PUBLIC POLICY

MATERIAL

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 Table of Contents
1. Basic Concepts in Public Policy................................................................................................................4
1.1 The Meaning and Nature of Public Policy...............................................................................................4
1.3 Characteristics of Public policy................................................................................................................5
1.4 Implications of Public Policy....................................................................................................................7
1.5. Clarifications of Policy and Related Concepts (Reading Assignment).....................................................8
1.6. Categories of Public Policy......................................................................................................................8
2. Origins, Progression and Sources of Public Policy...................................................................................14
2.1 Emergence and the Empiric Study of Public Policymaking..............................................................14
2.2 Policy Sciences.......................................................................................................................................15
2.3 Significance of and Rationales for the Study of Public Policy.................................................................17
2.4 The Sources of Public Policy..................................................................................................................21
3. Public Policy Process................................................................................................................................25
3.1 Defining the Problem.............................................................................................................................25
3.2 Agenda Setting.......................................................................................................................................27
3.3 Policy formulation.................................................................................................................................29
3.4 Policy Legitimatization...........................................................................................................................37
3.5 Policy Implementation...........................................................................................................................37
4. Conceptual Approaches and Models of Public Policy.................................................................................39
4.1 Approaches to Policymaking.................................................................................................................39
4.2 Public Policy Models..............................................................................................................................39
Environment................................................................................................................................................60
4.3. Actors in Public Policy Making..............................................................................................................61
5. The Process of Policy Analysis and Policy Inquiry........................................................................................66
5.1 Meaning and Scope of policy Analysis..................................................................................................66
5.2 Forms of Policy Analysis........................................................................................................................72
5.3 Policy Argumentation............................................................................................................................74
5.4 The Processes and Strategies of Policy Communication........................................................................77
5.5 Principles and Generalizations on Policy Analysis..................................................................................82
5.6 Reasons and Ethics in Policy Analysis....................................................................................................84
5.7 The Methodology of Policy Inquiry........................................................................................................85

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6. Public Policy Implementation......................................................................................................................89
6.1 Perspectives in Policy Implementation..................................................................................................89
6.2 Success and Failure: The Fate of Problem-Solving.................................................................................95
7. Policy Evaluation and Change...............................................................................................................106
7.1 Problems of Policy Implementation....................................................................................................106
7.2 Post-Implementation Evaluation of Public Policy................................................................................108
7.3 The Learning and Planning..................................................................................................................109
7.4 The Procedural Benefits of Evaluation.................................................................................................110
7.5 The Historical Development of Evaluation..........................................................................................111
7.6 Approaches to Evaluation....................................................................................................................111
7.7 Standards for Evaluation.....................................................................................................................116
7.8 Procedures for Evaluation...................................................................................................................117

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Chapter One
1. Basic Concepts in Public Policy
1.1 The Meaning and Nature of Public Policy
Public Policy is the chief instrument of a politically organized community. The entire process
involving/concerning public policy needs to be distinguished primarily from two dominant angles.
From the input side, the articulation of needs and interests, and the factors determining the ‘choice’
of activity have to be identified. From the output side, a distributive analysis has to be undertaken, in
that the impact of the policy has to be assessed. This brings out two major dimensions to public
policymaking.

In the first dimension, public policy is seen as an instrument of effective control over the
environment, in that it harbors the potential to create “fundamental social transformation” or that
could significantly influence the environment. The second dimension is that it “derives the
normative values on which it is based from the environment.” Public policy, thus, both acquires and
imparts values from/to the environment. It is the chief means by which the input-throughput and
output of government activity is performed.

Definitions of Public Policy

Definitions of policy, specifically public policy, may vary in their scope and level depending on the
perspectives of different writers. The following are examples of such definitions to the subject
matter, as a concept or as a practice:
 Public policy is what the public administrators execute ( Nicholas Henry)
 Public policy is the consciously acknowledged rules of conduct that guide administrative
action and decision (Marshall Dimock)
 Public policy is a purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing
with a problem or matter of concern.(James Anderson, 1984)
 Public policy is a very complex, dynamic process whose various components make different
contributions to it. It decides major guidelines for action directed at the future. These
guidelines (policies) formally aim at achieving what is in the public interest by the best
possible means. (YehezkelDror, 1973)

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  Public policy is the broad framework of ideas and values within which decisions are taken
and action, or inaction, is pursued by governments in relation to some issue or problem.
(Brooks, 1989)
 Policy is made in response to some sort of problem that requires attention.
 Policy is made on the “public’s” behalf.
 Policy is oriented toward a goal or desired state, such as the solution of a problem.
 Policy is ultimately made by governments, even if the ideas come from outside government
or through the interaction of government and nongovernmental actors.
 Policy is interpreted and implemented by public and private actors who have different
interpretations of problems, solutions, and their own motivations.
 Policy is what the government chooses to do or not to do.

Public policy can be comprehensively defined as a "purposive and consistent course of action
produced as a response to a perceived problem of constituency, formulated by a specific political
process; adopted, implemented and enforced by a public agency."

1.3 Characteristics of Public policy

The characteristics of public policymaking could be extracted or drawn from the various conceptual
as well as pragmatic definitions that were presented to clarify the meaning and implications of
public policy. By way of recapitulation, those definitions could simply be reiterated in a single
statement and be expanded to explain the characteristics of public policymaking. “…Public
policymaking is a very complex, dynamic process whose various components make different
contributions to it. It decides major guidelines for action directed to the future, mainly by
governmental organs. These guidelines (policies) formally aim at achieving what is in the public
interest by the best possible means…”

(i) Complexity: Policymaking involves many components, which are interconnected by

communication and feedback loops and which interact in different, but many others proceed by
hidden channels that the actors themselves are often only partly aware of and that are very difficult,
and often impossible, to observe. The complexity of policy making emanates from the involvement
of numerous actors who can be involved either in making or affected by policy. The involvement of
different actors will be affected by how much they are impacted by the policy. Complexity may also
imply that there are actions, behaviors and roles by different stakeholders.

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(ii) Dynamic process: Policymaking is a process, that is, a continuous activity taking place within a
structure; to be sustained it requires a continuing input of resources and motivation. It is a dynamic
process, which changes with time; the sequences of its sub processes and phases vary internally and
with respect to each other.

(iii) Various components: The complexity of public policymaking is another obverse (face) of its
characteristics, namely, the multiplicity of its components. Nearly, all public policymaking involves
a great variety of substructures/actors. The identity of these substructures, and the degree of their
involvement in policymaking, vary among different issues, times and societies. The substructures
most involved in public policymaking constitute the ''political institutions'' or "political system" of a
society. It can have both short and long term goals. It can be very general or more specific.

(iv) Different contributions by different actors: This characteristic suggests that every actor
makes a different, and sometimes unique, contribution to public policy depending up on how much
they are affected by the policy. The degree of contribution /involvement can differ on the number of
actors. In the western democracies, for instance, some aspects of different substructures'
contributions to public policy could be generalized (though much oversimplified, and intended only
to exemplify what is meant by "different contributions to public policy").

(v) Decisions: Policymaking is a species of decision-making. What is the difference between public
policy and decision? The differences between them are: public policy generally deals with
macro/broad issues whereas decisions are more specific/micro; public policy has comparatively
longer time perspective, while decision can be a one-time action; and policy provides a framework
for decision making then decision is made within a policy framework. The similarities in the process
involved in both are: both are concerned with choice among alternatives and both can follow similar
processes in generating alternatives.

(vi) Major guidelines and directions: Public policy, in most cases, lays down general directives
(fluid), rather than detailed instructions, on the main lines of action to be followed. There are pros
and cons in articulating public policy in broad terms. Advantages: it gives flexibility, and reduces
potential controversies that may arise over directions. The disadvantage is that it can generate
confusion.

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(vii) Future Oriented: Public policy is intended to impact a situation or to change behavior at
some-time in the future. It is generally prospective rather than retrospective.

(Viii) Undertaken by governmental organs: One of the differences between making private policy
and making public policy is that the latter mainly concerns actions to be taken by governmental
organs. Of course, this is a matter of degree; public policy is also directed in part at private persons
and non- governmental structures, as when it calls for a law prohibiting a certain type of behavior or
appeals to citizens to engage in private saving, But public policy, in most cases, is primarily directed
at governmental organs, and only intermediately or secondarily at other actors.

(ix) Public Interest Focus: However difficult it might be to find out what the "public interest" may
concretely refer to the term nevertheless conveys the idea of a "general"(as opposed to "sectoral")
orientation, and seems therefore to be important and significant. In broad term public interest is the
result of consensus.

1.4 Implications of Public Policy

The following points will make clear the implications of the concept of public policy:
1. Public policy is goal oriented. It is purposive or result oriented action, rather than random
behavior or chance happenings, to accomplish goals and produce results. Goal-orientedness and
attainment of result is the hallmark (characteristic) of public policy. Public policy is formulated
and implemented in order to achieve objectives for the ultimate benefit of the masses in general.
Example:
 Goal: to increase farm income
 Policy: provides subsidizes and utilizes production controls
 Result: incomes of many farmers have increased

2. Public Policy is the outcome of the government’s collective actions. Public policy refers to the
action or decisional pattern taken by public administrators or government officials in a collective
sense on a particular issue over a period rather than their separate discrete decisions on that matter
in an ad hoc fashion.
Example: Industrial health and safety policy is based not only on Occupational Health and Safety
Act, but also by a pattern of administrative and judicial decisions interpreting, elaborating and
applying (or not applying) the Act to particular situations.

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3. Policy is what governments actually decide or choose to do, and what subsequently happens,
rather than what they intend to do or say they are going to do. It can take a variety of forms like
law, ordinance, court decisions, executive orders, etc.
Example: If legislature enacts law for the payment of minimum wages by the employer and then
nothing is done to enforce the law, it is not-regulation of wages.

4. Public policies emerge in response to policy demands on some public issue made by other actors
such as private citizens, group representatives, other public officials upon government officials
and agencies.
Examples:
 A municipal government do something about in order to solve traffic congestion
 National government to prohibit the stealing of pet dogs or cats for sale to medical and
scientific research organizations
5. Public policy may be either positive or negative in form. Positively, it depicts the concern of
government and involves some form of government actions regarding any issue or problem. Public
policy in its positive form is based on law and is authoritative; it has a legal sanction behind it,
which is potentially coercive in nature and is binding on all citizens. Negatively, it may involve a
decision by government officials not to take action on a matter on which governmental opinion,
attitude, or action is asked for.

1.5. Clarifications of Policy and Related Concepts (Reading Assignment)

1.6. Categories of Public Policy

Public policy issues can be classified in terms of their purposes or focuses. Policies can generally be
categorized in the following major typologies:
(i) Substantive and procedural policies
(ii) Distributive, regulatory, self-regulatory and re-distributive policies
(iii) Material and symbolic policies
(iv) Public goods policies and private goods policies
(v) Liberal and conservative policies

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Policies may also be categorized on the basis of:
(i) Issues (like: labour, welfare, civil rights, foreign affairs, etc.)
(ii) Institution (like: legislative policies, judicial policies, departmental policies,)
(iii) Time period (like: transitional, short-range, medium-range, long-range)

(i) Substantive and Procedural policies:

Substantive policies involve what government is going to do (e.g. construction of highways,
payment of welfare benefits, prohibition of liquor, acquisition of bombers). Substantive policies
directly distribute advantages and disadvantages, benefits and costs to people. Procedural policies
pertain to how something is going to be done; who is going to do (example, which agencies are
responsible for the enforcement of a law enacted to ban or control illegal drug trafficking and
consumption)? Procedural policies may have important substantive effects. That is, how something
is done or who takes the action may help determine what is actually done.

(ii) Distributive, Regulatory, Self-regulatory and Re-distributive Policies:

This typology differentiates policies on the basis of the nature of their impact on society and the
relationships among those involved in policy formation.
Distributive policies involve the distribution of services or benefits to particular segment of people;
i.e. individuals., groups, corporations, communities (example, bank loans) or distribution of benefits
to vast number of persons (example, tax concessions, free public school educations). Some
distributive policies may provide benefits to only one or a few beneficiaries.

Distributive policies typically involve the use of public funds to assist particular groups,
communities, or industries. Those who seek benefits usually do not compete directly with one
another, although in some instances they do, where there could be only one winner. Nor do their
benefits represent a direct cost to any specific group; rather the costs are assessed to the public
treasury, which is to say all taxpayers. Given this, distributive policies appear to create only winners
and no specific losers, although obviously someone does pay for their financial costs.

Re-distributive involve deliberate efforts by the government to shift the allocation of wealth,
income, property, or rights among broad classes or groups of the population, for example, haves and

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have-nots, proletariat and bourgeoisie. "The aim involved is not use of property but property itself,
not equal treatment but equal possession, not behavior but being."

The usual pattern in redistributive policy is the shifting of resources from the haves to the have-nots.
It is possible, however, for the flow to be in the opposite direction. Farm subsidy payments under
the agricultural price support programs go mostly to large commercial farmers; small-scale farmers
derive few benefits, yet everyone who pays taxes contributes to the financing of the programs. Such
instances, however, are typically not debated in terms of redistribution, perhaps because of a
reluctance to acknowledge that sometimes the haves benefit at the expense of the have-nots.

Redistribution policies are difficult to secure because they involve the reallocation of money, rights,
or power. Those who possess money or power rarely yield them willingly, regardless of how much
some may discourse upon the "burdens" and heavy responsibility attending their possession. Since
money and power are good coinage in the political realms, those who possess them have ample
means to resist their diminution.

Regulatory policies involve imposition of restrictions or limitations on the behaviour of individuals

or groups; they reduce the freedom to act of those who are regulated (example, business regulatory
policies related to pollution control or regulation of transportation industries). In this sense they
clearly differ from distributive policies, which operate to increase the freedom or discretion of the
affected persons or groups.

The formation of regulatory policy usually involves conflict between two groups or coalitions of
groups, with one side seeking to impose some sort of control on the other side, which customarily
resists, arguing either that control is unnecessary or that the wrong kind of control is being proposed.
Given this situation, regulatory decisions involve clear winners and losers, although the winners
usually get less than they initially sought. This is not to deny, however, that it is often difficult to
identify all of the purposes and consequences of regulatory policies. It is worthwhile at this point to
indicate some of the variety in regulatory policies.

Some regulatory policies set forth general rules of behavior, directing that certain actions be taken or
commanding that others not be taken.

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Self-regulatory policies are similar to regulatory policies in that they involve the restriction or
control of some matter or group. Unlike regulatory policies, however, self-regulatory policies are
usually sought and supported by the regulated group as a means of protecting or promoting the
interests of its members.

(iii) Material and Symbolic policies:

Public policies may also be described as either material or symbolic, depending upon the kind of
benefits they allocate.

Material Policies actually either provide tangible resources or substantive power to their
beneficiaries, or impose real disadvantages on those who are adversely affected. Legislation
requiring employers to pay a prescribed minimum wage, appropriating money for a public housing
program, or providing income support payments to farmers is material in content and impact.
Symbolic policies have little material impact on people. They appeal to the cherished values of the
people such as peace, patriotism, social justice (examples, Peace Pacts, Endangered Species Act,
etc).

(iv) Policies involving Collective Goods or Private Goods:

Collective goods (indivisible) are provided to one and all persons equally and similarly (examples,
national defense, public safety, traffic control, mosquito abatement, clean air etc). Private goods
(divisible) may be broken into units and charged on an individual user or beneficiary basis. Various
social goods provided by government have some characteristics of private goods. Charges are
sometimes but not always levied on individual users (examples, garbage collection, postal service,
medical care, museums, and national parks).

(v) Liberal and Conservative policies

Finally, discussions of public policies are frequently conducted in terms of liberals versus
conservatives. These terms, however, are rather slippery and difficult to define. Just what
distinguishes "liberal" from "conservative"? Lowi argues that in the latter part of the nineteenth
century and the early years of the twentieth century, it was possible to make a fairly precise
distinction. Generally, liberals favored the use of government to bring about social change, usually

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in the direction of greater equality. Conservatives, in turn, were opposed to the use of government
for such purposes, if not always to the purposes themselves. Liberals spoke of the need for public
policies to correct injustices and shortcomings in the existing social order. Conservatives either
found the existing order satisfactory, or contended that change should occur slowly and gradually
through "natural" social processes. By and large, those who advocated economic regulatory
programs were liberals whereas conservatives opposed economic regulation.

Liberals support economic regulatory programs, whereas conservatives opposed economic

regulations. Government variously used for both liberal and conservative both to promote and
restrict change. Generally liberal policies are productive of change while conservative policies
maintain the existing order.

1.7. Key Factors and Considerations in Public Policy Development

A number of factors and considerations must be kept in mind during policy development. The
following factors can be used to judge whether the policy, and the process of developing the policy,
is or has been sound.
Public interest: What is in the best interest of society as a whole? How is the common good
balanced against any private or special interests? Is the process fully inclusive, especially of those
who are often overlooked or unable to participate?

Effectiveness: How well a policy achieves its stated goals?

Efficiency: How well resources are utilized in achieving goals and implementing policy.

Consistency: Degree of alignment with broader goals and strategies of government, with
constitutional, legislative and regulatory regime.

Fairness and equity: Degree to which the policy increases equity of all members and sectors of
society. This may link directly to consideration of public interest.

Reflective: Of other values of society and/or the community, such as freedom, security, diversity,
communality, choice, and privacy.

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The following is a simple framework by which to assess policy. Good public policy must be:
Socially acceptable: Citizens and interest groups feel that the policy reflects their important values,
e.g., fairness and equity, consistency, justice.

Politically viable: The policy has sufficient scope, depth, and consensus support that elected
officials are comfortable with the decision.

Technically correct: The policy meets any scientific or technical criteria that have been established
to guide or support the decision. Values are the foundation of public policy- values of individuals,
groups, and society as a whole.

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Chapter Two
2. Origins, Progression and Sources of Public Policy
2.1 Emergence and the Empiric Study of Public Policymaking
Historically speaking, the origins of public policy and public advice as a political decision are very
old and have been used since the birth of civilization (Sapru, 2005:24). From the beginning of
human thought, public policymaking has been a central subject for study and discussion by social
philosophers and practical politicians alike. Their writings include many moving exhortations
(impulses), profound insights, fascinating or attractive descriptions, and stimulating ideas that not
only are of much theoretical significance, but also have been of great practical introduction in
shaping contemporary policymaking.

To Dunn (1981), the history of public policy goes back to the 18 th century B.C. The Code of
Hammurabi, which was originated around this period, was the earliest recorded example of policy
analysis. The Code that consisted of 282 laws was intended to establish a unified and just order over
many aspects of public life. However, a systematic public advice emerged from the relationship
between the church and the state in the 15 th century (Sapru, 2005). The value labeled, for example
by Sapru and Dunn, as “systematic” for the contributions of early writings was not plausibly or
reasonably admitted by other writers like Dror, though still they trace back to the 15 th century works
as the beginning of public policy.

As Dror (1973:73) noted, it is enough to mention Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Burke, Bentham, the
Cameralists, and the Federalists to illustrate what such discursive or public topic writings have
contributed to the study and practice of policymaking; or to mention Babour, Richelieu, Frederick
the Great, Metternich, Bismarck, and Churchill to illustrate how important the autobiographies and
writings of practical politicians have been as a source of data and impressionistic generalizations
about policymaking. The writings of Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) have
contributed a lot to the development of policy advice.

In Machiavelli’s view, policy was an activity of sustaining power, and the policy adviser was there
to help him to lie, cheat and murder effectively. For Bacon, on the other hand, policy was an activity
of sustaining balance and authority, and he envisaged a role for advisers, which was far more
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elevated and powerful. For this reason, many contemporary writers considered Bacon as the one
representing the genesis of the modern idea of policy as the production of rational thought and
science. English philosophers, like Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and James Mill (1773-1836), are
also regarded as the partial precursors of the policy sciences that developed in pure forms after more
than one century of their times. They placed the utilitarian argument on public policy as to the
promotion of greater social welfare and individual freedom.

These being the indications for the existence of policy in earlier times, it is contended that policy
advice offered to the government was realistically made on personalized basis and in the form of
sycophancy or adulation or sweet talk or pleasing of individuals in power. With regard to the
systematic basis, public advice remained a very ‘particularistic and ad hoc exercise’. Further in the
19th century, while new policies were initiated to lessen acute social problems, they certainly were
not made by analytical examination of the conditions and trends.

Although many fully recognize what such writings have contributed to an understanding of
policymaking, it must be pointed out that almost all pre-modern thinking and writing on social
affairs lacked any systematic empiric underpinning, without which they could not provide a reliable
basis for descriptive generalizations, or prescriptive suggestions. In short, it may be emphasized that
by the beginning of the 20th century there was no analytic examination of public policy issues
(Sapru, 2005:25). Adoption of the intellectual or systematic analysis of the situation to serve as
realistic basis of public policy is relatively a recent phenomenon.

