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FOUR - Special Interests versus the Public Interest in Policy Determination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2011

By
Gordon C. Rausser  and
Gérard Roland
Edited by
Kym Anderson
Gordon C. Rausser
Affiliation:
University of California in Berkeley
Gérard Roland
Affiliation:
University of California in Berkeley
Kym Anderson
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Summary

In any public policy-making process, political and economic forces are at play in resolving the strategic interactions among the public and special interests. A schematic representation of the policy-making process reflecting these forces is represented in Figure 4.1. Historically, the right-hand box has been the domain of political science, whereas the left-hand box has been the domain of economics. At the top of the right box, particular governance structures set the constitutional design establishing voting rules, the rule of law, property rights, laws governing exchange, and more generally the rules by which rules are made. Governance structures also determine the nature and scope of the political feedback mechanisms from groups affected by public policies. In its most expansive representation, any causal analysis of constitutional rules investigates the implications of alternative legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks, as well as various degrees of political, civil, and economic freedoms. In other words, governance structures set the boundaries for the political-economic link. Over the course of the last few decades, economists have begun to make significant theoretical and empirical advancements in analyzing the link between governance structures, political economics, and the selection of actual policies.

Political-economic analysis seeks to explain the selection and implementation of public policies. This link in the policy-making process endogenizes the instrument settings as a function of governmental bureaucracy and the actions of stakeholders. Interest groups, as agents representing stakeholders, are the units of analysis.

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The Political Economy of Agricultural Price Distortions , pp. 105 - 125
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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