The one most important question in public
policy analysis is why do we study public policy?
It is evident that in every society, there
must exist some problems and these problems affect all of us in one way or
another. These problems could be in the areas of politics, commerce, education,
agriculture, communication, housing, transportation, health etc.
In order to solve these problems as they
might exist at given points in time, government is always seen formulating
policies in response to them and in relation to the objectives of growth,
national development and well being of the citizens.
Therefore, there need for us to know causes
and consequences of public policies as well as their procedures.
What is Public Policy?
Public policy is the cornerstone of every
democracy and serves a very important purpose in almost every society. In
Nigeria, we hear public policy quite often, but do we ever stop to think what
good public policy is and what is not? Poverty alleviation, rural development,
energy, housing and healthcare are some major public policy issues in our clime
today and are the focus of most national lawmakers. There are many laws that
positively benefit our society, and there are many that do not. What we can be
sure about is that successful public policy is usually made up of two things:
Good policy (measurable and positive outcome) and good politics (bi-
partisanship). Good public policy solves public problems effectively and
efficiently, serves justice, supports democratic institutions and processes,
and encourages an active and emphatic citizenship.
Semantically, Public Policy is pronouncement
of government intention(s) by people in position of public trust demanding
government actions or in actions and having impact either negative or positive
on the majority of the members of a given society. Public Policy can also be seen as the aggregation
of peoples hopes, aspirations and intentions embodied in official documents
such as legislative enactments, white papers, estimates, government circulars,
conclusions of the council of the council of ministers (executive councils)
development or rolling plans, etc, or otherwise enunciated and enacted as the
current stand on certain issues.
Accordingly, it is a deliberate and binding
action by the authoritative organs of the state designed to influence the
behavior of the society. It is not a haphazard action but rather a systematic
method of society fundamental national problems. The systematic approach is
vital so that the numerous public problems will be prioritized against the
available resources. As well as harmonies the various sectoral aspects of the
total policy. As a system of laws, regulatory measures, courses of action, and
funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental
entity or its representatives, Public Policy almost always involves efforts by
competing interest groups to influence policy makers in their favor. This is
one unique attribute of public policy. A good public policy begins at inception
hence to create strong policy, one must first define the problem, gather
evidence, identify causes, evaluate the policy, develop solution, select best
solution, evaluate benefits and costs, utilized the prince system to, develop
political strategies to solve public problems effective and efficient, serves
justice, supports democratic institutions and processes and encourage an
active/empathic citizenship. Thus, the purpose of public policy is to use a
public agency to identify, respond and implement a political process. In
essence, Public policy is the means by which a government maintains order or
addresses the needs of its citizens through its legal system.
Features of Public Policy
Public Policy is a formal documented
statement of intentions and sets of actions of a government to either remove
certain deficiencies or improve the conditions in any particular area of concern/interest.
Thomas Dye defines it as “Whatever governments choose to do or not to do”
(1987) while according to Anderson it is a “Purposive course of action or
inaction undertaken by an actor or a set of actors in dealing with a problem or
matter of concern” (1994). Dean G. Kilpatrick goes a bit further and defines it
as a system of laws, regulatory measures, courses of action, and funding
priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its
representatives. Whatever definition you like to use, there are certain
features of the whole process of Public Policy which are common in all the
countries.
These features are;
Exclusive
Domain of the Elected Representatives: Public policy formulation
is the exclusive domain of the elected representatives of the county; however
it is implemented by the state apparatus which formulates strategies to
implement it. Consequently policy is distinct from the strategy in the sense
that while the policy is fairly general in nature indicating what is to be done
and why, the strategy outlines the exact measures to be taken for realizing the
goals and objectives set out by the policy.
Not
a Random Act: Policy formulation and implementation is
not a random act of an organization, rather it is a deliberate action taken by
a competent authority which initiated the action and is approved by the public
representatives, usually the minister in charge of a ministry or the cabinet.
Different
Formats: A policy could either be a part of an overall
development policy and strategy of the country i.e. Growth Strategy for
Pakistan prepared by the Planning Commission or it could be a specific document
addressing a particular issue i.e. Food Security Policy, Poverty Reduction Strategy,
National Housing Policy.
Climate
Change Policy etc. Legal Sanctity: Although it is not a piece
of legislation approved by the parliament in the form of an act of parliament,
it has the sanctity of its own and can be used as a reference for dispute
resolution in the court of law. In some cases the policy itself or parts of the
document, which is in essence a value judgment of the regime in power, could be
converted into an act of parliament (Shahid 2015).
