The Policy Process & Roles of the Institutions of Government

Dr. East 11/2014

What is a policy?

• Ans. = rules, procedures, a plan or program of action to deal with a problem or an issue

• Government creates policies and plans to deal with problems

• Ability to do this is granted by laws and each branch of government gets involved in public policies -- those policies that are designed to help you and enhance public good– What was this again?

Steps in the Policy Making Process

1) Problem

Recognition

• People identify a problem, issue that disturbs or hurts them that government(s) might be able to solve

2) Agen

da Setting

• Government(s) recognize that a problem is worthy of government attention and intervention

3) Polic

y Formulation

• People identify various approaches to solving the problem… involves data gathering, investigation, discussions with experts to create a plan/policy/strategy/program, etc.

Policy Making Process Cont. 4)

Policy

Adoptio

n

• the formal selection of policies through various means…a vote, creation of a new law, executive decisions or actions, judicial decrees (decisions) … often involves some campaigning and persuading

5) Budget

Processe

s

• Finding funds to pay for the policy initiation and implementation… in a federal setting, if it is a policy funded by law, the House of Representatives has the “power of the purse”

6) Policy

Impleme

n-tation

• the actual administration or application of the policy … this is where a lot of good plans go wrong!

Policy Making Processes Cont.

6) Policy Evalua

tion

• People study the effectiveness of the policy, check for accomplishments, shortcomings, etc.

7) Revise and/o

r Create New

Policy

• Upon results of evaluation, people choose to continue the policies, revise the polices, do away with the policies, or create new ones to address the shortcomings of the policies

How do Policy Agendas get set?1. Concerned citizens banning together to become

special interest groups– some have Political Action Committees (PACs) that raise

money to affect politics and pay for lobbyists (people paid to contact legislators to get their interests heard and addressed)

2. Political parties have agendas related to their party platforms (set of ideals and things they want to accomplish)…. Since politicians are members of parties this platform influences agenda

3. President comes into office with an agenda that he want Congress to address… when gov. is divided this may or may not be an actionable agenda

4. World crisis's or natural disasters that need new or better responses

5. Media attention on various phenomenon (things, issues)

6. Public polling and surveys by media that gain the attention of ambitious politicians

More on Policy Formulation: Specifics, Specifics, Specifics…

• It takes a lot of research to create a plan… consulting with experts, scientists, concerned citizens, etc. … devil in the details…

• the plan or strategy of the policy needs to be general enough to let legislators and executives have some leeway with how it gets adopted and implemented … especially if this is a federal policy that must be implemented across various states

• Yet it has to have specific goals to be met, specific strategies designed to deal with an issue… it also has to have measures that will access the success or failure of the policy over time… targets to be met and plans for evaluation of the achievement of those targets

More on Implementation

• How a program, policy, law is administered largely determines the success or failure of the policy in solving an issue

• Can you think of some examples of failure to implement properly?

• The Federal Bureaucracy and the Executive Branch take the lead in implementing federal policies– Locally it would be county board decisions

and county departments; state-wide this would be the Governor and state departments

More on Evaluation• Everybody has a hand in this…

– Federal Agencies have reporting requirements on various programs and their achievement targets

– the public has it’s opinions that get broadcast by media– Congress can review the implementation of all programs in

congressional hearings– The Judiciary can get involved if people sue because they think a

policy or program is unconstitutional or unfairly administered such that it hurts some people or cause more problems

– Government Accountability Office – GAO, investigates all government funded programs for effectiveness