Chapter 10

Each student will select one question to answer. You must include the page number in the book which assisted you with your answer. Each student will comment on two of their peers responses. No two students may answer the same question.

DISCUSS the FOLLOWING

a. how strategists should establish orienting objectives, such as whether to assume the role of affirmer, amender, opposer, or bystander; whether to seek major or incremental changes; and whether to have a short- or long-term time frame
b. how to ground strategy with respect to a specific issue in current realities by conducting analysis of the level of support and opposition, contextual and situational realities that might deliberations, by trying to predict future developments that could increase support or opposition, and by adapting strategy to traditions and norms of the setting.
c. how to build alternative scenarios that are linked to strategy options as a precursor to selecting one of them
d. how to revise strategy in light of emerging realities
e. seven recurring steps in strategy including organizing a team coalition, establishing policy goals, specifying a proposal’s content and getting early sponsors, establishing a style, selecting power resources and framing strategy, implementing strategy, and revising the strategy.


1. By reviewing Policy Advocacy Challenge 12.1, discuss the following dilemmas, tasks, and realities that policy practitioners encounter when they develop political strategy:
(a) Since it is often difficult to predict whether a specific proposal is feasible in the early stages, people often under- or overestimate the opposition to it.
(b) Coalitions are often difficult to form and maintain but are often critical to the success of an initiative.
(c) Policy advocates often want to exert external pressure on public officials, yet simultaneously want “insider pressure” from key legislators or civil servants.

2. In addition to the role of initiating a proposal, discuss other roles that policy practitioners can assume, such as bystanding, opposing, and amending roles. How does someone decide which role to assume? Do people sometimes confront ethical dilemmas when they make these choices?

3. Force-field analysis often provides valuable information, but many evolving factors and imponderables often intrude.