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DR.RAM MAHOHAR LOHIYA

NATIONAL LAW
UNIVERSITY
2022-2023

POLITICAL SCIENCE PROJECT

ON
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

SUBMITTED TO: - SUBMITTED BY: -

PROF. MONIKA SRIVASTAVA AAYUSHI TOMER
ENROLL. NO.- 220101005
POLITICAL SCIENCE SECTION- A
Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
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CONTENTS
DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

THE SEPARATION OF POLICY AND POLITICS

POLICY AND POLITICS: a combined approach

MODELS DEPICTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS AND POLICY

MAKING

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project report “THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS AND

POLICY MAKING” submitted by me to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University,

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in partial fulfilment requirement for the award of the degree of

B.A.L.L.B(Hons.) is a record of Bonafide project work carried out by me under the guidance

of Prof. Monika Srivastava . I further declare that the work reported in this project has not

been submitted, and will not be submitted either in part or in full, for the award of any other

degree or diploma in this institute or any another university.

Aayushi Tomer

Enrollment Number: 220101005

First Semester, B.A.LLB (Hons.)

Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the successful accomplishment of this project, many people have bestowed upon me their

blessings and the heart pledge support, I am utilizing this time to thank all the people who

have been concerned with this project.

I would first like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Monika Srivastava whose expertise was

invaluable in formulating the research questions and methodology. Your insightful feedback

pushed me to sharpen my thinking and brought my work to a higher level. I take this

opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep regards to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya

National Law University, Lucknow for giving me this enriching opportunity to research and

work on this topic.

This project would not have seen the light of the day without constant direction and guidance

of my parents and guardians to whom I owe a lot. Last but not the least, I would like to thank

my fellow mates and seniors who aided me along the way of making this project.
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INTRODUCTION

In our ever changing world, the idea of policy and politics tends to have a powerful and often

times contentious meaning. People see politics as a necessary evil in their day to day lives and

for the most part completely forget the policy behind the politics. In some cases, and more than

most of us would like to think, we combine the world of politics and policy and blur the lines of

what they truly are and represent.

“Politics” is a word that has been derived from the Greek word “politikos” meaning “an official”

which has been modeled on “Affairs of the City” by Aristotle. “Policy” is a term that has been

derived from the Old French word “policie,” from Late Latin “politia” and ancient Greek

“politeia.”

Politics, as many of us know, is the part of our governmental system where men and women vie

for the acceptance and votes of the nation or the constituents in their respective districts. Policy

on the other hand is what the elected politicians, analysts, and administrators are supposed to

accomplish on a day to day basis as part of their jobs.1 The world of politics and political

science diverges at this point but most people do not and will not see this divergence. The world

of policy is a complex world of research, writing, arguing, and hopefully reaching some kind of

consensus on a given issue. In the most general of terms, the policy world helps to create and

write the legislation that parliaments, congresses, and other elected bodies vote on during the

course of their elected terms. Politics is the part that muddles through the policy and they help

decide what is appropriate for the people and they are a form of check and balance to the policy

created daily. Political scientists study the governmental systems created by man and the

processes that work towards the creation of the policy that will one day become law.
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Policy makers constantly struggle to reconcile policy and politics—to square what they want to

do on the merits with what consent requires. Academic research and teaching on public policy,

however, have typically separated policy argument from political analysis. Some authors

recommend solutions to public problems, whereas others examine the politics of actual policies.

In this project, I propose a combined conception of policy research and teaching that joins policy

analysis and political analysis. This approach links elements of economics and political science

to approximate the actual process of statecraft.

Politics is part of the government system, and a policy can be called a plan. Politics can be

defined as a science or art of governing or government, especially governing a political entity

like a nation. A policy can be defined as an overall plan that embraces the general goals. A

policy can also be said to be a course or action that is proposed by a government, an individual,

business firm, or any party. Politics refers to authority and refers to public life. Politics generally

revolves round government and its activities. Politics is a term that refers to the organizational

process. It also refers to the theory and practice of governance. Political parties run the

government which all adheres to certain policies.

Policy can be termed as a principle. It is not that political parties adhere to certain policies, but

almost all individuals have certain policies. Most companies follow certain policies. A policy

can also be termed as a commitment or statement of intent. It is because of the policy that

people, an organization, or a party is held accountable. A policy is a set of rules or principles

that guide decisions.

