Anne
Schneider and Helen Ingram. “Social construction of target populations:
implications for politics and policy.” American Political Science Review,
June 1993 v87 n2 p334(14).
Abstract: Social construction of target populations is an important issue
in political planning. Social constructions, which reach citizens in the form
of messages that affect their orientations, can be a tool in influencing policy
agenda. A proper understanding of social constructions may lead to an
understanding of policy change and may provide further insights to the concept
of ‘who gets what, when, and how?’ postulated by Harold Lasswell. Here, social
constructions are measurable through familiar survey methods, as well as
historical and textual analysis.
Social constructions of target populations
help provide better answers to Lasswell’s (1936) enduring question, Who get what,
when, and how? Conventional political science hypotheses about the
characteristics that determine groups’ influence in setting policy agendas and
influencing policy content become significantly more robust when augmented by
assessments of social constructions. Further, understanding social construction
of target populations helps to explain how elected officials behave and why, in
some circumstances, officials will Contemporary political scientists consider
many variables to be significant political phenomena that previously were
viewed either as irrelevant or as the proper domain of another discipline. The
importance of gender in understanding political behavior and the role of money
and media in politics are examples. Although the question of who benefits or
loses from policy has long been interesting to political science, most other
dimensions of policy designs have been considered the purview of economists,
lawyers, and other specialists. With the emergence of public policy as a major
subfield of political science, however, attention has turned to new aspects of
the policy process, such as agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and
consequences, (Arnold 1990; Ingram and Schneider 1991; Kingdon 1984; Lipsky and
Smith 1989; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983; Rose 1991; Smith and Stone 1988;
Pressman and Wildavsky 1973) as well as additional elements of policy design,
such as goals, tools, rules and target populations (Ingram and Schneider 1992; Linder
and Peters 1985; Ostrom 1990; Schneider and Ingram 1990a, 1990b; Stone 1988).
We argue that the social construction of target populations is an important,
albeit overlooked, political phenomenon that should take its place in the study
of public policy by political scientists.
The social construction of target
populations refers to the cultural characterizations or popular images of the
persons or groups whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy.
These characterizations are normative and evaluative, portraying groups in
positive or negative terms through symbolic language, metaphors, and stories
(Edelman 1964, 1988). A great deal has been written (mostly by sociologists)
about social constructions of social problems (Best 1989; Spector and Kitsuse
1987). The more specific topic of social construction of target populations is
important to political science because it contributes to studies of agenda
setting, legislative behavior, and policy formulation and design, as well as to
studies of citizen orientation, conception of citizenship, and style of
participation.
Our theory contends that the social
construction of target populations has a powerful influence on public officials
and shapes both the policy agenda and the actual design of policy. There are
strong pressures for public officials to provide beneficial policy to powerful,
positively constructed target populations and to devise punitive,
punishment-oriented policy for negatively constructed groups. Social
constructions become embedded in policy as messages that are absorbed by
citizens and affect their orientations and participation patterns. Policy sends
messages about what government is supposed to do, which citizens are deserving
(and which not), and what kinds of attitudes and participatory patterns are
appropriate in a democratic society. Different target populations, however,
receive quite different messages. Policies that have detrimental impacts on, or
are ineffective in solving important problems for, certain types of target
populations may not produce citizen participation directed toward policy change
because the messages received by these target populations encourage withdrawal
or passivity. Other target populations, however, receive messages that
encourage them to combat policies detrimental to them through various avenues
of political participation.
The theory is important because it helps
explain why some groups are advantaged more than others independently of
traditional notions of political power and how policy designs can reinforce or
alter such advantages. Further, the theory resolves some long-standing puzzles
political scientists have encountered in attempting to answer Lasswell’s
question, “Who gets what, when, and how?” (Lasswell 1936). The theory returns
public policy to center-stage in the study of politics, offering an alternative
that goes beyond both the pluralist and the microeconomic perspectives.
A theory that connects social
constructions of target populations to other political phenomena needs
definitions of target populations and of social constructions, an explanation
of how social constructions influence public officials in choosing the agendas
and designs of policy, and an explanation of how policy agendas and designs
influence the political orientations and participation patterns of target
populations.
Target population is a concept from the
policy design literature that directs attention to the fact that policy is
purposeful and attempts to achieve goals by changing people’s behavior (see our
earlier work, Ingram and Schneider 1991). Policy sets forth problems to be
solved or goals to be achieved and identifies the people whose behavior is
linked to the achievement of desired ends. Behavioral change is sought by
enabling or coercing people to do things they would not have done otherwise. By
specifying eligibility criteria, policy creates the boundaries of target
populations. Such groups may or may not have a value-based cultural image,
however. Therefore, they may or may not carry out any social construction.
The social construction of a target
population refers to (1) the recognition of the shared characteristics that
distinguish a target population as socially meaningful, and (2) the attribution
of specific, valence-oriented values, symbols, and images to the
characteristics. Social constructions are stereotypes about particular groups
of people that have been created by politics, culture, socialization, history,
the media, literature, religion, and the like. Positive constructions include
images such as “deserving,” “intelligent,” “honest,” “public-spirited,” and so
forth. Negative constructions include images such as “undeserving,” “stupid,”
“dishonest,” and “selfish.” There are a wide variety of evaluative dimensions,
both positive and negative, that can be used to portray groups.
Social constructions are often conflicting
and subject to contention. Policy directed at persons whose income falls below
the official poverty level identifies a specific set of persons. The social
constructions could portray them as disadvantaged people whose poverty is not
their fault or as lazy persons who are benefitting from other peoples’ hard
work. On the other hand, not all target populations even have a well-defined
social construction. Motor vehicle policies identify automobile drivers as a
target population; but these persons have no particular social construction, at
this time. Policies directed at drunk drivers or teenage drivers, however, have
identified a subset that carries a negative valence.
