Zoé Hamstead
This past January – more than two months after Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast flooding infrastructure, destroying homes and killing more than 100 people – Congress approved a $51 billion relief package to repair transit systems, provide cash grants to storm victims and undertake long-term flood control projects. Although the disaster directly affected millions of people and emotionally moved many citizens and policymakers who were not directly involved, there was a great deal of disagreement over what the appropriate response should be. As one of the most poignant public examples of this controversy, Governor Christie was incited to publically denounce his own party as the relief bill was held up in the House. While some may argue that his condemnation of the GOP was politically motivated, it underscored how interpretive, and even politically-charged, the process of defining a problem, developing alternatives and weighing costs and benefits can be, even for issues that are broadly recognized as public crises.
There were multiple sides to this issue, including factions within both opponent and proponent groups. Some opponents of the bill – such as Tea Party Republicans – were against it on principle, arguing it constituted reckless government spending. Others argued that the relief package was short-sighted and did not include enough long-term investment in preventing another disaster. ‘Quasi-opponents’ felt that the relief package was appropriate in spirit, but contained too many additional spending riders that would not address the problem at hand. Among proponents, people felt that the country had a moral obligation to bring resources to those in need. However, there was disagreement over exactly how resources should be allocated. Other policy and spending proposals have been made at the state or local level with respect to providing support for individuals in low-income housing, using green infrastructure in flood prone areas and initiating floodplain buyout program. Governor Cuomo proposed spending $400 million to buy out properties destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Under this program, the state would purchase properties from homeowners and put them into permanent preservation as public parkland, dunes, wetlands or other natural storm buffers. Although this policy is, in many ways, win-win for buyout participants and advocates of long-term resilience measures, it is also not without contention. On the one hand, buyouts can support individuals’ safety while financially compensating them for loss of property. On the other hand, buyout participants may lose important social ties connected with their former community, suffer spiritually from a loss of sense of place and – depending on the unique situation – may not be made financially whole. Debates surrounding these adopted and proposed policies all grapple with issues of liberty, moral obligation, differential costs and benefits to different groups and causal framing. In short, the messy process of policymaking in a pluralist society is at work.
Deborah Stone would attribute these debates about goals, alternatives and general ambiguity surrounding the decision-making process to the reality that this process takes place within community. In communities, she argues, social action is initiated by groups who have shared interests and use persuasion and power to influence public policy (Stone, 2012). She abandons the rationalist perspective which envisions a decision-maker equipped with perfect information and motivated by self-interest alone, whose singular goal is to maximize that interest. People not directly affected by the storm supported the relief package because of feelings of moral obligation and reciprocity, not out of self-interest. Moreover, she rejects the role of science in policy making. Multiple goals muddied the meaning of the package. Shall we prioritize the welfare of victims, the freedom to live where one wishes, or the mitigation of future disaster? How can we then measure welfare, freedom and disaster mitigation? Although her points are conceptually and, to some extent, empirically well-taken, how does her reframing of political life help us proceed after Hurricane Sandy?
Should we not attempt to estimate economic losses or project the risk of future storm disaster associated with various development, redevelopment or preservation strategies? Should we not – in whatever way possible – try to capture spiritual and emotional loss associated with relocation and redevelopment? Symbols, numbers and causal explanations are imperfect tools that people employ to articulate how they see the world. Though these tools are imperfect, does policymaking not need all the help it can get? To employ scientific tools in projecting policy outcomes or describe the social consequences of a natural disaster is not to assert that we can perfectly foresee all possible outcomes, or perfectly capture the immediate and ongoing social consequences.
As Stone’s approach rejects use of the scientific method in the decision making process, it also avoids using such as method. It suffers from being what Lowi described as a “self-validating standpoint,” which draws on specific cases to reaffirm assumptions, rather than building a testable set of hypotheses (Lowi, 1964). While the approach is useful in that it helps us question the fantastical assumptions of the rational decision making model and sketches a reframing of decision making as more aptly embedded within community and political life, it does not necessarily provide a way forward. When we altogether abandon the rationalist approach, with what are we left?
References
Lowi, T. J. (1964). Review: American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies and Political Theory. World Politics, 16(4), 677–715.