The study of public policy has the potential both to improve policy and teach us more about

government itself. Aristotle alluded to both potentials when he treated politics as the master

science—the pursuit by which a community might achieve the good life. Leaders were to use

governance to realize the good society, but to achieve that they must seriously study the
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workings of government and politics. In principle, the science of policy and the science of

politics were one and the same.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Methodology

This Research Project is descriptive and analytical in nature. Accumulation of the information

on the topic includes wide use of primary sources such as cases as well as secondary sources

like books, e-articles etc. The matter from these sources have been compiled and analysed to

understand the concept.

Websites, dictionaries and articles have also been referred.

The structure of the project, as instructed by the Faculty of Political Science has been adhered to

and same has been helpful in giving the project a fine finish off.

Objectives:

The objectives of the current project are:

1. To study the relationship between politics and public policy.

2. To understand the role of politics in good public policy making.

3. To find out the difference between politics and public policy

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

1. Lawrence M. Mead, Teaching Public Policy: Linking Policy and Politics, (New York
University): This research paper written by Mead covers exhaustively the relationship between
politics and public policy including the separation between the two. Also the paper highlights
the advantages or role played by politics in formulation of public policy

. 2. Taiwo Makinde, Interface between Politics and Public Policy: A Relationship of

Inseparableness, Global Journal of interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Vol. 4 No.3 (May-June
2015): This research paper provides a detailed account of politics and policy formulation. It
includes various aspects of policy making such as policy formulation and policy
implementation. The paper also focuses on the relationship between politics and public policy.

3. Nitisha, Almond’s Model: Structural Functionalism,

http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/almonds-model-structuralfunctionalism/735

This online article provides in brief Gabriel Almond’s Structural Functional Analysis to study
politics and thus it was very relevant to study the model depicting the relationship between
politics and policy formulation.

4. Political System by David Easton, http://visittolearn.blogspot.in/search/label/function%20of

%20political%20system
: This online article throws light on David Easton’s Systems Analysis model to study politics
and its impact on public policies. It also cover the black box model thus it was very relevant to
study the model depicting the relationship between politics and policy formulation
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THE SEPARATION OF POLICY AND

POLITICS

Public policy as an academic field arose in the 1960s because of widespread

dissatisfaction with the performance of government, especially at the national

level. As they have developed, however, these programs seldom teach statecraft as

officeholders experience it, with policy and politics in constant tension. Rather,

research and teaching in the two subjects are largely separate. Policy analysis, or

the study of what government should do about public problems, is done and taught

mostly by economists; the subjects here include microeconomics and statistics.

Studies about politics are done and taught largely by political scientists; the

subjects here include the legislative process, implementation, and administration.2

The first group focuses largely on policy, the second mostly on politics, and

neither says much about the other. Thus, ironically, economics tells government

what to do while ignoring it, while political science does focus on government but

will not tell it what to do. Neither achieves that union of policy and politics that

Aristotle imagined. Each side makes assumptions that effectively exclude the other

subject. When discussing policy argument, economists often make the “Model 1”

assumption, 3 the idea that government consists of a single decision maker, thus

eliminating politics as a constraint. That leader’s problem is then entirely one of

choice rather than power. Political scientists, for their part, usually disclaim any

authority to say what policy should be. To do that would be to second-guess the

democratic political process, which they refuse to do. So rather than reason about

policy independent of politics, they often assume that the outcome of a democratic

process is by definition optimal. 4 In practice, each discipline admits the need for

the other. Economists, after dominating the early curricula of the policy schools,

came to accept the need for more courses about politics and implementation,
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because these subjects were so important in the real world. But in theory, policy

and politics are still approached differently and usually taught by different

scholars. Some will say that policy analysis and political analysis are not really

separate. Don’t texts in public policy cover both? True, general texts about policy

say something about both subjects, but the relative emphasis differs sharply

depending on authorship.2 Texts written by economists focus mostly on how to

optimize policy using such tools as cost-benefit analysis or program evaluation.

The policy process is treated as secondary, to be modeled with other economic

concepts such as rational choice or the Arrow paradox.5 Conversely, texts written

by political scientists chiefly describe the evolution of policy in areas such as

economic management, education, or social welfare. Policy analysis either gets

limited attention or is treated as part of the policy process.6 Texts focused on just

analysis or just process are, of course, even more specialized. The separation of

policy and politics weakens the public policy field. Arguments for best policy that

ignore institutional constraints are often stillborn: Congress ignores them, or the

bureaucracy cannot implement them. That, for instance, was the fate of the early

proposals for welfare reform that economists drafted in the 1960s and 1970s.