The actual social constructions of target
groups, as well as how widely shared the constructions are, are matters for
empirical analysis. Social constructions of target populations are measurable,
empirical, phenomena. Data can be generated by the study of texts, such as
legislative histories, statutes, guidelines, speeches, media coverage, and
analysis of the symbols contained therein. Social constructions also can be
ascertained from interviews or surveys of policymakers, media representatives, members
of the general public, and persons within the target group itself.
One of the major contentions of some
social constructionists (sometimes called strict-constructionists) is that
there is no objective reality but only the construction itself (Spector and
Kitsuse 1987, J. Schneider 1985). Those who make this argument contend that
research should focus on the constructions, not on the reasons the
constructions have arisen or how constructions differ from objective reality.
The point of view adopted here, however, is more like that expressed by Edelman
(1988) and Collins (1989). Target populations are assumed to have boundaries
that are empirically verifiable (indeed, policies create these empirical
boundaries) and to exist within objective conditions even though those
conditions are subject to multiple evaluations. One of the important issues for
analysis is to understand how social constructions emerge from objective
conditions and how each changes.
Research has uncovered a number of
important motivations for elected officials (Arnold 1990; Kelman 1987; Kingdon
1984). Two of the most important are to produce public policies that will
assist in their reelection and that will be effective in addressing widely acknowledged
public problems. Social constructions are relevant for both of these
considerations.
Social constructions become part of the
reelection calculus when public officials anticipate the reaction of the target
population itself to the policy and also anticipate the reaction of others to
whether the target group should be the beneficiary (or loser) for a particular
policy proposal (Wilson 1986). Thus, the electoral implication of a policy
proposal depends partly on the power of the target population itself (construed
as votes, wealth, and propensity of the group to mobilize for action) but also
on the extent to which others will approve or disapprove of the policy’s being
directed toward a particular target.
The convergence of power and social
constructions creates four types of target populations, as displayed in Figure
1. Advantaged groups are perceived to be both powerful and positively
constructed, such as the elderly and business.
Contenders, such as unions and the rich, are powerful but negatively constructed,
usually as undeserving. Dependents might include children or mothers and are
considered to be politically weak, but they carry generally positive
constructions. Deviants, such as criminals, are in the worst situation, since
they are both weak and negatively constructed. Public officials find it to
their advantage to provide beneficial policy to the advantaged groups who are
both powerful and positively constructed as “deserving” because not only will
the group itself respond favorably but others will approve of the beneficial
policy’s being conferred on deserving people. Similarly, public officials
commonly inflict punishment on negatively constructed groups who have little or
no power, because they need fear no electoral retaliation from the group itself
and the general public approves of punishment for groups that it has
constructed negatively. Figure 1 shows other examples of how a hypothetical
elected official might array a variety of target populations within these
dimensions.
Some social constructions may remain
constant over a long period of time, as have the prevailing constructions of
criminals or communists; but others are subject to continual debate and
manipulation. For instance, persons with AIDS are constructed by some as
deviants, little better than criminals who are being punished through disease
for their sins. The identification of children, hemophiliacs, heterosexuals,
and Magic Johnson as victims, however, has made possible a different
construction. Public officials realize that target groups can be identified and
described so as to influence the social construction. Hence, a great deal of the political maneuvering in the
establishment of policy agendas and in the design of policy pertains to the
specification of the target populations and the type of image that can be
created for them.
Social constructions may become so widely
shared that they are extremely difficult to refute even by the small number of
persons who might disagree with them. Other constructions, however, are in contention.
Officials develop maps of target populations based on both the stereotypes they
themselves hold and those they believe to prevail among that segment of the
public likely to become important to them. Competing officials champion
different constructions of the same groups. Some view minorities as oppressed
populations and argue for policies appropriate to dependent people, whereas
others portray minorities as powerful special interests and not deserving of
government aid. Political debates may
lead elected officials to make finer and finer distinctions, thereby
subdividing a particular group into those who are deserving and those who are
not. Immigration policy, for example, distinguishes among illegal aliens,
refugees, migrant workers, those seeking asylum, and highly skilled workers who
receive waivers. There has been no research on the social constructions of
target populations from the perspective of elected officials; thus, there is no
way to speculate on how Figure 1 actually should be drawn and how much
agreement there would be about the placement of various groups.
Public officials are sensitive not only to
power and social construction but also to pressure from the public and from
professionals to produce effective public policies (Arnold 1990; Kelman 1987;
Quade 1982). Public officials must explain and justify their policy positions
to the electorate by articulating a vision of the public interest and then
showing how a proposed policy is logically connected to these widely shared
public values (Arnold 1990; Habermas 1975; Offe 1985). They need to have a
believable causal logic connecting the various aspects of the policy design to
desired outcomes.
Social constructions of target populations
become important in the policy effectiveness calculus because elected officials
have to pay attention to the logical connection between the target groups and
the goals that might be achieved. Elected officials may emphasize some goals
rather than others because target populations that they wish to benefit or
burden have credible linkages to the goals (Edelman 1988; Kingdon 1984). On the
other hand, elected officials are able to construct several different policy
logics for almost any problem they wish to solve. For example, most would agree
that reduction in the infant mortality rate in the United States is a worthy
goal. However, to achieve this, the United States could provide direct health
care benefits to high-risk pregnant women, it could mandate reductions in
carcinogens that presumably increase risk, or it could criminalize drug and
alcohol use by pregnant women. All of these could be justified as contributing
to a reduced infant mortality rate; but they have very different implications
for target populations, especially pregnant women who could either be the
beneficiary of the policy or could bear exceptional costs because of it.
Economic vitality is another example of a widely shared public goal for which a
credible case could be made for policies that serve widely divergent interests.
Some policy options would give direct benefits to jobless or low-income
persons, whereas other options would redistribute wealth to the poor, thereby
increasing demand for products. Others would offer tax breaks, loans, or
outright grants to the owners of businesses to increase their competitive
position or to entice them to move into a location (or to retain those who are
threatening to leave). In almost any policy area there are multiple logics that
involve different target populations and/or different roles for target groups.
Thus, even when public officials are pursuing widely held public interest
goals, they are commonly able to provide benefits to powerful, positively
constructed groups and burdens to less powerful, negatively constructed ones.
