The Deep-Rooted “Idea” in the Policy Making Process

The most rudimentary aspect of the policymaking process is an idea. Ideas have the power to mould how people interpret the world. An idea is a belief, symbol, value and means by which people consciously or unconsciously interpret the world and their place in it. These ideas can form interconnections, create constraints, or bind opinions about multiple issues into coherent bundles of political viewpoints. Although institutions and actors play a role in the policy making process, it is an idea’s fundamental ability to create institutions and influence an actor’s frame in the policy decision making process. Personal politics and ideologies are systemic products of ideas that define how one orients themselves in the world in other words, personal politics and ideologies are informed by ideas. This paper argues that ideas are the crux of an actor’s policy decisions, the development of institutions, and the rise of dominant groups which shape policy decisions, illuminating how prevailing ideas drive the policy making process and can give way to new ideas.

Ideas govern the interpersonal interactions of actors in policy making. Kahan & Braman explicitly state that individuals either accept or reject empirical claims about the consequences of controversial policies based on their vision of a good society because culture is prior to facts in the cognitive sense (150). Policy making by nature is about contending values and regardless of the empirical evidence, policy-making individuals rely on their cultural cognitions of how the world is and should be to make these decisions.

Although scientists and politicians can claim that rationality is the basis of all policy making deci- sions, symbols and ambiguity can change the way people interpret their interests which defeats the logic of rational choice ”

Although scientists and politicians can claim that rationality is the basis of all policy making decisions, symbols and ambiguity can change the way people interpret their interests which defeats the logic of rational choice (Stone, 238). Stone’s statement reflects the managerial fallacy that policy making has an ideological and political nature. It highlights the reality of policy making as a process that is not based on facts and empirical data but, is based on the ideas that an actor may have of the policy at hand.

This is further emphasized by Smith & Larimer who note the “…perception in the social and political world is reality; no independent, universal world separate from our own social and mental constructions exist” (12). The only frames we can see the world through is our own. These are based on our environmental, social, and personal experiences that create schemas that define how we perceive the world. Empirical information is selectively attended to based on its alignment with an actor’s particular worldviews (Kahan & Braman, 157). In the policy making process, personal frames, based on existing mental constructions, are the “methods” through which an actor can understand issues and arguments. Thus, asserting the primary role that ideas have in driving the policy making process.

Institutions are a set of rules that govern behaviour that are created and modified by ideas. According to Lakoff, frames can be made into institutions, industries, and cultural practices and once they are made, it is a slow process for them to disappear (77). These cognitive and normative framing mechanisms also serve to structure politics (Knill & Tosun, 387; Stone, 242). Ideas and their associated political ideologies shape how people organize. This ideological framing links political leaders with their followers to bridge the gap between people and power (Canovan, 29-30). In policy making, this translates to schematically associating those with similar cultural partisan foundations as reliable sources of information (Kahan & Braman, 165). In Canada, partisan ideology plays a significant role in the stance that an electorate may take, illustrating the notion that we agree with those who hold the similar cultural cognitions regardless of the available empirical evidence. The types of policy made as a result of communal ideas in the institutionalized form of party discipline, exemplifies how ideologies are the primary driver in public policy.

Additionally, elitist groups are able to shape policy because the polis accept systems of domination through inner justifications, which legitimizes the power of these dominant groups (Weber, 1918, 2). The cultural construction of conforming and the view of “eternal yesterday” results in the mass domination through traditions, leaders, and legality (bureaucracy) (Weber, 1918, 2). According to Lakoff’s concept of framing, the idea of the “master” and the governed have become a part of institutions and cultural practices, such that they are rarely questioned and therefore legitimized to become Truth. This is exemplified by the Canadian executive. The ideas of an executive shape policy more than a bureaucratic expert, depicting the rule of the ideas of the elite in policy development.

The political ‘master’ always finds himself, vis-à-vis the trained official, in the position of a dilettante facing the expert. This holds whether the ‘master’, whom the bureaucracy serves is the people equipped with weapons of legislative referendum, and the right to remove officials…,

WEBER 1978, 991

Politics and policy making has become a reflection of the interests of the dominant social class, allowing elitist domination (Gilens & Page, 576; Marx & Engels, 15). The initial influence on any policy can significantly shift the conversation, and elites not only have an impact upon policy, they also have a hand in shaping the policy agenda (Gilens & Page, 576; Knill & Tosun, 277). Ambiguous framing and inner justifications have institutionalized the polis into legitimizing the power of dominating elitist actors, strengthening their effect on policy making.

Ideas, actors, and institutions are intertwined in all aspects of the policy making process. However, it is prevailing ideas that ultimately shape perspectives, institutions, and systems. Ideas may differ between actors, within institutions, with time and world events, but they do bind and constrain people in society. This paper argued that ideas play a primary role in all aspects of the policy making process through fundamental mechanisms such as framing, cognitive dissonance, and habitual conforming. It is these deep-rooted ideas that have created and have continued to foster institutions and ” systems of domination and that continue to be the driving force that shape and determine policies. 28

by AATEKA RAJAB