These plans would have guaranteed all poor a minimum income. However,

Congress focused instead on getting welfare recipients to work, and this was the

goal that dominated welfare reform in the 1980s and 1990s. One reason many

economists opposed enforcing work in welfare was that they did not appreciate

how popular this was, and they knew little about how work programs operate.

Work-based reform succeeded because it cut with the grain of the institutions, as

the earlier proposals had not. 7 Equally, research on the politics of policy lacks a

wide audience because it usually makes no argument for best policy. Few other

than academic specialists will be interested in the political analysis of issues unless

it is linked to some serious proposal for change. Only then are policy and politics
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joined in the way that successful statecraft requires. Only then does the researcher

sit in the same seat as the policy maker, seeking to reconcile the optimal with the

politic.
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POLICY AND POLITICS : A COMBINED

APPROACH

The earlier discussion on politics/administration dichotomy brings out clearly the

fact that politics cannot be divorced from administration. What public policy is or

what it is not, it can still be argued further that public policy is the heart of

government which can be manipulated positively or negatively, depending on the

actors involved. This leads us into a discussion on actors in policy process. These

are the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the bureaucrats, the interest groups

as well as the politicians, among others. What this section is trying to emphasize is

that through the actors, politics interacts with policy process.

Far better would be a combined approach to public policy research and teaching

that brings policy and politics together. Scholars should first argue how to solve a

public problem “on the merits,” that is, on a policy analytic basis and without

concessions to politics. They should then go on to discuss impediments that might

arise from the legislative or administrative process, and how these might be

handled. In fact, they should forecast the tension between policy argument and

politics that policy makers would face if they espoused these proposals in office

But are not policy and politics separate subjects? I think not, and here is why.

Policy and politics each provides a critical perspective on the other. When we talk

Teaching Public Policy Education about any policy issue, we may discuss either

the merits or the politics of what to do. These subjects can seem to be distinct, but

they are really different facets of the same problem.

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In analyzing policy, one makes an argument for a preferred course of action

initially on the merits, without attention to the politics. But having done that, one

should go on to consider whether the political system can approve and implement

such a policy. Those factors begin as elements of policy analytic arguments for or

against various options, but they also generate a different perspective. If

government cannot “do the right thing,” as is often the case that may suggest that

the political process be changed, so that outcomes improve.

As one example, changes in congressional procedure were essential to the

balancing of the budget that was achieved—all too briefly—in the late 1990s. In

the 1980s, partisan disagreements made it difficult to agree on spending cuts or tax

increases to cut the deficit. But because public pressure to reduce the red ink was

strong, the parties finally did agree on procedures that at least forced spending and

revenues into better alignment. Under the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, limits

were placed on discretionary spending, and changes in entitlements or taxes

required offsets so that the deficit did not expand. Here policy analysis provides

arguments to change politics.

Equally, political analysis can provide perspective on policy. Goals that are

sufficiently difficult to achieve politically may finally call policy argument into

question. If there is no way to do what we want, then we must choose something

more feasible. Aaron Wildavsky argued that we often do not choose ends and then

go looking for means, as classical economic policy analysis supposes. Rather, we

first see what things government can do and then choose our ends from among

them
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As one example, welfare reform focused on putting welfare mothers to work

because evaluations showed that this was something government could achieve.

Another goal that reform might have had—restoring marriage so that fewer

families became headed by females—was deemphasized because it was much less

popular than enforcing work, and programs able to achieve it had not appeared.

Rhetorically, welfare reformers lauded marriage as the solution to poverty, but

they made no serious attempt to enforce it as they did work. Government could

handle the work goal, whereas marriage was beyond it

Academically, the study of policy and the study of politics can seem like ships

passing in the night. But in the actual practice of government, they are as closely

tied as brothers. It is too simple to say that a policy argument succeeds or not, or

that the politics prefers one option or another. Either studied in isolation misses the

crucial interaction between them. Policy argument and actual politics are not

separate but merged in a high-level systems analysis. Faced with any serious

problem, policy makers keep trying out various courses of action to see what

works but also what has support. Whatever they do has to be justifiable to them on

the merits, but it also has to be persuasive to other actors. Statecraft requires that

policy satisfy both priorities.

Note that the political side of policy reasoning extends beyond the legislative arena

to include implementation. Bureaucracy and federalism are among the constraints

on what policy makers may choose to do. In recent decades, public administration

has often been a forgotten subject in political science. 11 One good effect of

linking policy and political analysis more closely is to restore administration as a

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central subject of policy research.

