The Ladder of Disproportionate Policy: A Conceptual Exploration of the Full Spectrum of Disproportionate Policies and their Dynamics of Change

Disproportionate policy responses — policy over- and underreaction — are everywhere in policy affairs. Conceptually exploring the full spectrum of disproportionate policies and their dynamics of change remains uncharted territory. Of particular interest are policies that are high on universalism but have finely set and adjusted policy instruments, making make them effectively disproportionate. I thus develop a descriptive-analytical framework centering on a novel conceptual tool, the Ladder of Disproportionate Policy. It is an objective scale of disproportionate policies based on assessing the gap between the scope of the audience that the policy ostensibly serves and how the policy tools are set and adjusted to serve the actual audience. This scale assumes that policymakers can "game" these two policy dimensions before and during policy implementation. Political executives can climb up and down this conceptual Ladder and ascend or descend one dimension independently of the other as well as move from one side to the other. I tie these moves to elected executives' progression between three self-interest constructs that reflect varying intensities of self-interest and explore the mechanisms that may facilitate this progression. The first category - Self with no regard for others - refers to democratically elected incumbents who seek to maximize their own self-interest to the complete exclusion of others and with no regard for the formal and informal "rules of the game," The second category - Self above others - refers to elected executives who operate within the formal rules of the game yet "game" the informal rules of the game. The third category - Self equal to others - refers to elected executives who seek to maximize their interests and the interests of others equally while operating within the formal and informal "rules of the game."