Introduction to the Special Issue: “Conceptualizing Effective Social Policy Design: Design Spaces and Capacity Challenges”
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1789 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Author | M Ramesh,Michael Howlett,Namrata Chindarkar |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE: “CONCEPTUALIZING
EFFECTIVE SOCIAL POLICY DESIGN: DESIGN SPACES AND CAPACITY
CHALLENGES”
NAMRATA CHINDARKAR*, MICHAEL HOWLETT AND M RAMESH
National University of Singapore, Singapore
SUMMARY
This article addresses the rise of design thinking and its problematics in the social policy sphere. In particular, it argues that
studies of social policy design, like all design work in policymaking, must differentiate more carefully between technical and
political considerations in public policymaking and examine the implications each process has for the content of social policy
design, its implementation, and its prospects of success or failure. The article develops a model of social policy formulation
spaces based on the extent to which policies are intended to address technical or political problems and a government’s capacity
to engage in policy analysis and alternative assessment. This model is applied in the articles in this special issue to help
understand the patterns of policy content and outcome success and failure found in this sector across multiple jurisdictions
and issue areas. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—policy design; policy capacity; social policy; Asia
INTRODUCTION: THE (MISSING) EMPIRICS OF SOCIAL POLICY DESIGN
Social policies are the result of efforts made by governments to alter aspects of their own or public behavior in
order to carry out some end or purpose they consider important. Perhaps a gaping hole in social policymaking is
the lack of attention given to “global pragmatics and future problematics”(Angelides and Caiden, 1994). These
refer to changing current realities, emerging trends, complexities, and future uncertainties in the policy sphere.
In recent years, social policymaking has rapidly evolved and is no longer restricted to achieving singular purposes
such as social protection, provision of health and education, or increasing civil society engagement. It is increas-
ingly integrated and engages multiple levels of public administration and spans across multiple sectors. It is also
dynamic and context specific in that it comprises complex arrangements of social goals and policy means that have
arisen at different points in time and in different locations through processes of policy formulation unique to each
jurisdiction and government (Howlett and Cashore, 2009). Policymakers therefore need to take a fundamentally
different approach to policy formulation—one that consciously “designs”social policies to balance practical and
political challenges (which may pull policy means in opposite directions) while continuously evolving over time
and adapting to different contexts. In designing successful social policies, it is also imperative to enhance policy
capacity so as to avoid short-sighted and one-dimensional policies (Angelides and Caiden, 1994). The need for
balanced social policy backed by necessary capacity is of significance in both developed and developing countries,
where social policy challenges are many and the resources available to meet them scarce.
In the policy sciences, concepts of policy “design”have been linked to the study of both the policy instruments
used to implement policy and the formulation of programs and packages of such tools intended to address social
and political problems (May, 2003; Howlett, 2014). In their many works on the subject in the late 1980s and early
1990s, Linder and Peters (1988) argued that the actual process of public policy decision-making could, in an
*Correspondence to: N. Chindarkar, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore. E-mail: namrata.
chindarkar@nus.edu.sg
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 37,3–14 (2017)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1789
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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