2.2 Policy Sciences

Although the origin of public policies can be linked to the beginning of civilization itself, the present
policy sciences have a 20th century color. Moreover, although there were intellectual refinements as
a relatively recent practice or phenomenon, during the 1930s, most were directed internally toward
methodological improvements rather than externally toward community problems. The concept of
“policy sciences” as a social science discipline and practice was born or formulated in 1951 with the
publication of Harold Lasswell’s essay in title “The Policy Orientation”. Policy science is a
systematic and scientific study of public [Link] is regarded as the modern founder of the
policy sciences, described policy sciences as the culmination of efforts to define a discipline for

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 producing and applying “societally relevant knowledge”. A policy science is characterized by a
series of paradigms different in many respects from contemporary “normal” sciences:

 The place of policy sciences is related to the question and importance of the state and its public
policy concerns.
 It is concerned with the social consequences and implications of public policies, with the
understanding and improvement of public policymaking processes and systems.

According to Dror (1971), the policy sciences include:

i. Policy Analysis: which provides methods for identification of preferable policy alternatives,
ii. Alternative innovation: which deals with the invention of new designs and possibilities to be
considered in policymaking,
iii. Master policies or mega policies: which provide postures, assumptions, strategies, and main
guidelines to be followed by specific policies,
iv. Evaluation and feedback: including social indicators, social experimentation and
organizational learning, and,
v. Improvement of meta policies: that is, “policy on policymaking” through redesign of public
policymaking systems, its organizational components, selection and training of its personnel,
and reconstruction of its communication and information network,

Policy science is essentially an attempt to develop a theoretical base for the discipline. The
theoretical insights are very important as they provide both explanations and directions. Theoretical
explanations enable to avoid the occurrence of same mistakes again and again. It is believed that in
the absence of conceptualization and theoretical developments, the social experiences can neither be
meaningfully discussed nor communicated to others. This is the reason why one should discuss not
only the operational dimensions of a phenomenon but also its reflections in the theory.

Lasswell’s vision of policy sciences was multidisciplinary, contextual, problem-oriented, and

explicitly normative; each of which representing different emphasis with an explicit impact on the
evolution and acceptance of the policy sciences. As policy sciences are interdisciplinary in nature,
there must be a dynamic relationship amongst them in order to benefit from each other. Policy
sciences must integrate knowledge from a variety of branches of knowledge into a super discipline.

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Policy sciences are also problem-oriented and multi-method as they involve operations research,
programme budgeting, cost-benefit analysis, forecasting, computer simulation, gaming, sensitivity
training, brainstorming, social accounting, etc. It also adopts contextual approaches emphasizing
knowledge of the policy process and utilizing such knowledge in the process. Policy sciences were
explained by Lasswell as normative in their concern with human values.

Policy formulation and implementation is governed by certain inherent principles, which may
determine policy choices and outcomes. Policy sciences attempt to discuss these principles in a
systematic way. The historical progression of policy sciences has depended on the complex
interaction of social scientists and socio-political events.
One of the main tasks faced by the modern behavioral sciences is to engage in an empiric study of
policymaking, and to integrate the findings of such a study with insights and abstract thoughts to
form a comprehensive, systematic, and reliable theory of public policymaking. This task has hardly
begun. At best, the empiric study of policymaking is just now emerging. A significant and
increasing amount of work is being done on minor decisions and secondary policies, but most of it
suffers from lack of comprehensive, theoretical frameworks. Very little empiric work is being done
on the macro-system of public policymaking. At present, even suitable research methods for such
jobs are not available or nearly absent.

Because of such limitations, in the 1990’s there has been a growing skepticism or doubt and
criticism questioning the credibility of policy sciences to provide ‘objective, empirical, and
normative truths’. Scientific rationality, which was once its emphasis, is being replaced by a
‘broader theory of reason to society’ (Lindblom E and Chen K, 1979).

2.3 Significance of and Rationales for the Study of Public Policy

The study of public policy is very important for the intimate and organic relationships between
public policy and its context. Most governments of developing countries have been engaged in the
momentous or crucial tasks of promoting national resurgence or rebirth through socio-economic
development following the end of the WW 2 nd. They seek to improve the relevant policies, and the
changing nature of public policies calls for the extensive study of these policies. Therefore, the

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studies of approaches, strategies, and concepts which will contribute towards this end are essential
for many reasons.

Firstly, the study of the policy formulation processes may help to gain greater knowledge and
understanding of the complexities of the interacting social, economic and political processes and
their implications for society. Policy may be viewed either as a dependent or an independent
variable. When it is viewed as a dependent variable, the question will be on identifying factors that
would shape public policy. The attention in this case is placed on the political and environmental
factors that help to determine the content of policy. For example, how do the distribution of power
among pressure groups and governmental agencies affect the policy outcome? Or how do
urbanization and national income help shape the content of policy? If public policy is viewed as an
independent variable, the focuses shift to the impact of policy on the political system and the
environment. Then, the questions arise as to what effect policy has on social welfare? How does it
influence future policy choices or mobilize support for the political system?

Secondly, factual knowledge about the policymaking process and its outcomes is a prerequisite or
prescribing on and dealing with societal problems normatively. Many political scientists believe
that the study of public policy should be directed towards ensuring that governments adopt
appropriate policies to attain certain desirable social goals. They reject the notion that policy
analysts should strive to be value free contending that political science should not and cannot remain
politically neutral or silent on vital contemporary social, economic or political problems. They want
to improve the quality of public policy in ways they deem desirable, notwithstanding or despite the
fact that substantial disagreement may exist in society over what constitutes “desirable” or the
“appropriate” goals of policy.

Today many scholars and professionals have shifted their focus to public policy- to the description
and explanation about the process by which public policy is determined as well as the causes and
consequences of government activities. This focus involves a description of the content of public
policy; an analysis of the impact of social, economic, and political forces on the content of public
policy; an enquiry into the effect of various institutional arrangements and political processes on

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 public policy; an evaluation of the consequences of public policies on societies, both expected and
unexpected consequences.

This shift of emphasis and focus of attention towards explaining and analyzing the causes,
requirements and consequences of public policy certainly require relevant knowledge. As, on the
other hand, there is an obvious gap between the ways policies are made and the required knowledge
possessed by policymakers, it has become imperative in the fields of political science and public
administration to study public [Link] question here is that, “why do we study public policy?”
There are both academic and political reasons for studying public policy or engaging in policy
analysis. Among a number of specific reasons for why we devote greater attention to the study of
public policy, the following deserve worth mentioning:

i. Scientific Reasoning/Understanding: First, public policy can be studied for purely scientific
reasons: understanding the causes and consequences of policy decisions improves the
knowledge of society. The study of public policy formulation processes may help to gain greater
knowledge and understanding of the complexities of the interacting social, economic and
political processes and their implications for [Link] policy can be viewed as a dependent
variable, and we can ask what socio-economic conditions and political system characteristics
operate to shape the content of policy. In this case, then attention is placed on the political and
environmental factors that help to determine the content of policy.

Alternatively, public policy can be viewed as an independent variable, and the focus shifts to the
impact of policy on the political system and the environment. In this case, we can ask what impact
public policy has on society and its political system. By asking such questions we can improve our
understanding of the linkages among socio-economic forces, political processes, and public policy
(see Figure-2.1). An understanding of these linkages contributes to the breadth, significance,
reliability, and theoretical development of social science.

ii. Professional Reasons/ Problem solving. Public policy can also be studied for professional
reasons: understanding the causes and consequences of public policy permits us to apply social
science knowledge to the solution of practical problems. Factual knowledge about the

19
 policymaking process and its outcomes is a prerequisite for prescribing the ills of society or
dealing with social problems normatively. If certain ends are desired, the question of what
policies would best implement them is a factual question requiring scientific study. In other
words, policy studies can produce professional advice, in terms of “if…then…” statements,
about how to achieve desired goals. The study of public policy should be directed towards
ensuring that governments adopt appropriate policies to attain certain desirable social goals. It is
not to deny, however, that substantial disagreements may exist in society over what constitutes
"desirable" or the "appropriate" goals of policy.

iii. Political Reasons/ Policy Recommendations. Finally, public policy can be studied for political
purposes: to ensure that the nation adopts the “right” policies to achieve the “right” goals. It is
frequently argued that political science should not be silent or impotent in the face of great social
and political crises, and that, political scientists have a moral obligation to advance specific
public policies. An exclusive focus on institutions, processes, or behaviours is frequently looked
on as “dry”, “irrelevant”, and “amoral” because it does not direct attention to the really
important policy questions facing societies. Policy studies can be undertaken not only for
scientific and professional purposes but also to inform political discussion, advance the level of
political awareness, and improve the quality of public policy. Of course, these are very
subjective purposes-citizens do not always agree on what constitutes the “right” policies or the
“right” goals-but it is assumed that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, even in politics.

The most important and immediate question that follows after reasoning out why we study public
policy should be, “what can we learn about public policy?” To address this generic question, we can
provide at least three major justifications: we can describe public policy, we can inquire about the
causes of public policy, and we can find out the consequences of public policy actions.

Description: First, we can describe public policy and we can learn what government is doing (and
not doing), for example, welfare, defense, education, civil rights, health the environment, taxation,
and so on. A factual basis of information about national policy is really an indispensable part of
everyone’s education. What does the Civil Rights Act, if any; actually say about discrimination in
employment? What is the condition of the nation’s Social Security Program? What do the Medicare

20
Programs promise for the poor and the aged? What agreements have been reached between
governments regarding a common concern such as nuclear weapons? How much money are we
paying in tax? How much money does the federal government spend each year and what does it
spend it on? How large is the national debt and how much does it grow each year? These are
examples of descriptive questions.

Causes: Second, we can inquire about the causes, or determinants, of public policy. Why is public
policy what it is? Why do governments do what they do? We might inquire about the effects of
political institutions, process, and behaviors on public policies. For example, does it make any
difference in tax and spending levels whether “X” or “Y” parties control the presidency and
parliament? What is the impact of interest group conflict on federal presidency and congress? What
is the impact of lobbying by the special interests on efforts to reform the federal tax system? We can
also inquire about effects of social, economic, and cultural forces in shaping public policy.

We can ask, for example, what are the effects of changing public attitudes about race on civil rights
policy? What are the effects of recessions on government spending? What is the effect of an
increasing older population on social security programs? In scientific terms, when we study the
causes of public policy, policies become the dependent variables, and their various political, social,
economic, and cultural developments become the independent variables (Dye, 1995:5).

2.4 The Sources of Public Policy

As it is explained in Chapter One earlier, public policy is a broad statement that reflects the intent of
government’s choices of actions that are aimed to serve the public purposes, with the intended
results for which administrators are responsible. Public policies give authority to government
agencies or public officials and provide direction to spend money, supply personal services, restrict
business practices, and carry on all governmental activities, but emanates from different sources and
grounds.
Public policy takes several forms. Its most fundamental principles are expressed in national and state
constitutions, which also govern the procedures by which policies are adopted. The most familiar
policy form is statutory law, enacted by congress or parliament, state legislatures, and local boards
and councils. Court decisions in interpreting statues and constitutions also become policy and are

21
binding on legislators and executives. Notwithstanding the differences among concepts discussed in
Chapter one, the rules and orders issued by executive and administrative agencies are also policy,
for they extend and apply the statutory law in greater detail. Budgets of all state governments are
policies, for they set the levels and objectives of spending as well as the amounts and sources of
revenue.
Another key source of public policy is international relations. Some policies cross national
boundaries, taking the form of treaties and less formal working agreements between and among
governments. Such policies require negotiations with governments and such international agencies
as the World Bank and the World Health Organization. For example, an international conference
held in Montreal in 1987 to reduce the emissions of ozone-destroying gases into the atmosphere has
produced an agreement that binds each industrialized nation to hold constant the production of five
forms of chlorofluorocarbons at levels which were 1986, and to cut their production by 50 percent
by 1999.

To implement this requires a complex of new internal policies and incentives for the chemical
industry. "New" ideas can come from governments other than the one deciding. Often a state or city
adopts an idea that others have found successful. Innovations in low-income housing, corrections
reform, and environmental regulation have spread among policymakers open to new solutions.
European Countries, and recently Japan, have also been the source of policy ideas in health care,
education, waste management, and housing, although policy transfer across national and cultural
boundaries is not always feasible.

As Johnson (1992:151) noted, policy in a more general sense also incorporates the informal
statements and intentions of key decision makers in government. The parliamentary committee may
express to a cabinet secretary its preference that a program be conducted in a certain way, and that
secretary, if prudent, will pay close heed. On the other hand, the secretary might give a law a
somewhat different interpretation form what its authors in congress intended, and the view becomes
the guide for implementation. Administrators play a crucial role in the making of public policy
because of their specialized knowledge and their experience in implementing current policies. In
general, the higher that administrators stand in the hierarchy of a government, the greater will be
their influence over the substance of its policy.

22
On the other hand, many high-level administrators lack expertise in their given policy area and may
not remain in their posts long enough to sustain their influence. Every action of an agency
potentially contributes to subsequent policies, and nearly all policymaking is, for that reason,
remaking of existing policy. The ultimate success or failure of a policy is difficult to define, but such
judgments constantly float through policy debates and incline decisions in one direction or another.
Many of those judgments flow from the agencies that would like to label their works as successful
or as inadequate for reasons that they would like the legislators to remedy.

The ethical values of a society can be considered as the sources of public policy. Ethical values,
such as the obligation to preserve life, are quite compelling legislators. Legal and professional
standards interpret and expand these values and lay specific obligations on responsible persons,
particularly in government. Since ethical values are often stated in absolute terms, they highlight our
inevitable shortcomings as well as stimulate improvement. Society's available resources are also can
be the source of public policy. A country, which is rich enough to put a man on the moon, can
initiate a policy for undertaking a more incredible scientific research since doing so is affordable
regardless of the likelihood to succeed with it. No matter what its achievements are, an affluent
technological society always feels obligated to set its goals beyond them.

Though often drawn upon ethical values and availability of resources, citizens' demands could be
another source of public policy. Those who see or experience the deficiencies most directly also
advocate public policies that provide the most advantages for them. Many people may believe and
want that the state can pay for all medical expenses as well as cover other safety needs. This may
push the government to set policy in account of such public demands and its capacity to respond
fully or in partial treatment.

Policy must be based on accurate factual information, which is largely supplied by administration.
There are four ways in which or sources from which administration collects the necessary data and
information:
1. From its own internal reports, records and statistics,
2. From non-official organizations/ sources,

23
 3. From special investigations conducted by commissions or committees of inquiry,
4. From research and study.

Every department receives periodic reports, returns, statements, accounts and statistics from its
various sub-agencies about their activities. These are consolidated together and recorded by the
departments and are available for use as data for the formulation of policy. With the modern
emphasis on planning, statistics have become a very important tool of administration and many
departments make special arrangements and establish special machinery for the collection of
statistics. Statistics internally available with one department may be supplemented by related data
available from other departments. The data obtained from the various sources have to be suitably
organized and aggregated to reveal their true import for purposes of policy formulation.

As an antidote or cure to defects and deficiencies of official reporting, administration establishes

contacts with non-official or private fact-finding groups such as farmers’ organizations and other
various professional associations. The information and data supplied by these non-official bodies is
helpful in correcting the vagaries of official reports and statistics and in arriving at a balanced view.

Commissions and committees of inquiry appointed by the government to conduct investigations into
particular fields are a useful technique of fact finding. These commissions have specified terms of
reference; examine a large number of witness-official as well as non-official- to obtain facts and
views, and in the light of the material collected make recommendations which serve as a basis for a
new policy or reforms in the existing one.

The government and non-official agencies may discover and interpret facts, and may organize
research and special studies. Such researches are classified into two- Administrative and Technical.
Administrative research is concerned with problems of organization, procedures and methods.
Technical research is concerned with subject-matter field or functional specialties of the various
departments. The object of research in these functional specialties is to discover the best methods
and techniques of increasing production, minimizing costs or solving problems hitherto unsolved.
Administration has constantly to be on its toes for improvements wherever possible and continuous
research alone can show the way to such improvements.

24
Chapter Three
3. Public Policy Process

Introduction
The policy process consist a logical sequence of activities affecting the development of public
policies. It depicts the policymaking process and the broad relationships among policy actors within
each stage of it. The model can also be helpful to understand the flow of events and decisions in
different cultures and institutional settings; in other words, the concepts and language are generally
enough to fit any political system and its policy processes.

Sometimes the phrase policy cycle is used to make clear that the process is cyclical or continuous
rather than a one – time set of actions. Instead of a top –down listing of each stage, it could be
presented as a series of stages linked in a circle because no policy decision or solution is ever final.
Changing conditions, new information, formal evaluations, and shifting opinions often stimulate
reconsideration and revision of established policies. In addition, in the real world these stages can
and do overlap or are sometimes skipped.

The policy process captures important aspects of policy-making that corresponding to political
reality. The following are stages of policy process:
1. Problem Definition/Identification
2. Agenda setting
3. Policy formulation
4. Legitimating policy/Adopting policy
5. Implementing policy legitimate
6. Policy Evaluation and Change

3.1 Defining the Problem

Essentially, a "problem definition" is determining the gap between the current and the preferred or
ideal situation. "Every disparity between the actual and the desired situation is defined as a problem
and is widely assumed to have a solution and one may demonstrably be better than any other

25
alternative. Although any problem has objective dimensions, it still requires human judgment about
its ethical values and options for action.

In politics, no problem is "given" in the sense that everyone will regard it in exactly the same terms.
It may be measurable with statistics, or with personal definition that appeals to emotions as well. As
Stone (1988:106) has said, "There is no objective description of a situation; there can only be
portrayals of people's experience and interpretations". An individual policymaker may define a
problem and try to convince others that his/her conception of the issue and proposed action is the
best to provide solution. This analysis would reveal how policymakers’ values and perceptions
blend with the situations to generate governmental choices. Whichever definition is accepted
inevitably shapes the policies devised to meet it.

Problem definition is strategic because groups, individuals, and government agencies deliberately
and consciously fashion portrayals so as to promote their favored course of action.

In other words, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” A person’s perspective and
background determine how he or she defines a problem and relates to it. Personal ideology and
values are likely to influence how the problem is defined or even if the individual considers a
situation to be a problem at all. The issue of Internet pornography, for example, could be defined as
one of protecting children or protecting basic civil liberties, with very different implications. Family
planning, might be thought of as a simple public health issue, or defined in moral terms and
associated with abortion, or seen as a matter of women’s rights and privacy.

The different actors and institutions (formal and informal) are almost always deeply involved in
problem definition (Rochefort and Cobb 1994). Reports by executive agencies are crucial in
supplying information on a problem and how it is changing over time. Parliamentary committees
frequently hold hearings on public and how it is changing testimony from various experts. Even
interest groups get involved. Most interest groups work hard not only to interpret the policy studies
but also to supply other policy information that portrays a problem as they prefer to see it. Mass

26
media, individual citizen, civic society etc are also critical participants of the problems
identification.

3.2 Agenda Setting

Agenda setting is an activity of listing of issues that warrant serious consideration for the making or
remaking of policy. Defining a problem is not enough; the public and policymakers must recognize
it as a problem, and it must rise high enough on the agenda that action becomes likely. At that point,
the search for solutions, or policy formulation, begins. Yet it is by no means easy for societal
problems to reach agenda status because at any given moment so many problems are competing for
social and political attention. Some make it onto the agenda and some do not.

Because of the competition for agenda space, many problems that government could potentially
address never capture its attention and are neglected. Energy issues are a prime example. Only rarely
do they rise on the political agenda, but the underlying problems remains from year to year,
including heavy reliance on oil imported from the Middle East, the economic impacts of rising
energy prices, and the environmental effects of burning fossil fuels. Another example is population.
The United States is growing as fast as or faster than any other industrialized nation. Its growth rate,
about 1 percent a year, is ten times that of most European nations, partly because of its generous
immigration policies. The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population of 290 million in 2003 is
likely to rise to 420 million by 2050, for a gain of 130 million people (Kent and Mather 2002). That
is the equivalent of adding about four states the size of California to the nation. Except for a few
cities and regions, however, population growth has never been an issue that commanded much
attention from either the U.S. public or its elected officials.

The implications are plain. The mere existence of a problem is no guarantee that it will attract
government attention or be acted on. Indeed, the term non issues best distinguishes those problems
that fail to gain attention from those that do. Some issues are intentionally kept off the agenda by
those who oppose acting on them, as was true of civil rights in much of the South in the 1950s and
1960s, such as population growth and energy use, are ignored by an indifferent public and
policymakers. For the former, what some scholars call agenda denial, E.E. Schattschneider (1960,
71) explained the phenomenon: “All forms of political organization have a bias in favor of the
exploitation of some kinds of conflicts and the suppression of others because organization is the

27
mobilization of bias. Some issues are organized into politics while others are organized out”. When
policymakers began active discussions about a problem and potential solutions, the issue is said to
be “on the agenda”.

We can distinguish between two kinds of agendas; the popular agenda and the institutional agenda.
The popular agenda: is the list of problems and issues in which the general public is most interested.
For example, opinion polls regularly report that unemployment or crime or danger of nuclear war
may head at the top of the list of concerns in a given month. Issues rise and fall on this agenda
because of many factors: media publicity, widespread public experiences, or the efforts of a
president/head of state to publicize them, for example. Nearly always, they reflect something that
government is already doing-well or badly. These issues can also vary regionally or locally; a
depressed economy in one state/region or a high crime rate in the other may dominate the public
agendas in those places.