The history of any policy area shows a constant jockeying between innovative

ideas and a search for consent, between ends and means. In the welfare area, policy

making went through several stages of controversy, enactment, implementation,

and renewed controversy from the 1960s through the 1990s, each cycle generating

the issues for the next (Mead, 2002). Policy and the politics must be made

consistent, and only when they are does the ferment cease. That is the process that

public policy research and teaching should seek to capture, and only the combined

conception can do it.

Another way to put this is that policies are not really chosen in isolation from the

institutions, as orthodox policy analysis assumes. Rather, options and the

arrangements for them must be chosen together. To be effective, programs must

have a persuasive rationale and be embedded in a supportive legislative and

administrative setting (Baumgartner & Jones, 2009). In choosing some new policy,

one also chooses a regime for that program, and perhaps others. That is especially

true of major structural changes. Reforms in bureaucratic organization or in

intergovernmental relations, for instance, will affect policies in many areas. Such

restructuring amounts to “metapolicymaking”

ven where texts in public policy devote attention to both policy analysis and

political analysis, they fail to capture the intimate connection between them. The

two subjects appear as separate worlds, when they are really two sides of the same

coin. The texts do not consider that political constraints should really be part of

policy argument or that the policy-making process can sharply limit what best
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policy means. And in research on public policy, there is even less sense of policy

and politics shaping and reshaping each other. Typically, the usual division

prevails where economists recommend best policy while political scientists explain

what government actually does

The political party is another political actor in policy process. The political party

articulates the demands and preferences of the people especially their members and

supporters into the political process. The party also uses its resources to ensure that

the demands of its supporters are enacted into policies. Political parties, through

their members in public office, sometimes wield considerable influence in the

execution of public policies particularly when they are in control of the

government apparatus. They exercise this influence by ensuring that their

manifestoes, policies and their programmes are implemented. Other actors in the

policy process include the bureaucracy, interest groups, the citizenry as well as the

experts and the professionals.

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MODELS DEPICTING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

David Easton’s System Analysis:

The term of “political system” is being used increasingly in the study of

comparative politics. Different political scientists have a variety of views upon the

definition of political system. David Easton says that “Political system is

authoritative allocation of values but before going into the elaborated definition of

the political system, one must know about “political and system.” The word

political in its literal meanings is that any phenomenon pertains to the study of

politics. So politics in its simplest meaning is, “Practice of government and

managing of public affairs.” The word system, “implies the interdependence of

parts and a boundary of some kind between it and its environment” further he says,

“By interdependence we means that when the properties of one components in a

system change all the other components and the system as a whole is affected.”

The boundary of the political system means that every political system has its

circumscribed frame work in which it performs.

In this way it has become easier to understand the meaning of a political system

“Broadly the political arrangement of a society, embracing all factors influencing

collective decisions, the political system thus includes processes of recruitment and

socialization, parties, voters and social movements, which is not a formal part

government.” In a political system there are some fundamental units and

boundaries that differentiate it from other systems. The political system is

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composed of different structures and functions, structures ensure systems officially

and development functions denote realization of demands and promotion of

development since demands and developments are variables.

The political system is a biological phenomenon in which is a human body work in

a mechanized form. The heart circulates blood to the organs of the whole body. All

organs of the body have their special functions to perform. If any organ of the

body does not receive the blood properly or resists in performing its function, the

whole system of the body will be disturbed. In the same way, the political system

has different structures and functions and every structure has its sub system that is

assigned specific functions to do, it may be authoritative assigned function. The

political system exists only in a state, which is the sole entity for the identification

of its credibility. The functions in a political system cater the demands of the

people to ensure development. There are two types of input and output in every

political system. The whole political system is designed for the welfare of the

society and emphasize upon the betterment of the people. The quantum of demand

is deeply concerned with the development of the political system. If the demands

are higher as compared to capabilities, the political system will become

dysfunctional and if demands are equal or lesser as compared to capabilities the

political system will show upward change. This process of change is called

development. Every political system is composed of infrastructures (input) and

ultra structures (output).

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Gabriel Almond’s Structural Functional Analysis:

Almond’s model is popularly known to the students of political science as

structural functionalism. It is so called because Almond has explained his views

keeping these structures of political system in mind. He has, in fact, stressed that

every political system has some structures and these structures perform certain

functions meant for it.

