Question

What features of the American political system promote fragmentation, lack of coordination, and inconsistencies in the policy-making process? In your view, how could this incremental system of policy making be changed?

Answer 1

Answer 1:

Features of American political system that promotes fragmentation, lack of coordination, and inconsistencies in the policy making process:

1.       Different organs of the national government often have overlapping jurisdictions or areas of responsibility.

2.       American political system conform to pluralistic model

3.       General people are not well informed about the policy making process and politics.

4.       Nature of US Government- Federalism and separation of powers encourages creating multiple center of powers.

Policymaking in the American system can be highly fragmented. Different organs of the national government often have overlapping jurisdictions or areas of responsibility. State governments, too, may develop policies. This fragmentation makes the policymaking process conform to the pluralist model. We have seen that the general public is not very well informed about politics; a weakness of the majoritarian model is that it threatens us with government by people who have little knowledge behind their decisions. In contrast, the people who make up issue networks concerned with specific areas of public policy bring enormous expertise to bear on public policy matters. Their activities fit well with a pluralist model of democracy, which promises considerable influence in the policy process to those with the greatest stake in an issue area. However, if pluralist politics are to be democratic, access must be open and different interests must be able to compete on a relatively equal basis.

The fundamental nature of U.S. government—federalism and the separation of powers—contributes to the fragmentation of policymaking by creating multiple centers of power. These centers of power may pursue competing policies in the same policy area. This circumstance may be the result of real conflict between branches of government or merely a lack of coordination within a branch. Sometimes, problems of fragmentation and coordination may be attacked by reassignment of agency jurisdictions, by reform of congressional committees, by Office of Management and Budget regulatory review, or by industry appeals for a single national policy to replace fifty state policies in an issue area.

Answer 2:

Incrementalism, theory of public policy making, according to which policies result from a process of interaction and mutual adaptation among a multiplicity of actors advocating different values, representing different interests, and possessing different information.

Incremental system of policy making can be changed by

1.       Continuity – Reproduction by adaptation

2.       Discontinuity – Gradual Transformation

The result of change is divided into continuity or discontinuity. For instance, with incremental change and continuity, we would expect reproduction by adaptation. But when change is abrupt and there is discontinuity, we would expect gradual transformation