As William Johnson (1992) remarked, many issues have gone through an issue-attention or issue-
domain cycle, from “alarmed discovery” of a problem and “euphoric enthusiasm” that it will be
solved, to “realizing the cost of significant progress” and “gradual decline of intense public
interest”. Only a limited number of issues can hold the public’s attention at any one time, and as a
new one rises, an old one must fall whether or not it has been “solved.” Both success and failure of
the action can be the cause of its removal from the agenda.

Institutional agenda: in contrast, consists of those items that specific government bodies or leaders,
such as congress or a city mayor, rank as high priorities for action. These concerns reflect the
popular agendas but emphasize specific matters on which some agreement is possible. Thus, at a
time when the public is worried about unemployment, congress agenda may include proposals, for
example, to create new public service jobs or protect a country’s industries from foreign
competition. If an issue doesn’t contain realistic potential for new action, it will not be taken very
seriously. Agendas of national, state/regional, and local governments frequently interlock with each
other.
Ideologies, dominant personalities, and the waves of electoral politics are the key "filters" of agenda
possibilities, since all such development must be perceived and selected by politicians. For example,

28
President Reagan's election in 1980 significantly restructured not only the agenda of the executive
branch, but also that of Congress toward tax cuts, increased military spending, and reduced
government regulation of business.

Determinants of Agenda setting: Some issues make it to the agenda automatically. They are
mandated or required actions with which government must deal. Examples include the annual
budget, legislation to reauthorize existing programs, and acting on a president’s of governor’s
nominees for executive appointments. These issues alone probably take up most of the time that
policymakers have available, leaving little to the discretionary issues, So what determines which of
the optional issues receive attention and possibly policy action? In one of the best attempts to
answer that question, Kingdon (1995) points to the intersection of three largely independent sets of
activities in what he calls the problem, policy, and political “streams” that flow through society.
When the streams converge, they create opportunities to consider certain issues. Whether they
successfully move to the political agenda and are acted on are sometimes in the hands of influential
policy entrepreneurs, or leaders who invest much of their time and resources in the issue.

3.3 Policy formulation

This stage of policy making logically passes through the following activities.

Discerning the Alternatives

Discerning the alternatives is identifying potential courses of action that could achieve the
designated objective/s. In searching for alternative courses of action, policymakers usually begin
with the "short list" of ideas with which they are familiar. Generally, each of these ideas is suggested
or mandated by the definition that policymakers have already given the problem or by the
ideological stance they hold toward the general issue. Conservatives and liberals are often
distinguished by the contrasting solutions that they habitually consider for unemployment or
business regulation respectively, for example.

As Herbert Simon (1957) aptly noted, often, if time is short or political pressures dictate, policy-
makers will "satisfice" with the information they have. Simon's word (satisfice), which is a
composite of satisfy and suffice, indicates their ending the search before they analyze every possible

29
alternative and deciding on the basis of what they know. But where the known solutions do not
suffice for the politically significant persons, the search will continue. For example, the futile efforts
to control the illegal drug trade currently are stimulating this kind of effort.

The search for alternatives has political boundaries like those of the previous stages. Since
politicians are likely to have already defined the problem and set the objectives, they have also given
thought to which alternatives are preferred, which can be mentioned, and which must be excluded.
"Controlling the number and kinds of alternative considered is the essence of the political game"
The debate among policymakers over transplants would have fallen into chaos if other legislators
had demanded consideration of equal treatment for sufferers from AIDS, for example. Of course, the
state must deal with that difficulty on its priority list, but without appearing to draw resources away
from prenatal care and other high-priority services.

Government administrators frequently suggest policy alternatives in the fields of their experiences.
This is particularly common for the top executives of federal and state/regional agencies who share a
policy agenda with their president or governor. "Through feedback from the operation of
programs...implementation can lead to innovation. If bureaucrats find a program is not going well in
some particular instances, the recognition of that trend might be used (or feed into) as an input for a
policy change" (Kingdom, 1984:34). Wherever a remaking of current policy is on the agenda, the
influence of appreciating the problem itself is likely to be strong.

"New" ideas can come from governments other than the one deciding. Often a state or city adopts an
idea that others have found successful. Innovations in low-income housing, corrections reform, and
environmental regulations have spread among policymakers open to new solutions. European
countries, and recently Japan, have also been the source of policy ideas in health care, education,
waste management, and housing, although policy transfer across national and cultural boundaries is
not always feasible.

Similar to the international transfer of ideas is the exchange from one policy realm to another. For
transfers of both types to succeed, those familiar with the issues must be creative enough to perceive
how the idea must be adapted to the new situation. Scientific and technological research and

30
development often produce new policy alternatives. Scientists and engineers enjoy much prestige in
a culture committed to the innovation they promote; to label a proposal "scientific” is to endow it
with unmatched credibility.

In many policy areas, the demands of new members of the policy community have enriched the
stock of alternatives. For example in USA, since the early 1960s, Blacks, Women, Hispanics, and
other groups that had not been included in policymaking have succeeded both in making their
demands heard and in joining the ranks of those who admit and consider alternatives. Programs in
employment, education, and many other realms, have been broadened as a result. The "comparable
worth" claim that jobs requiring equal skill and responsibility should be paid the same salary,
whether they are held by men or women, whites or persons of color, is recognized as a result of the
efforts of these groups.

These sources of policy alternatives contribute as well to the definitions of problems and objectives.
The influence of a proposed solution depends on its fit with the prevailing concept of the problem.
The source of an alternative obviously influences its chance of getting a serious hearing. Those who
advocate legalizing the voluntary adult use of marijuana and cocaine are ordinarily dismissed
(whether fairly or not) as users who want to avoid legal penalties for their pursuits are against the
interest of the majority. On the other hand, proposals for combating drug abuse that come from a
respected public agency invariably receive serious consideration.

Assessing the Alternatives

Basically, an assessment of alternatives is forecasting the likely outcomes of each alternative,
including benefits and costs; if policy “A” is chosen, it’s likely outcome “B” will (or will not) close
the gap between the present situation and the goal that was set. Also implicit is the expectation that
unwanted situation “C” will not result from policy “A”.
The data supporting that forecast may be extensive or sketchy, and so it may be presented with
either confidence or hesitation. This assessment is done for each alternative on the table, and at the
end, one ideally chooses that which offer the greatest possible margin of expected benefits (given
the objectives already decided) over the costs or harms it would entail.

31
In the real world of politics, all of these judgments are complex and subjective. Even when there are
"hard" data, they can be interpreted and valued differently by the participants. Judgmental criteria
enter these deliberations. Though public policymaking criteria will be discussed in more detail later
in Chapter Five, here also few criteria emphasized by Johnson (1992:163-64), that would be
applied for assessing different alternatives can be briefly overviewed.

Benefits as Criteria for Assessment: Policymakers must ask questions related to assessing the
value of benefits. First, what benefits are anticipated from each alternative? For whom, when, how
much are they valued or needed? And which are measurable in dollars or other numbers, and which
are not? How do these benefits compare with those provided to other groups in other policies? Who
would be denied benefits? Answers require calculation of the values of each set of benefits for each
group of recipients. How the recipients respond to those possibilities clearly shapes that calculation.

Costs: The second criterion mirrors the benefits; costs incurred by each alternative. Again,
policymakers must ask, what costs, for whom, what would it cost the government, who might be
harmed as a result, what are the opportunity costs- that is, what other benefits could have been
gained with the funds if this were not chosen? Costs, like benefits, cannot be fully measured in
dollars; because pain, fear, and lost opportunities lack an agreed-upon calculus.

Feasibility: The third factor to consider is feasibility; how well the alternative is likely to work
when assigned to a specific agency in its context. Among many questions one must ask are, “Is there
any agency with the will, skills, and resources to carry out this policy? Can the policy meet legal and
constitutional tests if someone were to file a lawsuit over it? Do the knowledge and technology exist
to enable its implementation? Is enough money likely to be available to fund it adequately? If the
government wants to put something forth, it has to answer to all these questions. A clear “no” to any
one of them would doom that alternative.

Mutual Effects: Fourth, each policy relates in countless ways to other things that government and
private organizations do, and their success and failure are intertwined. Assessment efforts should
thus foresee these mutual effects. For example, what the state/region chooses to do on a particular
issue will be affected by a federal government policy authorizing the state’s action.

32
Political Acceptability: The fifth criterion is often the overriding one, which puts all of the
alternatives in perspective: political acceptability. A policy is never made simply because it is
“right” or "best." It emerges because it is judged right or best by legislators and executives who see
that it fits the expectations that they and influential others hold of their jobs and of the government
as a whole. This is not to say that they make inferior choices for that reason or that they are corrupt
or irresponsible. Rather, because democracy is a process of shared decision making, a choice cannot
be distinct from the wills of those who join in making that decision. When there is much
disagreement over an issue, the policy may be chosen only after long deliberation and could well be
changed shortly afterward.

Choosing the Alternatives

Choosing alternatives would mean enact into law a specific package of programs and means of
implementing them. In this step, therefore, policymakers choose one alternative (or a combination)
to become official policy and add the "tools" with which to implement it. Where there is clear
agreement on the law, the means of its administration can be equally clear.

Policy choice requires “tools of implementation”, which are an integral part of the policy choice.
Basically, a tool is a method or approach used by government to achieve a specific objective. When
a government seeks to increase the access of working parents to day care for their children, it could
choose, first, to operate day-care centers directly with its own personnel. Or, a second option, it
could give grants to community organizations to provide the service. Third, it could give a tax credit
or rebate to parents to cover their out-of pocket child-care costs for whatever facilities they use. Less
likely is use of the fourth tool: requiring employers to operate day-care centers for their workers.
The policy goal and the tool used are interdependent, and political controversies are motivated by
both choices. Nevertheless, legislators often fail to specify the tools to be used, due to neglect or
lack of agreement, and let the administrators select them within broad limits.

Policymakers do not expect that their choice packages will completely "solve" the problem. No
problem remains the same while it is being dealt with. If, by a conducive circumstance, the targeted
problem is minimized by the program, new problems are likely to appear that require different

33
actions. As more people live longer due to advances in medicine and sanitation, the number of
victims of Alzheimer's disease and other maladies (difficulties) affecting the very old increases,
which in turn calls for more research and long term care. In other instances, the "solutions" did not
solve much and often created new problems. In either situation, no choice can be seen as permanent.
Even when a long-term commitment is made, as with expensive facilities for urban transit,
policymakers must expect to adjust to new realities in years to come.

Basis of Policy-Making
Policy must be based on accurate factual information, which is largely supplied by administration.
There are four ways in which administration collects the necessary data and information:
(1) From its own internal reports, records and statistics.
(2) From non-official organizations/ sources.
(3) From special investigations conducted by commissions or committees of inquiry.
(4) From research and study.

Every department receives periodic reports, returns, statements, accounts and statistics from its
various sub-agencies about their activities. These are consolidated together and recorded by the
departments and are available for use as data for the formulation of policy. With the modern
emphasis on planning, statistics have become a very important tool of administration and many
departments make special arrangements and establish special machinery for the collection of
statistics. Statistics internally available with one department may be supplemented by related data
available from other departments. The data obtained from the various sources have to be suitably
organized and aggregated to reveal their true import for purposes of policy formulation.

As an antidote to the defects and deficiencies of official reporting, administration establishes

contacts with non-official or private fact-finding groups such as farmers’ organizations and other
various professional associations. The information and data supplied by these non-official bodies is
helpful in correcting the vagaries of official reports and statistics and in arriving at a balanced view.

34
Commissions and committees of inquiry appointed by the government to conduct investigations into
particular fields are a useful technique of fact finding. These commissions have specified terms of
reference; examine a large number of witness, official as well as non-official to obtain facts and
views, and in the light of the material collected, make recommendations which serve as a basis for a
new policy or reforms in the existing one.

The government and non-official agencies may discover and interpret facts may organize research
and special studies. Such researches are classified into two:
(1) Administrative
(2) Technical

Administrative research is concerned with problems of organization, procedures and methods.

Technical research is concerned with subject-matter field or functional specialties of the various
departments. The object of research in these functional specialties is to discover the best methods
and techniques of increasing production, minimizing costs or solving problems hitherto unsolved.
Administration has constantly to be on its toes for improvements wherever possible and continuous
research alone can show the way to such improvements.

Factors Influencing Policy Formulation

Policy is not made in a vacuum. Those who are in charge of formulating it are constantly subject to
influences of various kinds.

First and foremost, influence on policy-making is that of the environment in which a political
system operates. Environment broadly comprises of institutions (Economic & social), history, law,
ethics, philosophy, religion, education, tradition, beliefs, values, symbols, myths etc. The variables
identified in the environment thus, could be described as both specific and abstract. The policy-
makers are the products of the society; hence, they imbibe the social values, ethos and traditions
before they come to hold public offices. It goes on to influence/determinedly shape their decisions.
Similarly, political and economic institutions exert considerable influence on policy-making.
Policies of a government in a developed country are different from those of the government in a

35
socialist or an under developed economy as the purposes to be fulfilled and objectives to be met are
different. The distinction is more pronounced in the matter of economic policies.
Secondly, external environment is also an important variable in policymaking. Every state is a
member of a comity of nations. No state can frame its policies without considering the other states’
interest. It has to keep in view its security perceptions, policies of other states, its own obligations to
international law & international institutions, domestic situation etc. while framing its policies.
Change in the international environment often dictates changes in the domestic and external
policies.

Thirdly, ideology has played a considerable part in the policies of the state in recent times. Ideology
may be defined, “as a self-contained and self-justifying belief system that incorporates an over-all
world view and provides a basis for explaining all of reality.” Liberalism, nationalism, fascism,
communism etc. are all ideologies. They influence policies and actions of governments. The
ideology of a state helps to determine both the methods it will adopt and the objectives it will
pursue. The government is likely to regard the prevailing ideology as good and want to preserve it.

Fourthly, political leadership and personalities of the leaders are one of the several factors, which
influence policy. Though political leaders are bound by the policies of their parties and they have to
work within the framework of these policies, yet a dynamic leader will bring to bear his personality
on the policies of administration. This is reflected in the change, which becomes visible in the
working of the department or the government as a whole whenever a minister or a prime minister
changes.
Fifthly, political parties and pressure or interest groups influence policies.
Sixthly, the contribution of bureaucracy in policy-making exercises is substantial.
Seventhly, in parliamentary system of government, administrative policy must be consistent with
the constitution, laws of the land and priorities of the legislature laid own in black and white.
Lastly, a policy, which impinges on the work or sphere of more than one department, must be
cleared with every one of them. Objections raised by these departments may sometimes block a
policy-decision. This is how internal checks operate on policy-making.

36
3.4 Policy Legitimatization
At this stage, the public policy gets legal approval. The policy is authorized or justified by the
concerned bodies. This can be done through majority vote in the legislature or formal bureaucratic
legislative decisions. It becomes law when the appropriate authority approves the proposal.
Legislative scrutiny and public participation are essential requirements of policy legitimation.

3.5 Policy Implementation

With the passage of a law or the selection of a policy by other means, the scene of action shifts to
the agencies assigned to carry it out. Policy, before this point, is only an intention, a possibility;
what it becomes in fact happens at this stage. Implementation is the process of realizing public
policy, thereby achieving the public purposes for which the policy was made. Earlier scholars of
public administration argued that implementation is primarily a "technical" task, clearly removed
from the political controversies in which the policy was decided. In this view, there should be no
uncertainty about how to implement a properly written law; the task was to devise procedures,
marshal resources, and monitor activities to make sure there was no dishonesty or waste. A
hierarchical structure was to convey the instructions of the top executives down through the
organization and thereafter monitor the results.

A more realistic view of implementation emerged after scholars examined what actually happened
in the controversial programs that governments administered. Case studies on the many new social
programs enacted in the 1960s showed that policies that emerged from legislative bargaining were
often ambiguous or excessively optimistic, required extensive federal-state-local cooperation, and
received inadequate funding. It should have surprised no one that the political controversies and
pressures that attended legislative action continued into the implementation stage, violating that
hallowed neutral ground.

The implementation stage begins as a task is assigned to one or more agencies along with the
authority to spend money, hire personnel, and obtain the other resources necessary. Next, those
agencies make rules and procedures by which to operate. Nonetheless, there is always some degree
37
of discretion permitted as to means, guidelines, and dates for action. These rules match the tools
chosen to implement the policy. If it provides cash payments to persons, for example, the rule
determines the eligibility of each applicant and how much that person is to receive. Each of the tools
can run into implementation problems if the goal is uncertain, difficult to attain, or wrapped in
political controversy. However, those policies that provide direct services or apply regulations to
persons who differ in their needs and requirements appear to present the greatest challenges.

The policy formulated has to be implemented to achieve the goals set by the administration. In
modern political systems public policy is implemented primarily by a complex system of
administrative agencies and other agencies like legislature, the courts, pressure groups and
community organizations.

The Implementation Process

The policy implementation process is basically a control process. The original mandate, legislative,
bureaucratic or judicial- is a sort of blueprint for a machine that has to turn out the products of the
policy. The machine has to be assembled from scratch or by over hauling or remoulding of an
existing one. Putting the machine together and making it run is the “implementation process.” The
initial process is of breaking down a policy into manageable workable units.
Policy Programmes Projects

Before undertaking the actual implementation, the policy has to be broken down into manageable
units of programmes and projects. The programmes are the basic units of a policy, which cover
broad areas of government functions. The programmes are further sub-divided into a number of
specific projects. This is essential to keep the programmes in manageable limits.

Problems of Policy Implementation

The process of goal achievement begins with policy formulation, but does not end there. The policy
formulated has to be implemented to achieve the goals set by the administration. Three main
problems are encountered in the implementation of public policy after a policy mandate is agreed to,
authorized and adopted. These problems are:

38
(1) Under achievement of stated objectives.
(2) Various kinds of delays.
(3) Excessive financial cost.

Chapter Four
4. Conceptual Approaches and Models of Public Policy
4.1 Approaches to Policymaking

4.2 Public Policy Models

In analyzing public policy, we construct or apply models, or think in terms of a metaphor. Models
constitute frameworks within which and through which we can explain problems and social
processes. A model is a simplified representation of some aspect of the real world. A model may be:
 An actual physical representation (example: a model airplane or model tabletop building),
 A diagram (example: a road map), or
 A flow chart (example: how a bill becomes a law),

The models we use or refer to for studying public policy are theoretical and/or conceptual. Models
have different uses; they try to:
(a) Simplify and clarify our thinking about politics and public policy,
(b) Identify important aspects of policy problems,
(c) Help us to communicate with each other by focusing on essential features of political life,
(d) Direct our efforts to understand public policy by suggesting what is important and what is
unimportant, and
(e) Suggest explanations for public policy and predict its consequences.

A variety of models have been advanced by theorists and social scientists to help us understand
public life vis-à-vis the impacts of political decisions or public policies. Among the many models
the most substantiated ones, are selected for discussion in this teaching material. Throughout our
discussion emphasis is given on critically examining whether these models have any utility to the
study of public policy. Special attention will be given to their basic assumptions on which they are

39
based, to their domains of validity, and to their major limitations. We will, therefore, try to examine
public policy from the perspectives of the following models:
i. Institutional Model ii. Process Model
iii. Group Model iv. Elite Model
v. Rational Model vi. Incremental Model
vii. Game Theory Model viii. Public Choice Model
ix. Systems Model x. Satisfying Model

All of these are major conceptual models that can be found in the literatures of public administration
and political science. Further, each offers a separate way of thinking about policy and even suggests
some general causes and consequences of public policy. However, as Dye (1995:18) noted, we
should bear in mind that none of these models was derived especially to study public policy. The
models are not ‘competitive’ in the sense that any one of them could be judged the “best”. In other
words, no model should be considered as the “best” over the others. Each one provides a unique
focus on public life, and each can help us to understand different things about public policy.

Although some policies appear at first glance to lend themselves to explanation by one particular
model, policies are a combination of rational planning, instrumentalism, interest group activity, elite
preferences, systemic forces, game planning, public choice, political processes and institutional
influences. Hence, these models are employed separately or in combination to describe and explain
specific policies. A brief description of each model is presented in the following manner.

4.2.1 The Institutional Model (Policy as Institutional Output)

Government institutions have long been the central focus of public administration and political
science. Public policy is authoritatively determined, implemented and enforced by the political
authorities and/or governmental institutions; namely parliament, president, courts, bureaucracies at
central, state/provincial/regional levels, and also at local/municipal levels. Relationship between
government institutions and public policies is too close. The relationship between public policy and
government institutions is very close. Strictly speaking, a policy does not become a ‘public policy’

40
until it is adopted, implemented, and enforced by some government institution. Government
institutions give public policy three distinctive characteristics:
(i) Government lends legitimacy to policies. Government policies are generally regarded as
legal obligations that command the loyalty of the citizens. People may regard the policies of
other groups and associations in society-like corporations, churches, professional
organizations civic associations, and so forth-as important and even binding. But only
government policies involve legal obligation.
(ii) Government policies involve universality. Only government policies extend to all people in a
society; the policies of other groups or organizations reach only a part of the society.
(iii) Government monopolizes coercion in society (punishment and imprisonment to violators).
Only government can legitimately imprison violators of its policies. The sanctions imposed
by other groups or organizations in society are more limited.

