Public Policy Process
Policy Problems
 Definition: A condition or situation that produces needs
or dissatisfaction among people.
 All problems are not public problems. Its distinguishing
feature is that public problems:
 Affect substantial number of people and having broad
effects, including consequences for persons not directly
involved.
 Are difficult or impossible to resolve by individual action.
Problem Creation
Standard or Value
Condition
Problem
Government Action
Possible
The Policy Agenda
 Of the thousands and thousands of demands made
upon government, only a small number will receive
serious condition by public policy-makers.
 Definition: The demands that policy-makers choose to
or feel compelled to act on, or at least appear to be
acting on, constitute the policy agenda.
“Multiple streams” by J. Kingdon
 He holds that agenda setting can be viewed as comprising three
mostly independents streams of activity (“problems”, “proposals”
and “politics”), which occasionally converge, opening a policy
window and permitting some matters to reach a governmental
agenda.
Streams and Policy Window
 The problems stream consist of matters on which policy players,
either inside or outside of government, would like to secure action.
 The policy proposals stream comprises possible solutions for
problems.
 The politics stream includes such items as election results, changes
in presidential administrations and pressure group campaigns.
 Occasionally, these three streams converge, and for a short time, a
“policy window” is open, that is, “an opportunity for advocates of
proposals to push their solutions, or to push attention to their special
problems” will become available.
Nondecisions
 Definition: A means by which demands for change in the
existing allocation of benefits and privileges in the
community:
 can be suffocated before they are even voiced; or kept covert;
 or killed before they gain access to the relevant decisionmaking arena;
 or failing all these things, destroyed in the decision
implementing stage of the policy process
The Formulation of Policy Proposals
 Policy formulation involves developing pertinent and
acceptable proposed courses of action (often called
alternatives, proposals, or options) for dealing with
public problems.
Policy adaption
 A policy decision involves action by some official
person or body to adopt, modify, or reject a preferred
policy alternative.
 The policy adaption stage is not selection from among
a number of full-blown policy alternatives but rather
action on a preferred policy alternative.
Theories of Decision-Making
 Decision making involves making a choice from among
alternatives.
 Three theories of decision making that emphasize the
procedure and intellectual activities involved in making a
decision are expressed in this part:
 The rational-comprehensive theory
 The incremental theory
 Mixed scanning theory
The Rational-Comprehensive
Theory
 It shouldn’t be confused with rational-choice theory.
Whereas rational-choice theory is used for developing
models of self-interested decision-makers, the rationalcomprehensive theory specifies the procedures
involved in making well-considered decisions that
maximize the attainment of goals, whether personal or
organizational.
 The basic elements of the rational-comprehensive choice theory:
 The decision-makers is confronted with a problem that can be separated
from other problems or at least considered meaningfully in comparison
with them.
 The goals, values or objectives that guide the decision-maker are known
and can be clarified and ranked according to their importance.
 The various alternatives for dealing with the problem are examined.
 The consequences that would follow from selecting each alternative are
investigated.
 Each alternative and its consequences, is then compared with the other
alternatives.
 The decision-maker will choose the alternative and its consequences that
maximizes of his or her goals, values or objectives
 The result of this procedure is a rational decision.
The Incremental Theory
 Incremental decisions involve limited changes or additions to existing policies.
 The basic features:

The selection of goals and the empirical analysis of the action needed to attain them
are closely intertwined with, rather than distinct from, one another.

The decision-maker considers only a few of alternatives for dealing with a problem,
which will differ incrementally from existing policies.

For each alternative, only a limited number of “important” consequences are
evaluated.

The problem confronting the decision maker is continually redefined. (ın this way,
incrementalism enables the problems more manageable)

There is no single decision or right solution for a problem.

Incremental decision-making is essentially remedial and concrete social
imperfections than to promoting major future social goals.
Mixed Scanning Theory
 According to this theory, both the rational-comprehensive theory and
incremental theory have shortcomings.
 So, the theory presents mixed scanning as an approach to decisionmaking that draws on both fundamental and incremental decisions
and provides for:
 “high order, fundamental policy-making processes which set basic
directions and, incremental processes which prepare for fundamental
decisions and work them out after they have been reached.”
 Mixed scanning enables decision-makers to utilize both the rationalcomprehensive and incremental theories, but in different situations.
Policy Implementation
 Implementation encompasses whatever is done to carry a law into
effect, to apply it to the target population, end to achieve its goals.
Administrative Policymaking
 Administrative agencies participate in policymaking at the legislative
stages. However this concept focuses on the administrative arena,
where administrative officials have the capacity to make decisions
that shape policy and are subject to influences radiating from their
clientele and constituencies.
 Something of a role reversal occurs for legislators, who now act not
as decision-makers but as potential influencers of decisions.
Techniques of Control
 Whether labeled promotional, regulatory, prohibitive, redistributive
or whatever, almost all policies in corporate and element of control.
 In this part a variety of control techniques are examined:
 Noncoercive forms of action means that they do not involve the
imposition of legal sanctions or penalties, rewards or deprivations.
 Inspection is the examination of soma matter (such as premises,
products or records) to determine whether it conforms to officially
prescribed standards
 Licensing or enabling action involves government authorization to
engage in a business or profession or to do something otherwise
forbidden.
 Loans, subsidies, and benefits are means by which public purposes are
advanced through aid, in the form of money or other resources, to
companies, farmers, students, home buyers, and others.
 Contracts which carried on between governmental programs and private
companies are the substantial part of this relations and the like.
 General expenditures for purchasing goods and services can be used by
agency officials to attain various policy goals.
 Market and proprietary operations refer government actions. That is,
when government enters the market to buy sell or provide goods and
services its actions, often have control effects.
 Taxation is important policy instrument because they not only provide
revenue but also serve to sanction or encourage certain types of behavior.
 Directive power: many agencies have authority, through the use of
adjudicatory proceedings, to issue orders or directives that are binding on
private parties.
 Services: many public policies, mostly of the distributive variety, involve
the provision of services. Such as information, advice, legal counsel,
medical treatment.
 Voluntary regulation: Rather than rely on mandatory government controls
to protect the public against some evil, voluntary regulation would depend
upon companies to regulate themselves, to act with restraint, to reduce
pollution emissions, whatever.
 Sanctions are the devices, penalties, and reward that agencies use to
encourage or compel compliance.
Policy Impact
 A distinction between policy outputs and policy
outcomes.
 Policy outputs are, the things actually done by agencies
in pursuance of policy decisions and statements.
 Policy outcomes (results), are the consequences for
society, intended and unintended, that stem from
deliberate governmental action or inaction.
Policy Evaluation
 Policy evaluation, as a functional activity, is as old as
policy itself.
 Policy evaluation is to make judgments about the worth
or effects of particular policies programs and projects
by different policy actors like legislators, administrators,
judges, pressure-group officials and media etc.
Policy Termination/Change
 The evaluation and appraisal of a policy, dissatisfaction with
its costs and consequences, and the development and
expansion of political opposition may produce a variety of
responses to it, including termination.
 If criticism of and opposition to a policy become sufficiently
strong so that the policy-makers feel impelled to take action,
a policy is more likely to be altered than terminated.