In addition to the ones outlined and
discussed above, Ikelegbe (1996) asserted that the main features of a policy is
that, first, it involves a choice. It is an important choice or a critical or
important decision taken by individuals, groups or organizations.
Therefore, there has to be several policy
alternatives and policy formation involves the development of several policy
alternatives and the choice of an alternative.
Second, polices are proposed courses of
actions or projected set of decisions. Policies are prospective or are
statements of future actions. Policies states what is going to be done or would
be done. It outlines a course of contemplated or desired action in relation to
certain desired objects or events in the real world.
Third, a policy is goal oriented. It is
directed at the attainment of certain end states or objectives. A policy has
certain purposes or intention.
Fourth, policies have to do with particular
problems or problems areas. They are not abstracts, but rather relate to and
are actually responses to the challenges and pressures arising from an
environment. Furthermore, policies are designed and targeted at dissolving
existing or future problems or satisfying certain needs.
Finally, a policy is a course setting
action. It provides the direction, the guide and the way to the achievement of
certain goals. It provides the frame within, which present and future actions
are undertaken. It is a major guideline for action.
Reasons for the Study of Public Policy
An
understanding of public policy from a layman’s perspective will expedite the
understanding of why we study public policy. Public policy is your kids'
education. It is whether you will get quality health care when you need it. It
is whether you can afford housing. It is the quality of the air you breathe and
the water you drink. Public policy is about whether you have a job or not or
whether you can walk down the street in safety. It is the junkie on the corner
and the trash and rodents in the gutter. It is how long you will live and how
dignified will be your burial.'
The scope of government activities effects
our lives in countless, often subtle and unrecognized, ways each day, for
better or worse. According to Okeke (2001) in a developing country like
Nigeria, the government is the biggest spender and the biggest employer of
labour, therefore, the activities of government should be interest and concern
to the citizenry, especially in this era of massive unemployment and economic
hardship. Citing Dye (1981), he provided three reasons why we study public
policy. His reasons are corroborated by Anderson (1997).
These reasons are as follows:
(i) Scientific
Reasons: Public policies can be studied to gain greater understanding of
their origins, the procedures by which they are developed and implemented, or
their consequences for society. This in turn will increase our understanding of
the political processes and political behavior.
Therefore, it is in order to extend the
frontiers of our knowledge of the causes and consequences of policy decisions,
which in turn, improves our understanding of the character and behavior of
organized society such as ours. Emphatically, as a scientific process, the
study of public policy provides answers to the classical political science
question of who gets what, how and when.
(ii) Professional Reasons: The study of
public policy contributes to the promotion of professionalism as the understanding
of the causes and consequences of public policy permits the application of
social science knowledge to the solution of practical societal problems. The
essence is that policy analysis has an applied orientation and is intended to
determine the most efficient (or best) alternatives (i.e., the one that will
yield the largest net social benefit) for dealing with current problems such as
reducing air pollution and disposal of household refuse (Anderson, 1997).
(iii) Political Reasons: We can also study
public policy for political purposes to ensure that the nation adopts the right
policies to achieve the right goals. This will help to correct the excesses of
the government. Public policy improves the democratic or political capacities
of people, and not simply the efficiency and effectiveness of delivery of goods
and services.
Summarily, the field of public policy has
assumed considerable importance in response to the increasing complexity of the
society. It is not only concerned with the description and explanation of the
causes and consequences of government activity, but also with the development
of scientific knowledge about the forces shaping public policy. The study of
public policy helps to understand the social ills of the subject under study.
Methodological Difficulties in Studying Public Policy
The study of Public Policy faces a
multiplicity of methodological challenges: it lacks the methodological focus of
the other social sciences; it combines an analytical with a normative
perspective. Indeed, in many ways, 'public policy' lies outside of traditional
social scientific discipline with its canonical methodologies, clear-cut
objects of study, and claims to its specific form of scientific objectivity.
Although methodology has played a defining
role for the social sciences since their disciplinary emergence in the
nineteenth century, they ended up largely following the path of the natural
sciences in becoming ever more differentiated, methodologically formalized and
institutionally self-centered.
The meta-theoretical reflection on methods
has thereby been pushed to the background: inter-disciplinarily is all too
often relegated to being an empty buzz-word and the bridging of theory and
practice is frequently exhausted by functional issue networks superficially
linking together the university with the policy-making process. Being a
synthetic meta-discipline within the social sciences, public policy research is
an inherently methodological form of inquiry and the integration of different
perspectives on social reality as well as the merging together of theoretical
understanding and practical engagement is its primary object. As such it has
the potential both to re-energies the social sciences as a whole, and to
re-conceive the relationship between knowledge and politics. Curiously however,
methodology as a distinct field of inquiry has been relatively neglected within
the public policy research community, a gap this Research Cluster seeks to
address. It explores in new and innovative ways core research questions on,
amongst others, the methodological foundations of applied social sciences, new
structural phenomena such as network knowledge or e-governance, and the
didactics of teaching public policy.
