References

Overview
In Chapter 1, I outlined what we mean by “public policy,” how we consider
the role of politics in making public policy, and how different social scientific
disciplines contribute to our understanding of the policy process. In this
apter, I now turn to a discussion of the policy process as contained within a
policy system. My goal is to summarize the many influences on public policy.
Most policy textbooks share, as an organizing principle, the idea that we
can aracterize the policy process as a “policy cycle.” As Howle, Ramesh,
and Perl summarize it,
[Harold] Lasswell (1971) divided the policy process in the seven stages, whi, in his
view, described not only how public policies were actually made but also how they
should be made: (1) intelligence, (2) promotion, (3) prescription, (4) invocation, (5)
application, (6) termination, (7) appraisal.
(Howle, Ramesh, and Perl 2009, 10–11)

Gary Brewer (1974) simplified this somewhat using more readily

comprehensible terms in six stages: “(1) invention/initiation, (2) estimation,
(3) selection, (4) implementation, (5) evaluation, and (6) termination”
(Howle, Ramesh, and Perl 2009, 11, quoting Brewer 1974). What made
Brewer’s approa different is the idea that actors inside and outside of
government are involved in policy making, and that the policy cycle was an
iterative process that continued over time (Howle, Ramesh, and Perl 2009,
11). is idea is simplified and summarized in Figure 2.1, whi illustrates the
policy process as a cycle that has no beginning or end.