The Idea of Policy Generations

Abstract

The argument in the previous chapter was that the idea of well-balanced public policies does not comprise an adequate representation of real policy processes and the changes therein. In practice, policies do not change because the actors involved try to balance the different demands such policies face. Rather, the emphasis on one aspect will be continually replaced by emphasis on another aspect. Furthermore, the dominance of the priority of each of the demands follows a fixed sequence through time independent of the policy area involved. At one moment, the policy-makers will address only short-term goal achievement, then long-term effectiveness, subsequently the policy process, and after that efficiency. As such the theory fits within the theories on policy change as described in the first chapter. The theory acknowledges the existence of conflicts, or the battle over priorities, as crucial in pluralist theory, as described by Schattschneider (1960), and that policies involve choices over goals and priorities, as aptly discussed by Baumgartner and Jones (1996; Jones and Baumgartner 2005).