Nature of Public Policy
In any society, governmental entities enact
laws, make policies, and allocate resources. This is true at all levels. Here,
it is correctly argued that public policies are governmental decisions, and are
actually the result of activities which the government undertakes in pursuance
of certain goals and objectives. Thus, the following points will make the
nature of public policy clearer in our minds:
Public
policies are goal oriented: This means that public policies are
formulated and implemented in order to attain the objectives which the
government has in view for the betterment of the public.
Public
policy is the outcome of the government’s collective actions: It
means that it is a pattern or course of activity or the governmental officials
and actors in a collective sense than being termed as their discreet and
segregated decisions.
Public
Policy is what the government decides or chooses to do: It
is the relationship of the government units to the specific field of political
environment in a given administrative system. It can take a variety of forms
like law, ordinances, court decision, executive orders, decisions etc
Public
policy may be positive or negative: It is positive in the
sense that it depicts the concern of the government and involves its action to
a particular problem on which the policy is made. Negatively, it involves a
decision by the governmental officials regarding not taking any action on a
particular issue.
Basic Elements and Scope of Public Policy
While basic elements of public policy are
the fundamental things to know about public policy, the scope talks about the
content and process of public policy making, the causes and consequences of a
public [policy, the public demand, how decisions are made the implementation
strategies and policies instrument as well as result of the policy, was unable
to find a distinction between them hence agreed that policy demand, policy
decisions, policy statements, policy output and policy outcome covers the basic
elements and scope of public policy. Therefore, the following are the basic
elements and scope of public policy:
Policy
Demands: Policy demands are claims or expectations made on
public officials by other actors in the political system. Whatever perceived
problems that call for action or inaction of government are understood as
policy demands. According to Okeke (2001), these claims constitute policy
demands.
Policy
Goals: These are objectives that are meant to be achieved
through the instrument of policy action. It is important to assert that policy
demand may differ from the goals which the political actors seek to achieve
through a public policy. Apart from the declared intention for making a public
policy, government could also have a hidden intention for introducing a policy.
Policy
Decisions: Policy decisions are the resolutions made by public
officials to act or not act in a certain way in relation to a specific societal
problem. Public decisions are decisions by public officials that authorize or
give direction and content of public policy. Such decisions could include
enactment of statutes, issuance of executive orders, and promulgation of edits,
administrative rules or making of important judicial interpretation of laws.
Policy
Statements: Policy statements according to Anderson (1997) are the
formal expression or articulation of public policy. They include legislative
statutes, decrees, presidential orders, administrative rules and court opinions
as well as indicating the intentions and goals of government and how to realize
them.
Policy
Output: This is the tangible manifestation of public policy or
the actual thing done to realize policy goals. It is rather the result of
implementing the policy in relation to the set objectives. The importance of
policy out in the understanding of policy is unequivocal because if government
makes a pronouncement and such pronouncement was not enforced, it becomes
difficult to that the policy exists as pronounced. Thus, policy outputs must be
evaluated in terms of the set targets as evident from policy decisions and
statements.
Policy
Outcomes: According to Ikeanyibe (2013), the concept of policy
outcome is related to policy output since it is also the result of implementing
a policy. But outcomes include both the intended and unintended consequences of
a policy.
Types of Public Policy
According to Ikeanyibe (2013), public
policies abound. This is because public policies may come in different forms
depending on the prevailing circumstances in the society and the considered
priorities of the government of the day. One important fact about public policy
is that all public policies are biased in favor of some groups and disadvantage
others in varying degrees.
Hence, public policies usually address
specific areas of the society and such limitations are often used as the basis
for classification. In other words, public policies are usually qualified with
what they are meant to achieve or address, the scope covered or some other
adjectival descriptions that will help to make some generalizations about
policies.
Thus, there are many ways of classifying
public policies. These ways include:
(i) The sector in which the policy is
directed like housing, agriculture, defense
(ii) Similar policies could be recognized
and distinguished in terms of the clientele, issues or problems for which they
were designed like social welfare policy, child development policy etc
(iii) Substantive and procedural policies
(iv) A popular classification of policy was
that made by Theodore Lowi (distributive, regulatory, and redistributive)
(v) McKinney and Howard (1979) classified
public policy into fundamental, major and functional policies.
