Public policy

INTRODUCTION

Introduction to Public Policy is an entry level unit that provides students with background on
the origins of and developments in theory and practice of public policy. Students will define,
analyse and apply these theoretical lenses to contemporary policy challenges.

Policy is a law, regulation, procedure, administrative action, incentive, or voluntary practice

of governments and other institutions.

Public policy is the means by which a government maintains order or addresses the needs of
its citizens through actions defined by its constitution.

Public policy is best described as the broad area of government laws, regulations, court
decisions, and local ordinances.

Today, government affects all aspects of our lives. Everyone has a stake in the public policies
enacted by federal, state, and local governments.

Many citizens and groups try to influence public policy through the political process by
supporting candidates and political parties. That's a good way to make a positive impact, but
not the best way.

Politicians and political parties come and go. Their positions on issues can change due to
circumstances. They can be voted out of power as easily as they are voted in.

The best way to make a lasting impact on public policy is to change public opinion. When
you change the beliefs of the people, politicians and political parties change with them.

The Public Policy is changing the climate of public opinion and ensuring a prosperous future
for Michigan by promoting sound economics and better policy ideas.
Public policy is developed by governmental officials or agencies. It is a goal-oriented or
purpose action, not random or chance behavior. Policies are courses of action taken over time
by government officials, not separate or discrete decisions. Policies emerge in response to
demands made by other actors on government, although different units of government can
emit conflicting policies in response to demands of opposing groups. Policy is what
governments actually do, rather than what they say they intend to do.

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The 5 steps of policy formulations

The five steps of the policy making process are:

1. Agenda Setting

This is the troubleshooting stage where the challenge impacting the public is undressed and
laid bare for the legislators to address and come up with solutions. In functional governments,
solutions not only come from concerned parties in and outside government, but they are also
objectively implemented for public benefit.

Agenda setting itself also has sub-stages to be followed i.e: Systemic Agenda. Public officials
brainstorm (based of interactions with the constituencies they represent) all the issues they
deem fit to address.

 Institutional Agenda. Issues shortlisted from the systemic agenda are awarded time
for policymakers to articulate and initiate action on.
 Discretionary Agenda. Lawmakers are responsible for this list of issues without
influence from the afore mentioned agendas.
 Decision Agenda. When this one comes out, it has the agreed upon list of issues
policy makers ought to act upon.

2. Policy Formation

At this point, conversations get heated up. Options of policies are developed within
government and from a wide range of options, the least effective are taken down.
Because public officials have differences by virtue of them being human to start with, and
them coming from different walks of life including political parties, interested parties try to
have policies more desirable to them kept on the remaining options.

Policy formulation’ refers to the development of specific policy options within government
when the range of possible choices is narrowed by excluding infeasible ones and efforts are
made by various actors to have their favored solution ranked highly among the remaining
few.

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3. Decision Making

Public policy decision making refers to actions taken within governmental settings to
formulate, adopt, implement, evaluate, or change environmental policies.
Relevant authorities in government single out a particular course of action towards the
remaining policy choices. This action should ideally be of the greatest public benefit
resonating with the rout that led to the process of trying to come up with the policy.
At the most general level, environmental policies reflect society's collective decision to
pursue certain environmental goals and objectives and to use particular means to achieve
them. Public sector decision making incorporates a diversity of perspectives on
environmental problems, from those of industry to the views of activist environmental
organizations. Ultimately, policies reflect the inevitable compromises over which
environmental goals to pursue and how best to achieve,them.
4. Policy Implementation
Policy implementation is generally defined as a series of activities undertaken by government
and others to achieve the goals and objectives articulated in policy statements.

Governments are continually looking for better ways to achieve their policy goals. While
policy implementation has been acknowledged as critical in filling the gap between policy
promises and policy outcomes, the process itself is complex and multi-faceted and has yet to
be well-understood

At this stage, government rolls out the policy and through public administration tools public
officials for the distribution of government resources in whatever form they take. Changes
implemented should reflect the plight of affected parties which becomes the first step towards
embracing a new policy.

While governments and public administrators have clearly been interested in, and committed
investments toward, implementation supports as part of the usual policy-making processes,
most scholarly works have focused on designing policy to be ‘implementable’ or describing
the factors that are important in the implementation process

5. Policy Evaluation

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Here both government and all stakeholder follow up on the account of the policy from its
impact on the issue that led to its formulation. They also determine whether or not, the policy
is bringing desired results.

Policy Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of information to make

judgments about contexts, activities, characteristics, or outcomes of one or more domain of
the Policy Process. Evaluation may inform and improve policy development, adoption,
implementation, and effectiveness, and builds the evidence base for policy interventions..

Policy evaluation is conducted for checking the effects of the policies of respective ministries

And for evaluating the policies in terms of necessity, efficiency, validity, etc. to improve the
planning and implementation process.

Policy evaluation. We have witnessed a trend in the last two decades toward more rigorous
public policy evaluation using empirical data. From this perspective, the advent of big data
offers an opportunity to take advantage of the availability of large volume, fast velocity,
variety, and the ability to link many datasets

Policy evaluation. For many early observers, policy evaluation was expected to consist of
assessing if a public policy was achieving its stated objectives and, if not, what could be done
to eliminate impediments to their attainment. Thus David Nachmias (1979) defined
policy evaluation as “the objective, systematic, empirical examination of the effects ongoing
policies and public programs have on their targets in terms of the goals they are meant to
achieve.” However, while analysts often resorted to concepts such as ‘success’ or ‘failure’ to
conclude their evaluation, Ingram and Mann (1980) caution that such concepts are slippery
and often highly subjective. That is, public policy goals are often not stated clearly enough to
find out if and to what extent they are being achieved, nor are they shared by all key policy
actors.

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 Conclusion

This topic about public policy & steps of policy formulations.

Policy is defined is a law, regulation, procedure, administrative action, incentive, or voluntary

practice of governments and other institutions.

Public policy is the means by which a government maintains order or addresses the needs of
its citizens through actions defined by its constitution.

The five steps of the policy making process are:

1. Agenda Setting: This is the troubleshooting stage where the challenge impacting the
public is undressed and laid bare for the legislators to address and come up with solutions.

2. Policy Formation: refers to the development of specific policy options within government
when the range of possible choices is narrowed by excluding infeasible ones and efforts are
made by various actors to have their favored solution ranked highly among the remaining
few.

3. Decision Making: Public policy decision making refers to actions taken within
governmental settings to formulate, adopt, implement, evaluate, or change environmental
policies. These decisions may occur at any level of government

4. Policy implementation is generally defined as a series of activities undertaken by

government and others to achieve the goals and objectives articulated in policy statements.

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5. Policy Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of information to make
judgments about contexts, activities, characteristics, or outcomes of one or more domain of
the Policy Process. Evaluation may inform and improve policy development, adoption,
implementation, and effectiveness, and builds the evidence base for policy intervention.

Reference

1. https://www.zambianguardian.com/stages-of-the-policy-making-process-2/

2. https://www.cdc.gov/policy/analysis/process/definition.html

3. https://www.cdc.gov/policy/analysis/process/evaluation.html#:~:text=Policy
%20Evaluation%20is%20the%20systematic,s)%20of%20the%20Policy
%20Process.

4. https://www.canada.ca/en/heritage-information-network/services/digital-
preservation/concepts-developing-policies/introduction-policy.html

5. https://policies.wayne.edu/policy-statement-examples