The dynamic interaction of power and
social constructions leads to a distinctive pattern in the allocation of
benefits and burdens to the different types of target groups. The front of the
box shows how benefits are allocated, and the back shows the allocation of
burdens. Benefits are expected to become oversubscribed to advantaged
populations (i.e., these groups will receive more beneficial policy than is
warranted either in terms of policy effectiveness or representativeness), whereas
dependents and deviants will receive too little beneficial policy. Burdens will
become oversubscribed especially to deviants and undersubscribed to the
advantaged groups. For public officials to realize their ambitions of
reelection and the development of effective, public-oriented policy, they have
to take into account not only the power and social constructions of target
populations but also the logical connection of the potential target groups to
the goals. Most of the time, public officials try to bring these three factors
into congruence. It is important to notice that congruence is possible only in
two segments of the policy box shown in Figure 2. One is to provide beneficial
policy to powerful, positively viewed groups who are logically connected to an
important public purpose. The second area of congruence is found at the back of
the box: to provide punishment policies to negatively constructed, powerless
groups, who are linked logically to a broader public purpose. All other areas
produce noncongruence of some type.
Powerful segments of the population who
also have relatively consensual positive social constructions (the advantaged
groups) have considerable control and will find it easy to get their issues on
legislative agendas. They will be the recipient of much beneficial policy.
Advantaged groups have the resources and capacity to shape their own
constructions and to combat attempts that would portray them negatively. The
easiest problems for elected officials to address will be those for which advantaged
segments of the population are the logical recipients of beneficial policy.
These groups will receive beneficial policy, however, even if the causal
linkages to some ostensible common or public purpose lack credibility or are
entirely absent. The advantaged groups will often be chosen as first-order
(proximate) targets even when others would be more logical or efficient. Direct
government subsidies to large corporations, for example, have been granted by
governments for the ostensible purpose of increasing the number of jobs in the
community, although such funds may have created more jobs if directed toward
public-sector agencies with lower management salaries and overhead. Beneficial
policy for the advantaged groups will be oversubscribed in the sense that there
will be more positive rules and more expenditures in this area than can be
justified either on technical grounds of policy effectiveness or on
representational grounds of policy responsiveness that is proportional to the
group’s size and other political resources.
The attractiveness of policy directed
toward powerless people with negative images (the deviants) is surprisingly
similar except that the deviants are punished and have almost no control over
the agenda or the designs. Policies will be high on the legislative agenda,
especially during election campaigns.
Negatively constructed powerless groups will usually be proximate
targets of punishment policy, and the extent of burdens will be greater (oversubscribed)
than is needed to achieve effective results. The negative social constructions
make it likely that these groups will often receive burdens even when it is
illogical from the perspective of policy effectiveness. The highly predictable
popularity of tough criminal justice statutes over which deviants have no
control, such as the 1991 federal crime bill, are vivid illustrations of the
political attractiveness of punishment directed at powerless, negatively viewed
groups.
Important public issues do not always
permit elected officials to find congruence among social constructions, power,
and logical connections to goals; and problems cannot always be solved so
straightforwardly. Many officials care about outcomes and fear widespread
public reaction against ineffective policy, lack of attention to important
problems, and too much favoritism to special interests. They may confront these
contradictions through strenuous efforts to keep such issues off the agenda, or
they may manipulate the image of target groups in an effort to change their social
construction. In some instances, they simply bear the political costs of
inflicting burdens on positively viewed groups or granting benefits to those
who are negatively viewed. Not uncommonly, public officials engage in private
politics or outright deception.
The case of powerful but negatively viewed
groups (the contenders) presents numerous problems. Public officials will
prefer policy that grants benefits noticed only by members of the target groups
and largely hidden from everyone else. They will prefer policies that the
public and media believe inflict burdens on powerful, negative groups but that
actually have few, if any, negative effects. Contenders have sufficient control
to blunt the imposition of burdens but not enough power to gain much in terms
of visible benefits. Statutes directed
toward these contending groups will be complex and vague. It may be difficult
to discern from the statute who the policy favors or hinders because discretion
and responsibility will often be passed on to lower-level agencies and
governments. Context will become especially important. For example, policy
characteristics for contending groups may depend on the extent of media and
public attention, as well as variation in the cohesiveness and activity of the
target group. During times of low public attention and high levels of group
activity, policy will tend to be beneficial, although relatively low in
visibility and still undersubscribed in terms of what might be needed to
actually solve particular problems. When public attention increases (as it is
likely to do when an unpopular group is cohesive and active), then policy may
shift more toward the burdensome side.
For the dependent groups, such as children
or mothers, officials want to appear to be aligned with their interests; but
their lack of political power makes it difficult to direct resources toward
them. Symbolic policies permit elected leaders to show great concern but
relieve them of the need to allocate resources. Policies in this area tend to
be left to lower levels of government or to the private sector. The benefits
dependents receive are passed down by other agents, and dependents have little
control over the design of the policies. In the United States, women and
children have dominated this category, with women moving more toward a position
of power (and less positively viewed) as they have become more organized and
more active in the economic sector; and people in these groups have been viewed
as the responsibility of families, churches, and the private sector. Feminist
writers, in fact, view the artificial separation of the public and private
spheres as one of the key problems faced by women in advanced industrial
democracies (Jagger 1983).
Another type of noncongruence occurs when
legislators are attempting to inflict regulations or costs on powerful, popular
groups. These situations also will be undersubscribed and highly contentious.
For example, it is difficult to generate support for burdensome regulations of
positively viewed businesses because the proximate target groups will oppose
the policies vigorously and argue that the chain of effects is not likely to
produce the desired results anyway; or they may argue that other groups are
more logical targets and would have a greater impact and if chosen. The
secondary or remote target groups that will presumably benefit from the
regulations may not provide as much support as expected, because of the
uncertainty that the cause-and-effect logic within the policy is correct
(Arnold 1990). In a similar way, it is difficult for elected leaders to provide
beneficial policy to the powerless, negatively viewed groups (such as providing
rehabilitation programs for criminals), despite the fact that these policies
may be more effective than those that involve punishment or may be less costly
than the death penalty, given the extensive appeals that ensue. The electoral
costs are extensive, as it is a simple matter to accuse a public official of
being “soft on crime.” Much of the beneficial policy achieved by the powerless,
negatively constructed target groups has been through court actions and court
mandates to ensure their rights.
