Scenario planning is a policy tool used to plan for uncertain times in the future. It is a process of positing several informed, plausible and imagined alternative future environments in which decisions about the future may be played out, for the purpose of changing current thinking, improving decision making, enhancing human and organization learning and improving performance (Chermack, 2005). Within Hood’s (1986) NATO taxonomy, scenario planning can be seen as an ‘Organization’ resource used by the government to set the agenda for planning for the future. The government can used its resources such a people, information and materials to study various scenarios for the future and how it can better manage and prepare for them.
Scenario planning has become an important agenda-setting tool in recent years. Given the uncertainties of public policy-making, it has the potential to prepare and better manage complex decisions, and spot early warning signals about future problems. It can 4 also be used to identify and manage conflicts and to try find common ground for future action when there are diverging societal interests and values. As an agenda setting tool, it is important as it can first be used as a policy risk-free space to visualize, rehearse and test the acceptability of different strategies without being implicated by the actual constraints of day-to-day policy-making (Volkery and Ribeiro, 2009).
Even though people have been interested in the future and have used scenarios indirectly to explore it, scenario planning as strategic planning tool is firmly rooted in the military and has been employed by military strategist [...]
Treasure-Based Tools: Interest Group and NGO Funding
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
Governments can use policy tools that give an economic benefit to a favored group, not just by appropriating money but also by exempting an event or a transaction from taxation. This way, such tools can allocate benefits and have several advantages as it will not further burden the government’s budget and can also reduce the apparent burden of taxation on individuals. But economists have been quick to point out that the economic effect of such deductions can be equivalent to an appropriation of public funds, both from the point of view of the government, which is deprived of that portion of receipts from taxation, and from the point of view of the taxpayer, who is allowed to retain funds that would otherwise be taxed (Yarmolinsky, 2000).
Charitable deductions permit certain taxpayers to deduct their contributions to charitable, educational, and scientific organizations in calculating their taxable income. From the perspective of the government, allowing for charitable deductions can be seen as a carrot, to incentivize people to give to certain kinds of charities that may have positive externalities. As noted by Brody and Cordes (2006), the most visible way in which the federal government acts as a benefactor of nonprofit sector is by allowing individuals and corporations an income tax deduction for the value of their charitable contributions. These deductions can be viewed as providing an important economic incentive for private donors to provide financial support to a wide range of philanthropic enterprises. It can also have a direct effect of freeing the government from having to perform [...]
Authority-Based Tools: Sunset Clauses and Periodic Review
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
A sunset clause is a legal provision that provides for the expiry of a law or part of a law at a later date. A sunset clause does not aim at continuity, rather it ‘sets the sun’ on a provision or entire statute on a specific date, unless there are substantial reasons to believe that the former should be extended for a determined period (Ranchordas, 2014). Unlike most laws, the continued validity of legislation subject to a sunset clause is contingent upon some future action by the legislature(Ip, 2013).
A sunset clause can be used as an agenda setting tool as it can set an expiration date to a legal provision at the outset. Within Hood’s NATO taxonomy, sunset clauses and periodic reviews can be seen as an ‘Authority’ resource used by the government to set the agenda, as they can use their power to introduce a policy when needed and mandate the termination date ahead of time based on a periodic review on its usefulness. Overcoming legislative inertia can be seen as one of the major rationales for sunset clauses as it changes the default position form permanent to temporary. A sunset clause provides enough leeway to extend the provision at a later date if necessary after a periodic review has taken place. But more importantly, it sets a policy termination date at the outset which can otherwise be a difficult thing to do as there can be resistance to termination (Bardach, 1978; DeLeon, 1978, 1983; Kirkpatrick et al., 1999; Geva-May, 2004) by different groups along [...]
Nodality Tools; Government Communications and Issue Management
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
Government communications are the ‘sermons’ in the ‘carrots, sticks, organizations and sermons’ formulation of basic policy instrument types. Evert Vedung defines these ‘sermons’ as:
“Efforts to use the knowledge and data available to governments to influence consumer and producer behaviour in a direction consistent with government aims and wishes” and/or “gather information in order to further their aims and ambitions” (Vedung and van der Doelen, 1998).
This definition, while useful, is limited in that it conceals or elides several dimensions of information tool use and the general purposes to which they can be put.
Two dimensions of government communications activities, in particular, are often incorrectly juxtaposed in the literature on the subject. First, whether the communication activities are intended to serve as devices primarily oriented towards the manipulation of policy actors (Saward, 1992; Edelman, 1988) or social and economic ones (Hornik, 1989; Jahn et al., 2005) and, second, which stages of the production process or policy cycle different communication tools focus upon (Howlett, 2009).Both missing dimensions require further elaboration in order to develop a workable definition and classification of communication tools for comparative purposes.
