The Politics of Problem Solving: Demand- and Supply-Side Factors in Government’s Performance as a Problem-Solving Institution

• In Event: News Media, Narratives, and the Policy Process

Abstract

We define "problem solving" descriptively as a style of policymaking whose aim is “to generate a synergy of expertise, commitment, talent, and enthusiasm” to improve institutions or practices and, “thus, in effect, to promote ‘good government’” (Moe 2019, 157). As a mode of governance with a focus on making good public policy, problem solving can be distinguished from other styles of policymaking, such as symbolic politics, distributive politics, and policymaking in which winners simply impose their preferences on losers based on ideological or partisan muscle (Mayhew 2006). Problem solving requires creativity, knowledge, skill, and often a great deal of effort and persistence. Nothing guarantees that a democracy will generate the level of collective problem solving required to achieve its potential. Viewed from this perspective, problem solving can be conceptualized as an activity that is produced in a political market. The essay identifies factors on both the demand- and supply-sides of the political market that constrain problem-solving in modern American government in sectors such as education, healthcare and housing. These factors include the lack of incentives for policy entrepreneurship to generate demand among voters and mass publics for good public policy; the belief of highly influential economic elites that they are insulated from many of the problems affecting everyday citizens; the power of concentrated interests; partisan polarization; missing state capacity; cultural differences between academia and government that impede knowledge transfer; and a misalignment between the behavior of professional groups and the public interest. The main objective of the essay is to expand our understanding of the persistance of suboptimal public poilcy by adding insights from political science to the findings of the economics literature on government failure.

Author

• Eric Mark Patashnik, Brown University
  Presenting Author