The social and political construction of public policy problems ЗАРУБЕЖНЫЙ ОПЫТ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC POLICY PROBLEMS1 Robert Hoppe Department of Science, Technology and Policy Studies School of Management and Governance University of Twente 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Problems as social constructions and claims Let us start from a simple and common sense definition of the concept of a ‘problem’: One has a problem when one experiences a gap or disparity between a moral standard and an image of a present or future state of the world. <...> Someone who claims to be plagued by a problem, implicitly or explicitly passes a moral judgment. <...> One uses a standard involving value or worthlessness, desirability or undesirability, to pass judgment on present or expected acts or situations (e.g. Rokeach, 1973; Frankena, 1973). <...> However, in political or administrative practice value attribution is part of social conventions, social status, bringing up and educational background, political ideology, group interest, and, ultimately, expressions of political influence and power (Safranski, 1999)2. <...> Values are confronted not just as inner feelings with a 1 This article is taken from R. Hoppe, 2011, pp. 66–76. 2 Safranski (1999) writes, “Behind every value attribution hides the will to power." This is equally true for the ‘highest values’: God, the ideas, the metaphysical. … However, even the will to power 73 Вестник РУДН, серия Государственное и муниципальное управление, 2014, № 4 strictly private character. <...> For example, a public health officer involved in preventing HIVAIDS is drawn into difficult political and ethical dilemmas: Attempts to curtail epidemics raise – in the guise of public health – the most enduring political dilemma: how to reconcile the individual’s claim to autonomy and liberty with the community’s concern with safety? <...> How are individual rights and the public good pursued simultaneously? (Baldwin, 2005: 3) In this political dilemma, where moral claims for both sides can be traced to constitutional clauses and public law, policy actors confront the ethical as objectified social constructions, as group claims, and as political power. <...> However, especially public problems are always claims of groups of persons about the way they experience a situation <...>