Politicians and Their Crucial Role in Making Policy

LASS Building, the University of Nottingham Introduction The policy process is a set of activity which translates the will of the public (Hill, 2013, p296). Based on the statement, policymakers should find ways to provide a policy which benefits the public. The collaboration with other institutions can help the politicians to achieve the goal of the policy. One of the important companions for the politicians is bureaucrats. Peters (2001, p156) argued that in the modern political system, the interactions between politicians and bureaucrats are crucial. This essay addresses the role of politicians in policy making. It discusses and illustrates the process which involves politicians in policy making. The essay is divided into four chapters. The first chapter explains the theory about policy process. It presents a concept of policy and policy process. The second chapter discusses politicians as a policy maker. This chapter focusses on the legislative and political executive. It also explains the relationship between political executives and bureaucrats in the policy process. The next chapter illustrates how politicians make policy by giving cases from Indonesia as an example. The last chapter is the conclusion which shows that politicians have a crucial role in the policy process. The Theory of Policy Process The definition of policy according to Chambers Dictionary is “a course of action, especially one based on some declared and respected principle”. As the definition involves ‘principles’, Birkland (2014, p.14) argued that the definition of policy has wider scope compared to a decision. It is related to the effort to embody ideas of actions as far as it related with some ‘principle’. In a shorter way, Birkland defined policy as “statement by government – at whatever level- of what it intends to do about a public problem”. Hill (2013, p119) gave several examples of policy types to be explored. The first is war policy. Hill lifted this issues based on the reality that the discourses of war policy were rare, compared to other common policy such as domestic policy (Hill, 2013, p121). The second is the policy in the economy. It focuses on the management of the economy. Hill argued that the discussion of the policy process in this area has a little difference from the war policy. It is caused by the fact that economists give more alternative perspectives about the analysis of the management of the economy rather than political scientists. The next policy is providing education. Education is one of the most dominant policies which are provided to the public. The range of policy in education covers many aspects such as the funding, the structure, the teacher quality and qualification, and subsidies for the student. Finally, the policy in health services has the same treatment as education policy. Also, the provision of the health service as the implementation of public policy can be complex. One of the reasons why it is complex is the fact that a simple attempt to improve the quality of service can affect the entire system (Hill, 2013, p139). According to Birkland, “the term policy process suggests that there is some system that translates policy ideas into actual policies that are implemented and have positive effects (2014, p25).  Weible (in Sabatier & Weible, 2014, p5), defined policy process as “the interactions over time between public policy and its surrounding actors, events, and context, as well as the policy or policies’ outcome”. The definition mentions public policy as a part of the policy process. Weible explained that public policy covers actions from the government or an equivalent institution in the form of decisions. Birkland (in Sabatier & Weible, 2014, p4) gave examples of the public policies that “include, but not limited to, statutes, laws, regulations, executive decisions, and government programs”. Also, public policies are regularly and widely used and accepted practices in providing public services (Schneider and Ingram; and Ostrom in Sabatier & Weible, 2014, p4). The policy process is a term that can be seen as a system which transforms policy concepts into real policies. Birkland illustrated the policy process in a figure. There were many critiques to the model, mainly arguing the real condition that might deter an idea of policy to pass every step. But, Birkland concerned that this model is helpful to understand the policy process (2014, p26). In the wider perspective, Hill explained that policy process studies the making of policy (2013, p119). It is not a single decision process. It encompasses a series of action to actualize the policy (2013, p16). There are aspects that support this claim. The first is a decision network. It may implicate in making an action. Hill added that the process before comes to a decision takes much time and often does not fully comply with the original idea of policy (2013, p16). The second aspect is shown by the reality that policy is not always specified in a single decision. In some cases, there are tendencies that a policy can be made from a set of decisions. Third, the policy process shows the dynamic of the mechanism in formulating and implementing the policy. It is one of the causes the changing of the policies. The other factor is the feedback of the implementation of the earlier policies which demands improvements for the next applications (Hill, 2013, p16). Finally, it is crucial to consider that the policy process is still relevant with the recent situation (Hill, 2013, p16). On the one hand, Birkland argued that policy is a product of a system where “policy makers translate sets of inputs into outputs” (2104, p26). On the other hand, Hill contrasted it with the idea that policies are a mechanism in which behaviours are adopted and explored (2013, p18). The contrasting views emerge themes to learn the policy process, first, the connection between policy and politics, and the second, the dominance and its impacts to the policy process.        