Public Administration |The Public Policy Process| Slides

The Public Policy Process

What is public policy?

Public in generic sense denotes human community or collectivity.
May refer to an entire community; plurality – people; people as a whole; Common - open - national - general – communal
Policy - decision statement; statement of intent, general strategic action plan and purposive authorization statements
 
Public policy - what governments choose to do or not to do;
A purposive course of action followed by an actor or sets of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern.

This definition focuses on goal, presence of authorized actors, and the presence of a problem.
They are designed to solve social problems or exploit opportunities that can avail themselves for the improvement of social welfare.
Laws, rules and regulations, acts of parliament, programs and projects may all be classified as public policies.
It is therefore purposeful, goal-oriented action that is taken by government to deal with societal problems.

Types of public policy

classifying according to the impact on society – regulatory, distributive or re-distributive.

Material vs. symbolic policies – when a policy provides tangible resources or substantive power to its beneficiaries one hand and impose cost on others it is labeled as material. 

Symbolic policies provide little material impact on individuals with no real tangible advantages and disadvantages.

Policies may also be classified as collective or  private depending on the target of the goods and services it provide – indivisible commodities and divisible commodities

Approaches to studying public policy

Some of the most commonly used approaches in the study of public policies:
Models of who makes public policy
Cycle-process approaches

Models of who makes public policy

These models look at how the policy process operates particularly who dominates the process and who benefits most from it.
There are several main versions:
Elite theory
Group theory
Corporatism

Elite theory

It argues that policies are made by a small group of influential leaders who share common goals and outcomes.
Public policy is determined by a minority who have political and economic power.

Group theory

Public policy is the product of groups struggle
Society is made up of well organized large number of social, ethnic and economic groups.
These groups compete to put pressure on the government to make policies to favor them.
It is out of the struggle and competition that the public interest emerges.
There are multiple centers of powers and optimum policy development is achieved through competing interest.

Corporatism

It argues that contrary to the argument by group theory that interest groups merely influence the policy process, they themselves become part of the policy-making and implementation system.
In return to this participation, the groups through the control of their members make society more manageable and governable.

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