Political Behavior Of Public Interest: Discussion And Theories

Points of Discussion

Discuss about the Political Behavior of Public Interest.

The current study is concerned with the lawmakers of democratic politics by interpreting the public interest. At the time of framing decisions, politicians usually structure their general rules concerning the application of mandatory voters. It is worth mentioning that even though the lawmakers does not activate in their own capability their activities are reliant on the official procedure. Such procedure contributes towards the organisational ability in combination to the due procedure with policy expertise towards government regulations in the private sector.   

The stated theory to the public interest has been seen to be originating form the different types of the traditional concept, which has been taken in to consideration from the conceptualization of the representative democracy theory. It has been also seen to be associated to the duty of government in associating the theory, which can be used to reveal the important argument for the given topic. Based on the temper of individual person this may be considered both in terms of the realistic and unrealistic data. It has been further observed that the theory related to the public interest has been considered as response to the weekly requirement for regulation. In the year, 1971 economic or positive theory came into action (Kleinnijenhuis et al. 2015). Later on it was observed that the theory was extended by taking into account the influenced thinking on the theories of regulation. Positive theory has been seen to offering the theoretical base for the initial conception related to the political theory, which is seen to take control of the agencies that are seen to be limited by the producers. As per the positive theory, the politicians are observed to maximize the utility. Despite of the fact that the usefulness has not been stated, it has been identified for maintenance and securing of the political power. For the purpose of the fulfilment of the various types of the objectives finance, resources and votes from the groups who can be seen to be affected positively by the regulatory decisions. Hence, it has been identified that the regulators has been seen in terms of capturing the special interest groups who want to pocket some money by using of wealth (Carnoy Martin 2014).

The approach towards the regulation has been seen to be in line with the public choice. This has been identified, as behaviour of the government, which is understood to maximise their individual behaviour. The main analysis  has been seen to be focusing on the preferences of the individuals who were seen to be involved and in the manner of the attainment of their regulatory goals with respect to the fulfilment of their personal goals. This has been further seen in terms of the various types of the consideration which has been seen to be made in term of the fulfilment of their private goals rather than considering the holistic approach of considering the public goals. It has been further seen that the politician are seen to enacting only those policies for which they can assure the re-election and further help them in term so the attainment of the goals (Frederickson et al. 2015).

BP’s Deep-water oil spill case

The various types of the considerations, which has been seen for the approaches that are used by the regulators, are:

Command and control: Under this segment it has been seen that the various aspects of the regulators which can be considered to get a clear view regarding the acceptable activities or the unacceptable activities. For instance, the safety and work regulations that should be taken into consideration for meeting the compliance of the business (Lindemann and Ringmar 2015). Some of the other issues related to the regulatory aspect has been further seen in term of following factors:

• The issues, which are directly related to the closure of the connection among the regulators effect, can be captured by the regulation. This was also taken into consideration for the case of in accordance with the “Australian Accounting Standards Review Board (AASB)” in the initial stage.
• The different types of the issue has been further identified in term of the approaches which are related to the directs to strict, inflexible and propagation of regulations
• In various cases, it has been further observed that the appropriate method has not been taken into consideration (Vohs and Baumeister 2016).

Self-regulation: This particular aspect is considered lenient in compare to the others. The implementation has been seen by taking into consideration the associations and professional bodies. The Generally, the accepted principles (GAAP) and  accounting standards  generated by the professionals’ main goal was to evade government control, which were seen to be going against the accounting practice. The individuals were not seen to be satisfied with the efficiencies of self-regulation programs (Fingas 2016).

Incentives based regulation: in general, it has been seen that the people consider that the taxes are imposed as penalty in order to discourage the various activities. Although it needs to be considered that, these taxes can be also used in term of the measure of positive incentive. For instance, for a long time the Australian firms were recognised with tax incentives for purchasing of plant and equipment.

This considers the disclosures for regulation. In general, terms it is seen to consign to the needs of the information related to the product. For instance, in case of food value for a packaged item, whether it is produced organically, production country and eco-friendliness. The disagreement can take place with  financial information, however this is not the standard implication.

Interest group theory: This is considered as the relationship between various group and state. The supporter of this theory conflict with the public interest theory, due to the fact that regulation for power is seen to be more competitive than the public interest.

Economic theory of regulation: This is seen as an positive approach and considers the regulators who maximize the utility. Generally, it deals with maintaining and securing political power. This theory is not able to respond to the extensions and the ad-hoc hypothesis, which are considered for the protection of the underlying theory (Zhao et al. 2014).

Institutional theory: The theorist are seen to be taking into consideration the rationale for the arrangements, institutional structure and the social procedures which are required to be implicated. There are several types of factors, which are seen to enforce the regulation through which it is materialized (Ritchie et al. 2014).

Political theory: The theory is considered in form of the factors, which are seen to be implicit for the capitalist system. The capitalism system is seen with the involvement of the economic and political realms, which are seen to be interplayed. This regulation has been further seen to be crucial to implement balance the inequalities and assure the existence of capitalism (MacCormick and Weinberger 2013).

The current case studies the BP crisis, which occurred on the April 20^th 2010. An explosion and a huge fire was declared in the oilrig of the deep-water horizon. The incident was regarded as the largest in the maritime oil spill disaster in the history of the US. The accident led to death of eleven crews members with high economic and environmental repercussions. Along with this, BP suffered a considerable amount of financial damages. The company lost huge amount of shares in the London stock exchange and nearly lost 7% of its shares (MacCormick and Weinberger 2013). Furthermore, it fell to lowest level in the last 14 years and 50% of its market capitalisation was wiped out in July 2010.