Politician as Policy Actors Birkland categorised participants in policy making into two groups. The first is ‘official actors’. Their participation is supported by regulations. It gives them the right to formulate and enforce policies. The ‘official actors’ are “the legislative, executive, and judicial branches”. On the other hand, ‘unofficial actors’ are parties that influence policy process but have no legal authority. They are ‘individual citizens, interest group, communications media, political parties, think tank and research organisation’ (Birkland, 2014). As a comparison, Hill mentioned several actors in the policy process. They are ‘politicians, pressure groups, civil servants, publicly employed professionals, and passive recipients of policy’ (Hill, 2013, p4). From the comparison, Birkland tended to mention the participant in an institution while Hill divided the policy actor from more individual perspective. According to Oxford dictionaries, politician is “a person who is professionally involved in politics, especially as a holder of an elected office”.  From the definition, it can be inferred that the subject of politician is limited to individuals. Also, it concentrates to a person who leads a political organisation. According to Hill (2013, p18), recent discussions about policy suggests politicians have policies. It can stimulate the constituents to decide about policy. The goal of this idea is that the politicians attempt to persuade the government to ratify the policies in a formal mechanism. The Legislative Fiorina explained the function of legislative. They are: “select the quantity of public goods to be given to the public; choose the options to provide the public goods; help publics In the bureaucracy concerns, advice the bureaucrat to give better services to the public; and sort out the taxation system as a source for executives to run the government” (1978, p241). In addition, legislators also have two roles, as a facilitator or as a participant in policy making process (Fiorina, 1978, p241). They have significant decision power to formulate general public policy. It includes the power to decide policies on taxation and expenditure. On the other hand, a single legislator only represents their constituency. It makes them become a participant who has a right to sound and ask for the provision of services (Fiorina, 1978, p241). Once a legislative member is elected, they have to do their responsibilities which mostly are ‘non-partisan or cross-partisan in nature’ (Strøm, 1997, p169). It means that legislators must concern to the greater public problems rather than only focusing on demands from individual or partisan. The Recent legislative development shows that legislators can build ‘issues network’ or ‘policy subsystem’ from central government to the interest group (Birkland, 2014, p103). It ensures that minority groups or opinions still have a channel to voice. Birkland implied that legislative have a big power to defend their policy or position. Therefore, the effort from small participants or individuals to change the policy will be difficult (2014, p106). It also implies that in order to change an established policy, legislators must gain more power. As the member of legislative is elected from a political party, many of them concern to the next election. It often consumes much of their resources and energy (Strøm, 1997, p167). Also, in order to keep their position in the political party, the legislators often neglects their constituent or take part in supporting unpopular policy (Strøm, 1997, p169). On the other hand, there are critiques to the role of legislative in policy making. Publics often think that legislators act opposed to the voices of the public. The public also considers that legislators are busy to form a coalition. Finally, publics are often dissatisfied with legislative performance (Birkland, 2014, p100). Hill said politicians have an enormous effect on the policy process. In addition, the politicians are likely tended to claim a success policy. But, they also often blame and criticise a policy which is failed according to their opinion (Hill, 2013, p4). Interestingly, legislators also avoid being blamed for losses (Weaver, 1986, p373). It proves that some politicians tend to be opportunists (Abdullah, 2004, p1). Political Executive According to Peters (2001, p156), political executives are persons that are elected by constituents or chosen by elected political executive. In the policy process, they need bureaucrats ‘to carry out the orders of their political bosses’ (Page, 1992, p49). The interaction between politicians and bureaucrats can be divided into five models (Peters, 2001, p158). The First is ‘the formal model’ which is the normative standard in the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. It pictures the role of bureaucrats together with political executives in poducing policy with the executive as the dominant factor. At one side, it sees the political executives as the superior side. On the other hand, the role of the bureaucrats is lessened as they are expected to do every order of the executive. The second model is ‘village life’ model. In this model, the two parties harmonise their position through socialisation and recruitment process. Top bureaucrats and political executives have quite similar values and goals. They affiliate to keep their “territory” from interference from other groups. As a result, rather than a position as opposite group, this cooperation makes the policy viewed as a product of one group (Peters, 2001, p159). The concept will run effectively if the relationship between the politicians and the bureaucrats are harmonious. The third model is ‘the functional model’. Almost the same with ‘village life’ model, it integrates between bureaucrats and political executives but in functional lines. It lessens the connection between bureaucrats and political executives which have a different function. The orientation of functional model is to build vertical integration and make more contacts to the public (Peters, 2001, p161). The model shows the effective relationship between two sides.  The fourth model is ‘the adversarial model’. It delivers the conception that bureaucrats and political executives are competitors. They compete to hold power and dominance the policy process. The political executive is commonly trying to occupy the organisation from the civil officers. As a result, the bureaucrats will often refuse to do orders from the political executives. They prefer to do what they think is better (Peters, 2001, p162).  