The emerging literature on policy design
emphasizes that the attributes of statutes, guidelines, implementation
structures, and direct service delivery processes are important to an
understanding of the policy process. There is considerable interest in why some
designs are chosen, rather than others, and what differences these choices make
in policy impacts on target populations (Dryzek 1990; Ingram and Schneider
1991; Linder and Peters 1985; Lipsky and Smith 1989; Salamon and Lun 1989;
Schneider and Ingram 1990a; Smith and Stone 1988). The theory advanced here
contends that some elements of design (especially the policy tools and the
policy rationales) will differ depending on the social construction and
political power of the target population.
Policy tools refer to the aspects of
policy intended to motivate the target populations to comply with policy or to
utilize policy opportunities (Schneider and Ingram 1990b). For groups that are
constructed as deserving, intelligent, and public-spirited (as we expect the
powerful, positively viewed groups to be), the policy tools will emphasize
capacity building, inducements, and techniques that enable the target
population to learn about the results of its behavior and take appropriate
action on a voluntary basis. When delivering beneficial policy to the
advantaged groups, certain types of capacity-building tools are expected to be
commonly used, especially direct provision of such resources as entitlements or
nonincome-tested subsidies, and also of free information, training, and
technical assistance. The political payoffs for providing beneficial policy to
these groups is such that outreach programs will be common: the agencies will
seek out all eligible persons and encourage them to utilize the policy
opportunities that have been made available (Ingram and Schneider 1991).
When burdens, rather than benefits, are directed
at the advantaged groups, the tools will be less predictable and more likely to
change; but self-regulation that entrusts the group to learn from its own
behavior and voluntarily take actions to achieve policy goals will be
preferred, along with positive inducements. When these are not effective in
inducing the desired behavior, policies may shift toward “standards and
charges,” which do not stigmatize the organization for its activities but
simply attempt to discourage certain actions (such as pollution) by charging
for it. Sanctions and force are not likely to be used in connection with
powerful, positively viewed groups.
Policy tools for dependent groups (such as
mothers or children) are expected to be somewhat different. Subsidies will be
given, but eligibility requirements often involve labeling and stigmatizing
recipients. Subsidies to farmers do not require income tests, for example; but
college students must prove that they are needy and without resources. Outreach
programs will be less common, and many programs will require clients to present
themselves to the agency in order to receive benefits. Welfare programs even
for persons perceived as deserving, such as college students, the disabled, or
the unemployed, usually do not seek out eligible persons but rely on those who
are eligible to make their case to the agency itself.
Symbolic and hortatory tools will commonly
be used for dependent groups even when the pervasiveness of the problem would
suggest that more direct intervention is needed. Groups in the dependent
category will not usually be encouraged or given support to devise their own
solutions to problems but will have to rely on agencies to help them. For
example, battered women still must rely mainly on the police for assistance, rather
than having self-help organizations that are eligible as direct recipients for
government grants.
Another policy tool, the use of authority
(defined as statements that grant permission, prohibit action, or require
action) will be more common than with the powerful, positively viewed groups,
because dependents are not considered as self-reliant. The so-called gag rule
imposed by the Bush administration that prohibited family planning clinic
personnel from providing information about abortion even when asked directly
was an example of the more paternalistic attributes of policy directed at
dependent populations. Information
tools are likely to be used, even when direct resources are needed (as in AIDS
prevention programs). Public officials simply do not like to spend money on
powerless groups and will use other tools whenever possible.
The dominant tools for deviants (the
target populations whose constructions place them in the powerless, negatively
viewed part of the matrix) are expected to be more coercive and often involve
sanctions, force, and even death. In contrast with the kinds of regulations
used when advantaged populations are burdened, groups constructed as deviants
will be, at worst, incarcerated or executed. At best, they will be left free
but denied information, discouraged from organizing, and subjected to the
authority of others—including experts—rather than helped to form their own
self-regulatory organizations. For example, gangs are more likely to be
punished for congregating than encouraged to direct their energy toward
constructive activities.
When beneficial policies are directed at
deviant groups, such as rehabilitation programs, they ordinarily attempt to
change the person through authoritarian means, rather than attack the
structural problems that are the basis of the problem itself. Drug diversion
programs, for example, will usually require attendance and drug testing, and
threaten participants with heavy penalties for failure to comply with the
rules.
Rationales are important elements of
policy design because they serve to legitimate policy goals, the choice of
target populations, and policy tools.
As Habermas and Offe have noted, modern governments have a legitimation
crisis and must explain why democracies concentrate wealth and power in the
hands of the few rather than the many (Habermas 1975; Offe 1985). Governments
attempt to resolve this crisis through legitimation rationales that explain how
policies serve common rather than special interests (in spite of
appearances). Rationales justify the
agenda, policy goals, selection of target populations, and the tools chosen.
The kinds of rationales differ depending upon the social construction of the
target population and can be used either to perpetuate or to change social
constructions.
For powerful, positively viewed groups,
the rationales will commonly feature the group’s instrumental links to the
achievement of important public purposes, currently conceptualized in terms of
national defense and economic competitiveness. Justice-oriented rationales
(e.g., equality, equity, need, and rights) will be less common for this group.
Efficiency as a means for achieving the instrumental goals of policy will be
emphasized as the reason for the selection of particular target groups and
particular tools. For example, federal science and technology policy, which
distributes more than $75 billion annually to large corporations and
universities, is justified on the grounds of national defense and/or economic
competitiveness. The groups chosen are said to be an efficient mechanism for
ensuring the United States maintains its technological edge vis-a-vis other
countries.