The organisation suffered a dramatic amount of collapse in their reputation largely in USA. Prior to the completion of the sealing of the oil well there was a progression of spill without the resolution. The company was even awarded lowest grade of E in the covalence multinationals reputations ranking. According to the survey results obtained following the month of the accident it was found by the public that BP did not reacted sufficiently to prevent leakage of oil.  Prior to the outbreak of disaster, the communal and environmental response of BP was inconsistent (Berry 2015). The company was at times viewed as environmentally committed organisation and on several occasions considered as polluting and irresponsible company. For number of years the group had tried to differentiate it self from its rivals by displaying better environmental concerns. The brand awareness of the organisation rose from 4% to 67% amid the years of 2000 and 2007.

The company was regarded as the highly environmentally friendly image in relation to other companies operating in the oil sector. BP was also praised for its proactive model and credible corporate social responsibility and its public relations campaign won many accolades with Gold award from American market association being one its achievement (Hauner, Prati and Bircan 2013). However, CSR history of the company was on the darker side since the group was well aware of the disasters and scandals having the history of security carelessness.

The analysis of the BP crisis management of the Deep-water horizon had displayed several failures in their management. On analysing the environmental strategy prior to the occurrence of the crisis, it was discovered that the company was merely green washing and safety hardly formed its priority. The company hardly envisaged an emergency plan and was not adequately prepared to such disastrous situation and failed to reach sufficiently to avert such crisis. Upon the outbreak of the crisis, the initial response of BP was completely failure. The company was slow and tried to blame third parties. It also abdicated responsibilities and expressed concerns for the victims (Ekelund and Hébert 2013). Following the crisis, the company continued its act of concealing relevant information regarding the actual damages of oil spill and disseminated that information, which would, helped in contributing to repair its damaged reputation. Apart from this, the succession of accidents and scandals seemed that BP hardly had any belief of learning from such crisis.         

The argument to the current case lays down that BP and its partners ignored their accountabilities and stated that the disaster to just a mere accident. Such statement clearly infringes the theory of Utilitarianism since they were liable for the outcomes of their activities (Zhao et al. 2014). Such violations can be solved through the following crisis management approach;

The response phase generally comes into the existence when solving the issues is closely related with the environmental damages. This is concerned with the reducing the adverse impact on the local inhabitants and surroundings. During this period the management of BP should work towards mitigating the crisis and offering support to the inhabitants affected by the disaster (Jervis 2015.). Activities at this point of time significantly influence the opinion of the public regarding the crisis and the organisations ability to handle the situation.

Public relations play a critical role in the crisis as it helps in developing the messages that are distributed to large number of publics. Several studies has suggested that BP should separate the response phase in two segments with initial crisis response at the first stage, followed by reputation repair and behaviour intentions.

Improving the environment of the company along with the domestic tourist for long period through assuring sustainable development.

Studies suggest that during the initial response phase the crisis manages should be quick by delivering the response during the initial hour of the disaster (Most and Starr 2015). This is because public relations forms key and accurate information regarding the event keeping the spokesperson informed regarding the disaster helps in consistent exchange of message between them.

Conclusion:

To conclude with it is noticed that notwithstanding that strategies are adopted there is no doubt concerning the factors which regulates the outcome of the political force relationship. It is noteworthy to denote that such political implementations are different and are largely based on varied situations. It is noteworthy to denote that the approach towards the regulation has been seen to be in line with the public choice. The study lays down that such procedure underwrites towards the structural ability in combination to the due procedure with policy expertise towards government regulations in the private sector.

Reference List

Berry, J.M., 2015. Lobbying for the people: The political behavior of public interest groups. Princeton University Press.

Carnoy, Martin. The state and political theory. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Ekelund Jr, R.B. and Hébert, R.F., 2013. A history of economic theory and method. Waveland Press.

Fingas, M., 2016. Oil spill science and technology. Gulf professional publishing.

Frederickson, H.G., Smith, K.B., Larimer, C.W. and Licari, M., 2015. The public administration theory primer. Westview Press.

Hauner, D., Prati, A. and Bircan, C., 2013. The interest group theory of financial development: Evidence from regulation. Journal of Banking & Finance, 37(3), pp.895-906.

Jervis, R., 2015. Perception and misperception in international politics. Princeton University Press.

Kleinnijenhuis, J., Schultz, F., Utz, S. and Oegema, D., 2015. The mediating role of the news in the BP oil spill crisis 2010: How US news is influenced by public relations and in turn influences public awareness, foreign news, and the share price. Communication Research, 42(3), pp.408-428.

Lindemann, T. and Ringmar, E., 2015. International politics of recognition. Routledge.

MacCormick, N. and Weinberger, O., 2013. An institutional theory of law: new approaches to legal positivism (Vol. 3). Springer Science & Business Media.

MacCormick, N. and Weinberger, O., 2013. An institutional theory of law: new approaches to legal positivism (Vol. 3). Springer Science & Business Media.

Most, B.A. and Starr, H., 2015. Inquiry, Logic, and International Politics: With a New Preface by Harvey Starr. Univ of South Carolina Press.

Nye Jr, J.S. and Welch, D.A., 2016. Understanding global conflict and cooperation: an introduction to theory and history. Pearson.

Ritchie, B.W., Crotts, J.C., Zehrer, A. and Volsky, G.T., 2014. Understanding the effects of a tourism crisis: the impact of the BP oil spill on regional lodging demand. Journal of Travel Research, 53(1), pp.12-25.

Vohs, K.D. and Baumeister, R.F., 2016. Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications. Guilford Publications.

Zhao, J., Temimi, M., Ghedira, H. and Hu, C., 2014. Exploring the potential of optical remote sensing for oil spill detection in shallow coastal waters-a case study in the Arabian Gulf. Optics express, 22(11), pp.13755-13772.