It is precisely this ability of the government to command the loyalty of citizens, to enact policies
governing the whole society, and to monopolize the legitimate use of force that encourage
individuals and groups to work for enactment of their preferences into policy.

Traditionally, the institutional model did not devote much attention to the linkages between the
structure of the government institutions and the content of public policy. Instead, institutional
studies usually described specific government institutions-their structure, organization methods,
duties, and functions-without systematically inquiring about the impacts of institutional
characteristics on policy outputs. According to Dye (1995:19), although constitutional and legal
arrangements were described in detail, the linkages between institutional arrangements and policy
relevance or policy impact remained largely unexamined.

Despite the narrow focus of early institutional studies, the institutional model is not necessarily
unproductive the one. Government institutions are really “structured patterns of behavior” of
individuals and groups. By “structured”, it means that these patterns of behavior tend to persist over
time, which may affect the content of public policy. Institutions may be structured to facilitate
certain policy outcomes and to obstruct other policy outcomes. In short the structure of government
institutions may have important policy consequences.

41
In the modern understanding of the subject, institutional model need not be narrow or descriptive.
As Sapru (2004:65) and Dye (1995:20-210 have remarked, the value of the institutional model to
policy analysis lies on asking what relationships exist between institutional arrangements and the
content of public policy, and on investigating these relationships in a comparative or systematic
fashion. For example, how does the division of responsibilities among federal, state, and local
governments affect the content of public policy? Such comparative questions, which can be dealt
with systematically, involve institutional arrangements.

It is important to remember that the impact of institutional arrangements on public policy is an

empirical question that deserves investigation. In many instances, enthusiastic reformers have
asserted that a particular change in institutional structure would bring about change in public policy
without investigating the true relationship between structure and policy. They have fallen into the
trap of assuming that institutional changes will bring about policy changes. If we are cautious when
making assessment on the impact of structure on policy, we may discover that both structure and
policy are largely determined by social and/or economic forces and that tinkering or changing with
institutional arrangements will have little independent impact on public policy if underlying forces
remain constant.

With regard to the relationship between structure and policy, the institutional model suggests the
existence of power separation and the constitutional mechanisms of check and balance among
government institutions, or among the three branches of government (the legislative, the executive,
and the judiciary) at a bigger scale. Figure 4.1 below tries to demonstrate such institutional
arrangements.

42
 Figure-4.1: The Institutional Model (Constitutional Checks and Balances)

President declares Parliament

elections etc

Executive: President
Legislative Parliament: Parliament elects Prime Minister
Can impeach Presidents PM
House of People,
Judges Council Ministers
Council of States
Can
declare
elections
President
Court declares laws Void
appoints judges
Unconstitutional

Judicial: Supreme Court

The institutional model is generally concerned with explaining how social groups and governmental
institutions bring influence to bear on those entitled to take and implement legally binding decisions.
It assumes that the structure (arrangements) of institutions and their interactions, as depicted in
Figure 3.1, can have a significant impact on public policy. Therefore, the model with its focus on the
legal and structural aspects of institutions can be applied in policy analysis.

4.2.2 The Process Model (Policy as a pattern of Political Activities)

Political processes and behaviors have been a central focus of political science. Modern behavioral
political science since World War II has studied the activities of voters, interest groups, legislators,
presidents, bureaucrats, judges and other political actors. One of the main purposes has been to
discover pattern of activities or “process”. Recently, scholars in the field have grouped various

43
activities according to their relationship with public policy. The result is a set of policy processes,
which generally goes along the following general outline.

 Identifying Problems: Expressing demands for Government action,

 Setting the Agenda for Decision making: Deciding what issues will be decided and what
problems to address,
 Formulating Policy Proposals: Developing policy proposal to resolve issues and problems,
 Legitimating Policies: Selecting a proposal, building political support for it, enacting it as a
law,
 Implementing Policies: Organizing bureaucracies, providing payments or services, and
levying taxes
 Evaluating policies: Studying programs, reporting outputs of government programs,
evaluating impacts of programs on target and non-target groups in society, suggesting
changes and adjustments.

In short, one can view the policy process as a series of political activities- problem identification,
agenda setting, formulation, legitimating, implementation and evaluation. It has been argued that
political scientists must limit their studies of public policy to the processes of activities and avoid
analysis of the substances of policies. According to this argument, it is not the content of public
policy that is to be studied, but rather the process by which public policy is developed, implemented,
and changed (Dye, 1995:22). This argument may allow students to study how decisions are made,
and perhaps how they should be made. But, it does not permit them to comment on the substance of
public policy- who gets what and why.

Despite the narrow focus of the process model, it is still useful in helping us to understand the
various activities involved in policymaking. We want to keep in mind that policymaking involves
agenda setting (capturing the attention of policymakers), formulating proposals (advising and
selecting policy options), legitimating policy (developing political support), implementing policy
(creating bureaucracies, spending money, enforcing laws), and evaluating policy (finding out
whether policies work, whether they are popular).

44
Indeed, it may even be the case that the way policies are made affects the content of public policy
and the vice versa. This is the question that deserves attention. But again, we should not fall into trap
of assuming that a change in the process of policymaking will always bring about changes in the
contents of policy. Changing the formal or informal decisionmaking (policymaking) processes may
or may not change the content of public policy. Therefore, the linkages between process and the
content of public policy must still be investigated so that critical comment on the value of the
process model to public policy analysis is certainly possible.

4.2.3 The Group Theory Model (Policy as Group Equilibrium)

The Group Theory was propounded by F. Bentley (1980) in his work known as “The process of
Government”. Group theory begins with the proposition that interaction among groups is the central
fact of politics. Individuals with common interest band together formally or informally to press their
demands on government. According to David Truman as quoted in Dye (1995), an interest group is
a group with “shared attitudes”, and individuals are important in politics only when they act as part
of, or on behalf of, group interest. Politics is really the struggle among groups to influence public
policy; that public policy is the product of the group struggle. The theory of this model says that a
society is divided into a number of organized interest groups.

According to group model theorists, public policy at any given time is the equilibrium reached in the
group struggle (see figure 4.2). This equilibrium is determined by the relative influence of any
interest groups. Changes in the relative influence of any interest group can be expected to result in
changes in public policy; policy will move in the direction desired by the groups gaining influence.
What may be called the public policy is the equilibrium reached in the group struggle at any given
moment, and it represents a balance, which the contending factions or groups constantly strive to
weigh in their favor. Many public policies do reflect the activities of groups.

Group Theory model purports to describe all meaningful, political activity in terms of the group
struggle. Policymakers are viewed by this model as constantly responding to group pressure-
bargaining, negotiating, and compromising among competing demands of influential groups. Group
theory rests on the contention that interaction and struggle among groups are the central facts of

45
political life. One group makes claim upon other groups in society. An individual is a participant in
groups and he/she seeks to secure his/her political preference through the groups.

The central concept of Group Theory is access or opportunity to express view points to decision
makers. Some groups will have more access than other and public policy reflects the interests of
dominant group and influential group. Finally, this model further advocates that the “check and
balance” that we see in any government system is the result of group struggle. The checking and
balancing resulting from group competition also helps to maintain equilibrium in the system.
Equilibrium

The thrust of the Group model is towards the legislature rather than the bureaucracy, though the
bureaucracy too is buffeted by pressure groups. The legislature often prefers the group struggle.
Many regulating agencies have been captured by certain groups who instead of being regulated do
regulate. A good example of this is the public policy on drugs in the USA, where the drug
bureaucracy is instituted to police the pharmaceutical industry, but in reality the pharmaceutical
industry controls the drug bureaucracy.

4.2.4 The Elite Model

Public policy may also be viewed as the preferences and values of governing elite. Although it is
often asserted that public policy reflects the demands of the people, this may express the myth rather
than the reality even in developed democracies such as in the USA. The Elite theory suggests that
the people are apathetic and ill-informed about public policy, that elites actually shape mass opinion
on policy questions more than masses shape elite opinion.

Public officials and administrators merely carry out the policies decided by the elite. Policies flow
downward from elites to masses; they do not arise from mass/public demands (see figure 4.3).
Public Policy is thus the preference of the elites. The Elite model or theory can be simply
summarized as follows:
 Society is divided into the few who have power and the many that have not. Only a small
number of persons allocate values for society; the masses do not decide on public policy,

46
  The elites are governing class who are not typical of the masses who are governed; they are
drawn disproportionately from the upper strata of society,
 The movement of non-elites to elite positions must be slow and continuous to maintain stability
and avoid revolution. Only non-elites who have accepted the basic elite consensus can be
admitted to elite class,
 Changes in public policy will be incremental rather than revolutionary,

Receives Decision
The major implications of the Elite Model (Theory) for public policy analysis are the following:
i. First, elitism implies that public policy does not reflect the demands of the people so
much as it does the interests and values of the elites. Therefore, changes and
innovations in public policy come about as a result of the redefinitions by elites of
their own values; change will be incremental rather than revolutionary. Public
policies are frequently modified but seldom replaced. However, elitism does not
mean that public policy will be always against mass welfare, but only that the
responsibility for mass welfare rests on the shoulders of elites, not the masses.
ii. Secondly, elitism views the masses as largely passive, apathetic, and ill-informed;
mass sentiments are manipulated by elites rather than elites’ values being influenced
by the sentiments of masses; and for the most part, communication between the two
flows downward.
iii. Elitism also asserts that elites share in a consensus about fundamental norms
underlying the social system that elites agree on the basic rules of the game as well as
continuation of the social system itself. Of course elitism does not mean that elite
members never disagree or never compete with each other for preeminence or
superiority. But elitism implies that competition centers on a very narrow range of
issues and those elites agree more often than they disagree on policy matters.

4.2.5 The Rational Model (Policy as a Maximum Social Gain)

Rationality and rationalism are words too often used in the literature of social science, but they are
more widely espoused than practiced in policymaking. However, rationality is considered to be the

47
‘yardstick’ of wisdom in policymaking (Sapru, 2004:65). There are different terminologies that
stand to denote the same meaning to the Rational Theory, which include “Rational Choice Theory”,
“Social Choice Theory”, and “Formal Theory”. The rational choice theory was originated with
economists, and the earliest use of the rational choice theory to study the political process is
Anthony Down’s (1957) “Economic Theory of Democracy”. The theory involves the application of
microeconomic theory to the analysis and explanation of political behaviour of decisionmaking. A
rational policy is one that achieves “maximum social gain”; i.e. gains to society that exceeds costs
by the greatest amount. There are two important guidelines in the definition of maximum social
choice:

(i) First, no policy should be adopted if its costs exceed the benefits derived from it,
(ii) Second, among a variety of available policy alternatives, decision makers should choose the
policy that produces the greatest benefit over cost.

A policy is “rational” when the difference between the values it achieves and the values it sacrifices
is positive and greater than any other policy alternative. Thomas Dye equates rationality with
efficiency. He further says that the idea of rationalism involves the calculation of all social, political
and economic values sacrificed or achieved by a public policy, not in narrow context that can be
measured in dollars, birrs or cents, in which basic social values are sacrificed for monetary savings.
The rationality principle emphasizes that policymaking is making a choice among policy
alternatives on rational grounds, choosing the “one best option” (Dror, 1973). But, to be rational for
policymakers is not easy; in order to be rational, it is desirable that there should be:

(i) Identification and determination of goals,

(ii) The ranking of goals in order of importance,
(iii) The identification of possible policy alternatives for achieving those goals, and
(iv) The cost-benefit analysis of policy.

Thomas Dye (1995:28) prescribed certain requirements to policymakers in selecting a rational

policy, which they must:

48
 i. Knowing all values preferences of society and their relative weights,
ii. Knowing all the policy alternatives available,
iii. Knowing all the consequence of each policy alternative,
iv. Calculate the ratio of achieved to sacrificed social values for each policy
alternative,
v. Select the most efficient alternative, which brings the greatest benefits and the least
disadvantages.

This rationality assumes that the value preferences of society as a whole can be known and weighed.
Rational policymaking also requires information about alternative policies, the predictive capacity to
foresee accurately the consequences of alternative policies, and the inelegance to calculate correctly
the ratio of costs to benefits. Finally, rational policymaking requires a decisionmaking system that
facilitates rationality in policymaking. However, rational policymaking faces certain
barriers/restrictions, which all may not in fact appear at one time. Dye hypothesized several
important obstacles to rational policy making that include:

i. Large investments in existing programs and policies (Sunk cost), prevent

policymakers from reconsidering alternatives foreclosed by past policies and
decisions,
ii. “Administrative Man” who “satisfies” with few alternatives, who “does not
maximize” social benefits does not search for all possible options,
iii. Policymakers are faced with “Bounded rationality” (Herbert Simon’s concept) by
limited knowledge, communication difficulties, emotions education, rules, and
external pressure,
iv. Situational opportunism including lying, stealing, cheating, are apparent cases,
v. Rational model is ideal not realistic,
vi. Organizational goals are not often clear,
vii. Prioritization of goals is difficult,
viii. Examination of all alternatives to the policy is not possible… always one more
alternative remains to be considered,

49
 ix. Projection of the all possible consequences, good and bad, and their costs and
benefits is impossible,
Within the rational model, several terminologies are developed and discussed by a number of
scholars, such as (i) The Pure Rationality Model, and (ii) The Rational Comprehensive Model,(iii)
The Economically Rational Model, (iv) The Optimal Rational Model, and so forth. The former (pure
rationality) is one of the three decision models, which Simon identified in 1960; i.e. the non-
programmed decision making that is based on instinct, judgment, intuition, and other extra-rational
factors; an optimal decision making model; and the satisfying decision making model. From the
three mentioned models developed by Simon, an optimal decision making model is similar to the
pure rationality model.

Most contemporary thought about policymaking is based on the pure rationality model, which is
often presented as a universally ideal pattern for decisionmaking that should be approximated as
closely as possible; i.e. human action approximates pure rationality or more exactness. The pure
rationality model goes further than most other models in systematically breaking down decision
making into phases and in analyzing its own components. Its assumptions are deeply rooted in
modern civilization and culture, and are consistent with rationalism, positivism, and optimism. Since
the pure rationality model has tremendous contributions to understand most of the other normative
models, it would be appropriate to examine it in some length.

The pure rationality model includes six interconnected phases, their cumulative output being the
pure rationality policy. The following are discussions about the phases of the pure rationality
policymaking:

Phase-1:Establishing a complete set of operational goals, with relative weights allocated to the
different degrees to which each may be achieved.

Here also, there are three sub-phases: (a) making a list of all direct goals of the policy; (b) stating
these goals in operational form; and (c) providing a "rate of exchange" between/among the different
goals. Listing all direct goals of a policy would seem to be the easiest part, but would become so

50
difficult in the second phase for which one must list all the indirect goals and values the policy
should achieve or avoid.

To be guides for action and yardsticks for evaluating different alternatives and to be operational, the
goals must be stated in a sufficiently concrete form. Thus, it is not enough to establish "economic
development" as a goal; because one must establish a more concrete goal, such as "achieving an
increase of x percent per year in net per capita income for the next five years," or "increasing the
qualified human resources in defined categories by y percent (or absolute number z) in the next
fifteen years".

Final goals depend largely on the values and beliefs of the policymakers. Science can point out
various implications of trying to achieve specific goals, can examine the conditions under which
they can be achieved, and can deal with the relationships between different goals. But the values and
goals themselves are outside the domain of science. Formulating operational goals is one of the most
difficult tasks, because the values and goals must be stated explicitly.

Policymakers who need internal and external support, such as managers who need the support of
their subordinates, and politicians who need the support of various interest groups, find unspecified
goals to gain an effective aid in bargaining and recruiting such support. Since operational goals
often meet resistance, policymakers tend to be reluctant to define their goals operationally, and often
leave the operational definitions of their goals to be worked out by day-to-day decisions instead of
setting down clearly formulated targets for policymaking to guide the day-to-day decisions.

Sometimes, defined goals may also be a very useful device for recruiting support and arousing mass
enthusiasm; a good example of which is the use of production targets in organizations. In such a
case, formulating operational goals is often complicated by the conflict of interests between the
central policymakers, who wants to encourage maximum efforts, and the units responsible for
achieving the goals, which want to play safe and have a low operational goal.

In decision making about concrete problems, it is often much easier to agree on pragmatic, short-
range operational goals than on the overall values to be aimed for. When problems become acute,

51
fewer feasible alternative solutions will be available, so that policymakers may find it easier to agree
on smaller and pragmatic solutions whereas attempts to foresee problems and to deal with them well
in advance by policymaking raises difficulties in forming and maintaining coalition. "It is much
easier to agree to cross a bridge when it is reached, rather than to decide what bridge to reach and
then to cross".

In many cases, goals for public policy cannot be defined operationally because the situation is
constantly changing and unpredictable, as it is in some areas of foreign affairs. Setting a complete
set of operational goals is simply impossible in many cases, because policymaking requires many
compromises of interests and considerations, so that the public policy goals may be based on a wide
consensus and so be politically feasible. Translating vague public policy goals into operational ones
is usually allocated to the administrative apparatus in general. Administrative agencies exercise a
most important discretionary function by determining the operational goals.

Equally challenging task in public policymaking is that, to establish a "rate of exchange" between
different goals is nearly impossible, unless they are clearly sub-goals of the measurable central goal.
In addition to the unsolvable technical problem of assigning different marginal rates of exchange to
different amount of the various operational goals, the basic problem is still that different final values
cannot be reduced to a common denominator. For limited purposes, various comparative indices
may be helpful, but there seem to be no possible way to assign exact weights. It is somewhat easier
to set up a relative system of priorities, but this is much less than is required for pure rationality
policymaking.

The aggregative nature of public policymaking introduces very hard theoretical problems; i.e. how
can you add up the values held by the different participants in public policymaking? One cannot
arrive at a social welfare function that satisfactorily sums up the heterogeneous values of the
members. We have now no conceptual tools for putting many policymaking goals into quantitative
terms that would allow us to formulate an exchange rate among them. This is the final reason why
we cannot allocate weight to the different goals in aggregative public policymaking.

Phase-2: Establishing a complete inventory of other values and of resources, with relative weights.

52
Besides the operational goals and final values at which a certain policy is directed, there are many
other values, sometimes called "contextual goals", that the policymaker wants to advice, or at least
not to impair. These include conserving available resources, and not consuming unavailable
resources, which excludes alternatives that require resources the system doesn't have. All the
problems pointed out for phase-1 also apply much to this phase, which is even harder to carry out
because of the much greater variety of "other values", and because there is no way to be sure that the
list of "other values" is complete.

Phase-3: Preparing a complete set of alternative policies.

Having a list of alternatives (including the policy of doing nothing) is an impossible task, both
quantitatively and qualitatively. Qualitatively, it is even harder to imagine all relevant new
alternatives for action, since this task requires amounts of creativity, initiative, time, knowledge, and
energy, and a bias in favor of innovation that cannot be mobilized.
Phase-4: Preparing a complete set of valid predictions of the costs and benefits of each alternative,
including the extent to which each alternative will achieve the various operational goals,
consume resources, and realize or impair other values.
The problem with preparing a complete set of valid predictions of the different real benefits and
costs of each alternative policy are a function of three major variables:
(1) The number of alternative policies;
(2) The variety of operational goals, other values, and required resources that are significant to the
policymakers; and
(3) The degree to which the data, knowledge, and techniques needed for making predictions are
available. The more alternatives there are, the harder it is to construct the predictions, because of
sheer labor involved. Similarly, the more relevant values there are, the harder it is to construct
the predictions. Examining the results of even one policy is impossible, because each one has an
infinite chain of results.

The third variable is more interesting, because it leads us to an internal contradiction in the pure
rationality model. Predictions are mainly based, directly or indirectly, on past experiences. Reliable
prediction generally becomes harder the more novel a policy is, and becomes nearly impossible for

53
totally new alternatives. The contradiction is that the more complete the set of alternatives, the less
complete and reliable the set of predictions must be, and vice versa. Therefore, this contradiction
makes pure rationality policymaking impossible in all but very simple situations where there are
very few possible alternatives and prediction is easy.

Predictions of the real benefits and costs of the alternative policies must be stated in terms of the
effects the various policies will have on the systems in which we are interested. Thus, when two
alternatives are designed, for example for a given military weapon, the correct question is not what
the benefits and costs of the different designs are by themselves. The more correct question rather is
what the different effects of the two designs for that particular weapon on the total defense capacity
will be.
Phase-5: Calculating the net expectation for each alternative by multiplying the probability of each
benefit and cost for each alternative by the utility of each, and calculating the net benefit
(or cost) in utility units.

If the other phases of pure rationality policymaking are fully developed, which implies that they
have been quantified in commensurable terms, then calculating the net expectations of the
alternatives in comparable units presents no difficulty. If the contrary has happened, then carrying
out phases-5 and 6 poses difficult problems because different kinds of benefits and costs cannot be
compared. Furthermore, the selfsame (identical) policy will have different effects, and different
benefits and costs in different systems. Thus, applying the pure rationality model to public
policymaking is not only infeasible but also theoretically impossible, because the pure rationality
model presupposes a unified system in terms of which a policy's benefits and costs can be defined at
least qualitatively (Dror, 1973:140).