With respect to the first “substantive” dimension, much existing literature focuses very much on the manipulation of the behaviour of economic actors – namely consumers and producers – to the neglect of the effects such tools can and do have upon other kinds of policy and policy network actors and activities. With respect to the second “procedural” concern, many studies focus exclusively on the role of government communications as part of [...]
Types of Government Agenda Setting Tools (Hood/NATO)
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
Christopher Hood presented a toolset that governments use to govern which he called the NATO scheme and argued that governments tend to possess four basic resources by virtue of being government: ‘nodality’, ‘authority’, ‘treasure’ and ‘organization’. (Hood, 1986). Nodality denotes the use of government information resources to influence and direct policy actions through the provision or withholding of ‘information’ or ‘knowledge’ from societal actors. Authority denotes the possession of legal or official power, i.e. the power officially to demand, forbid, guarantee, adjudicate. Treasure denotes the possession of a stock of moneys or ‘fungible chattels’. Organization denotes the possession of a stock of people with whatever skills they may have (soldiers, workers, bureaucrats),land, buildings, materials, computers and equipment, some how arranged. (Hood and Margetts, 2007)
We can use Hood’s NATO taxonomy to identify examples of the different agenda setting tools available to governments. Figure 1 below lists several specific types of agenda setting tools available:
Figure 1: Examples of Agenda-Setting Tools by Resource Used
Nodality
Authority
Treasure
Organization
Government Communications
Issue Management
Sunset Clauses
Charitable Donations
Scenario Planning
Strategic Foresight
In-Text Citations
Hood, C. The Tools of Government. Chatham: Chatham House Publishers, 1986.
Hood, Christopher, and Helen Z. Margetts. The Tools of Government in the Digital Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
What is an Agenda-Setting Tool?
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
Implementation tools are the policy instruments most often studied. They affect either the content or processes of policy implementation, that is, which alter the way goods and services are delivered to the public or the manner in which such implementation processes take place (Howlett 2000). Many of the distinctions and categorizations developed to examine implementation tools remain useful in examining other types of tools as well.
One common category of implementation instrument thus, for example, proposes to alter the actual substance of the kinds of day-to-day production, distribution and consumption activities carried out in society, while the other focuses upon altering political or policy behaviour in the process of the articulation of implementation goals and means. ‘Substantive’ implementation instruments are those used to directly affect the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in society while ‘’procedural’ implementation instruments accomplish the second purpose (Ostrom 1986; Howlett 2000 and 2005).
That is, at their most basic level, all government tools fall into two types depending on their general goal orientation: one type proposes to alter the actual substance of the kinds of activities carried out by citizens going about their day-to-day tasks, while the other focuses more upon altering political or policy behaviour in the process of the articulation of policy goals and means. ‘Procedural’ policy tools are used to accomplish the latter purposes, while ‘substantive’ policy instruments are those used to more directly affect the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in society (Howlett, 2000). Substantive instruments are thus expected to alter some aspect of [...]
What is Agenda-Setting?
Source: Howlett, M & Shivakoti, R. (2014) Agenda-Setting Tools: State-Driven Agenda Activity from Government Relations to Scenario Forecasting. DRAFT PAPER, Presented to ECPR Glasgow General Conference, Non-Implementation Tools Panel
As Cobb and Elder put it in their early studies of the subject in the United States; … pre-political, or at least pre-decisional processes often play the most critical role in determining what issues and alternatives are to be considered by the Legal Governance Mode Policy Process Corporatist Governance Mode Policy Process Network Governance Mode Policy Process Market Governance Mode Policy Process Agenda-Setting e.g. . Trade Surveys Policy Formulation e.g. Regulatory Impact Assessments Decision-Making e.g. Multi-Criteria Analyses Focusing on Employment and Income effects Policy Implementation e.g. Cost-of-Service Price Regulations Policy Evaluation e.g. Consultations with Affected Companies 6 polity and the probable choices that will be made. What happens in the decision-making councils of the formal institutions of government may do little more than recognize, document and legalize, if not legitimize, the momentary results of a continuing struggle of forces in the larger social matrix… From this perspective, the critical question becomes, how does an issue or a demand become or fail to become the focus of concern and interest within a polity?(Cobb and Elder 1972).
The question of how a problem comes to be interpreted as a public problem requiring government action raises deeper questions about the nature of human knowledge and the social construction of that knowledge and the policy sciences took many years to evolve a position or theory on the nature of social problems.3
It has long been generally agreed, however, that a variety of political (Castles and McKinlay 1979; Castles 1982; Hibbs, 1977; King, 1981; von Beyme 1984) epistemological (Hilgartner and Bosk 1981; Holzner [...]