Exam 10: Policy Implementation, Failure, and Learning

In the textbook, Birkland argues that the "underwear bomber" case tipped the balance in favor of using screening machines that showed a clearer image of a screened passenger's body under his or her own clothes. Do you agree that public sentiment supports the use of such machines? Explain why.

There are some policies about which most members of the public know or care very little.

Policy designers working from the top levels can structure policy designs in such a way as to promote greater compliance and implementation success.

What is the most important problem with top-down models of policy implementation? Cite two problems with this model

Why is understanding policy failures just as important, if not more important than understanding policy successes?

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA) did all of the following except

Does the failed attempt to bomb Northwest Airlines flight 253 in 2009 reflect policy failure? Or policy success? Make an argument for either position, and explain what your answer means for understanding policy learning.

Policy enactment and implementation are distinctive elements of the policy process.

Policy goals are usually unclear, ambiguous, and subject to change.

Policy failure is easy to detect and is clear to all participants in the policy process.

List two major explanations for policy failure.

Explain why it wasn't until the 1960s before people began to explicitly study policy implementation.

The first era of implementation studies tended to focus on

Instrumental policy learning entails

Single-loop learning involves not only thinking about how a policy or process works, but also the fundamental assumptions of the policy.

Explain how the selection of policy tools is part of the development of policy implementation strategies.

Explain three impediments to effective policy implementation.

Our system of multiple levels of government (federalism)

Policies without publics are

The policies enacted in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act had all been debated and considered before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.