PUBLIC POLLICY ASSIGNMENT ANSWERS
23/JULY/2014
INTRODUCTION To my point of view or understanding public policy and management has many definitions which each of it has its acceptable meaning and outstanding method suitably relating universal public policy standards. Public policy can be accounted for: an action or group of strategic actions carried out by a public authority with the aim of attenuating or promoting particular phenomena occurring in the population. A public authority here refers to a legislative, executive or judicial authority belonging to or derived from a federal, provincial, regional or municipal public administration. The public authority may act alone or in partnership with other public and/or private organizations, the action or group of actions may concern the whole population or one or several of its constituents. What is Public Policy Analysis? Public policy can be characterized as dynamic, complex and interactive system through which public problems are indentified and countered by creating new public policy or reforming existing public policy. Public problems can originate in endless ways and require different policy responses such as (regulations, subsidies, quotas and laws) on the local, on the national and on the international level. Public policy making is a continuous process that has many feedback loops. Verification and evaluation are essential to the functioning of this system, the public problems that influence public policy making can be economic, social, or political nature, each system is influenced by different public problems and thus requires different public policy.
In other words we can simply say that public policy is an attempt by a government or other involved private groups to address a pubic issue by instituting laws, regulations, decisions or actions pertinent to the problems at hand, numerous issues can be addressed by public policy including crime, education, foreign policy ,health and social welfare. The process to create new public policy typically follows these main steps; A) Identifying Problem B) Agenda Setting C) Policy Formulation D) Implementation E) And Evaluation The timeline for a new public policy can range from weeks to several years depending on the situation, public policy can also be set up or mad by religious leaders or cultural institutions and of course sometimes by traditional elders
Examples and Understanding of Public Policy Public policy refers to the laws, the actions of the government, the funding priorities and the cultural ideals or accepted rules. It also functions in to how decisions are made. When courts and law makers consider whether to pass a law, give something priority or rule in certain way, they do so, because of public policy and they simultaneously shape public policy.
For example
When courts refuse to enforce contracts related to illegal behavior, such as refusing to enforce contract for prostitution or a contract to purchase stolen goods, this is an example of a public policy decision. The courts don’t want to encourage wrongful behavior like people entering into illegal contracts. The law in the United States says that a person cannot sell his or her body, including selling organs or selling the body for intercourse. This is a public policy decision. When law makers pass legislation protecting workers, instituting wage-and-hour laws and providing enforcement for wage-and-hour laws, this is public policy decision. The policy is to protect the rights of workers within the society. When law makers legislation like the Violence Against Women Act, this is an act that shapes public policy. It shows that there a priority to provide enough protection for women. When state imposes tough restriction on abortion, this is reflective of a public policy that life should be viewed as beginning at birth.
The Process When public policies are created there are generally three key things involved in the process which are First, the problem, Second, the player and the Third which the Policy. The problem is the issue that needs to be addressed, the player is the individual in forming a plan to address the problem in question, and finally the policy, which is finalized course of action decided upon by government or those involved in it. So the rational model for the public policy making process can be divided into three steps:-
Identifying problem
Agenda Setting Policy Formulation Implementation And evaluation the result
Identifying Problem to my understanding, public policy can never be in place or into effect, planned of developed just before problem identification is discussed or a problem is identified, in identified problems such questions would be raised or asked. What kind of event can be considered a problem? Who decides what will be decided? What kind of participants would be required and what roles would they play in public policy formulations? The power to decide what will be a policy issue is crucial to the policy making process thus describing what will be the problems is even more significant than deciding the solutions. Many politicians, scholars and those speak about pubic policy making process profess or imply that the policy is always formulated in the agenda setting process, in the agenda setting people can define their interests, organize themselves, persuade others to support their cause, ideology or suggestions, gain access to government officials, influence decision making and watch over the implementation of government policies and programs. But, in reality, “policy issues do not just happen”. Creating an issue, dramatizing it, calling attention to it, and pressuring the government and relating individuals, organizations or other private entities to do something about it are important political tactics in identifying problem during public policy making processes.
Agenda Setting Within the agenda setting, the agencies and the government officials meet to discuss the problem at hand, and in the second stage, the option formulation process, alternative solutions are considered and final decisions are made regarding the best policy. And in the final stage, the decided policy or policies are implemented, during final stage, in most cases, when public policies are in place, they are widely open to interpretation by nongovernmental players including those in the private sectors.
For example ď ś In 1993, due to ineffective healthcare policies, the Clinton administration in the US sought to implement a policy that would bring about a national health care system. As part of the policies being considered, the US federal government would protect the healthcare consumer’s rights, consumers will be able to form alliances to obtain better healthcare packages. Players involved in policy-making process included lobbying groups and politicians. While some changes were made to healthcare provision by legislators, the policies advocated by the Clinton administration were not put into effect as result of political differences.
