The Stages Approach to the Policy Process

1. The Stages Approach to the Policy Process Chapter 2

2. What is Public Policy? • What is the definition of public policy? • Is public policy equal to every form of decision making? • Are analysts constantly confused about what public policy is versus the process of day to day government decision making? • With an appropriate definition in place for public policy how should it be designed and analyzed?

3. Original Stages Approach Framework • In 1950s Lasswell formulated the first formal usage of the concept policy sciences. • Lasswell focused on improving the quality of governance by improving the quality of the information provided to the government. • Lasswell focused on policy process(or functional stages) that a given government policy (or program) would go through during its policylife. • Critics charged Lasswell’s policy framework as antiquated

4. 7 Stages of the decision process by Lasswell • Intelligence • Promotion • Prescription • Invocation • Application • Termination • Appraisal

5. Knowledge of the Policy Process • Lasswell’s 7 stages reflect the origin of the policy sciences • The stages conceptualize the policy process, the procedure by which a given policy is proposed, examined, carried out, and terminated • Interactive effects among the different stages • A multidisciplinary approach to the policy sciences • Attention on “knowledge of” (or workings) of the policy process as a process-oriented event.

6. Knowledge of the Policy Process • Derivative stages by Brewer (1974) • Initiation • Estimation • Selection • Implementation • Evaluation • Termination • There is a distinction in the implementation and evaluation, although in practice they overlap.

7. Downside of the stages approach • Looking at one stage at a time (episodic vs. ongoing, continuous process • Neglecting the entire process • A linearity approach of policy stages (first initiation, then estimation VS. series of feedback actions or recursive loops)

8. Sequential vs. feedback approach Initiation Initiation Estimation Estimation No feedback is encountered It is a sequential process Selection Selection Implementation Implementation Evaluation Evaluation Termination Termination

9. Cons to stages approach • The stages model is not a causal model, it does not indicate how one stage led to another. • The stages model does not provide a clear basis for empirical hypothesis testing, therefore it’s not amendable to confirmation, amendment. • The stages metaphor suffers from a built-in legalistic, top-down focus.

10. Cons to stages approach (cont.) • The stages metaphor inappropriately emphasizes the policy cycle as the temporal unit of analysis, i.e. neglects the concept of a system of intergovernmental relations. • It fails to provide a good vehicle for integrating the roles of policy analysis and policy-oriented learning throughout the public policy process.

11. Do we need to discard the policy stages framework? • You need to make sure that you have a robust framework on which you rely in your analysis • What do you want the policy stages framework to provide? A theory of political change or occurrences? • Does better intelligence leading to better government? • It it the growth of insight that represents the major contribution of the scientific study of interpersonal relations to policy.