(vi) Yehezikel Dror (1973) classified public
policy into Mega and Meta policies
(vii) Other classifications include
transformative and restorative policies
(viii) Reversible ad irreversible policies
(Ndiribe, 2007)
(ix) Explicit-Implicit Policies
(x) Material- Symbolic Policies (Anderson,
1997)
(xi) Collective Good-private Good policies.
Distributive, Regulatory and Redistributive Policies
This classification was pioneered by
Thoedore Lowi (1962). His classification was based on the objectives which the
public policies are meant to achieve. Distributive Policies are types of
policies, which involve incremental dispersal of government resources and
benefits to different segments of the population and to individuals and
institutions.
They can be the actual favors, benefits or
patronage policies that are dispensed to a small number of people. This
dispersal is continual and those not favored at one point, may be favored at
another time. However, the nature of distributive polices is that recipients
and losers do not come into direct confrontation.
Although potential beneficiaries seek
required favors, they do not often oppose or interfere with favors to others.
Examples of distributive policies are those that relate to public land, tariff,
orts, etc. Regulatory Policies are policies, which refer to law or policy
outputs that regulate distribution, practices, actions and activities. These
are policies, which relate to directions, rules and frameworks on activities in
various areas such as business, commerce, agriculture, transportation, etc.
Their impact is either increases in costs or restrictions or expansion of
activities and alternatives to private individuals organizations. Examples are
NAFDAC and Standard Organizations.
Redistributive Polices are policies that
specifically transfers resources from ne group to the other. The rationale is
reducing the level of inequality in eth society. They benefit particular
segments or category of the population, such as the unemployed, homeless, the
poor, the retired, etc. They relate particularly to transfer of resources among
large groups or classes (Anderson, 1975). Examples of distributive policies are
social welfare programmes and some educational and tax policies.
Substantive and Procedural Policies
Substantive policy as what government is
going to do such as constructing highways, overhead bridge, paying welfare
benefits etc. substantive policies directly distributes to people advantages
and disadvantages, benefits and costs. On the other hand, procedural policies
pertain to how something is going to be done. For example the due process law,
the federal character commission Act. However, it is usually difficult to
discern the difference between substantive and procedural policy since all
policies are likely going to provide guidelines in pursuit of some tangible or
intangible benefits or costs to the people.
Fundamental, Major ad Functional Policies
This category of classification was
championed by McKinney and Howard (1979) who based their classification in
terms of scope of coverage. Fundamental Policies are policies derived from the
constitution; hence they are based on constitutional provisions or judicial
interpretations of the constitution. Such policies can only be changed or
abolished by constitutional amendment and are characterized by large size, high
importance and long tenure. They are considered supreme as they determine the
nature of other policies.
Major policy is based on legislature
enactment made by the highest legislative bodies at varying levels of
government. They are either in the form of laws or programmes.
Major policies are therefore important and
backed by the highest legislative bodies. They could be regarded as general
policies, stating broad outlines and frameworks. The various National
Development Plans are vivid examples. Functional polices emanate largely from
the executive branch but could also emanate from decision and resolution set by
legislatures and the courts. They are actually minor policies that relate to
regulations and guidelines. They could also be administrative decision that are
made in the process of implementing or administering public policy programmes overtime
and indifferent situation and circumstances. They are therefore functional and
operational policies.
Mega and Meta Policies
This classification was put forward by
Yehezkiel Dror (1973). Mega Policy is a policy that constitutes a framework for
others, which usually are minor or secondary policies. Mega policy is a master
policy within which and by which some other policies within a specific policy
issue or area are made. It provides the guide, the direction and the major
assumptions and goals for other policies. Mega policies dictate the pace of
more specific policies in relation to scope, time, levels of change and
orientation. Both the Privatisation and deregulation policies are examples of
mega policies. Meta Policy is a policy that relates to policy making. Its
attention and goal is on how to make other policies and particularly how to
make better policies.
Meta policy is concerned with the mode of
policy and the system within, which public policy is made. It relates to
policies on the process, guides, techniques, methods, requirements and
characteristics of policy-making system. It is concerned with the design and
redesign of policy-making systems in terms of structure, procedures, patterns,
outputs level, models, methods, components, personnel and requirement. The goal
of Meta Policies is to influence positively or improve policymaking systems and
thus policy making.
Transformative and Restorative Policies
Niribe (2007) classified policies according
to the nature of effects they have. He talks about transformative and
restorative policies. A policy is transformative when its principal aim is
changing the status quo. It seeks to effect radical changes. Restorative policy
is concerned with returning the society to its previous state or status. All
maintenance, regulatory policies not geared towards initiating radical changes
are restorative (Ikeanyibe, 2013).
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