Agenda Setting in Public Policy Analysis Agenda setting is the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose public and elite attention. Group competition to set the agenda is fierce because no society or political alternatives to all possible problems that arise at anytime. Groups must therefore fight to earn their issues, places among al the other issues sharing the limited space on the agenda, groups must fight to ensure that their description of the
issue remains in the forefront and that their preferred approaches to the problems are those that are most actively considered. The group that successfully describes a problem will also be the one that defines or develops solutions to it, or in other words, which conducts most the operational careers in that policy formulations.
Agenda setting is also to understand the meaning of the term “Agenda�. An agenda-in Public Policy Analysis-is collection of problems, understanding the causes or inflictions, symbols, solutions and other elements of Public Policy p that come to the attention of members of the public and their governmental officials.
Agenda may be as concrete as list of bills before legislatives, but also includes a series of beliefs about the extreme and magnitude of the problems and how they should be addressed by governments, private sectors, non-profit organizations or through joint actions or action by some or all of those institutions.
Policy formulation Policy formulation is the development of policy alternatives for dealing with problems on the public agenda. Policy formulation always happens in government bureaucracies, interest group offices, legislative committee rooms, meetings of special commissions and policy planning organizations, otherwise known as think tanks. The details of policy proposals are always formulated by staff members rather than by their bosses, but staffs are guided by what they know their leaders want.
Think Tanks
Policy-planning organizations are central coordinating points in the policy-making process. Central policy-planning groups in America-for example, the Council on Foreign Relations, The American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Center for American Progress and Bookings Institutions-are influential in a wide range of key policy areas.
Policy Legittimation What is the role of the “proximate policymakers�? the activities of the government officials in every country including the legislative party, executives, implementers, courts, federal agencies, congressional committees and other interest groups have traditionally been the central focus of political science and are usually portrayed as the whole of the policymaking process. But the activities of the proximate policymakers are only the final phase of much more complex process. The final stage is the open, public stage of the policymaking process, and it attracts the attention of the mass media and most political scientists. The activities of the proximate policymakers are much easier to study than private actions of corporations, foundations, the mass media and the policy-planning organizations.
Implementation Implementation involves all of the activities designed to carry out the policies enacted by the legislative branch. These activities include the creation of new organizations, departments, agencies, bureaus. These organizations must translate laws into operational rules and regulations. They must hire personnel, draw up contracts, spend money and perform tasks. All of these activities involve decisions by bureaucrats-decisions that determine plicy.
Implementation is the continuation of politics, policy making does not end with passage of a law by congress, legislatives or the parliament and its singing by the president, it shifts from it shifts from the parliament to the president and then to the departments, agencies, commissions of the executive branch. Bureaucracy is not constitutionally empowered to decide policy questions, but it does so, nonetheless, as it performs its task of implementation.
Evaluation In policymaking process, evaluation is the final step. It implies that policymaking organizations or stakeholders including every organization relating to the process seek to learn whether or not policies are achieving in their stated goals; at what cost, and with what affects, intended and unintended, on society or the public. Sophisticated versions of the model portray a “feedback� linkage, evaluations of current policy identify new problems and set in motion of the policymaking process once again.
Public Policy Cycle Since I already mentioned and spoken about all about public policy in the above pages, and that the public policy analyses and its cycle interrelate to each other, I also want to take up some significant steps while developing the policy cycle in here and will be as follows. We can define the public policy cycle as the development or initiating a work or procedures that eventually prompt, cause or lead the formation of public policy.
The concept of public policy have been put into public by many scholars, one of the most prominent scholars who developed or thought about the ideology was Harold Lasswell, in USA in 1950s As you can adopt from the title, the policy cycle is a work or task that bring circulation of activities during its development. The main important step to carry out during public policy cycle are as follows;1. identifying problem 2. formulation policy 3. implementing the policy 4. and evaluating it
The following chart indicates the process of the Public Policy Cyle
In the first stage is awareness raising where information is required to be collected in a bid to identify the problem and analyzed. During the Identification of options of the policy cycle, a good method of implementation and evaluation of the developed work is significant. Finally, the scholars who developed want to know if their ideologies which they developed in the agenda setting process were effective and successful enough.
Summary Policy making or policy process model focuses on how policies are made, rather than on the substance or content of the policies. The model identifies a variety of activities that occur within the political system, including identification of problems and agenda settings, formulation policy proposals, legitimating policies, implementing policies and evaluating their effectiveness.
References free business dictionary on the internet http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-public-policy.html from lessons of Hope University
www.ncchpp.ca Oxford University Library Book. Understanding Public Policy, fourteenth edition. Author is THOMAS R.DYE