Phase-6: Comparing the net expectations and identifying the alternative with the highest net
expectation.

The tasks involved in this phase are quite simple in so far as the preceding phases are well
developed, because here we are only required to compare the net expectations that were worked out
in the previous phases and on the basis of that to identify or choose the best alternative of a given

54
public policy. On the contrary, the problem with pure rationality model will be still apparent in this
phase, if tasks in the previous phases were not properly and accurately developed (as they often
certainly would be). In other words, we cannot precisely compare what is not exhaustively and
correctly measured on unit variables and we cannot easily identify the best alternative with the
highest net expectation without knowing what others have or are.

Simon dropped the notion of optimal rational choice altogether and opted for bounded rationality
and a satisfying model of decision making. In other words, he believed in that people accept what is
good enough or satisfying to them and don't search for all possible alternatives so as to select the
optimal rational alternative. Decision making process could be broken down into intelligence
(searching the environment for conditions necessary for decision); design (inventing, developing,
and analyzing possible courses of action); and choice (selecting a course of action).

Charles Lindblom (1959), as quoted in Sapru (2004) and Dye (1995), has noted the differences
between the ways policymaking has been described in theory (the rational comprehensive approach)
and the way it is actually made (incremental steps). But rational decision making is difficult in
practice since there are a variety of factors that complicate the task of the policymaker.

Generally, the assumptions and arguments of the rational model has been criticized as being
impracticable for a number of reasons:
(i) It is practically impossible to collect all information and make a complete list of policy
options,
(ii) The process involved in this approach is time consuming and expensive,
(iii) The assumptions that values can be ranked and classified is erroneous, since there are
always differences among the legislatures, administrators and the public on the values that a
nation should pursue,
(iv) The assumptions to consider everything before a new policy is decided is impossible since
the consequences of adopting a new policy is in most cases unknown

4.2.6 The Incrementalism Model (Policy as Variations on the Past)

55
Although the rational comprehensive approach is theoretically good, what actually occurs in
administrative decisions is quite different; i.e. the "successive limited comparison" technique or
incremental step. Firstly, administrators operating under limited resources take up on a priority bases
program of immediate relevance. Secondly, they do not outline a wide range of possibilities in
selecting appropriate policies, but only a few "incremental" steps that appear to them feasible on the
basis of their experiences.

Charles E Lindblom (1959) popularized the instrumentalist theory in his early contribution known as
“the science of muddling through”. The Incrementalism Model views public policy as a continuation
of past government activities with only incremental modifications. According to Lindblomet al
(1993), decision makersdo not annually review the whole range of existing and proposed policies,
identify the societal goals, research the benefits and costs of alternative policies, etc. On the
contrary, constraints of time, information, cost, and politics prevent policymakers from identifying
the full range of policy alternatives and their consequences.
Figure-4.4: Budgetary Provisions
Policy increments

Past
Policy
Commitments

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Incrementalism is conservative in that the existing programs, policies, and expenditures are
considered as a base, and attention is concentrated on new programs and policies. The incremental

56
model recognizes the impartial nature of “rational-comprehensive” policymaking. Incremental
theory is conservative in that existing programs, policies and expenditures are considered as a base,
and attention is concentrated on new programs and policies and increases, decreases or
modifications of current programs. For examples, government budgetary provision for 2003 might
be viewed incrementally as shown in figure 4.4. Policymakers generally accept the legitimacy of the
established programs and tacitly agreed to continue previsions policies. Governments (policymaker)
do this for many reasons, such as:

First, they do not have the time, money or information to investigate all the alternatives to existing
policy. The cost of collecting all this information is too high.
Second, they accept the legitimacy of previous policies because of the uncertainty about the
consequence of completely new or different policies.
Third, There may be heavy investments in the existing programs (Sacks costs), which do not allow
any radical changes.
Fourth, Incrementalism is politically expedient. Political tension (Conflicts in major policy shifts;
“all-or-nothing” “yes-or-no” policy decisions) involved in getting new programs or policies
passed every year would be very great, past policies are continued into the future.

Two advantages of incrementalism are identified, namely:

(1) Decision-makers could proceed through a succession of small incremental changes, thereby
have the advantage of avoiding serious alterations in case of mistakes in decisionmaking,
(2) This method is truly reflective of the policymaking process by means of consensus and
gradualism and contemplates possible changes in public policies,

Though it is widely accepted that incrementalism describes the reality of the policymaking process,
it has its own disadvantages or weaknesses, among which:
(1) It can result in important policy options being overlooked,
(2) It discourages social innovation and is partisan in approach, which in reality means the
interests of the most powerful get maximum attention by policy-makers,
(3) It cannot be applied to fundamental decisions such as declaration of war, hence cannot be
considered as an approach without flaws or mistakes,

57
 4.2.7 The Game Theory Model (Policy as a Rational Choice in Competitive Situations)

A conflict situation is called a “game”. The game theory is the study of rational decisions in
situations in which two or more “players”/participants have choices to make and the outcome
depends on the choices made by each. The idea of a “game” is that decisionmakers are involved in
choices that are interdependent. The theory is put into application on policymaking situations where
there is no independently best choice, which one can make and where the best choice depends on
what others do. In the conflict situations all participants try to maximize their gains and minimize
their losses.

Perhaps, the connotation of a “game” is unfortunate, suggesting that the game theory is not really
appropriate for serious conflict situations. But, just the opposite is true; the game theory can be
applied to decisions about war and peace, international diplomacy, coalitions in parliament to United
Nations, the use of number weapons and other political situations. A key concept in game theory is
strategy; the games considered are games of strategy. The rules of the game describe the choices,
which are available to all the players. The game theorists employ the term “minimax” to refer to the
rational strategy that either minimize the maximum loss or maximize the minimum gain for a player
regardless of the opponent does (Dye, 1995:34).

The game theory is an abstract and deductive model of policymaking. It does not describe how
people actually make decisions but rather how would go about making decisions in competitive
situations. The game theory is a form of rationalism. The game theory is more an analytical tool than
practical guide to policymaking by government officials. The conditions of game theory are seldom
approximated in real life. Yet game theory provides an interesting way of thinking clearly about
policy choices in conflict situations. Perhaps the real utility of policy analysis at the present time is
in suggesting interesting questions and providing a vocabulary to deal with policymaking in conflict
situations.

58
4.2.8 The Public Choice Theory Model (Policy as a Collective Decision making by Self-interested
Individuals)

The public choice approach which gained increasing popularity in the 1970s and 1980s has its base
in the rational choice. It is oriented towards understanding the realm of public choice, that is, politics
and bureaucracy (Sapru, 2004:82). D. Mueller (1979:1) provided a very concise definition to the
public choice approach as, “…the economics of non-market decision making, or simply the
application of economics to political science”. The public choice model is the economic study of
non-market decision making, especially the application of economic analysis to public
policymaking. This theory assumes that all political actors-voters, taxpayers, candidates, legislator,
bureaucrats, interest groups, etc.-seek to maximize their personal benefits in politics as well as in the
marketplace. In short, people pursue their self-interest in both politics and the marketplace, but even
with selfish motives they can mutually benefit through collective decision making.
The public choice theory recognizes that government must perform certain functions that the
marketplace is unable to handle. It must remedy certain “market failures”. First, the government
must provide public goods and services that the market cannot supply because their costs exceed
their value to any single buyer. Second, externalities are other recognized market failure and
justification for government intervention. The most common examples of externalities are air and
water pollutions; where discharges of air and water pollutants impose costs on others.

Public choice theory helps to explain why political parties and candidates generally fail to offer clear
policy alternatives in election campaigns. Parties and candidates are not interested in advancing
principles but rather in winning elections. In other words, they formulate their policy positions to
win elections; they do not win election to formulate policy. Thus, each party and candidate seeks
policy positions that will attract the greatest number of voters (Dye, 1995:36). The public choice
model also contributes to our understanding the behavior of interest groups and their effects on
public policy.

4.2.9 Systems Theory Model (Policy as a Systems Output)

59
Another way to conceive public policy is to think of it as a response of a political system to forces
brought on it from the environment. Forces generated in the environment that affect the political
system are viewed as input. The environment is any condition or circumstance defined as external to
the boundaries of the political system. The political system, in turn is that group of interested
structures andprocesses that functions authoritatively to allocate values for a society. Outputs of a
political system are authoritative value allocations of the system, and these allocations constitute
what is known as “public policy”. The systems theory portrays public policy as an output of the
political system. The conceptualization of political activity and public policy can be diagrammed as
shown in figure 4.5 that follows.
Figure-4.5: Systems Theory (Policy as a Systems Output)

Environment
E
EN O
V I N
THE
Demands U
I N V
POLITICAL
T
R P R
SYSTEM
Support P
O U O
N U
T N
M
EN M
T

The concept of “system” implies an identifiable set of institutions and activities in society that
functions to transform demands into authoritative decisions requiring the support of the whole
society (Basu, 1994). The concept of system also implies that elements of the system are
interrelated, that the system can respond to forces in its environment, and that it will do so to
preserve itself. Inputs are received into the political system in the form of both demands and
support.

In sum, we can briefly describe key concepts employed in qualifying the systems model in the
following manner:

60
  The Political system comprises of those identifiable and interrelated institutions and
activities (i.e. governmental institutions and political processes) that make authoritative
allocation of values (decisions) that are binding on society.
 The environmentconsists of all those phenomena (economic system, social system,
biological setting) that are external to boundaries of the political system.
 Inputsconsist of demands ands supports.
 Demandsare in turn claims of action made by individuals and groups to satisfy their
interests.
 Support is rendered by them through accepting election results, payment of taxes,
obeying laws, accepting government decisions.
 Outputs include laws, rules, and judicial decisions.
 Feedback means policy output may produce new demands, which lead to further outputs
and so on in a never-ending flow of public policy. The systems theory draws heavily on
David Easton’s “The Political Systems.” The political system is called the “Black Box.”

4.3. Actors in Public Policy Making

Policymaking involves a large number of persons and institutions and authorities: chiefs, executives,
legislators, judges, administrators, councilors, monarchs, political parties, interest groups, experts
and professionals. In this section, therefore, an attempt is made to explain how groups and
organizations bring influences to bear on those who are vested with the power of taking and
enforcing decisions. Such decision makers comprise of those who occupy formal offices within the
constitutional system of rules. As Sapru noted, politics and policymaking are activities in which
people with different sets of values compete for those positions within the political system which
assign their occupants the right to take decisions or impose decisions on others. There are activities
as well in which non-official groups seek to influence the decision taken by occupants of formal
offices.

This dimension examines the influence of those who are away from the centers of policymaking but
who, in a particular situation, may perform one or more of the specialized roles which constitute
influential behavior. Hence the policymakers can be simply categorized as official, who are directly
involved in making decisions, and unofficial, who make significant influence on the content and

61
nature of policy through indirect ways. We shall first identify who the official policymakers are and
elaborating how they are involved in policymaking. Official policy-makers are those who are legally
empowered to formulate public policy. These include legislatures, executives, administrators, and
judges (Johnson, 1992; Sapru, 2004).

4.3.1 Official Actors

Official policy makers are those who are legally empowered to formulate public policy. These
include legislators, executives, administrators and judges.

Legislature: The legislature formally performs the task of law making in a political [Link]
policy laid down by the legislature finds expression through the laws made or resolutions passed by
it. In the course of approving legislation the Parliament performs other important functions like
deliberating, scrutinizing, criticizing and publicizing government policies and their consequences for
the public on the floor of the house. Usually it lays down the broad objects which administration is
to pursue and in more important cases also the machinery and the procedure through which they are
to be pursued.

In recent times the legislature has lost the initiative in policy-making to the executive. The power of
the legislature to formulate policy is real, based as it is, in the constitution but has lost out to the
executive in recent times as far as initiative in the matter of policy-decisions is concerned. It is the
cabinet or the party in power, which completely dominates the legislature in modern states.
Therefore, power is not vested in the legislature as such, but in party or groups, which at a particular
time dominate its proceedings and thereby succeed in taking policy-decisions.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the legislature has an independent decisionmaking power or
actually frames the official policy since political parties, pressure groups, and so forth can influence
it. But it can safely be concluded that the legislature is more important in policy formulation in
democratic than in dictatorial systems, and within the democratic systems, it tends to have greater
independency in policy formulation in presidential systems (USA) than in the parliamentary
(British) systems.

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Executive: In what has been called an “executive-centered era”, modern governments everywhere
depend vitally upon executive leadership both in policy formulation and execution. In a
Parliamentary form of government all policies must have the approval of the cabinet and the
ministers of the government introduce the ministers in Parliament.

In the presidential system, as in the USA, the initiative of and control over policy-making rests with
the president. He is not only the chief executive but also the chief legislature and the chief policy-
maker. This does not mean that the Congress acts on the Presidents’ commands or merely approves
his proposals. The presidential proposals are very often selected or considerably modified before
enactment.

In developing countries, the executive probably has even more influence in policy making than in
developed countries. Developing countries lack a strong bureaucratic base, and the executive plays a
larger role in policy formulation because of greater concentration of power in governmental hands
coupled with less responsiveness to policies and the legislature. In such countries, pressure groups
have little influence or impact over policy making due to their lack of sophistication or coordination.
Executive decision-making however, does not take place in a vacuum, but is expected to act in
conformity with the constitution, statutes and court decisions.

Administrative Agencies: According to the politics-administration dichotomy school of thought,

policy-making is a function of the legislature, and its execution, of administration. Although it has
been an accepted doctrine in political science that administrators were merely implementers of
policies determined by other organs of the government, such distinctions are now found to be
fallacious as politics and administration are blended, and as administrators are also involved in the
policy formulation process in more ways than one modern world. In complex industrial societies,
the technicality and complexity of many policy matters and the need for continuing control and lack
of time and information among others, have led to the delegation of much discretionary authority to
administrative agencies formally recognized as “the rule making power.” Public officials today are
associated with policy formulation in three important ways:

63
 (a) They have to supply facts, data and criticism about the workability of the policy to the
legislature if the initiative for policymaking comes from them. In addition, since members of
the parliament might have lack of administrative acumen (intelligence) or experience on
technical or purely professional matters, they have to give due recognitions and rely on the
suggestions of the officials,
(b) Since the administrations are supposed have constant contact with the general public and
thereby to be in a better position to understand the difficulties that arise in the
implementation of policies, the initiative for policy legislation or amendments originates
very often from the administration.
(c) On account of lack of time and knowledge, the legislature passes skeleton acts and leaves the
details to the administration.
The Courts: In countries where the courts have the power of judicial review, they have played an
important-role in policy formation. Judicial review is the power of courts to determine the
constitutionality of actions of the legislature and the executive branches and to declare them null and
void if such actions are found to be in conflict with the constitutional provisions. While exercising
this power, the Supreme Court of the U.S. has sometimes acted as a third chamber of the Congress.
It has played a major role in the formation of economic policy.
4.3.2 Unofficial Actors
Besides the official policy-makers, many others may participate in the policymaking process, like
interest groups, political parties and individual citizens. They may considerably influence policy
formation without possessing legal authority to make binding policy decisions.

Political Parties: In modern societies, political parties generally perform the function of “interest
aggregation”, i.e. they seek to convert the particular demands of interest groups into general policy
alternatives. Every political party has its own programmes or policies. These programmes, policies
or values are presented to the people in the form of manifestos (before the elections) in order to gain
their support. The professional purpose of the manifesto is that it lends a promise, that in case that
party comes to power, it will implement the policies promised therein.

In parliamentary states, the political party, which has a majority of votes in parliament, forms the
government, which is the chief official policymaker. Needless to say \, most of the governments

64
make policies according to the policy manifestos on which they have been elected to office. In
presidential systems like the United States, the fact that members of Legislatures often vote in
accordance with their party policy, which party controls the Congress has significant policy
implications.

Pressure Groups: Pressure groups are also called interest groups. They are organizations with
formal structures whose members share some common interests. They strive to influence the
policies of the government without attempting to occupy political offices. The main function of
these groups is to express demands and present alternatives for policy action. They constantly try to
protect the interests of their members either by pressurizing the government or the bureaucracy to
take decisions, which are likely to be in consonance with the interests of their members. They
employ various methods such as publicity campaigns, lobbying, personal meetings with the officials
or legislatures, writing letters or memoranda etc. for this purpose. The primary concern of these
groups is to influence a policy and give it to desired direction and content in a given matter.

Often there are several groups with conflicting desires on a particular policy issue, and policymakers
are faced with the problem of having to choose between conflicting demands. The strength and
legitimacy of groups differs from country to country depending up on whether they are democratic
or dictatorial, developed and developing. Well-organized and active groups naturally have more
influence than groups whose potential membership is poorly organized and inarticulate. Influence
also depends on other factors like numerical strength, monetary and other resources cohesiveness,
leadership skills, social status and attitudes of the policymakers on specific policy issues.

The Individual Citizen

In the present age, it is not possible for a government to impose policies on citizens perennially, if
such policies don’t reflect their will. Public policies have to be consistent with the interests of the
citizens. A democratic government cannot adopt policies to which a large body of citizens is
opposed. Thus, the citizens exercise indirect influence on policy-making.

65
The exercise of the right to vote enables the citizens to make a choice of public policies. Elections
are opportunities for the citizens to select between alternative policies thrown up by the political
parties. However, the direct role of an individual citizen in policy-making is insignificant.

66
Chapter Five
5. The Process of Policy Analysis and Policy Inquiry
5.1 Meaning and Scope of policy Analysis

Policy analysis is an area that covers wide disciplines (multidisciplinary) to problems faced
by political scientists, economists, sociologists, planners and public managers in several
policy arenas. The dynamics between dependent variable (ends) and independent variables
(means) forces us to choose among competing values like; health, wealth, security, peace,
justice, equality, freedom, shelter, etc. “The end justifies the means” is what policy analysts
use to formulate the right policy. To choose or prioritize one value over another is not merely
a technical judgment; it is also a j`udgment requiring moral reasoning. Therefore, policy
analysis is also a form of applied ethics.

William N. Dunn (1994:61) defines policy analysis as, “any type of analysis that generates
and presents information in such a way as to improve the basis for policymakers to exercise
their jurisdiction… It implies the u
se of intuition and judgment, and encompasses not only the examination of policy by
decomposition into its components, but also the design and synthesis of new alternatives”.
The broad conception of policy analysis accentuates the practical character of analysis as a
response to recurrent problems and crises facing governments, while the narrow conception
of the subject offers more concretized definition of policy analysis and its characteristics as
an applied social science discipline.

Policy analysis is the activity of creating knowledge of-and-in the policymaking process. In
creating knowledge of policymaking process, policy analysts investigate the causes,
consequences, and performances of public policies and programs. Such knowledge remains
incomplete, however, unless it is made available to policymakers and the public it is
obligated to serve. Only when “knowledge of”' is linked to “knowledge in” can members of
the executive, legislative, and judicial bodies along with citizens who have a stake in public
decisions, use the results of policy analysis to improve the policymaking process and its
performances. Because the effectiveness of policymaking depends on access to stock of
67
available knowledge, the communication and use of policy analysis are central to the practice
and theory of public policymaking (Dunn, 1994:1).

Policy analysis, sometimes known as “policy science”, in addition to creating knowledge, has
various purposes.

 Policy Analysis should serve the public (not merely officials) by contributing to the
process of argumentation, debate and communication.
 Policy Analysis should help to bridge the gap between what scholarly works say
about policy analysis and what practitioners of policy analysis actually do.
 Policy Analysis should seek also to improve the efficiency of choices among
alternative policies.

Policy analysis is not confined to the development and testing of general descriptive theories,
for example, political and sociological theories of policymaking elites or economic theories
of the determinants of public expenditures. Policy analysis goes beyond the traditional
disciplinary concerns of the explanation of empirical regularities by seeking not only to
combine and transform the substance and methods of several disciplines, but also to produce
policy relevant information that may be utilized to resolve problems in specific political
settings. Moreover, the aims of policy analysis extend beyond the production of “facts”;
policy analysts seek also to produce information about values and preferable courses of
actions. Therefore, policy analysis includes policy evaluation as well as policy
recommendation.

Policy analysis draws its tools from a variety of disciplines and professions whose aims are
descriptive, evaluative, and prescriptive. As an applied discipline, policy analysis borrows not
only from the social and behavioral sciences, but also from public administration, law,
philosophy, ethics, etc. The policy analyst may therefore be expected to produce information
and plausible arguments about three kinds of questions: (a) Values, whose attainment is the
main test of whether the problem has been resolved, (b) facts, whose presence may limit or
enhance the attainment of values, and (c) actions, whose adoption may result in the
attainment of values. In producing information and plausible arguments about these three

68
types of questions, the policy analyst may employ one or more of the three approaches
presented in Table-8.1 to analysis: empirical, valuative, and normative.

Table-5.1 Approaches to policy analysis

Approach Primary Question Type of Information

Empirical Dose it and will it exist? (about facts) Descriptive and predictive
Valuative Of what worth is it? (about values) Valuative
Normative What should be done? (about action) Prescriptive

Empirical approach: is primarily concerned with describing the causes and effects of a given
public policy and the primary question is factual while the type of information produced is
descriptive in character.

