Policy Development Steered By National Government

The state-centered approach represents a new research perspective, which has broken the traditional dominant position of society-centered approach. The research on autonomous of Federal state is a topic worthy of in-depth study. The issue on the policy development steered by national government is first about the autonomous of national government, and it is the first for the researcher on USA to reflect on how the power of the national government had come true by breaking the institutional constraints on it and why it has expanded, at the same time we need to ponder by which means national government steered the policy development of the whole country. Compared to the regular use of despotic power in non-democratic countries, the national government often uses infrastructural power to achieve its policy preference in democratic countries and transfers it to an authoritative action. In addition, because of the characteristic structure of Federal state, we must discuss the constraints borne by national government, and the relationship between the national government and other actors, including civil society, state governments and so on.This is an interpretative study based on the Institutional Support Theory and Power Resource Theory. Based on the dimension of history, it explains how the national government has steered the policy in time in the whole country by strategic action. Because of the existence of national interests and policy discourse which is constructed on the base of national interests, it provided institutional infrastructure basing on Cultural-cognitive element for the power of national government. In accordance with the conditions for the realization of infrastructural power, the national government can achieve its autonomous and transfer its preference to policy and authority action, and maintain this kind of preference depending on the measure of available resources, the employing of financial aid policy lever, ideology and power penetration, and the application of negotiation ability and all kinds of the other measures. During the process of policy development, the realization of national power and the achievement of the public policy are mutually strengthened each other, and the new policy that has been achieved perhaps becomes institutional foundation and supporting force, which can provided the possibility so as to expand the national government power.Although Existing institution provides the assurance for the power of behavior body, it has become the factors that restrict the power expansion. In the USA, the national government power seems to bear a greater institutional restriction than that in other countries, which make it particularly difficult for national government to expand its influential power. The new policy will develop constantly with the development of history, and even continue to strengthen itself, during which the institutionalization process occurs and has become a constraint forces to prevent deviating from existing policy paradigm unduly and rapid changes of the policy. It is because of constraint mechanism to the power brought about by the steady constitutional system and stable political culture that determined the limit of the power of national government. Therefore, changes in the state power and public policy are showing one kind of logic of slow and gradual shift, and showing a specific policy stability.Education itself is not one of enumerated affairs of the federal government in Constitution, but the federal government succeed in achieving the power by seeking institutional support and power resources. Through lucubrating to the development of educational policy in USA during 1954 to 2012, some facts have proved, national government can really achieve their preference almost the times, and can hold it in the following process especially, and this preference is not of simple reaction to the social preference. When the power encountered resistance in the process of preference, it can redefine policy problems from the perspective of national interests, guide public policy discourse through the ideological influence; guide cognition and identification of social and other layers of government to the national interests; and utilize negotiation ability and financial aid policy lever penetration power and utilize the opportune moment to use and construct the momentum for change to steer the social values and preferences, so as to achieve and maintain the national policy preferences.The expanding of national power and policy development happened at the same time, which strengthen each other during the developing process. The consolidation of power and ideas based on one kind of policy paradigm shapes the special logic of the policy development in the USA. From the result of investigation of the historical development of nearly sixty years of primary and secondary education policy in USA, we can see that the national government plays a guiding role in the policy development, and steers the national policy direction and value orientation. With the strengthening of the ideas and power persistently, national government is strict with the state and local government in requirements and standards of policy implementation more stringently. However, the right of the standard formulation is still in the hands of to the state governments, the specific implementation and the other core functional areas in education is still under the control of these state governments.The power of national government is itself limited under the federal system in the USA. It is because there is the special constitutional system that is designed for restricting the power and the political culture vigilant to the power which is formed historically, that the expanding of the power of national government is not infinite. Although Obama claims more stringent requirements in the education problem, but it is a result of the deal with the state governments that will be given full flexibility.