Brief Summary

In this article, Lowi contends that it is important to categorize or classify policy types in order to better understand the structure of various political interests and how those interests, in turn, react to the various policy types.  Here Lowi presents the assumption that “policies determine politics.”  However, the basis of his assumption hinges on the classification of policies, since those typologies, as Lowi argues, influence the political significance on how government operates or coerces.

To illustrate his argument, Lowi presents a theoretical construct on the types of coercion (its applicability and how it takes effect), the four types of policies (distributive policy, regulative policy, constituent policy, and redistributive policy [it is noted here for completeness that constituent policy is added Lowi’s original 3 policy types]), and the types of politics, (decentralized vs. centralized and party vs. group).  Lowi tests this theoretical construct and through the lenses of various presidential administrations (at the top level) he attempts to underscore the influence that policy has on politics.

Lowi uses three time periods to make his point.  In the first era, from Grover Cleveland to FDR, as a result of congressional dominance and presidential submissiveness more distributive type policies were prevalent such as shipping subsidies, tariffs and internal improvements. Lowi shows how federal level politics were stable because policies dealing with slavery, public health, property, etc. were left to the states.  This eventually gave rise to the formation of national interest groups, in lieu of political parties, and the formulation of more regulative and redistributive public policies (dealing with labor and business) at the national vice the state level. Accordingly, toward the end of this era the presidential obligation in terms of policy agenda setting began to take hold.

In the second time period, during the FDR administration, Lowi argues that because of the strength of the presidency, all four types of policies occurred so regularly and frequently that they established themselves into definite systems of politics.  However, because of the strength of Roosevelt’s presidency, Lowi did not feel that the Roosevelt era constituted a sufficient case to predict politics based on policy conditions.  Therefore, he looked at 17 case studies during and since the Roosevelt period where there were both strong and weak presidents to determine if they face the similar kinds of politics when similar policy conditions exist.  From these 17 cases, which were broken down into the three different types of policy categories (distributive, regulative and redistributive), Lowi found a great deal of variation.  However, as exemplified in the first era above, all the four cited distributive policies cases came about during a weak executive role in a politically stable environment.  In most of the other cases more than one pattern prevailed.  As a result of these studies, Lowi appeared convinced that any generalization about national politics is not applicable to about two-thirds of the known cases of policy formulation.  To conclude the article, Lowi makes the point that if policy conditions underlying political patterns can be empirically discovered, then better public policies can be formulated.

Value-Added

Understanding the political aspects and how various interests are organized and formulated, as well as how those interests respond to the different kinds of policies is an important value-added to the public policy process.  Lowi shows how policy types have an influence on party politics and can be influenced as well by group interest organizations.

While it is seems to be the contention of many (especially from the political scientist viewpoint) that it is politics which determines policy, it is quite a paradigm shift to fully comprehend Lowi’s assumption that “policies that determine politics.”  For me both appear to be inextricably linked.  For example, while established policy types may determine the types of politics, as Lowi suggests, those policy types had to have been established initially through some type of political process.  This underscores a sort of  “which came first, the chicken or egg” concept.

Nevertheless, this article was valuable in the laying out of the policy types and how they relate to parties and various characteristics such as interest organization bargaining vs. party logrolling/back scratching and local interest identity vs. a centralized “systems level” status.  Lowi is known primarily for categorizing policy into 3 typologies:  distributive, redistributive and regulatory.  The fourth typology, constituent policy, seems as though it is an afterthought that became necessary to complete and round out his construct and he really never specifically addresses it in his article.  At first glance, constituent policy appears to be a more of a subset of distributive policy rather than a specific typology unto itself.  Moreover, later in the article Lowi does not address this fourth typology in his case studies.

The article proved beneficial in that it helped me to understand the politics that underlie the three main policy types: distributive policy, regulatory policy and redistributive policy.  The categories prove to be valuable in assessing the type of politics that are involved with the policy so as to better understand how policies are established and whether or not they should be.

Distributive policy involves the granting of some sort of benefit to a small beneficiary group.  Distributive policy influences politics because it involves more benefits to congress in that it results in bringing money to those respective congressional districts thereby reinforcing their re election.  Distributive policy reinforces political logrolling (voting for each other’s funding bills) leading to further “pork-barrel” spending in a politically stable environment.

Regulatory policy intends to govern the conduct of business and or markets to protect the public welfare and interest.  Regulatory policies are sponsored by the executive and negotiated and bargained between congressional subcommittees and interest organizations in, for the most part, a politically unstable environment.

Redistributive policy involves the highest level of government since it involves the transfer and redistribution of resources and the allocation of wealth, property, personal or civil rights or some other valued item among social classes or racial groups.  For example, the Lowi’s article shows that for the most part the executive plays a legislative role in a relatively highly stable political environment.  The main value here is that from these three categories we can see how decisions are made or should be made and can they be made better in view of a particular policy problem.