Similar rationales are used even when
burdens are being distributed. The close association of the welfare of these
groups with the public interest is not challenged. Instead, groups may be told
that they are not being made relatively worse off, compared with their
competitors and that all will gain in the long run. Policies to control
common-pool resource problems, such as water and air, usually claim that it
will protect the resource for everyone and that the regulations will prevent a
single firm within their group from gaining advantages and depleting the
resource. In those cases where it is impossible to construe a burden as a
benefit, then the rationale may claim that it is technically unavoidable if the
common-interest goals (e.g., national defense) are to be served. The burden
impinges on everyone, and it is not practical to make an exception for the
advantaged groups. The advantaged are not being singled out, and they are
sacrificing for the public good.
For contending groups (those that are
powerful but have negative constructions), the rationale is sharply different,
depending on whether they are receiving benefits or burdens. When they are
receiving costs, the public rationale will overstate the magnitude of the
burden and will construe it as a correction for their greed or excessive power.
On the other hand, private communications may suggest that the burden is not
excessive or will have little impact. In situations where the burden is real,
the group may be led to believe that they did not have enough power or made
errors in their strategies. They may be told that the policy was inevitable
once public attention was directed to their privileged, powerful position. When
contending groups receive benefits, the rationales will understate the
magnitude of the gain, which is made easier because the gains often are cloaked
as procedures that enable the group to have privileged access to lower-level
agencies or governments where the elected officials will not be held
accountable for the groups’ gains. When the benefits are obvious and can
credibly be linked to instrumental goals, such as national defense, arguments
will be made that it would not be possible to achieve the goal without also
benefiting the group.
Rationales for providing beneficial policy
to powerless groups seem to emphasize justice-oriented legitimations, rather
than instrumental ones. During the past
two decades, the interests of dependent populations have seldom been associated
with important national purposes. The association of justice-oriented
rationales to dependent populations seems to hold even when a case can be made
linking the policy to national goals such as economic development or national
defense. Education is a good example. In spite of strenuous efforts by
educators to claim that education is the fundamental basis for economic
competitiveness (and in spite of the logic of this position), political leaders
in the 1980s tended to ignore this connection.
Public education has been justified in terms of equal opportunities—a
rationale that currently does not carry the same status as instrumental
ones. The values of American society
simply seem to favor instrumental goals over justice-oriented goals. It may be
the case that instrumental goals are given primacy mainly because this permits
policy to continue distributing benefits to those who are more powerful.
Similarly, elected officials may not want to use instrumental justifications
for policies that benefit less powerful people, even when it would be perfectly
logical to do so, as this would then require larger expenditures on such
groups. Benefits conferred on negatively viewed powerless groups, such as
criminals, are frequently argued as unavoidable in order to protect important
constitutional principles that confer rights on everyone. Sometimes claims will
be made, however, that beneficial policies (e.g., rehabilitation for criminals)
are efficient mechanisms for achieving public safety. This argument is
difficult to sustain, however, because the public believes that these people
deserve to be punished and that rehabilitation policies will not work to reduce
crime. Part of the social construction of these groups is that they respond
mainly to punishment.
Burdens for powerless groups who are
positively constructed, such as children, may be justified as an efficient
mechanism to protect the individual from harm or to achieve public purposes.
For powerful groups, choices are limited only when there is no other way to
achieve certain goals. Persons in the powerful groups are constructed as
intelligent and able to make good choices. Powerless groups are not usually
constructed this way but are viewed as needing direction. “For her own good” is
a common reason given for incarcerating girls who have run away from home or
who are living with a boyfriend. Child labor laws that removed choices from
children and their families were done to protect the children.
The agenda, tools, and rationales of
policy impart messages to target populations that inform them of their status
as citizens and how they and people like themselves are likely to be treated by
government. Such information becomes internalized into a conception of the
meaning of citizenship that influences their orientations toward government and
their participation. Policy teaches lessons about the type of groups people
belong to, what they deserve from government, and what is expected of them. The
messages indicate whether the problems of the target population are legitimate
ones for government attention, what kind of game politics is (public-spirited
or the pursuit of private interests), and who usually wins.
Citizens encounter and internalize the
messages not only through observation of politics and media coverage but also
through their direct, personal experiences TABULAR DATA OMITTED with public
policy. These experiences tell them whether they are viewed as “clients” by
government and bureaucracies or whether they are treated as objects. Experience
with policy tells people whether they are atomized individuals who must deal
directly with government and bureaucracy to press their own claims or
participants in a cooperative process joining with others to solve problems
collectively for the common good. Citizen orientations toward government
impinge on their participation patterns.
The personal messages for the positively
viewed, powerful segments of society are that they are good, intelligent
people. When they receive benefits from government, it is not a special favor
or because of their need but because they are contributing to public welfare.
For these groups, reliance on government is not a signal that they cannot solve
their own problems. Government appears
responsive to them, and a clear message is sent through the tools and
rationales that their interest coincide with the public interest. Policies often involve outreach and seldom
require needs tests; thus the advantaged do not see themselves as claimants or
as dependent on government. Instead,
they are a crucial part of the effort to achieve national goals, such as
national defense or economic vitality. When they are regulated, they examine
rationales closely to see whether burdens are equitably allocated and whether
their sacrifice is truly necessary for a public purpose. When other groups are
singled out for benefits, especially those who are less powerful or negatively
constructed, they tend to believe that the government is on the wrong track.
Advantaged groups are quick to sense favoritism whenever groups other than
themselves receive benefits.
Advantaged groups are positively oriented
toward policy and politics, so long as government continues to be favorable
toward them (which becomes difficult in a troubled economy). Experiences with
policy teach them that government is important, politics is usually fair,
government can be held responsible for producing beneficial policy, there are
payoffs from mobilizing and supporting government officials. The game can be
won within the rules. The powerful, popular groups are active participants in
traditional ways, such as voting, interest group activity, campaign
contributions and so forth. When policies are ineffective, especially when
there are sustained periods of economic problems, they blame government rather
than themselves and they mobilize for change. When government no longer
benefits them, these groups are likely to organize and devise private
alternatives to public services, such as private schools, security systems,
mental health services, and so on. And, they object even more strenuously to
government regulation or to government providing benefits to others. As they
increasingly provide services for themselves, they withdraw support for
government provision of such services to others, thereby contributing to an
ever-widening gulf in the quality of life experienced by the haves and
have-nots in modern American society.