In his noted work The Politics of the Developing Areas Almond has drawn our

attention to an interesting issue. He says that though there are differences between

developed and developing countries so far as structures are concerned, the

structures perform almost similar functions. What is structure? Here the word

structure is used in a sense different from sociological sense. Structure means

institutions. Every political system has several institutions such as political party,

legislature, executive, judiciary, etc. Almond claims that all these were previously

called institutions. But he has changed the nomenclature.

The chief objective of Almond was to make a comparative study of the major

political systems and for that purpose what he has done ultimately became the

foundation of general systems theory/analysis. For the purposes of comparison

Gabriel Almond has divided the functions of political system into two broad

categories—Input functions and output functions. Easton and Almond have

borrowed the terms—input and output from economics for the purpose of

analysing the functions and behaviour of political systems and their different

structures. This approach helps comparison considerably

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The input functions are:

1. Political socialisation and recruitment.

2. Interest articulation

3. Interest aggregation

4. Political communication.

The output functions are:

1. Rule making.

2. Rule adjudication.

3. Rule application.

If we focus our attention to these two types of functions performed by political

systems we shall find that the input functions are generally done by the non-

governmental organisations and agencies which include pressure groups, interest

groups, parties, educational institutions. The government has very little part to play

in the input functions. While performing the input functions the agencies have little

scope to violate the common law and existing legal and constitutional structure.

But if the agencies have in mind the idea of changing the existing structure, they

can do otherwise
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CONCLUSION

It should be noted that society is ordered, steered and directed towards desired

ends by the state through policies. Therefore, policy becomes the object, the tool

and the means of governance. Let us remind ourselves again that politics is viewed

as the authoritative allocation of values such as making decision on who gets what,

when and how,18 while policy is defined by Ikelegbe19 as governmental actions

or course of actions or proposed actions or course of proposed actions that are

directed at achieving certain goals

At the stage of recognizing that there is a problem to be solved, it is the people –

the citizens, a group of people, the bureaucrats, the legislative body, or, even the

executive – that will come up with policy demands. From the level of problem

recognition to that of policy adoption, a lot of politics is involved. When the

demands are made on the government on certain issues, if it is not translated into

political issue, it may not get to be on the agenda. The agenda stage is that stage

where government ruminates over the demands from the environment. This is

always a political process in which groups struggle for power to be in control. It is

also at this level that ideological and interest groups compete to broaden the

agenda or include their issues or to narrow it by excluding issues that they do not

want considered. After the adoption of policies, the implementation stage is very

crucial and it involves a lot of politics. Remember, there is no way a policy can be

implemented successfully without adequate funding and availability of personnel.

Allocation of funds, infrastructures, as well as provision of personnel is political. If

the government is not in favour of the policy, it is capable of frustrating it by

failing to provide adequately for its implementation

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When one considers the contributions of each of the actors discussed above – the

legislature, the executive, the judiciary, the political party, even the citizens and

the interest groups – politics will be found at every stage of the policy process

from the problem recognition to the policy evaluation.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. . Jonathan Hessling, Policy vs. Politics: The Unknown Battle in

Government, https://iufberlinen.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/policy-vs-

politics-the-unknown-battle-ingovernment

2. Lawrence M. Mead, Teaching Public Policy: Linking Policy and Politics,

(New York University):

3. Taiwo Makinde, Interface between Politics and Public Policy: A

Relationship of Inseparableness, Global Journal of interdisciplinary Social

Sciences, Vol. 4 No.3 (MayJune 2015

4. Nitisha, Almond’s Model: Structural Functionalism,

http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/almonds-model-

structuralfunctionalism/735

5. Radin, B. A. (1997). Presidential address: The evolution of the policy

analysis field: From conversation to conversations. Journal of Policy

Analysis and Management, 16(2), 204–218

6. Political System by David Easton,

http://visittolearn.blogspot.in/search/label/function%20of%20political

%20system

7. Allison, G. T. (1971). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile

crisis. New York, NY: Norton

8. . Nelson, R. R. (1977). The moon and the ghetto. New York, NY: Norton.

9. Munger, M. C. (2000). Analyzing policy: Choices, conflicts, and practices.

 P a g e | 25
New York, NY: Norton

10. Cochran, C. E., Mayer, L. C., Carr, T. R., Cayer, N. J., McKenzie,

M., and Peck, L. R. (2012). American public policy: An introduction.

Boston, MA: Wadsworth

11. Frederickson, H. G. (1999). The repositioning of American public

administration. PS: Political Science and Politics, 32(4)

12. Lasswell, D (1936), Politics: Who Gets What, When How? Stanford,

California: Stanford University Press