Deborah Stone, in her book, Policy Paradox: the Art of Political Decision discusses several interpretations of policy goals and processes as well as their solutions. Stone presents her book into four parts. She titled the first part, “Politics,” where she covers the topic “The Market and the Polis.” The second part is “Goals,” where she covers five types of goals, which include Equity, Efficiency, Welfare, Liberty, and Security. The third part is problems where he covers five subtopics, which include Symbols, Numbers, Causes, Interests, and Decisions. The fourth part is the Solutions. Under solutions, Stone covers five more subtopics, which include Incentives, Rules, Facts, Rights, and Power. Generally, in the book, Stone first addresses the challenge of goals, including efficiency, equity, security, and liberty. Second, it outlines problems, which are generally states in terms of numbers, symbols, interests, decisions, and causes. Lastly, Stone considers the solutions to these problems.
Stone chooses the Greek word “polis” to phrase the first chapter. The term “polis” in Greek means city-state. It, therefore, allows her to cover broad elements of politics. In the chapter, Stone starts with the statement, “A theory of policy politics must start with a simple model of political society, just as economics starts with a simple model of economic society” (Stone, 19). Stone suggests that while creating a model of political society, it is essential to apply the market model as a start since the market model dominates contemporary policy debates. She argues that the contrast between models of market society and political society illuminates how the market society disrupts political life. In the market model, individuals tend to concentrate on their self-interest rather than the interest of the whole community. For instance, the person will consider the wellbeing of their friends and family members. However, if there is a competitive market drive, individuals tend to be more resourceful, intelligent, creative, and productive. Therefore, market competition is likely to improve the economic wellbeing of society. Stone, therefore, suggests that we should start from the market model to develop an alternative model of polis by just contrasting some features of the market model.
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Stone mentions community as the starting point of the polis since both politics and policy can only occur in a community. However, there is a difference between the cultural community and the political community. According to Stone, a political community is consists of a group of individuals living within the same political structure and rules of governance and share the same status quo of citizens. On the contrary, the cultural community entails a group of individuals sharing the same culture, and they draw their identities from the same history, traditions, and language. A political community can entail various cultural communities. Stone also recognizes the feature of mutual aid within a community (Stone, 20-22). She concludes that being a member of a community gives individual social, economic, and political rights within that community.
Stone also mentions the concept of altruism. Altruism is whereby an individual act in a way that benefits others rather than oneself. In politics, people tend to fight over the interest of the majority. This contradicts what market model entails which is self-interest (pg. 23). To some extent, the market model is similar to the political model in the essence that the space of public interest in the market model is filled with self-interest. Stone also demonstrates the concept of common problems whereby situations of public interest and self-interest operate against each other. She defines two types of common problems, including the social benefits that need private sacrifices and actions with private benefits together with the social cost. In the market model, common problems are not rules but exceptions (pg. 25). However, in the polis, common problems entail everything. For instance, policy problems are common problems in the polis.
Moreover, In Polis Model, cooperation is essential just as competition due to the following reasons. First, cooperation is necessary for power. Second, politics require organizing cooperation and seeking allies to form a competitive forum with opponents (pg. 28). However, in the market model, cooperation is related to price-fixing, collusion, or insider trading, thereby describing it negatively. Besides, in the market model, one maximizes self-interests but minimizes cost. For instance, in an ideal market, consumption of specific product changes in response to quality or price difference. However, in the political model, people tend to maximize self-interest but promote the public interest. Besides, due to strong forces of influence, loyalty, and cooperation, the organizations and groups build the foundation of the polis (pg. 26-30). Groups are important in three ways. First, everybody individual belongs to an organization or an institution that shapes their opinions. Besides, they depend on these organizations to represent their demands and expectations. Second, Stone denotes that policymaking is not all about solving public problems but also how groups are formed and organized to attain public purposes. The third way in which groups are relevant is due to the collective nature of the decisions of the polis.
Stone also defines information as used in both market models and polis. According to Stone, in the market model, information is perfecto mean that it is accurate, complete and available to everybody at no cost. On the contrary, in the polis, information is incomplete, interpretive, and strategically withheld. In other words, in politics, correct information never exists, and the only important thing is to know the reports that other people make. Therefore, in politics, interpretation is more important than factual information. As such, most political activities tend to put more effort into controlling interpretations. Since political model information is never complete, the main tools for political information and strategy are revelation and secrecy.