Contenders receive different messages.
Policy tells them that they are powerful, but they will be treated with
suspicion rather than respect. Their power is meaningful only when accompanied
by a strategy that will hide the true effects from public view. Politics is
highly contentious; no one will take care of them except themselves. Thus, they
must use power to pursue their own interests. Contenders realize that conflict
is common. They must be constantly vigilant and calculating to insure that
government serves their ends. They believe that government is not really
interested in solving problems but in wielding power. The difference between
the public and private messages that government sends to these groups teaches
them that government is not to be trusted. Private power is more important than
public interests and rationales are simply subterfuge rather than valid
arguments justifying the distribution of benefits and costs. Politics is a
corrupt game; winners have successfully used power and may have not stayed within
the rules of the game. Participation
patterns tend toward the use of informal means, such as the use of influential
connections and campaign contributions. Participation may disregard the rules
or laws; manipulation and subterfuge are common.
The messages to dependents are that they
are powerless, helpless, and needy.
Their problems are their own, but they are
unable to solve them by themselves.
Policy teaches them that it is not in the public’s interest to solve
their problems, and they get attention only through the generosity of others.
To be forced to depend upon a safety net means one is not much of a player. The
tools and rationales imply that government is responsive to them only when they
subject themselves to government and relinquish power over their own choices.
Income testing and the typical requirement that they must apply to the agency
for benefits (rather than being sought out through outreach programs) require
them to admit their dependency status. Even when beneficial policy is provided,
it is accompanied by labeling and stigma. Policy sometimes attempts to overcome
negative stereotyping by replacing one label with another, such as using
disabled instead of handicapped, which, itself, was used as a replacement for
crippled. Unfortunately, stigma often catches up with the new label.
Information programs that rely on propaganda and stereotypes for effectiveness
primarily reinforce the prevailing social constructions. Efforts to reduce the
spread of HIV by appealing to young black males through sport figures such as
Magic Johnson may reinforce the image of young blacks as sexually promiscuous.
The messages result in orientations toward
government characterized by disinterest and passivity. In contrast with the
advantaged groups, the powerless (even when positively constructed) do not see
their interests as coinciding with an important public goal and, instead, tend
to buy into the idea that their problems are individual and should be dealt
with through the private sector. They may view the claims of others, especially
the powerful advantaged groups, as being more legitimate than their own. The
game of politics is a bureaucratic game where they wait in line and eventually
get what others want them to have. Participation is low and conventional, but
their primary form of interaction with government is as applicants or claimants
who are applying for services to a bureaucracy.
Persons who are both powerless and
negatively constructed will have mainly negative experiences with government,
but differences in the tools and rules will lead to different messages from
those received by other groups. The dominant messages are that they are bad
people whose behavior constitutes a problem for others. They can expect to be
punished unless they change their behavior or avoid contact with the
government. Accordingly, these people often fail to claim government benefits
for which they are eligible. On the other hand, government often is unable to
catch them for their misdeeds and commonly fails to punish even when
individuals are apprehended. Thus, government appears to be arbitrary and
unpredictable. The rule of law and justice have no meaning. Orientations will
be those of angry and oppressed people who have no faith in government’s
fairness or effectiveness. They see themselves as alone and as individual
players who have no chance of winning in a game that they view as essentially
corrupt. Conventional forms of participation such as voting, running for
office, and interest group activity will be viewed as irrelevant (even if they
are eligible) because government belongs to someone else. Participation, when
it occurs, is likely to be more disruptive and individualized, such as riots
and protests. As with the contenders, the deviants are more inclined to break
the rules of participation.
Social constructions are manipulated and
used by public officials, the media, and the groups themselves. New target
groups are created, and images are developed for them; old groups are reconfigured
or new images created. One of the most interesting questions is whether
inherent contradictions within the policy process itself will lead to cyclical
patterns of corrections in the over- and undersubscription to different target
groups.
One possibility is that beneficial policy
becomes increasingly oversubscribed to the advantaged groups, with a
corresponding decline in resources available for policy that actually will be
effective in achieving public purposes.
Government can be expected to continue putting forth justifications
claiming that providing benefits to advantaged groups serves broader public
interests, but the credibility of these explanations will decline for several
reasons. First, personal experiences of
ordinary citizens will lead many to realize that policy is ineffective in
solving problems, or important problems are not even being addressed, or that
the designs of policies are illogical and not actually intended to serve the
stated goals. Personal observation and experience will also verify that the
democratic image of equality is too far at odds with the actual distribution of
benefits, influence, power, and the like. It becomes difficult to continue
constructing groups that are overly advantaged in a positive light; similarly,
it becomes difficult to continue pretending that the most important goals of
society exclude benefits to the growing numbers of seriously disadvantaged
groups, particularly when ordinary citizens encounter these people, such as the
unemployed, in their daily routines.
In addition to personal experiences,
another impetus for doubting the prevailing rationales may be forthcoming from
the images portrayed by the media, movies, literature, music, and other
carriers of social constructions. These
respond to many stimuli, including the creative imaginations and critical
skills of artists, writers, journalists, academics, and others. Carriers of social constructions may begin
to portray the advantaged segments as greedy, rather than deserving. Dramatic
events will often serve as catalysts for changes in social constructions. When
powerful, positively viewed groups become construed negatively, the dynamics of
policy change dramatically. Some of the previously advantaged groups are
displaced into a negatively constructed group that will not be able to garner
as much beneficial policy. Other groups that were previously negatively
constructed or who had not previously exercised power proportionate to their
size (because of the social constructions) may move into the positively viewed,
powerful segment. If so, understandings of the public interest may shift to
those closer to the interests of previously disadvantaged persons.
