Discussion questions for academic study

¶ … public administrator is to provide services to the public -- and to keep the public interest in focus -- whether the administrator is an elected official or not. A public administrator might be responsible for enforcing a city or county ordinance when it comes to property values, which can become contentious because homeowners have their own ideas as to the value of their property. Public administrators might be heads of regional or local or state or even federal departments. A city manager is not elected but he or she is on the job to provide responsive leadership to laws and to the elected officials' (council members) directives.

Public policy is not made exclusively by elected officials. The word "policy" in fact just means a government is taking some form of action in response to a public need, and an administrator of a county health department, for example, makes policy regarding the healthcare services offered to the community. That county executive is not elected but he or she wants to do well in order to continue in that non-elected but powerful, well-paying position.

THREE: Symbolic public policies are those policies that aren't necessarily intended to provide services to the entire society but are symbolic of the government's interest in the policy. For example, the very expensive (for taxpayers) No Child Left Behind "…carried more symbolism than substance," according to author Larry Gerston (Gerston, 2010). Symbolism in policy gives the appearance of "more changes than actually take place" and while it is not a rational approach to providing the public with services, it is the way things are done.

FOUR: Public policy can be a vague concept that is misunderstood by the public. But often a public policy is put in place just so voters know that policymaker supports their ideology. Public policies often are just designed to set a certain course, a course that the policymaker believes a certain segment of the public wants to follow. I see public policies as 75% political and about 25% pragmatic; public officials (elected or not) are always trying to look good.

Section #2: ONE: The public perception of some governmental regulations can't be considered realistic because clearly the public doesn't understand what the regulations are. For example after the 2008 financial collapse of many banks and financial institutions, the 2010 Financial Regulations Bill was enacted as an attempt to regulate Wall Street and large banks. It gives states the right to regulate their banks and it eliminates loopholes for hedge funds and mortgage bankers -- two areas of finance that caused the meltdown. But does the average man or women in the street know what a "hedge fund" is? Not likely. So understanding the need to regulate these money-related institutions goes over the public's head in most cases.

TWO: When taxpaying citizens -- already stretched financially by the recession, by the loss of jobs and the housing crisis -- witness the government bailing out banks with the $700 billion bank bailout bill (Troubled Assets Recovery Program -- TARP), they demand regulations that prevent future financial disasters. In other words, when things are going well, conservative politicians calling for a loosening of regulations have a strong appeal. When there is a financial crisis, however, progressive politicians calling for stricter regulation get a lot of attention.