Reading news these days feels like a combination of disbelief, outrage, and laughter. Since Donald Trump assumed office one month ago, we have been flooded with executive orders, fake news, and initiatives for which it is difficult to conclude whether they are utterly stupid or simply neo-fascist. The evident strategy is to flood the zone with shit (to cite one of Trump’s (former) advisors Steve Bannon). People are drowned in information using social media (TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, …) and appeasement media (Fox News, CNN, …), inhibiting them to grasp what is happening. While this flood of information and policies leading to perplexed citizens deserves its own attention, in this blog I will discuss which structural features of the American state enable Trump to act in this way. I will summarise the book ‘The Policy State – An American Predicament’ by Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek and contextualise the current events surrounding the Trump presidency. My key argument is that one of the reasons why the USA and its leadership is in this miserable state lies in its prioritisation of policy over other government motives. This has enabled the neo-fascist turn which we currently observe, whose short-, medium-, and long-term effects remain uncertain.

Policy State

In 2017, Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek published ‘The Policy State – An American Predicament’, which concepts I use to contextualise why and how the Trump administration manages to govern the way it does. Orren’s & Skowronek’s concept of a policy state, which differs from the way we understand the (US American) state, can be summarised as a new paradigm in the way a state and its motives are structured, severely impacting its mode of governance. Without the emergence of such a policy state in the past decades, a Trump presidency and his actions would have been unlikely. In the following paragraphs I will summarise the main contents of their book.

Any observant of political affairs can testify that the term policy has become an all encompassing term for any government action. Policy is synonymous to problem solving, an active state, rights, change, and so forth. Orren & Skowronek argue that policy is only one of the many government motives, among motives such as structures and rights. In loose terms, structure stands for the constitutional arrangements of a state, providing a framework for strategic action of different political players. Rights are the rules by which societies and governments are organised – think of human rights. Policy is a commitment to a certain goal or action based on certain guidelines. In that regard, structure refers to the wider political structures which enable and constrain action, rights are backward looking and reclaim something due, and policy is the forward looking component for governments.

However, even though these different motives exist, today, policy is usually the primary focus of analysis and action. For example, policy science developed a variety of different theories and concepts to describe changes in policy and their impacts, indirectly neglecting the role rights and structure play in state action. Policy nowadays is synonymous with everything in government action, and other motives became policy like. For example, while rights used to be regarded as trumps (think of trumps in a card game), which are absolute and override other people’s preferences, nowadays, rights are more and more often seen as chips (think of chips in poker). That is to say that they are tokens of legal and moral value, which can be countered by other chips and leave legal conflict undetermined.

The (American) policy state is shaped by policy taking ever more space in the state’s motives. It strives for central direction and imposes a management structure which enables the pursuit of its commitments and goals. The policy state is averse to any formal structure and rights and extends its governance through agencies, leading to the dissipation of power and accountability. This dissipation of power from government structures into agencies is accompanied by the sprawl of think tanks, rating services, foundations, and so forth. This ultimately reinforces the subordination of structure and rights to policy. Policy’s widespread usage to direct state action goes against the state’s architecture, defeating its structure and making everything else less secure, partially because of the loss of rights as trumps. One of the results is that US American federalism is used as an opportunity structure for policy entrepreneurs, who approach jurisdictional boundaries strategically to pursue their goals.

The growing expansion of policy and policy-like rights and structures can theoretically lead to a more inclusive polity, because it opens more space for political actors to intervene. Political parties’ power over legislative processes has been weakened as they are believed to not be keeping up with the need for programmatic policy action. As such, direct democracy and the rule through citizens has gained attractiveness. In the meanwhile, partially due to the sprawl of agencies and think tanks, the guidance by science and experts has become a critical element of the policy state, who advise decision makers with scientific knowledge. Those ideal types of a policy state have been met with many issues in reality. For example, these guiding scientists and experts form enclosed communities independent from outside influence, which they were supposed to replace. Think tanks and knowledge institutes compete on priorities and (their) experts turn into policy entrepreneurs. Advocates of the policy state believe that by creating a super citizen, in other words an educated individual, ‘evidence based’ policy making based on scientific thought would become the sole mode of governance.

The Impacts of a Policy State

The emergence of an (American) policy state has not led to a more enlightened, scientifically supported, citizen centred mode of governance based on commonalities and consensus, but rather serves as one of the drivers of today’s polarisation. The primacy of information on which the policy state builds is being strategically exploited by polarised and polarising party leaders, as can be seen by the flood of information which leaves us paralysed. Furthermore, many of the problems of the American state cannot be solved by more policies, the policy state’s key (or only) motive. The establishment of rights as chips, structure as opportunity, and rules as interests is a set of principles which has little binding power. The overtly refined, hard to enforce and malleable rules made people lose faith in the state. The (American) state turned into an ‘expertocracy’ which claims to own sound judgement and decision making, without being accountable for their actions and decisions. The crisis of authority which has been building up over the past decades is a product of prioritising policy over other motives. Trump’s first presidency revealed these deficiencies and is currently getting rid of the few rights which are still left.

My Take on the Policy State

The emergence of the policy state in the USA and slowly in other so-called Western countries highlights the deep uncertainty we are currently going through. Contrary to its ideal type scenario, where more informed citizens will be able to dictate the future of a country, the policy state has gotten rid of mechanisms which enable citizens to do so. The American policy state has eroded the state’s foundations and created a system which is filled with uncertainty, in which rights, structures, and (state) institutions have no value anymore. The remaining constant force within the policy state is the expertocracy, which is the profiteer of these developments. This expertocracy can manipulate the masses using their diverse media channels and become increasingly isolated from accountability. This is particularly toxic in the current hyper-politicised environment, where people are being manipulated non-stop by drowning them in information and making them believe that quick and easy solutions can lead to desirable results. The constant strive for lean governments, flexibility, less bureaucracy, simplicity, and so forth cut down states and their ability to work for their people. It also reveals that this strive was never to create more accessible governments but to give ruling classes more power over a state and its people. What we therefore currently experience is that a policy state leads to autocratic democracies.

Conclusion

Trump’s policy state is currently demolishing the few remaining rights and structures which are still left, leaving everything less stable and uncertain for citizens. The (American) policy state has been building up in the past decades through a continuous weakening of rights and structures, and by fostering activist states whose solve governance motive is policy. Orren & Skowronek’s policy state concept offers a promise to citizens which enables them to be more active agents of change. However, as we currently see, this can be exploited by malicious actors, Trump being the most prominent one. It would be easy to assume that Trump is at fault and policy states are still something to strive for, because of their potential to create more inclusive policies.

However, I think that rather than seeing a policy state as something positive or desirable, we ought to take a step back and reflect whose interests are being served by it. In the American context it is evident and clear that the oligarchy is currently uniting with the extreme (alt) right to create a neo-fascist government. The so-called flexible and adaptable policy state has enabled this rapid transformation, by giving more space and tools to neo-fascists to demolish the state. In a world which is increasingly faced with uncertainty and rapid change, what our state architecture needs is more stability, not less. The policy state in its current form is therefore a mode of governance which we should deeply reject.