The political advantages for inflicting
punishment upon powerless, negatively viewed groups are so great that this area
also will become oversubscribed and extended to ever-larger segments of the
population. It is likely that certain kinds of behavior, such as the use of
alcohol or other drugs, will be proscribed simply because the groups who are
heavy users are negatively constructed and lack sufficient power to oppose the
policies. As these prohibited behaviors spread to more powerful and more
positively constructed groups, however, they will eventually reach a number of
people whose experiences will not permit them to buy into the messages that
they are bad and undeserving people. When common behaviors of large numbers of
ordinary people become subject to negative stereotyping and punishment is
threatened, the expected acquiescence is unlikely. Instead, these groups may
refuse to accept the negative social constructions, mobilize, and engage in
widespread political participation, including conventional forms, as well as
disruptive behavior such as demonstrations or riots. The cycles of disruptive
politics in the United States such as occurred in the 1930s and 1960s may be
explained by this dynamic process.
In a relatively open, democratic society,
these phenomena might produce pendulumlike cycles of policy that distribute
benefits and burdens to differing segments of the population, so that the
advantages enjoyed by the powerful, positively viewed groups do not escalate in
a linear fashion but are occasionally pulled back. Similarly, the
oppressiveness of policy to deviant groups may not continually escalate but may
reverse direction toward more benign postures.
On the other hand, there may be no
inherent dynamic that produces a cyclical pattern. Changes may be unrelated to
the prevailing distribution of advantages and, instead, depend upon
opportunities, unexpected dramatic events, and the skills of those who
manipulate images and constructions. Still a third possibility is that the
advantaged continue to gain at the expense of others and that more and more
groups are constructed as deviants and subject to punishment. This process is
not self-correcting, because social constructions become increasingly important
and difficult to refute (Edelman 1988). Thus, they are manipulated and used to
build support for the increasingly uneven allocation of benefits and burdens by
government.
An understanding of social constructions
makes important contributions to many different issues in political science,
three of which will be discussed here: Who benefits and who loses from
government action? Who participates? and What is the effect of policy on
democracy?
The framework makes an important
contribution to the issue of which groups will benefit from policy—why powerful
groups do not always win—and offers a compelling explanation for the prominent
role played by punishment in the United States political process. A great deal
of research by political scientists has verified that policy often reflects the
interests of powerful constituent groups. Theories of self-interested behavior
by the groups combined with reelection motivations by elected officials offer
possible explanations. As a number of authors have pointed out, however, policy
often serves public interests (more commonly than is usually acknowledged by
political science), which is far more difficult to explain (Arnold 1990; Kelman
1987). Arnold’s theory is that public officials develop strategies based on
expectations of how the public will react and that they believe that their
opponents and the media can easily arouse the inattentive publics by focusing
on policy failures or other errors in judgment. Thus, policy directed solely to
the benefit of powerful groups could become a major campaign liability. Arnold
anticipates the importance of social constructions of target populations when
he notes that politically repellent options “also include programs for which
citizens have little sympathy for the affected groups” (1990, 80). Kelman
simply asserts that public spiritedness is as important a motivation for behavior
as self-interest. Thus, elected officials are motivated sometimes by
self-interest, producing policies benefiting powerful groups in the
constituency but sometimes by public spiritness, producing good public policy
that serves general interests (Kelman 1987).
Social constructions make an important
contribution to these explanations.
Social constructions of target populations help explain the kinds of
issues that opponents and media can exploit, namely, any policy that confers
benefits on negatively constructed groups (as is illustrated in the Willy
Horton ads) or policies that confer burdens on positively constructed groups.
The tensions created by noncongruity among social constructions, power, and
logical relationships create many situations in which elected leaders will
distribute benefits and burdens outside the dictates of power. Furthermore,
social constructions are essential to an explanation of the politics of
punishment, which wins no votes among the recipients of punishment and appears
to accomplish few, if any, positive purposes.
One of the enduring issues in political
science is why participation is so low and uneven. Many have pointed out that
the groups who stand to gain the most from political action, such as the poor
and minorities, often fail to mobilize and, in fact, have the lowest rates of
participation. Some theorists have examined the importance of structural
impediments, such as voting registration rules; others have emphasized that the
typical political agenda may be irrelevant to the disadvantaged groups or that
the disadvantaged may find it difficult to recognize their own interests as
being sufficiently distinct to warrant active participation (Gaventa 1980;
Piven and Cloward 1988). Some critical theorists have suggested that the wants
and desires of disadvantaged groups are manipulated by the powerful through
appeals to symbols, thereby leading to quiescence (Gaventa 1980; Luke 1989).
Others have advanced the theory that politics becomes increasingly technical
and that government offers complex, technical explanations for policy designs
that are beyond the comprehension of everyone except the experts (Fischer 1990;
Habermas 1975; Hawkeswork 1988). The result is a depolitization of society and
a withdrawal of citizens from political discourse and activity.
The concept of social construction of
target populations helps explain how and why these linkages occur. Policy is an
important variable that shapes citizen orientations and perpetuates certain
views of citizenship that are in turn linked to differential participation
among groups. Groups portrayed as dependents or deviants frequently fail to
mobilize or to object to the distribution of benefits and burdens because they
have been stigmatized and labeled by the policy process itself. They buy into
the ideas that their problems are not public problems, that the goals that
would be most important for them are not the most important for the public
interest, and that government and policy are not remedies for them. They do not
see themselves as legitimate or effective in the public arena, hence their
passive styles of participation. In contrast, the advantaged groups are
reinforced in pursuing their self-interests and in believing that what is good
for them is good for the country. They can marshal their resources and use them
to gain benefits for themselves, all the while portraying themselves as
public-spirited. Others do not object, and in fact, support such policies,
because they accept the goals that benefit the advantaged groups and believe
these groups are deserving of what they get. Social constructions enhance their
power, whereas it detracts from the power of the disadvantaged groups.