Valuative approach: is mainly concerned with determining the worth or value of some policy
and the question is of what worth is the policy made.

Normative approach: is concerned with recommending future courses of action that may
resolve public problems, and the question is about what action to be taken or what should be
done.

Policy analysis should be problem-centered; should aim at identifying and clarifying the
nature of problems. Policy analysis should aim to address and answer problems by carrying
out different activities. We can illustrate our discussion by using an informative diagram that
comprises a chain of activities and situations as indicated in Figure 8.1 below.

69
Figure-5.1: Problem Centered Policy Analysis

POLICY

PERFORMANCE

EVALUATION FORCASTING
Problem

Structuring
Structuring
Problem

Structuring
Problem
POLICY OUT POLICY PROBLEM
POLICY
COMES
FUTURE

Problem Structuring RECOMMENDATION

MONITORING

POLICY

ACTION

The major components of problem-centered policy analysis and the emphasis of each
component are the following:

Problem Structuring can supply policy relevant knowledge that challenges agenda setting.
Problem Structuring can assist in discovering hidden assumption, diagnosing causes,
mapping possible objectives, synthesizing conflicting views and designing new policy
options.

70
Forecasting can provide policy relevant knowledge about future states of affairs which are
likely to occur as a consequence of adopting alternative including doing nothing at the place
of policy formulation. It can also examine possible, potential and normatively valued futures,
estimate the consequences of existing and proposed policies, specify probable future
constraints on the achievement of objectives, and estimate the political feasibility (support
or/and opposition) of different options.

Recommendation discerns policy relevant knowledge about the benefits and costs of
alternatives. It helps estimate levels of risk and uncertainty; identify externalities,
responsibilities, and spillover effects; specify criteria for making choices and assign
administrative responsibilities for implementation. Policy analysis is the beginning not the
end of efforts to improve the policymaking process and its outcomes. This is why policy
analysis has been defined as the communication, as well as the creation and critical
assessment of policy-relevant knowledge. There is often a large gap between the conduct of
policy analysis and its utilization in the policymaking process.

The communication of policy relevant knowledge may be viewed as a four-stage process

involving policy analysis, materials development, interactive communication and knowledge
utilization. Policy analysis is initiated by stakeholders; analysts develop policy-relevant
documents where such documents serve as a basis for multiple stage of intense come.

Policy problem is an unrealized value that may be attained through public action when
properly and scientifically identified.

Policy future is a consequence of a course of action that may contribute to the attainment of
values and the possible resolution of a policy problem.

Policy action is a move or series of moves guided by a policy alternative that is designed to
achieve valued future outcomes.

Policy outcome is an observed consequence of policy action.

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Policy performance is the degree to which a given policy outcome contributes to the
attainment of values.

Monitoring provides policy relevant knowledge about the consequences of preliminarily

adopted policies. Monitoring helps to assess degrees of compliance, discover unintended
consequences of policies and programs, identify implementation obstacles and constraints,
and locate sources of responsibilities for departures from policies.

Evaluation provides policy-relevant knowledge about discrepancies between expected and

actual policy performance. Evaluation contributes to the clarification and critique of values
driving a policy, aid in the adjustment or reformulation of policies, and establishes a basis for
restructuring problem.

Policy analysis has been defined as the communication as well as the creation and critical
assessment of policy relevant knowledge. Policy analysis in the policymaking process
focuses on an overview of the methodology of policy analysis and its role.

It is important to distinguish policy analysis form policy advocacy. According to William N.

Dunn (1994:84), policy analysis is an applied social science discipline that uses multiple
methods of inquiry in contexts of argumentation and public debate, to create, critically assess,
and communicate policy relevant knowledge. Policy advocacy, on the other hand, is the use
of policy relevant information to make plausible knowledge claims based on reasoned
arguments about possible solutions for problems. Policy advocacy is a way to make
normative statements, not to issue prescriptions, commands, or orders of various kinds.

Explaining the causes and consequences of various policies is not equivalent to prescribing
what policies governments ought to pursue. Learning why governments do what they do and
what the consequences of their actions are is not the same as saying what governments ought
to do or bring about changes in what they do. Policy analysis encourages scholars and
students to attack critical policy issues with the tools of systematic inquiry. There is an
applied assumption in policy analysis developing scientific knowledge about the forces
shaping public policy and the consequences of public policy is itself a socially relevant
activity and that such analysis is a prerequisite to prescription, advocacy and activism.
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Specifically, public policy analysis involves:
(1) A primary concern with explanation rather than prescription: policy recommendations -
if they are made at all - are subordinate to description and explanation. There is an
implicit judgment that understanding is a prerequisite to prescription and that
understanding is best achieved through careful analysis rather than rhetoric or polemics.
(2) A rigorous search for the causes and consequences of public policies: this search
involves the use of scientific standards of inference or assumption. Sophisticated
quantitative techniques may be helpful in establishing valid conclusions about the
causes and consequences, but they are not really essential.
(3) An effort to develop and test general propositions about the causes and consequences of
public policy and to accumulate reliable research findings of general relevance: the
object is to develop general theories about public policy that are reliable and that apply
to different government agencies and different policy areas. Policy analysts clearly
prefer to develop explanations that fit more than one policy decision or case study;
explanations that stand up over time in a variety of settings.

5.2 Forms of Policy Analysis

The relationship between policy-informational components and policy-analytic methods

provide the basis for distinguishing three major forms of policy analysis: Prospective,
Retrospective, and Integrated analysis.

(i) Prospective Policy Analysis: involves the production and transformation of information
before policy actions are initiated and implemented. It tends to characterize the operating
styles of economists, systems analysts and operation researchers. According to Dunn
(1994:75-76), policy analysis “is a means of synthesizing information to draw from it policy
alternatives and preferences stated in comparable, predicted quantitative and qualitative terms
as a basis or guide for policy decisions”. Conceptually, it doesn’t include the gathering of
information. Policy research, in contrast, refers to “all studies that use scientific
methodologies to describe phenomenon and/or determining relationships among them”.
Prospective analysis often creates large gaps between preferred solutions to problems and the

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efforts of governments to solve them. They have too many good analytic solutions to problem
but no appropriate action is taken. They bite more than they chew.

(ii) Retrospective Policy Analysis: is focused to the production and transformation of

information after policy actions have been taken. It has been most important in its impact on
intellectual priorities and understanding and not so effective in offering solutions to a
problem. Retrospective policy analysis typifies the operating styles of three groups of
analysts whose major emphasis is on the results of action:

a) Discipline-oriented analysts: this group largely comprises political scientists and

sociologists who seek to develop and test discipline-based theories and describe the causes
and consequences of policies. They do not attempt to identify specific goals and objectives to
policymakers and make no effort to distinguish “policy variables, which are subject to
policy manipulation, and the situational variables which are not”.

b) Problem-oriented analysts: this group also comprises political scientists and sociologists
who seek to describe the causes and consequences of policies that are general in nature,
which could be manipulated by policymakers. They are however less concerned with the
development and testing of theories.

c) Applications-oriented analysts: the third group of analysts includes persons from

professions such as social work and public administration. They seek to describe the causes
and consequences of public policies and programs but not concerned with the development
and testing of discipline-based theories. This group is concerned with policy variables and
identification of goals and objectives of policymakers and other stakeholders. Information
about the goods and objectives provide a basis for evaluating and monitoring specific policy
outcomes, which may be used by practitioners to structure policy problems, develop new
policy alternatives and recommended courses of action to resolve problems.

(iii) Integrated Policy Analysis: is more comprehensive and combines the operating styles of
practitioners concerned with the production and transformation of information both before
and after policy actions have been taken. It not only requires the integration of prospective
policy analysis and retrospective policy analysis, but also demands that analysts continuously
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produce and transform information over time. Integrated policy analysis is therefore
continuous, interactive, and unlimited. The analyst may initiate the production and
transformation of information at any point in the analytic cycle either before or after action,
and the relation between any two “phases” of policy analysis. Integrated policy analysis has
all methodological advantages of prospective policy analysis and retrospective policy
analysis, but none of their weaknesses. Integrated policy analysis is multidisciplinary in the
full sense of the word.

5.3 Policy Argumentation

Policy analysis does not stop with the use of multiple methods to produce and transform
information. Although information production and transformation are essential to policy
analysis, equally important are the creation and critical assessment of knowledge claims
based on the information. Knowledge claims, advanced as the conclusion of policy
argumentation, reflect the reason why different stakeholders disagree about alternative
policies. There are three types of knowledge claims:
1. Dissipative corresponding with empirical approach
2. Evaluative corresponding with valuative approach
3. Advocative corresponding with normative approach

The understanding of the processes of policy communication, argumentation, and debate is

facilitated by employing a structural model of argument. Policy arguments, which are the
main vehicle for conducting debates about public policy issues, contain six elements.

(i) Policy-relevant information: produced by multiple methods constitutes the evidence at an

analyst’s disposal. Information about policy problems, policy futures, policy actions,
policy outcomes, and policy performances may be provided in various forms. For
example, the outcomes of government energy policy might be expressed in the form of
statistical generalization. However expressed, policy relevant information is the point of
departure in all policy arguments.
(ii) Policy claim: is the conclusion of policy argument. Policy claims are typically the subject
of disagreement or conflict among different segments of the community. Policy claim are
the logical consequence of policy relevant information.

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(iii) Warrant: is an assumption in policy argument that permits the analyst to move from
policy relevant information to policy claim. It may contain assumptions of several kinds:
authoritative, intuitive, analycentric, casual, pragmatic, and value critical. The role of the
warrant is to carry policy relevant information to a policy claim about which there is
disagreement or conflict, thus providing a reason for accepting a claim.
(iv)Backing: the backing for a warrant consists of additional assumptions or arguments
that may be used to support warrants which are not accepted at face value. The backing
for warrant may also take various forms including scientific laws, appeals to the authority
of experts, and ethical or moral principles. It allows the analyst to go one step further
backward and state underlying assumptions.
(v)Rebuttal: is a second conclusion, assumption, or argument that states the condition
under which an original claim is unacceptable, or may be accepted only with
qualifications. Taken together, policy claims and rebuttals form the substance of policy
issues (disagreements) among different segments of the community about alternative
courses of government actions. The consideration of rebuttal helps the analyst to
anticipate objections and serves as a systematic means for criticizing one’s own claims,
assumptions, and arguments.
(vi)Qualifier: expresses the degree to which the analyst is certain about a policy claim. In
policy analysis, qualifiers are often expressed in the language of probability. When the
analyst is completely certain about a claim; i.e. when conclusions are wholly
deterministic in nature and contain no error, no qualifier is necessary.

There are different modes of policy argument, which are vehicles for transforming policy
relevant information into policy claims. There are at least eight different ways of
transforming information into policy claims: Authoritative, Statistical, Classificational,
Intuitive, analycentric, explanatory, pragmatic, and value critical.

(i) Authoritative Model Policy Analysis: – are based on arguments from authority.
Information is carried to claim on the basis of assumptions about the achieved or ascribed
statuses of policy relevant information producers.

(ii) Statistical Mode: are based on arguments from samples. Information is carried to claim on
the basis of the assumption that what is true of members of a sample will also be true of
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 members of the population not included in the sample (unobserved/unobservable of the
population. Non-probability samples may also be assumed to be representative.

(iii) Classificational Mode: are based on arguments from membership on the basis of the
assumption that what is true of the class of persons or groups included in the information
is also true of individuals or groups which are (or are believed to be) members of the class
described in the warrant. For example, a person may have a given attribute since the
person is a member of the class of persons the majority of which are assumed to have that
attribute.

(iv) Intuitive Mode: claims are based on arguments from insight. Information is carried to
claim on the basis of the assumptions about the inner mental states of producers of policy
relevant information. For example, the insight, judgment, or “tacit knowledge” of
policymakers might serve as an argument to accept a particular recommendation.
(v) Analycentric Mode: Policy claims are based on arguments from method. Information is
carried to claim on the basis of the assumptions about the validity of methods or rules
employed by analysts. For example, one can argue that the analyst used “universal
selection rules” derived from mathematics, system analyst or economist.
(vi) Explanatory Mode: claims are based on arguments from cause. Information is carried to
claim on the basis of assumptions about the presence of certain generative powers
("causes") and their results ("effects"). For example, a policy claim might be established
on the basis of general proposition or “laws” contained within theories about
organizational behaviour or political decisionmaking.
(vi) Pragmatic Mode: are based on arguments from motivation, parallel case, or analogy.
Information is carried to claim on the basis of assumptions about the motivating power of
goals, values and intentions; assumptions about the similarities among relationships found
in two or more policy settings; or assumptions about the similarities among two or more
cases of policymaking. For example, a policy claim that the government should strictly
enforce pollution standards might be based on arguments that citizens are motivated by
the desire to achieve the goal of a clean environment, or on the basis of arguments that
parallel or analogues policies have been successfully implemented in other settings.
(vii) Value Critical mode: claims are based on arguments from ethics. Information is carried
to claim on the basis of assumptions about the rightness or wrongness, goodness or
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 badness of policies and their consequences. For example, a policy claim might be
established on the basis of moral principle (equality) or ethical norms (right to privacy),
which are deemed to be valid irrespective of the motivations of particular groups.

5.4 The Processes and Strategies of Policy Communication

5.4.1 The Processes of Policy Communication

Policy analysis is the beginning, not the end, of efforts to improve the policymaking process
and its outcomes. This is why policy analysis has been defined as the communication as well
as the creation and critical assessment of policy relevant knowledge. The communication of
policy relevant knowledge may be viewed as a four-stage process involving (i) policy
analysis, (ii) materials development, (iii) interactive communication, and (iv) knowledge
utilization. As figure 8.2 shows, policy analysis is initiated on the basis of request for
information or advice from stakeholders situated at various stages of the policymaking
process. In responding to this request, policy analysts create and critically assess knowledge,
which is relevant to policy problems, policy futures, policy actions, policy outcomes, and
policy performances.

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Figure-5.2: The Process of Policy communication
Knowledge on
Policy

Policy Analysis Materials

Problems Development

Future

Actions

Outcomes

Stakeholders Performance Documents

Agenda Setting Policy
Memoranda
Policy Formulation
POLICY Policy Issue Paper
Policy Adoption
ANALYST Executive
Summaries

Knowledge Utilization

Interactive
Communication

Presentation
Conversations

Conferences

Meetings
To communicate such knowledge, however, analysts also develop multiple policy relevant
documents; i.e. policy memoranda, policy issue papers, executive summaries appendices and
news releases. These documents in turn serve as a basis for multiple strategies of interactive
communication in conversations, conferences, meetings, briefings, formal hearings, and other
kinds of oral presentations. The purpose of developing policy relevant documents and making
oral presentation is to enhance prospects for the utilization of knowledge and open-ended
debate among stakeholders situated at the several phases of the policymaking process.

Solid line in figure 12indicates Policy Analysis – directly affect the plausibility of
conclusions and recommendations as well as the form, content, and appropriateness of policy

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relevant documents and presentations. The Broken line on the other hand indicates the
influence of analysts on the process of knowledge utilization is limited and indirect.

(i) Policy-Relevant Documents: are documents conveying usable knowledge and skills in
synthesizing, organizing, translating, simplifying, displaying and summarizing information.
In other words, Policy- relevant Document development requires knowledge and skills in:

(a) Synthesis: is going over previously published (documents) reports, papers newspapers,
journals articles, notes, and summarizing interviews with key informants or stakeholders,
copies of existing legislations, tables of statistical series. The information must be
synthesized into documents such a policy memoranda, policy issue papers (executive
summaries), or materials appropriate for the media (news releases).

(b) Organization: Analysts must be able to organize information in a coherent, logically

consistent and economic manner. Although policy documents vary in style, content and
length, they typically have common elements like, overview or summary, background of
previous efforts to solve the problem, diagnosis of scope, severity and causes of the
problem, identification and evaluation of alternatives solutions to the problem,
recommendations for actions, tables, graphs, and technical appendices.

(c) Translation: The specialized terminology and procedures of policy analysis must be
translated into the languages of policy stakeholders. In many cases, this requires the
conversion of abstract theoretical concepts and complex analytical and statistical routines
into ordinary language and arguments employed by non-experts.

(d) Simplification: The combinations and permutation of policy alternatives, criteria, and
likely outcomes can be too cumbersome. In such cases alternatives may be simplified by
reducing the larger set to a smaller set of major or strategic options displayed in the form
of matrix.

(e) Visual displays: Quantitative information, which is an essential tool for policy analysis,
could be displayed in forms of bar charts, histograms, pie charts, line, graphs, and socio-
demographic maps for proper communication. The availability of advanced, user-friendly
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 computer graphics has dramatically increased the capacity for effective visual
communication.

(f) Summaries: Busy policymakers have limited time to read policy proposals at there full
length. Therefore, they prefer to read an executive summary or condensed memorandum
than a full policy issue paper.

In general, the most comprehensive and detailed document that may be developed by the
analyst is the Policy issue paper, which addresses the following questions.

1. In what ways can the policy problem be formulated?

2. What is the scope and severity of the problem?
3. To what extent does it require public action?
4. If no action is taken, how is the problem likely to change in coming months or years?
5. Have other units of government addressed the problem, and if so what were the
consequences?
6. What goal and objectives should be pursued in solving the problem?
7. What major policy alternatives are available to achieve these goals/objectives?
8. What criteria should be employed to evaluate the performance of these alternatives?
9. What alternatives should be adopted and implemented?
10. What agency should have the responsibility for implementation?
11. How will the policy be monitored and evaluated?
12. What can we learn about public policy?

(ii) Policy Presentation: Procedures for developing policy relevant documents are different
from procedures for their communication. The common medium of communication is the
mailed document, an impersonal means of reaching clients and other policy stakeholders by
transmitting the original version of the documents. The major limitation of this medium is the
probability that the document will be shelved. Therefore, the probability of utilization of the
document by beneficiaries is enhanced when the substance of the policy document is
communicated through policy presentations. Policy presentations; i.e. conversations,
conferences, briefings, meetings and hearings, constitute an interactive mode of

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communication that is positively associated with the utilization of Policy Relevant
Knowledge.

(iii) Policy Relevant Knowledge: Is information that has been critically assessed and
transformed into plausibly true beliefs about the processes and outcomes of policy. Plausibly
true beliefs, in turn, are expressed as knowledge claims that are uncertain, contestable, and
where appropriate, supported by statistical probability. The use of policy relevant knowledge
is a complex process that steam from the intersection of three major dimensions of
knowledge utilization:
 Composition of users: policy analysis is used by individuals as well as collective
entities, and the process of knowledge utilization constitutes an aspect of individual and
collective decision making.
 Effects of use: the use of policy analysis has cognitive as well as behavioral effects.
Conceptual effects include the use of policy analysis to think about problems and
solutions, while behavioral effects involve the of policy analysis as a means or
instrument for carrying out observable policymaking activities.
 Scope of knowledge used: the scope of knowledge utilized by policymakers ranges
from the specific to general.

These three dimensions of knowledge use are interdependent, and the intersections among
these dimensions provide a basis for assessing and improving the practice of policy analysis
and its impact on the policymaking process.

5.4.2 Policy Communication Strategies

There is no codified body of rules for making oral presentations to communicate policy
relevant documents and transmit policy relevant knowledge to the effective utilization of
knowledge. Nevertheless, experiences show that a number of general guidelines are
important for effective policy communication. These guidelines offer multiple
communication strategies appropriate for the various contingencies encountered in complex
practice settings. In the presence of various and heterogeneous contingencies or interest
groups, multiple communication strategies are essential. There are no universal standards of
assessment for evaluating the plausibility, relevance, and usability of policy analysis.
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Therefore, effective policy communication is dependent on matching communication
strategies to characteristics of the audience for policy analysis. The following are principles
and generalizations to what communication strategies are likely to be effective.

1. Make sure that the presentation addresses the needs of key decision makers and
recognize audience diversity.
2. Avoid giving too much background information.
3. Focus on conclusions. Use simple graphics to convey data and discuss methods only if
necessary to support.
4. Pinpoint reasons for your lack of credibility, choosing a strategy to overcome the
problem, for example, arrange to be introduced by a credible associate or present as part
of a team.
5. Be sensitive to time constraints and the probability that the group is committed to a
course of action.
6. Position your supporters next to people with anticipated negative reactions.
7. Prioritize your points so that your present those that are most critical to the group’s
preferred decision analysis, and multimedia communication.
All these guidelines need not be observed in every policy analysis.