Finally, Peters explained ‘the administrative state model’ as the last model. In this model, the dominant portion in the decision-making process is under bureaucracy, rather than elected representatives. This conception based on the recent situations that many politicians do not have sufficient competencies to deal with the modern government. As the consequences, the crucial part in the policy making process is often given to the civil service. In addition, the bureaucracy has abilities to manage the government procedural mechanism. It can also formulate, speed up or postpone the decisions based on their experiment (Peters, 2001 p164). For countries which implement direct election for executive, the political executives have more power and legitimation to initiate policy. Also, they have stronger authorities to manage their finance and administrative matters (Norhodlt, 2011, p236). As regulated by the laws, political executives can order their staffs to implement a policy (Birkland, 2014, p106). In addition, Edwards argued that the political executives could not manage all things (Page, 2012, p2). Therefore, they need administrators to help them. Finally, the political executive may hold a position for a short time (Peters, 2001, p156). In this situation, bureaucrats can give advice to the executives because they are more experienced than the executives. The Illustration on Politicians Make Policy To illustrate how politicians in Indonesia make policy, this chapter is explaining how politicians, particularly legislative, make policy in their constituency. Indonesia is has a legislative body which is the representative of constituents. It has a right to control the government. The legislative are chosen from political parties which compete in the general election in every five years. Indonesia implements decentralisation and autonomy principles. It delegates more authorities for lower levels of government to govern themselves. It also gives the local governments more political authority (Nordholt, 2011, p230). The lower levels legislative institutions also establish in the regional level. Based on the Indonesian regulation, the legislative has a right to participate in budgeting process (Abdullah, 2004, p7). In this process, the legislative must actively encourage significant inputs to the process (Kartiwa, 2016, p13). There are many cases in Indonesia that show the effort from the legislative to raise the regional government budgeting. One of them is by proposing to raise the regional own resources (Abdullah, 2004, p17) as a part of regional government budgeting. They argued that it will bring benefits to the public. If the government has extra money, they will have many options to develop its region. The raising of the regional own resources might lead them to be more opportunistic because it will benefit the legislative as they will get more money (Abdullah, 2004, p12). For example, in late 2016, the legislative in the Jakarta Province increased the target of the regional own resources. It was increased as much as 1.67% or 580 billion rupiahs, from 34.65 trillion rupiahs to 35.23 trillion rupiahs (www.beritajakarta.com). The legislative argued that many sectors can be optimised to gain more resources. They also claimed that the government would be benefited if they have extra money. As mentioned before, the legislative tend to raise the budget in order to raise the budget allocation to them (Abdullah, 2004, p7). It means that one of the motivation behind the effort is to benefit their position. In this situation, the government is often forced to comply with legislative’s proposal because they have the power to impeach administrators (Norholdt, 2011, p235). At this point, experienced bureaucrats can give advice to the legislatives about their proposals and the consequences (Bosworth, 1958, p218). Also, the legislators only have a short and temporary period in their position and limited knowledge about the policy. Therefore the legislators are expected to be selective in considering policy before implementing it (Hyde & Shafritz, 1978, in Abdullah, 2004, p6). Another example of how legislative produce a policy is an initiative from the legislative to introduce new levies to local businessmen in a City of Medan (Hadiz, 2004, p709). According to a legislative member in the city, the reason behind this policy is because the government seldom asks the businessman to share their profits. On the one hand, if the initiative is implemented, the regional government budgeting will increase. It can provide money for the government to fund their programmes. On the other hand, there is a drawback of the introduction of new levies policy. It leads the resistance from several parties. Many businessmen resisted the idea because it will decrease their competitiveness and make investors might cancel their investment (Hadiz, 2004, p709). Also, it can be a justification that legislator’s actions did not primarily represent the interest of their constituents’ (Nordholt, 2011, p235) Conclusion To conclude, politicians are policy maker. Either as political executives or legislators, they have a significant role in the policy process. They initiate, formulate and, in the bureaucracy corridor, take a part policy making process. To produce a policy, the legislative need supports from other parties. One of the important partners in policy making is bureaucrats. The cooperation from both parties can make the policy process realised effectively. Ideally, the bureaucrats take a position as the executor of the policy. But as mentioned above, there are several situations that show a poor relationship between bureaucrats and politicians. In worse cases, they act as opposite sides that compete over power in the policy process. The illustration about the role of politicians in policy making shows that Indonesia has problems in the policy process. The problems emerge because the priority of legislative in regional governments is to benefit their institution. It causes more problems to several parties particularly to the bureaucrats and public. The bureaucrats must work harder to achieve targets given, and the public must deal with new policies that might cause them get into trouble. 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