Stone, D. (2012). Policy Paradox: The art of political decision making. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
This past January – more than two months after Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast flooding infrastructure, destroying homes and killing more than 100 people – Congress approved a $51 billion relief package to repair transit systems, provide cash grants to storm victims and undertake long-term flood control projects. Although the disaster directly affected millions of people and emotionally moved many citizens and policymakers who were not directly involved, there was a great deal of disagreement over what the appropriate response should be. As one of the most poignant public examples of this controversy, Governor Christie was incited to publically denounce his own party as the relief bill was held up in the House. While some may argue that his condemnation of the GOP was politically motivated, it underscored how interpretive, and even politically-charged, the process of defining a problem, developing alternatives and weighing costs and benefits can be, even for issues that are broadly recognized as public crises.
There were multiple sides to this issue, including factions within both opponent and proponent groups. Some opponents of the bill – such as Tea Party Republicans – were against it on principle, arguing it constituted reckless government spending. Others argued that the relief package was short-sighted and did not include enough long-term investment in preventing another disaster. ‘Quasi-opponents’ felt that the relief package was appropriate in spirit, but contained too many additional spending riders that would not address the problem at hand. Among proponents, people felt that the country had a moral obligation to bring resources to those in need. However, there was disagreement over exactly how resources should be allocated. Other policy and spending proposals have been made at the state or local level with respect to providing support for individuals in low-income housing, using green infrastructure in flood prone areas and initiating floodplain buyout program. Governor Cuomo proposed spending $400 million to buy out properties destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Under this program, the state would purchase properties from homeowners and put them into permanent preservation as public parkland, dunes, wetlands or other natural storm buffers. Although this policy is, in many ways, win-win for buyout participants and advocates of long-term resilience measures, it is also not without contention. On the one hand, buyouts can support individuals’ safety while financially compensating them for loss of property. On the other hand, buyout participants may lose important social ties connected with their former community, suffer spiritually from a loss of sense of place and – depending on the unique situation – may not be made financially whole. Debates surrounding these adopted and proposed policies all grapple with issues of liberty, moral obligation, differential costs and benefits to different groups and causal framing. In short, the messy process of policymaking in a pluralist society is at work.
Deborah Stone would attribute these debates about goals, alternatives and general ambiguity surrounding the decision-making process to the reality that this process takes place within community. In communities, she argues, social action is initiated by groups who have shared interests and use persuasion and power to influence public policy (Stone, 2012). She abandons the rationalist perspective which envisions a decision-maker equipped with perfect information and motivated by self-interest alone, whose singular goal is to maximize that interest. People not directly affected by the storm supported the relief package because of feelings of moral obligation and reciprocity, not out of self-interest. Moreover, she rejects the role of science in policy making. Multiple goals muddied the meaning of the package. Shall we prioritize the welfare of victims, the freedom to live where one wishes, or the mitigation of future disaster? How can we then measure welfare, freedom and disaster mitigation? Although her points are conceptually and, to some extent, empirically well-taken, how does her reframing of political life help us proceed after Hurricane Sandy?
Should we not attempt to estimate economic losses or project the risk of future storm disaster associated with various development, redevelopment or preservation strategies? Should we not – in whatever way possible – try to capture spiritual and emotional loss associated with relocation and redevelopment? Symbols, numbers and causal explanations are imperfect tools that people employ to articulate how they see the world. Though these tools are imperfect, does policymaking not need all the help it can get? To employ scientific tools in projecting policy outcomes or describe the social consequences of a natural disaster is not to assert that we can perfectly foresee all possible outcomes, or perfectly capture the immediate and ongoing social consequences.
As Stone’s approach rejects use of the scientific method in the decision making process, it also avoids using such as method. It suffers from being what Lowi described as a “self-validating standpoint,” which draws on specific cases to reaffirm assumptions, rather than building a testable set of hypotheses (Lowi, 1964). While the approach is useful in that it helps us question the fantastical assumptions of the rational decision making model and sketches a reframing of decision making as more aptly embedded within community and political life, it does not necessarily provide a way forward. When we altogether abandon the rationalist approach, with what are we left?
References
Lowi, T. J. (1964). Review: American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies and Political Theory. World Politics, 16(4), 677–715.
Stone, D. (2012). Policy Paradox: The art of political decision making. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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