5.5 Principles and Generalizations on Policy Analysis

Until this stage, we have had an overview of issues that surround policy analysis in the
policymaking process. At this point, students or policy analysts must be able to discuss the
following principles and generalizations:

1. The communication and use of policy-relevant knowledge are central to the practice
and theory of policy analysis. Only when knowledge of the policymaking process is
communicated in that process, can policy stakeholders use knowledge to improve
public policies.
2. The methodology of policy analysis is a system of standards, rules, and procedures for
creating, critically assessing, and communicating policy-relevant knowledge. The
methodology of policy analysis has several important characteristics: a concern with

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 formulating as well as solving problems, a commitment to discipline as well as value
critical inquiry, and a desire to improve the efficiency of choice among alternative
policies.
3. Knowledge is defined as plausibly true belief rather than certainty. Statistical probability
plays a secondary and supportive role in establishing the plausibility of knowledge
claims.
4. Historical changes in the conduct of research on social problems, the dissatisfaction with
logical positivism as a theory of knowledge and responses to lessons learned from
research conducted on social programs have produced broad consensus on an
appropriate methodology.
5. The methodology of policy analysis has been transformed from a series of individual
social science disciplines into a multidisciplinary synthesis called Critical multiplism.
Critical multiplism is based on the principle of triangulation and several important
guidelines or rules: multiple operationalism, multi-method research, multiple analytic
synthesis, multivariate analysis, multiple stakeholder analysis, multiple perspective
analysis, and multimedia communication. All guidelines need not be observed in every
policy analysis.
6. Five types of information are produced by policy analysts, policy problems, policy
futures, policy actions, policy outcomes and policy performance. These five types of
information are obtained by means of time polyanalytic procedure, problem structuring,
forecasting, recommendation, monitoring and evaluation. These policy-analytic
procedures are related to particular methods and techniques helpful in producing
specific types of information. Information is the basis for knowledge claims that
become knowledge (plausibly true belief) when they withstand criticisms, challenges
and rebuttals offered in the course of policy debates.
7. Policy analysis is an intellectual activity carried out within a political process. This
process can be visualized as the policymaking process, which has five major phases:
agenda setting, policy formulation policy adoption, policy implementation and policy
assessment. Particular policy analytic procedures are appropriate for creating
information in particular phases of the policymaking process.
8. Policy analysis is the beginning, not the end, of efforts to improve the policymaking
process. Before intended beneficiaries can use policy relevant information, it must be
converted into policy relevant documents and communicated in presentation of different
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 kinds. The entire process of policy communication has four stages: Policy analysis,
materials development, interactive communication, and knowledge utilization. Skills
needed to develop policy documents and to give oral presentations from skills needed to
conduct policy analysis
9. The utilization of knowledge by policy stakeholders is a complex process involving
interdependencies among three dimensions: Composition of users, effects of use, and
scope of knowledge used. The intersection among these three dimensions provides a
basis for assessing and improving the role of policy analysis in the policymaking
process.
10. Policy analysis does not seek to replace politics by establishing some kind of
technocratic elite. This aim is not only undesirable in democracies, it is also unlikely to
occur in present-day institutions characterized by various forms of cognitive
impairment, disjointed decisions, tangled systems of interpretation, and organized
anarchy.
11. In promoting the utilization of policy-relevant knowledge, policy analysis seeks to
facilitate individual and collective learning, including improved policies, through
communicative interaction and public debate.

5.6 Reasons and Ethics in Policy Analysis

The systematic, reasoned and critical examination of values is an essential element of policy
analysis. The same policy relevant information may be interpreted in a markedly different
way, depending on assumptions contained in the frame of reference, theory, or ideology of
policy analysts and other policy stakeholders. Disagreements about values cannot be debated
rationally, and statements about values such as, equality, justice and freedom, cannot be
proved empirically, hence values are best considered as non-rational expressions of
individual desires or emotions. This is what is known as “value relativism” (Dunn,
1994:126). Most policy analysts recognize that values can be studied with methods of social
science, for example public opinion surveys may be used to describe the values of different
social groups. The most that policy analysts can do is to treat value as "data" which can be
subjected to analysis.

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Scientific instrumentalism says that methods of policy analysis are neutral instruments that
may be used by analysts who are disinterested and detached from policy problems. "Facts"
and "Values", according to scientific instrumentalism should be separated in analyzing policy
problems. The analyst should and must accept certain values as "given", since values cannot
be debated rationally. The role of policy analysis is defined in discovering the best means to
realize ends, which are given and beyond the realm of reasoned debate. In short policy
analysis is not value free, rather is value dependent. But, it may also be value critical, which
means that values as well as facts may be debated rationally.

5.7 The Methodology of Policy Inquiry

Methodology, as used here, is a system of standards, rules and procedures for creating,
critically assessing, and communicating policy-relevant knowledge. Methodology in this
sense is closely related to those intellectual and practical activities, that is, "the operations of
the human understanding in solving problems", also known as the "logic of inquiry". Problem
solving is a key element of the methodology of policy analysis. Equally important is that
policy analysis is a methodology for formulating problems as part of a search for solutions.
This has to do with asking "rightful" questions and redefining the problems so as to find
appropriate solutions. When it occurs, the dictum, "a problem well formulated is a problem
half solved" becomes relevant.

The methodology of policy analysis draws from and integrates elements of multiple
disciplines: political science, sociology, psychology, economics, and philosophy. Policy
analysis is partly descriptive, drawing on traditional disciplines (for example, political
science) that seek knowledge about causes and consequences of public policies. Yet, policy
analysis is also normative: an additional aim is the creation and critique of knowledge claims
about the value of public policies for past, present and future generations. This normative, or
value critical, aspect of policy analysis becomes evident once we recognize that policy-
relevant knowledge involves a dynamic between dependent variable (ends) and independent
variable (means), which are valuative in character.

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The choice of variables, therefore, amounts to choosing among competing values such as
health, wealth, security, peace, justice, equality, freedom and so on. To choose one value over
the other is not merely a technical judgment; it is also a judgment requiring moral reasoning.
For this reason, policy analysis represents a form of applied ethics. Finally, policy analysis
seeks to create knowledge that improves the efficiency of choices among alternative policies-
for example, alternative policies for providing affordable health care, redistributing income
among the poor, eliminating race and sex discrimination in employment, promoting
international economic competitiveness, or maintaining national military security (Dunn,
1994: 2-4).

The methodology of policy analysis aims at creating, critically assessing, and communicating
policy relevant knowledge. In this context, as Dunn (1994) noted, knowledge refers to
plausibly true beliefs, as distinguished from beliefs that are critically true, even true with a
particular statistical probability. The complexity of processes of policy formulation and
implementation virtually assure that the necessary and sufficient conditions for establishing
the certainty of knowledge claims are rarely satisfied.

Although there is no fully codified body of unequivocally reliable knowledge directing

analysts, the evolution of policy analysis over the past 70 years has produced partially
codified standards, rules, and procedures on which there is broad agreement among
practitioners. Moreover, a growing consensus on core methodological principles is evident in
historical changes in the practice of policy research and analysis. This methodological core,
as drawn from multiple disciplines, is applicable to a range of problems facing governments.
In deed policy analysis has come to represent a systematic methodology for problem solving
in the face of complexity, an aim that runs directly counter to misguided notions that
policymaking involves well-informed calculations by economically, politically, or
organizationally "rational" actors who seek, respectively to maximize economic unity,
political power or organizational effectiveness.

A key feature of research and analysis on social problems over the past several decades is the
growing recognition of complexity. This historical development has been accompanied by the
use of multiple perspectives, theories, and methods, along with the inclusion of multiple
policy stakeholders, in the process of creating, critically assessing, and communicating policy
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relevant knowledge. The methodological core of policy analysis today can be broadly
characterized as a form of critical multiplism. If analysts seek to improve policy relevant
knowledge, they should employ triangulation of multiple perspectives, methods, measures,
data sources, and communications media.

The methodological rules of critical multiplism in policy analysis represent general

guidelines for policy inquiry. The guidelines for creating, critically assessing, and
communicating policy relevant knowledge span several important areas of policy analysis:
 Multiple operationalism: the use of multiple measures of policy constructs and variables
enhances the plausibility of knowledge claims by triangulating on the same subject with
two or more metrics,
 Multiple method research: the use of multiple methods to observe policy processes and
outcomes (for example, concurrent use of organizational records, mailed questionnaires,
and ethnographic interviews) promotes the plausibility of knowledge claims by
triangulating on the same subject with data obtained from two or more instruments,
 Multiple analytic synthesis: the synthesis and critical assessment of available analyses
of similar policies and programs enhances the plausibility of knowledge claims by
examining the stock of knowledge about the effects of policies on different populations
in different contexts,
 Multivariate analysis: the inclusion of multiple variables in policy models enhances the
plausibility of knowledge claims by systematically testing and ruling out or
synthesizing the effects of extra-policy variables on policy outcomes,
 Multiple stakeholder analysis: the investigation of interpretative frameworks and
perspectives of multiple policy stakeholders adds plausibility to knowledge claims by
triangulating among competing casual and ethical representations of problems and
solutions found in real-life (naturalistic) policy settings. Multiple stakeholder analysis
draws attention to individuals and groups who participate in formulating and
implementing policies as a source of policy-relevant knowledge and directs attention to
public interest,
 Multiple perspective analysis: the incorporation into policy analysis of multiple
perspectives (such as ethical, political, organizational, economic, social, cultural, etc)
promotes the plausibility of knowledge claims by triangulating among competing
representations of problems and solutions,
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  Multimedia communication: the use of multiple communications media by policy
analysts is essential for ensuring that knowledge is policy relevant, that is, used by
policymakers and other intended beneficiaries. Triangulating with multiple
communications media and alternative knowledge transfer strategies enhances the
policy relevance of knowledge and its potential use.

It is seldom possible to observe all these guidelines in a single analysis or study, given typical
constraints on time and financial resources. Although critical multiplism doesn't guarantee
complete success in policy analysis, it has an important benefit not provided by rival
methodologies. If analysts follow guidelines of critical multiplism, they are less likely to
commit preventable errors that stem from the analysts own limited perspectives of a problem.

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Chapter Six
6. Public Policy Implementation

6.1 Perspectives in Policy Implementation

Implementation of public policy is strongly attached to the commitment and philosophy or

ideology of the government. Historically, the purpose and goals of policy implementations
have been associated with the changing of government. Policy implementation demands the
real comment and practical support than policy formulation itself. The traditional
understanding and practice of dichotomizing policy formulation and policy implementation
as distinct and separate functions of various government branches have been significantly
changing. This perspective underlies the dichotomy between "politics" and "administration”,
which dominated scholarly prescriptions in that period.

This being the widely accepted practice in few decades earlier, public policy formulation and
implementation functions have got new dimensions in recent years in that: (i) there is no hard
line that demarcate the former is the function of politicians (the legislative) and the latter is
left for the executive, and (ii) the universal tendency that government being the public
policymaker and the private sector taking part as an implementer. Generally, the arguments
regarding government’s role in public policy formulation and implementation are diverse,
and the perspectives have been changing from time to time reflecting the historical
development that has been taking place within.

6.1.1 Historical Perspectives of Policy Implementation

Prior to 1960s, few students of public administration paid explicit attention to the problematic
character of public policy implementation. They assumed that once a policy is established by
a legislature and assigned to a capable agency with sufficient authority and resource,
implementing it would be a technical matter requiring only honesty and competence. This
perspective underlies the dichotomy between "politics" and "administration”, which
dominated scholarly prescriptions in that period. Indeed, much of what government did (and
continues to do) was routine enough to be so regarded. At the local government level, paving
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streets and collecting garbage and at the federal level, sending social security checks and
delivering mail are familiar tasks. They can indeed be most successful if done by standard
procedures.

But after 1960, when government began to increase its efforts in the public purposes of
promoting economic growth, enhancing quality of life and personal opportunity, and
protecting the environment, it undertook tasks that are not routine. To combat poverty and
racial discrimination called for new knowledge and unfamiliar methods, and implementation
men became quite uncertain. To protect consumers from unsafe products was a task as broad
as the market itself and a function that was far removed from delivering letters. By the early
1970’s scholars were beginning to examine the results of these innovative programs, and their
reports were full of dismay. Scholarly studies that followed the critique often took the same
line: they examined programs that fell short of high expectations and pointed to the reasons
for their failure. The news media and popular literature further fueled such criticisms by
conveying an image of government as bumbling at best and often grossly incompetent. For
example, some observers concluded that government ought to or has been reducing its efforts
to solve social and economic problems either because there is little that it can actually do to
improve the situation or because private institutions are more effective than it.

6.1.2 Recent Perspectives in Policy Implementation

Recent studies of government administration have taken the more constructive approach of
emphasizing institutional learning and error correction. "Policy implementation... is a testing
and feedback process… Implementation helps us to detect errors in our ideas and designs and
then correct them. It gives us the opportunity to make errors, which is the most realistic way
to detect weaknesses in our policy ideas . . . effective implementation ... is something that one
ends up with after the learning process of error detection and correction" (Levin and Ferman,
1985: 14).

This optimistic perspective has been more consistent with a libera1 than a conservative
agenda in that most studies have assumed that socioeconomic policy objectives were worthy
even though outcomes fell short of intentions. However, the scholars who did the studies
often counsel policymakers to base their objectives on an informed sense of what actually can
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be achieved in the given conditions. Yet others assert that policy should always be confined
to a narrow perception of "workability”. We can discern four distinct perspectives on this,
each with a logic that leads an analyst in a different direction.

(i) The Idealistic Perspective

First, one can take an idealistic view that the central purpose of implementation is to solve the
problem for which the policy was devised in such a way that it needs no further attention
from a permanent "fix" so to speak. In this, there is a knowledge and direct relationship
between the problem and its solutions. Implementation, therefore, can be a largely predictable
effort, that applying proven techniques to familiar conditions. A secondary goal is efficiency;
the solution is to be achieved at the minimum cost. If a lake is being polluted by discharge of
a city's raw swage, the
lie obvious solution is a treatment plant of adequate size to purify the water. If the city does
not grow much larger, that plant should suffice for the indefinite future. Implementation
“failure” thus results from neglect or willful refusal to apply the correct techniques.

(ii) The Legalistic Perspective

The second perspective is legalistic: it calls on administrators to fulfill without deviation the
explicit mandate of the policy. Agency personnel thus are formally subordinate to the dictates
of the legislature, which in turn represents the people's will. This perspective resembles the
idealistic approach in that it leaves administrators little discretion/ but it differs in that it
regards the "right" policy as the one that is framed by law rather than one that provides the
definitive solution to the problem. Like the first perspective, the legalistic view takes a "top-
down" approach to implementation, in which policy and control move down a hierarchical
ladder and subordinates have little discretion of their own. Financial responsibility is also an
important norm; expenditures must conform to the budget that provides those funds. An
example of this is a program to aid low-income families in securing housing. The law
specifies that persons below a certain income level are eligible; no family above that limit
qualifies even if it also has had difficulty in finding a home. The program succeeds if it aids
those, and only those, who meet the legal standard. Failure, thus, is lack of compliance with
relevant mandates.
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(iii) The Responsive Perspective

The responsive or adaptive approach portrays implementation as continually being shaped by

the situations in which the policy is applied, by the wills and values of the citizens affected by
it, and by the views of lower-level administrators. It is a "bottom-up" perspective unlike the
first two approaches, which depend on direction from the original policymakers. In this the
actual administration may deviate from the express language of the policy (or the latter may
be so vague as to provide unclear direction). Administrators thus have more autonomy vis-à-
vis the legislative body and top executives but are subject to greater influences from interest
groups and organized constituents who want the policy to be carried out in ways most
favorable to them. At times a program will even be redirected to conform to their demands or
needs.

The search for access for persons with disabilities, just mentioned in this chapter, is a history
of such adaptation. Since the legislators did not determine the methods by which public
access policy was to be implemented, the federal and local agencies and courts developed the
actual policy over the 20-plus years since 1970. In this perspective, a policy fails when it
lacks "fit" to the given situation and is unresponsive to it clienteles' demands

(iv) The Experimental Perspective

Finally, the experimental approach is suited to situations in which no proven solutions to the
problem are available. The mandates may be clear or vague, but the methods must be
mandated by trial and error. Here, the administrators have much autonomy to try approaches,
evaluate the results, and alter the program accordingly. However, in contrast to the responsive
approach, the "right way" is determined from experience as judged by the administrators
(though they do well to heed political pressures from outside the agency). This view applies
the principle of Levin and Ferman's concept, cited earlier, of implementation as error
correction and is also a "bottom-up" approach. The youth employment programs studied by
Levin and Ferman achieved many of their goals because the program mangers experimented
with various methods. If one fell short, they made adjustments or turned to another. Policy
failure thus results primarily from rigidity and inability to learn from experience
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 6.1.3 The Levels of Public Policy Implementation

According to Meltsner and Wildavsky (1974: 1-2), we can define three levels of policy
implementation. An output is the immediate service or good provided by a program: a bus
equipped with a wheelchair lift, a home visit by a child protection worker, or a regulation on
the use of a toxic chemical, for example. It is the easiest element of the three levels to identify
and measure, and informed observers can easily agree on whether or not it actually fulfilled
an immediate and valid need.

An outcome is an intermediate-range result of the implication of a policy: employment of a

person with a disability because of bus access, a lower level of child abuse because of regular
home visits, or improved groundwater quality because the hazardous chemical is absent. An
outcome is not always as visible as the output, and it is subject to differing value judgments.
Two observers can disagree in their choice of criteria or of evidences to identify an outcome.
It is hard to measure the actual extent of child abuse, for example, and thus to discern when a
decline actually occurs.

Finally, an impact is a long-term consequence for society of applying the policy, often in
combination with other policies that affect the situation. We might cite as an impact a higher
quality of life for all wheelchair-bound persons in a city, better school performance of
children because they are not being abused, or greater recreational use of a clean body of
water. Given the many forces that shape economic opportunity and school performance, the
study of impacts produces the least clear conclusions and is the most open to diverging
judgments.

Consideration of outputs tends to dominate the study of implementation, since they are the
immediate evidence of administrators' efforts. In beginning to consider outcomes and impacts
one enters the realm of evaluation, of applying value judgments to what was or was not
implemented. This aspect of implementation is too complex simply to be able to draw a sharp
line between the objective survey of implementation and the more subjective evaluations
based on it; that realm will be explored more fully in the next chapter.

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Major source of conflict in the policy implementation process is the divergent concepts of the
meaning of success that are held by policymakers, administrators, members of the public, and
scholars themselves. What each of them assumes about the norms and purposes of the
implementation process shapes the ways in which they study the process.

6.1.4 Applying Different Perspectives to Implementation

Each concept is relevant in some circumstances. The idealistic view can be applied only in
limited situations, perhaps in remedying congestion at a suburban intersection; that problem
has traffic underlies and there are standard solutions- The legalistic approach is likewise
confined to fairly straightforward matters, to which precise legal language is appropriate: the
collection of taxes, for example. The last two concepts are most relevant to the many
problems of public policy for which "answers" are multiple, uncertain, and open to
controversy. For them, implementation standards are must evolve over time, as administrators
are able to discern the changing issues and requirements in each situation.

These concepts are relevant to the first four tools for implementation described in chapter 1:
cash payments to individuals, construction and maintenance of infrastructures, provision of
publicly beneficial services, and regulation of individual and corporate behavior. Action in
the first two concepts is most amenable to the idealistic and legalistic perspectives; since their
implementation can be standardized to a great extent once the beneficiary or the project has
been chosen (not always an easy task admittedly). Policy statements can easily embody the
requirements for Social Security payments and sewer construction, and administrative
judgments will focus on straightforward technical rather than political choices.

The third and fourth means of implementation are not as clear-cut services and regulations
apply to discrete and changing situations and reach persons and groups with unique needs.
Administrators have wider latitude for discretion, and accomplishment tends to be harder to
measure. The national government’s response to the savings and loan institution failures and
sale of the assets of those institutions must be both responsive to local economic conditions
and experimental in its methods. When legislators cannot foresee in detail all that must be
done, they must leave administrators much discretion in putting their general policy
statements into effect. Thus it happens that much of the policy is actually remade in the

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process of implementation. What occurs during this process may depart substantially from
the original intentions of the lawmakers. In that necessity for discretion lies much on the
power that administrators can wield in the political system.

6.2 Success and Failure: The Fate of Problem-Solving

Thinking further about the elusiveness of public policy’s success, we can ask what happens to
the problem that is to be solved. A problem can have four different fates, and each fate
represents some form of success or failure. These include:

1. It can be eliminated entirely by the policy, as implemented and no other (new)

problems are created. In reality, problems are highly unlikely to disappear without
trace, and they can reappear in other forms. In deed, solutions to problems typically
create other problems; for example, persons who do not die of smallpox may live to
be afflicted with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease instead.
2. It can be reduced to such a low level that there is no further need or demand for
action, known as “problem recession”. When the economy is depressed and
unemployment rises, government is virtually required to act to create jobs directly and
stimulate private investment. If this action is successful, officials then turn their
attention to other issues.
3. It can be succeeded by another problem that has less serious effects or can be solved
more easily. As Levin suggested, “Policy progress occurs through a process of
problem succession”. Problems are not so much solved as superseded, we seek to
move from less preferable problems to more preferable problems, and policymakers
seek to replace them with those problems that are more manageable or that impose
less hardship to the public.
4. It can be exacerbated by the policy and/or replaced by more difficult ones, with
others created in addition. This is the most obvious example of failure; the program
may have rendered the targeted problem worse and in the process created others
besides, and the public may be left worse off than before.

