Introduction to Public Policy

Introduction to Public Policy

Policy Science is a comparatively recent discipline. • It primarily emerged in North America and Europe in the post-World War II era. • It is a outcome of the search for new understandings of the relationship between governments and citizens.

Prior to that studies of political life tended to focus on the normative or moral dimensions of government or on the minutiae of the operation of the operation of specific political institutions. • Recognition of the increasing gap between prescriptive political theory and the political practice of modern state led many to search for another method of examining politics.

Similarly, scholars interested in the institutions of government had been conducting empirical examination of legislature, courts and bureaucracies while generally ignoring the normative aspects of these institutions. – failed to the basisfor evaluation • In the post world war era due to decolonization, the reconstruction of war-torn states and eth establishment of new institutions of international governance –students of politics sought new approach

The desire was for a new approach that would blend their studies with question of • justice, • Equity • Pursuit of social, economic and political development

This resulted in several new approaches to the study of political phenomenon – • micro-level human behaviour, psychology of citizens, electors, leaders etc. • Characteristics of national societies and cultures , still others on nature of national and global political systems. Most of these approaches- behaviouralism, elite studies political cybernetics and studies of political culture emerged at this point.

One focus that emerged at this time that did not so much focus on the structure of government or the behaviour of political actors, or on what government ‘ought to do’ but on what the government actually do. • This was the approach that focussed on public policies and public policy making. • The originators deemed it Policy Science

Harold Lasswell and others expected Policy Sciences to replace traditional political studies, integrating the study of political theory and political practices without falling into the sterility of formal legal studies. • Lasswell proposed that the policy science had three distinct characteristics : • Multi-disciplinary • Problem Solving • Explicitly Normative – not cloaked in the guise of scientific objectivity

However, the passage of time has led to some changes in the three specific components of the policy orientation • First - While emphasis on multi-disciplinary approach remains, policy science is much more a discipline by itself with a unique set of concepts, concerns, and a vocabulary and terminology all of its own.

Second the virtually exclusive concern of many policy makers with concrete problem solving has waned as government often proved intractable and resistant to expert advice. • The call for policy sciences to remain explicitly normative also changed over time. Yet, most policy scholars have refused to exclude values from their analysis and have insisted upon evaluating both the goals and the means of policy. More emphasis of late on efficiency or effectiveness in achieving stated goals.

Question of associating policy sciences with an era of unrealised hopes and expectations for social engineering and government planning. • This criticism is to some extent justified and should serve as a warning against premature or ill founded prescriptions or excessive conceptual sophistry. • However, this should not be taken as a rejection of the need to undertake systematic study of government actions.

Definition of Public Policy

Thomas Dye defines public policy as “Anything a Government chooses to do or not to do”. • This formulation is perhaps too simple and fails to provide the means for conceptualising public policy. • It would include as public policy every aspect of governmental behaviour from purchasing or failing to purchase paper clips to waging or failing to wage nuclear war. • Further there might be a divergence between what governments decide to do and what they actually do.

Contributions of Dye’s definition • First, Dye specifies clearly that the agent of public policy making is a government. • Second, Dye highlights the that public policies involve a fundamental choice on the part of governments to do something or to do nothing. This includes ‘non-decision’.

Carl Friedrich defines public policy as “ … a proposed course of action of a person, group, or government within a given environment providing obstacles and opportunities which the policy was proposed to utilize and overcome in an effort to reach a goal or realise an objective or a purpose.” • Friedrich adds the requirement that policy is directed toward the accomplishment of some purpose or goal. Goal and purpose may not always be easy to discern.

William Jenkins defines public policy as “ a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to achieve.” • Jenkins views public policy as a process unlike Dye who defines it as a choice (which presumes the existence of an underlying process but does not state that explicitly.

Jenkins also explicitly acknowledges that public policy is a ‘set of interrelated decisions”. • Jenkins also improves upon Dye by suggesting that the question of a government’s capacity to implement its decisions is also significant. Internal and external constraints on government make public policy difficult.

Jenkins also introduced the idea of public policy making as goal-oriented behaviour on the part of the Government, an idea which provides a standard by which to evaluate public policies. • This says nothing about the nature of the goals or the means to achieve it provides several avenues for evaluating policies which are missing from Dye’s definition. • These include the relevance of the goal, the congruence of the goals and means and the degree to which means succeed in reaching the goals.

James Anderson defines public policy as “a purposive course of action followed by an actor or a set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern”. • Two important additions namely : • it notes that policy decisions are often taken by sets of actors rather than a sole set or actor within a government. Policies are often the result of not only multiple decisions but of multiple decisions taken by multiple decision makers

Anderson’s definition highlights the link between government action and the perception, real or otherwise, of the existence of a problem or concern requiring action.

All illustrate that studying public policy is a complex task because • Mere description is not sufficient. • Dependence on government record does not provide information about potential choices or choices not made. • Records of decisions do not reflect the unencumbered will of government decision makers.

It would be well to spell out some of the implications of our concept of public policy. • These are purposive and goal oriented rather than random or chance behaviour. • Policy consists of courses or pattern of action by governmental officials rather than their separate discrete decisions. • Policy is what governments actually do in regulating trade, controlling inflation, or promoting public housing not what they intend to do or say they are going to do.

Public Policy may be either positive or negative. • Positive may involve some form of overt government action to affect a particular problem, • Negatively, it involves a decision by government officials not to take action or to do nothing. • Public policy, at least in its positive form, is based on law and is authoritative. Members accept it as legitimate.

The special characteristics of public policies stem from the fact that they are formulated by what David Easton has called the ‘authorities’ in a political system namely elders, • paramount chiefs, • executives, • legislators, • judges, • administrators, • councillors, • monarchs and the like.