Social constructions of target populations
are crucial variables in understanding the complex relationship between public
policy and democratic governance. The theory presented here is an extension of
the work of Lowi, Wilson, and others who are interested in how policy affects
democracy. It offers explanations for some of the incorrect predictions from
Lowi and Wilson’s typologies and implies different prescriptions about what is
needed for policy to serve democratic roles in society (Barber 1984; Lowi 1964,
1972, 1985; Wilson 1973, 1986).
Lowi popularized the idea that “policy
creates politics,” turning political science away from its almost exclusive
attention to how “politics creates policy.” His concern was to identify the
attributes of policy that encourage affected people (or groups) to mobilize, to
make their preferences clear, and to ensure that policy reflects compromises
among competing interests rather than the influence of a small number of
elites. Lowi’s typology was based on two dimensions: whether the probability of
coercion is low (benefits distributed) or high (costs distributed) and whether
the policy identifies specific targets or consists of general rules that
impinge on the environment of the target groups. These two dimensions produce
four types of policy—distributive, regulatory, redistributive, and
constituent—of which only one, regulatory, produces political activities
resembling an open, competitive model of pluralist democracy. All of the
others, he argued, encourage some type of elitism. Wilson’s typology also was
developed to explain how and why different kinds of policies produce different
kinds of politics. His typology accounted for four types of politics:
majoritarian, pluralist, elitist, and client, depending on whether the benefits
and costs are concentrated or dispersed (Wilson 1986).
Social constructions add to both these
theories in several ways. Lowi was especially opposed to distributive policy
arenas, which are characterized by distribution of beneficial policy directly
to constituent groups, because these tend to produce a pattern of mutual
noninterference and sub rosa decision making in which only the few participate
and only the few are served (Lowi 1979). Social constructions add to this by
explaining why some groups are regularly singled out for distributive policy,
whereas others are not. It is not simply a matter of power, assessed in
traditional ways such as size, wealth, cohesion, and the like. Nor is it simply
a matter of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, as Wilson’s typology
suggests. Distributive policy is most likely to be directed at target
populations that are both powerful and positively constructed. When unpopular
groups, including those that are powerful, are targeted for distributive
policy, Lowi’s predictions of low conflict and mutual noninterference are usually
incorrect. Instead, opposition emerges, so that the policy arena resembles the
one Lowi characterized as redistributive or regulatory. When groups that lack
power but have positive constructions are targeted for distributive policy,
opposition also will emerge. In addition, some regulatory policy does not
produce opposition (as Lowi’s theory suggested) but is met instead with general
approval. Lowi’s typology clustered social regulation (e.g., crime policy) with
business regulation because both inflict coercion on general categories of
people. Yet, punishment-oriented crime policies are almost never met with the
type of pluralist opposition that characterizes business regulatory policy.
Social constructions also help explain
anomalies in predictions from Wilson’s theory. For example, welfare policies
are characterized by concentrated benefits and dispersed costs—the type of
policy that Wilson contended will continually expand, because those who benefit
will mobilize, whereas those who pay (the taxpayers) will not. Thus, elected
officials who are motivated by reelection will be unable to cut or reduce these
kinds of policies. Social constructions help explain why (and when) elected
officials will find it easy to cut welfare policies, as has happened in many
states during the past decade when the poor were constructed as lazy or
shiftless and were often believed to be minorities who were responsible for
their own plight.
For Lowi, policies that serve broad public
purposes contain a clear rule of law applicable to broad categories of people
and contain clear and consistent directives are most likely to produce an
environment in which democracy can flourish. Yet as Ginsberg and Sanders point
out, such laws dignify and empower only the individuals who know what the law
is and can effectively challenge arbitrary and unjust treatment (1990, 564-65).
Powerful, positively constructed groups continue under such policies to be
reinforced in the belief in their own deservedness and association of their
self-interest with the general interest. Groups negatively socially constructed
will continue to see government as a source of problems, rather than solutions,
and participation as an irrelevant activity. True empowerment and equality
would occur only if all target populations had social constructions that were
positive and only if all have power relatively equal to their numbers in
society.
A theory of the social constructions of
target populations is also relevant to an understanding of policy failure in
the technical sense of policy that is not effective or efficient. Policy
scientists have typically blamed policy failures on illogical linkages in the
policy design and have blamed these illogical connections on elected officials
who pay too much attention to powerful interest groups and not enough attention
to experts (Brewer and deLeon 1983; Quade 1982). A theory of the social
construction of target populations makes it clear that policies are not
technically illogical simply because of political power considerations. Social
constructions are crucial to understanding which policies are most likely to be
illogical. Social constructions impinge on all aspects of design, including
selection of goals, targets, tools, and implementation strategies. Experts do
not escape social constructions, either; and the constructions they hold color
which goals they think are important and which targets they believe are the
most logically connected to the goals. The tools that experts think will
motivate the targets rest on assumptions about behavior that are influenced by
social constructions. The rationales that the experts believe will make the
policy palatable to affected groups imply particular social constructions of
those groups. Thus, social constructions (as well as power) influence the logic
of policy, and expertise does not negate the influence of constructions on
policy design even in highly nonpolitical contexts.
One of our fundamental contentions is that
policies that fail to solve problems or represent interests and that confuse,
deceive, or disempower citizens do not serve democracy. Policy designs that
serve democracy, then, need to have logical connections to important public
problems; represent interests of all impinged-on groups; and enlighten,
educate, and empower citizens. Policy should raise the level of discourse.
Given the electoral dynamics described here, however, it is not likely that
policy will be designed to achieve all three of its democratic roles unless the
power of target populations is made more equal and social constructions become
less relevant or more positive. In other words, the only groups in the policy
typology for which policy is likely to serve democratic roles are the powerful,
positively constructed groups. Until all groups are so situated, policy will
continue to fail in its democratic mission.
Political scientists should include the
social construction of target populations among the political phenomena to
which they devote their research. Social constructions are political in the
sense that they are related to public discourse and are manipulated through
hortatory and symbolic language generally regarded as political…