Furthermore, Stone also identifies three groups of challenges in policymaking, which she discusses in parts 2, 3, and 4 of the book. They include goals, problems, and solutions. She identifies four central challenges of goals, which include equity, liberty, efficiency, and security. Since the political model believes in interpretations rather than factual, Stone suggests that the four challenges of goals are the examples of competing interpretation of political issues. Some of the interpretations needed when it comes to the topic of equity include the following. First, which groups should be considered? In this case, one must identify how to assess the merits, how to identify main social groups, how to define expectations and requirements of different groups of people, and how to account for them. Second, what methods are appropriate for distribution? Lastly, what are the best ways of balancing individual, state-based, and communal interventions? (39-62).
On the other hand, efficiency helps in determining how to minimize the resources used but ensure that objectives are achieved. As such, the political groups consider the following. First, who are the determiners of primary goals and objectives? Second, which societal group benefits from such actions? Lastly, what is the definition of resources while balancing equity and efficiency? (Stone, 63-82) While considering liberty, political groups tend to be concerned with the following. First, what is the overall balance of coercion and freedom from the disruption of others? Second, what are the state responsibilities? Lastly, what are the decisions that change or minimizes harm to a particular population? (Stone, 107-128). However, while considering security, political groups consider the following. First, they consider ways to make their ability to measure risk scientifically. Second, they consider the possibilities of experiences or threats of harm. Third, they consider the ratio of risk to safety that is worth tolerable before intervening (130-156). Fourth, they consider the groups to target and those to be imprisoned, and lastly, they consider the impacts of surveillance on the public perceptions and understanding of democracy.
Stone also discusses the problem in part three of the book as one of the groups considered in policymaking. She generally states the problem in terms of numbers, symbols, interests, decisions, and causes. According to her, policy actors depend on symbols and metaphors, thereby concentrating on value positions. As such, policy analysts are required to know how to observe and interpret both ends of the political value continuum. Besides, policy actors mainly use relevant stories to influence their subjects and the way they interpret or understand the nature of policy problems and develop feasible solutions. Through this, policy actors also affect how their audience understands the general context of policymaking in which the public contests the appropriate balance between the community, the state, and market actions. The key elements that policy actors consider while telling stories include the symbols, numbers, metaphors, characters, ambiguity synecdoche, and narrative arcs. They use symbols to illustrate all the issues or actions in just one word or picture (157-9).
On the contrary, policy actors use metaphors to demonstrate the relationship of a particular problem with another thing that is relatable such as natural occurrence. Policy actors use numbers to tell stories when describing how to, categories of social groups, measurements, estimating results, projects the possibility of reducing some complex problems in numbers, and assigning authority to numbers within a population. They use ambiguity while telling stories to give alternative reasons for supporting something (168-205). By using these elements while telling stories, policy actors can change the understanding of their audience to what the actors want them to believe. It demonstrates how canning policy actors are.
Generally, Stone has exclusively explained the nature of the policymaking process, especially in our current society. We believe that we are ruled through democracy, but the policymakers have made us believe so. Policy actors and analysis know very well what the community wants, the groups that are a threat to them, and how they can handle these groups to bid to their policy. I believe in what Stone says in the Policy Paradox. The market is indeed completely different from the political arena. In the market model, self-interest drives motivation, whereas, in the political model, public interest serves self-interest. In the political model, pubic interests work hand in hand with self-interest. It is the reason why policy actors tend to focus on analyzing public interest and influence their understanding. By controlling the public perception of the policymaking process, the subjects are likely to conform to the policy actors’ needs. As such, the norm of serving public interest changes to serving self-interest. In our society today, we experience campaign forums where politicians try to sell their policies and manifestos to their subjects. In these forums, we as the audience, we are always convinced that politicians have conformed to our needs. However, what we fail to understand is that politicians have read our minds, and they will always assure us that their manifestos conform to our requirements. As such, just through a twist of a story, by using symbols, metaphors and other element, they are able to convince us that they serve the public interests. However, almost all politicians want to serve their interests as well.
Works Cited
Stone, Deborah A. Policy paradox: The art of political decision making . Vol. 13. New York: ww Norton, 1997.