Nature of Public Policy

Very Complex • policy making involves many components which are interconnected by communication and feedback loops and which interact in different ways. • Some parts of the process are explicit and directly observable, but many others proceed by hidden channels and even actors themselves are often partly aware of. • Series of single decisions that result in a policy without any one of the decision makers being aware of that process.

Dynamic Process • Policy making is a process, that is, a continuous activity taking place within a structure. • To be sustained it requires a continuing input of resources and motivation. • It is a dynamic process, which change with time. • The sequence of its sub processes and phases vary internally and with respect to each other.

Various Component • Nearly all public policymaking involves a great variety of substructures. • The identity of these substructures, and degree of their involvement in policymaking vary among different issues, times and societies. E.g.. the role of President, Legislature, role of Military elite. • The substructure most involved in policy making constitute the ‘political institutions’ or ‘political system’ of a society.

Make Different Contributions • Every substructure makes a different and sometimes unique contribution to public policy. • What sort of contribution substructures make depends in part on their formal and informal characteristics which vary from society to society. For instance –

Decides • Policymaking is a species of decision making. • Lets us use decision making models for dealing with policy making. • Yet important to remember that public policy making is an aggregative form of decision making and differs in important respects from the discrete decisions that most decision-theory literature deals with.

Major guidelines • Public policy, in most cases, lays down general directives rather than detailed instructions, on the main lines of action to be followed. • It is thus not identical with the game-theory definition of strategy as a detailed set of decisions covering all possible situations. • After main lines of action have been decided on detailed sub-policies that translate the general policy into concrete terms are usually needed.

General policy is built up by a complex, interacting set of secondary policies and decisions • In many cases these two flows of decision making from top down and from the bottom up, proceed simultaneously and even partly overlap; • Policy is partly formed and partly executed by the same sub-decisions.

E.g., if a developing country has declared a policy “to encourage all private investment” • Day-to-day decision making provides incentives mainly to private investment in heavy industry. • This results in an actual policy of “encourage private investment mainly in heavy industry”. • This results from high level decisions interacting with middle-level operational decisions.

How specific or general a public policy seems to be depends on differing conditions. • The same process can often be viewed from higher level as execution of a policy by sub-decisions, and from a lower level as policymaking. • This ambiguity makes it impossible to draw clear lines between ‘policymaking’, ‘policy execution’ and ‘administration’.

For Action • Decision making can result in external action, in changes in the decision maker himself, or in both or neither. • The policies of most socially significant decision making, such as most public policymaking, are intended to result in action. • Also policies directed at the policymaking apparatus itself, such as efficiency drives in government, are action-oriented.

Aspecial case is policies whose intent is to have someone other than the policymaker take action. • E.g., aggressive declaration against an unpopular neighbour may be intended to make an internal population render support to the policymakers. • Another special case is policies directed to prevent action by an adversary (deter aggression), mislead opponent, reassure partner, trial balloon the will test reaction or feel good.

Directed at the future • Policy making is directed at the future. This is one of the most important characteristics since it introduces the ever-present elements of uncertainty and doubtful prediction that establish the basic tone of nearly all policy making. • Policy makers tend to formulate policies in vague and elastic terms; to be continuous, to seek defensibility (often incremental) and not to make any policy about many issues.

Mainly by Government Organs • One of the main difference between making private policy and making public policy is that the latter mainly concerns actions to be taken by governmental organs. • Of course, this is a matter of degree – public policy can also be directed in part at private persons and non-governmental structures, as when it calls for prohibiting a certain type of behaviour or appeals to citizens to save.

Formally aims at achieving • One characteristic of all contemporary political systems is that their formal aim is to achieve what is in public interest. What is in the public Interest • Always difficult to define- nevertheless convey the idea of general as against sectoral • Held in good faith by policy makers.

By the Best Possible means • Public policymaking aims not only at achieving what is in ‘the public interest’ but at doing so by the best possible means. • Public policy aims at achieving the maximum net benefit – public interest achieved less cost of achievement.

Benefits and costs take in part the form of realised values and impaired values and cannot in most cases be expressed in commensurable units. • Therefore quantitative techniques cannot often be used. • Qualitative significance of ‘maximising net benefit’ as an aim nor the necessity to think about alternative public policies in terms of benefits and costs is important.

The interdependence between ends and means is most important. • Often ends that is both operational and general values (though perhaps not final value) change because of innovation in means. E.g. when it was recognised that science has the potential it came to be accepted that it is possible to eliminate poverty.

More crucially a less direct but important relationship between means and ends depends upon the implications for power of change in means. • When means change, power distribution often changes so that to some degree different ends are stipulated for policy making and different values motivate the components of the policymaking system.

Policy Content

Policies are typically promulgated through official written documents • A purpose statement, outlining why the organization is issuing the policy, and what its desired effect is. • A applicability and scope statement, describing who the policy affects and which actions are impacted by the policy. The applicability and scope may expressly exclude certain people, organizations, or actions from the policy requirements

An effective date which indicates when the policy comes into force. Retroactive policies are rare, but can be found. • A responsibilities section, indicating which parties and organizations are responsible for carrying out individual policy statements. These responsibilities may include identification of oversight and/or governance structures. • Policy statements indicating the specific regulations, requirements, or modifications to organizational behavior that the policy is creating

Some policies may contain additional sections, including • Background indicating the reasons and history that led to the creation of the policy, which may be listed as motivating factors • Definitions, providing clear and unambiguous definitions for terms and concepts found in the policy document.

Introduction to Public Policy