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 6.2.1 The Requirements for Successful Implementation

What must happen for a government program to be implemented effectively? We could liken
the beginning of the implementation process to the assembly of a machine: as one author
phrased it, "a
Large machine ... to turn out rehabilitated psychotics or healthier old people or better-
educated children or more effective airplanes or safer streets. This machine must sometimes
be assembled from scratch. It can sometimes be created by overhauling and reconstituting an
older, or preexisting, machine”. Yet the implementation process must be more than a
machine; like a living organism, it must respond to its environment and alter itself in ways
that its assemblers may not be able to foresee. No two administrative situations are exactly
alike, but we can identify some basic requirements.

(i) Implementation Requirement One: Policy Translation

First, the policy itself must provide a clear and consistent statement of its objectives and the
means by which to achieve them. Recall from chapter 5 the steps in the policy cycle of
defining the problem and setting the objectives. Laws are usually designed to attack several
problems and achieve several objectives at the same time. Child welfare programs aim
simultaneously at the child's physical protection and enhancing family stability and parental
competence. These are not necessarily incompatible goals, but a program must be carefully
designed to harmonize the two.

Policy Design: Difficulties can thus appear because of faults in the policy design. It may not
convey to administrators a clear knowledge of what they are to do. There may be multiple or
uncertain concepts of the problems and objectives a situation reflecting legislative conflict
and compromise. Ambiguous statements are common in legislative policies for several
political reasons. They enable advocates of conflicting goals to come to sufficient agreement
to pass a bill; very specific language would arouse too much opposition. Such ambiguity also
allows different constituencies to believe that they will receive something from the program.
"Legislators can satisfy demands to 'do something about a problem by passing a vague statute
with ambiguous meaning, then letting administrative agencies hash out the more conflicting

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details behind the scenes" (Stone, 1988: 124-125). This passes to the administrators the
harder task of giving the policy its real meaning.

In addition, legislators may have framed the policy only for symbolic purposes and did not
intend it to be fully implemented as stated. They could have sought only to signify
government’s concern for a problem, since they had no means of resolution nor the funds to
afford the solution. Or they may have wanted to endorse a politically popular ideal or please
an important constituency. This is not necessarily deception by policymakers, though it can
create unrealistic popular expectations. It also
Puts administrators in a no-win situation; If they do not take the policy seriously, they invite
criticism for dereliction of duty; if they implement a means of resolving a problem, even their
best efforts may not satisfy their critics.

Problem Definition: In translating policy, implementers need to define the exact problem
clearly. An uncertain definition of the problem was present in solving the dilemma for the
disabled. There are many kinds of disabilities, some of which prevent a person from using
public transit and others that do not.

Unintended Conflicts: Implementation of the policy in question can often run into unintended
conflict with another policy. Government’s responsibilities are closely intertwined with one
another; often one accomplishment is a prerequisite to a second. Or to do one thing well may
make it harder to achieve another. If these goals are the responsibilities of separate agencies,
conflict is more likely.

The Effects of Symbolism: Mobility for the disabled had a symbolic character, too. Justice
and compassion alike support better opportunities for disadvantaged persons, and, with
legislators keenly aware of what their refusal to address the issue would mean. But the
disabled took the promise very seriously, and, perceiving their very dignity and lifestyles at
stake; they applied significant pressure on administrators to support their own interpretation
of the policy.

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(ii) Implementation Requirement Two: Resource Sufficiency

Policy cannot be implemented with good intentions alone. Each implementation effort
requires a unique set of facilities, skills, information, and technology. For any given level of
desired goal achievement, a corresponding level of resources must be supplied. Homeless
persons cannot be housed permanently without adequate low-cost dwellings, nor can air
traffic move safely when sufficient airport space is lacking. How effective child protection
programs will be depends in large part on the number of skilled inspectors and counselors
assigned to the workload. Cleaning up a toxic waste dump requires state-of-the-art
knowledge of the chemicals' effects and technology for rendering them harmless. And each in
turn demands a given sum of money, the basic resource needed to procure nearly all of the
other resources.

Resource selection is a challenge to both policymakers and administrators. The former must
foresee what is required to meet their expectations when designing the program. Their natural
temptation is to set high expectations before confronting the hard realities of costs. Their
budgets define that supply of available funds, and they must then make difficult tradeoffs in
selecting what resources are indispensable for the program's success.

Initiating Funding:- Administrators play a dual role in the funding process. First, they make
the initial requests for funds that he lawmakers consider. "The bureaucracy is hardly the
passive agent of its congressional overseer; . . . it is constantly working to manipulate its
master so as to achieve mutually profitable arrangements" (Wilson, 1989, p. 251). These
proposals are often carefully designed to win support from key member, supplying benefits to
their states or districts, and fitting their program priorities. In this process, resource allocation
becomes entangled at the very heart of political conflict and coalition building. Federal and
state public works programs, with their benefits to specific political subdivisions, have long
been allocated by such bargaining.

Allocating Resources: After enactment of the budget, administrators play the second role of
preparing detailed plans for deploying their resources. There must be corresponding
“budgets" for all other necessities likely to be in short supply: persons with needed talents,
specialized information, building space, and even the time for thinking and conferring among
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the program managers. For innovative programs, the resource needs can be very hard to
foresee. Much of what government is called upon to do in implementing public policy has not
been done before, and the pioneer's role is always risky. Most often, the capacity to innovate
is acquired during the implementation through the process of making mistakes and learning
from them.

Successful resource planning depends on foresight that may grow only gradually. If, at a
certain step in policymaking and planning, means fall out of step with goals, planners must be
quick to reconcile the two. Those who advocated the equal accessibility approach in resolving
the dilemma for the disabled seemed give little thought to costs. Indeed, they did not have
direct responsibility for raising or allocating those funds. The burden would thus fall most
heavily on mass transit system operators and the state and local governments that financed
them, and officials at those levels of authority sought the least expensive way to provide
adequate service. Already faced with demands to serve low-income persons generally, to
reduce traffic congestion and oil consumption, and to give fare breaks to students and elderly
persons, these officials had stretched their available funds beyond the point of comfort.

(iii) Implementation Requirement Three: Orchestration of Effort

We can embellish upon Bardach's (1977) machine model with yet another concept, that of
administration being a concert by a large orchestra, which has three essential elements; i.e.
agreement, effective communication, and coordination among members of the group or the
orchestra. This is the systems perspective, which is a network of interdependent parts whose
actions must support one another for the policy to succeed. We have already seen that nearly
all public policies involve two or more government agencies, often at least one from each
level-federal, state, and local—and frequently from private organizations as well.

Communication and Cooperation: The communication stream must reach to every agency to
convey the whole sense of a policy and any procedures and regulations added along the way
Communication must be precise enough to explain how the new policy directives relate to
what is already going on, what changes it will and will not require in administrators' conduct,
and what new standards they are to follow. For those administrators who will have much
discretion, it must also define their realm of freedom. The conflict over public transportation
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for the disabled is typical of this sort of intergovernmental action. The federal authorities
make rules, but only the state and local mass transit agencies would implement them, and
they claimed broad leeway to adapt the rules to their needs and resources.

Orchestration implies agreement. When administrators are well disposed to the policy and its
procedures, they are more likely to carry it out conscientiously and cooperate with one
another when joint action is required. This applies to whole agencies and departments, which
can block policy in the absence of such dispositions. The typical public agency has many
tasks to fulfill, and some inevitably take a higher priority than others. Those that best fit the
dispositions of its leadership will get the most attention.

Authority Leakage: When administrators' dispositions do not support a policy, it becomes

harder to implement. As mentioned earlier, conflicting goals or styles of operation can lead to
authority leakages, which is the failure of subordinates to carry out directives from above.
Although some distortion of orders is nearly unavoidable in large organizations, it reaches
major proportions when there is lack of interest in or active opposition to the policy in
question. The agency's top management may lack of time, information, or sense of urgency to
deal effectively with this leakage.

Games Administrators Play: These hindering actions by persons working within the
administering agencies often take the form of "games." In one kind of game, administrators
divert resources to benefit individual or group purposes not authorized in the policy, as when
a private party secures a government grant for one official purpose but diverts the money
elsewhere and gives little or nothing to resolve the original issue. In a second game, the
agency is deflected from its goal, often when it is assigned too many tasks for its capacity and
it simply jettisons those that are hardest to implement or least popular within the agency.

A third kind of game appears when massive outside resistance to the policy overwhelms the
agency's ability to enforce it and to punish those who do not comply. For example, many
employers have hired illegal immigrants, in violation of the law. The agency then faces the
dilemma on how heavy-handed it must be in imposing its requirements on the noncompliant,
be it the public or other agencies. Last, dissipation-of-energies games are played, for
example, when several organizations sharing responsibility seek to evade unwanted tasks or
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avoid blame for an impending failure by shifting the focus of effort or attention and wearing
down the original momentum.

Corruption: Outright open corruption on the part of public officials may be relatively rare but
can be devastating to a program. Many countries, including the USA, have experienced
serious corruption problems practiced by government agencies. For example, agencies
ranging from the Customs Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to county and city
law enforcement departments in the US are plagued by instances of huge bribes being offered
to their agents by illegal drug dealers. Such a generous payoff can induce an officer to
overlook a cocaine shipment, an intentional inaction that would be hard to detect in any case.
Naturally, when such corruption is widespread within public agencies, it erodes citizen
confidence in government as well as officials' trust in their own colleagues.

An overview of Orchestration Problems: Orchestration problems abounded in the "effective

mobility for the disabled" issue. While there was no blatant occurrence of authority leakage,
the agencies did engage in a variety of games to maximize their own orientations as distinct
from those of others. In general, orchestration is hardest when the agency is required to
implement an innovative policy or to adopt new methods. “All organizations by design are
enemies of change, at least up to a point; government organizations are especially risk averse
because they are caught up in a web of constraints so complex that any change is likely to
provoke the anger of some important constituency"

(iv) Implementation Requirement Four: Political legal Support

The political and legal environment of administration shapes program outputs and results.
This environment consists of influential persons and groups, inside and outside of
government that can determine the degree of a program's success. This cluster varies with
each policy area and may change over time.

Optimization From Government and the Private Sector: First, implementation of a policy can
be obstructed or redirected by opposition or by influential forces within the government and
the private sector. Though the law may have passed by majority vote or with narrow margin,
the losing side typically transfers its opposition to the administrative arena and may well find
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allies there. On the other hand, the winners naturally seek to protect their gains and attract
supports from among the new beneficiaries, and the result is a political contest. Groups that
are well organized and gain access to officials at high levels are more likely to win such
administrative battles.

For example, in the US, the rule-makers in the Urban Mass Transit Administration were hard-
pressed by the advocates of the two rival concepts of mobility. Local mass transit operators
and many elderly persons argued for the effective mobility approach, while other disabled
persons, including Vietnam War veterans, rejected what they considered as "segregated"
transit in favor of the full accessibility concept. Many local government officials opposed all
federal stipulations on how to organize their transit services. Not wanting to alienate any of
these important constituencies, the agency avoided by taking quick action. Such problem of
reconciling conflicting interests was also complicated by the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare. Although both departments had the will to act, they were subject to
very different political forces and influences.

Legal Challenges: Policy implementation can be further hindered or altered by legal

challenges and adverse court decisions. These could be initiated by the opponents of an
earlier legislative or administrative decision. The last resort for a person or group on the
losing side of a conflict is a civil suit in which the complaint may range from improper
procedures followed in the rule-making to unconstitutionality of the policy itself. The case is
first tried in the lowest federal or state trial court, depending on which level of law the charge
relates to. The loser of that verdict may appeal to a federal or state appeals court, which
would uphold or reverse the first ruling.

The courts may have strengthened one side, and in so doing have affected the competing
factions within the bureaucracy. When different state or federal courts render inconsistent
decisions on an issue, this not only increases the administrators' uncertainty but invites
further litigation and causes more delay.

Support From Program Clients: A third category of essential political support is that of the
program's clients themselves. A policy for providing a service assumes that people want it
strongly enough to comply with the conditions necessary to receive it. When a program
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imposes limits or prohibitions on clients, their voluntary compliance is likewise crucial.
Public programs presume widespread and willing cooperation, whether in collection of
income taxes, observance of speed limits, and so on. Government is not in a position to
monitor mass behaviour continuously. Compliance depends on five basic factors: sufficient
communication of the policy to the public; personal ability (physical or financial) to comply
with it; agreement with the policy itself and its importance; acceptance of the actions
necessary to comply; and the belief that the government has the authority to compel
compliance on that matter. Thus, it must create the conditions and incentives that secure this
compliance, even from persons who would profit from non-compliance.

(v) Implementation Requirement Five: A Supportive Socioeconomic Environment

A final category of requirements for policy success lies in the social and economic conditions
not under the control of the policy or even of government in general. Lawmakers formulate a
policy to fit an assumed context, the "ecology" of administration. They may simply project
their present circumstances into the future or may draw upon well-researched forecasts of
changed conditions. The policy is designed to change some aspect of that expected future, yet
it depends on other crucial factor staying the same. A job-training program, for example,
aims to prepare students for skills that are expected to be in demand, but an economic
recession or a major plant closing in the community can frustrate that effort. The policy can
thus fail solely because of a change in the environment that was not anticipated.

Many factors that are not under government's control can promote or hinder the success of a
public policy. Public opinion toward persons with disabilities has become much more
favorable and has facilitated their increased access to jobs, housing, and education as well as
mass transportation. New technologies have helped those with visual and hearing
impairments succeeds in careers that were once closed to them. "Equal rights" for these
persons has thereby acquired more legal significance. Yet an economic recession in a
community may cause employers to lay off persons with disabilities first and close doors to
other employment, thereby making their access to public transit less meaningful.
6.2.2 Problem Succession and Government Learning

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What is the most that governments can expect when they implement policy? What
expectations can citizens hold of their government’s efforts? It depends on what view one
holds of the entire enterprise of making policy work. Recall the idealistic, legalistic,
responsive and experimental perspectives discussed earlier in this teaching material. Each
entails a distinctive way of answering these questions. The first portrays very high
expectations; to "solve" the problem in a comprehensive, long-term manner. No performance
short of this goal will suffice. The legalistic perspective is no less demanding.

The language of the policy sets forth what government's obligations are. They may or may
not be adequate to solve the problem, but that is not the central consideration. Even if those
services failed to meet the unique needs of some persons or were not extended to all,
implementation would have succeeded by this standard. What weakens the legalistic
approach is the failure, already noted, to state the standards dearly enough to guide the
administrators. When the exact "solution" is not known or agreed upon, legal statements will
consequently lack precision.

The third and fourth perspectives are more useful in judging the implementation of non-
routine programs such as expanding services to the disabled. The responsive method relies on
clients and constituents not only to influence the policies but also to interpret them while their
administration is going on. What are the "rights" of a disabled person? A “successful
implementation of strategy is thus one that is accepted by the various interests. The
experimental perspective is also useful in view of the struggle to develop the plethora of
arrangements in local communities to provide effective mobility with available resources.
Few communities had experience in organizing systematic mass transit service for their
disabled residents, but between the federal grants and political pressures, they learned how.
"Success" by this perspective is measured by how much constructive learning took place and
how services improved as a result.

All policies are linked with others, and success in one may lead to either success or failure in
another. At the very least, they create new demands for services and actions, which
government often has to respond to. For instance, if persons confined to wheelchairs are able
to get around the city at will, they can press for more recreational programs, continuing
education opportunities, and employment training. There may be no logical limits to such
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expansion of services, but lawmakers must fall back on political and financial criteria for
funding some and restricting others.

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Chapter Seven
7. Policy Evaluation and Change
7.1 Problems of Policy Implementation
The process of goal achievement begins with policy formulation, but does not end there. The
policy formulated has to be implemented to achieve the goals set by the administration. Three
main problems are encountered in the implementation of public policy after a policy mandate
is agreed to, authorized and adopted. These problems are:
(1) Under achievement of stated objectives.
(2) Various kinds of delays.
(3) Excessive financial cost.

However, broadly policy evaluation requires knowledge of what is to be accomplished within

a given policy (policy objectives), how to do it (strategy) and what has been accomplished
towards attainment of the objectives (impact or outcomes). It is, of course, often impossible
to measure quantitatively the impact of public policies, especially social policies with any
real precision. There are certain barriers that create problems for policy evaluation, which
may include:
1. Uncertainty over policy goals: When the goals of a policy are unclear or diffused,
policy evaluation becomes a difficult task. This situation is often a product of the
policy adoption process. Since support of a majority coalition is often needed to
secure adoption of a policy, it is often necessary to appeal to as wide as spectrum of
persons and interests (often conflicting) as possible. Officials in different positions in
the policy system such as legislators and administrators, or national and state officials,
may define goals differently and act accordingly.
2. Difficulty in the determination of causality; Systematic evaluation requires that
changes in real life conditions must demonstrably be caused by policy actions. But
the mere fact that action “A” is taken and condition “B” is developed does not
necessarily mean that a cause-and-effect relationship exists, for example, the
relationship between crime prevention measures and occurrence of crime is not a
simple cause-and-effect relationship. The determination of causality between actions,
especially in complex social and economic matters, is a difficult task.
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 3. Diffused policy impacts: Policy actions may affect a wide spectrum of people both
in the target and non-target categories and also may have many intended or
unintended consequences. Welfare programs may affect not only the poor, but also
others such as taxpayers, bureaucrats and lower income groups. The effects on those
groups may be symbolic or material, tangible or intangible.
4. Difficulties in data-acquisition: A shortage of accurate and relevant facts and
statistics may always hinder the work of a policy evaluator. Thus, mathematical
models may predict that effect of a tax-cut on economic activity, but suitable data to
indicate its actual impact on the economy is difficult to obtain. Official resistances to
provide all types of relevant data may also prove to be a hindrance. Policy evaluation
means commenting on the merits and demerits of a policy. Agency and program
officials, bureaucrats and others are naturally going to be concerned about the
possible political consequences of evaluation. If the results do not come out in their
favor or show them in a wrong perspective, their careers may be in jeopardy.
Consequently, government officials may discourage evaluation studies, refuse access
to data, and show incomplete records, or create various other hurdles in the
researcher’s process of policy evaluation.

Legislative Process

One of the declared functions of the legislatures in democratic countries is the security and
evaluation of the application, administration and execution of laws or policies.
Legislatures exercise policy evaluation through a number of techniques:
(1) Question and debates.
(2) Various motions in parliaments like call attention, no-confidence.
(3) Committee hearings and investigations. And,
(4) The budgetary process.
In the course of these activities, legislators reach conclusions regarding the efficiency,
effectiveness and impact of particular programmes and policies- conclusions that can have
serious consequences for the policy process.

Audit Process

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The auditor’s has broad statutory authority to audit the operation and finance the activities of
government agencies, evaluate their programmes and report their findings to the parliament.

Administrative Agencies
All government departments prepare their internal evaluation reports, which provide an
opportunity to appraise the working of the programmes and projects undertaken by the
department. Similarly, every department while sending its own demand for grants to the
Finance Ministry evaluates in the process its annual plans, programmes and performance. The
Organization and Methods divisions in ministries also often indirectly perform the task of
policy evaluation.

Commissions
The Planning Commission, the Finance Commission, the Administrative Reform
Commission and various ad-hoc commissions that are set up by the government from time to
time, also play an important role in public policy evaluation by presenting their detailed,
researched reports on the consequences and impact of particular government policies.

Besides, there is much policy evaluation activity carried on outside the government. The
communications media, university scholars, private research institutions, pressure groups and
public interest organization make evaluation of policies that have effort on public officials to
some extent. These also provide the larger public with information, publicize policy action or
inaction, advocate enactment or withdrawal of policies and often effectively voice the
demands of the weaker or underprivileged sections of the public.

7.2 Post-Implementation Evaluation of Public Policy

Once we make public policy and implementation, it is imperative that the effects of such
policies have to be evaluated and analyzed. Post-implementation evaluation of public policy
is concerned with the analysis of the effects of governmental decisions on the target public. In
other words, it is an attempt to assess the content and effects of policy on those for whom it is
intended. It means commenting on the merits and demerits of a policy. Often policy
evaluation occurs throughout the policy process, not necessarily at its termination stage.

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There are generally three recognized forms or aspects of policy evaluation; namely:
(a) Policy impact evaluation: It is an assessment of program (policy) impact and
effectiveness, the extent to which programs are successful in achieving the intended
objectives,
(b) Policy strategy evaluation: This refers to the assessment of the relative effectiveness
of program strategies and variables with emphasis on determining the most effective
and productive strategies, methods and procedures,
(c) Policy project appraisal: It is a process of assessing individual projects through site
visits and other means with emphasis on managerial and operational efficiency.

While discussing policy evaluation, we need also to have sufficient understanding about the
differences between policy output, policy outcome, and policy impact, which were
highlighted in the preceding chapter.

7.3 The Learning and Planning

The challenges to public policy never stop coming, and those who design and implement
policies can never stop learning. Post-implementation evaluation is the central process in this
learning: identifying and measuring the outcomes and impacts of a policy and judging
whether and how well its objectives were (or are being) met. Recall the distinction made in
Chapter Eight between outputs, outcomes, and impacts: Policy output refers to the
quantifiable actions of the government that can be measured in concrete terms. It is the
immediate good or service provided by a program. A policy outcome refers to the qualitative
impacts of public policies on the lives of the people, the intermediate result of the policy for
its targeted area. Policy impact is the policy's broad and long-term consequence for society.
Careful study of the last two of these concepts requires one to state not just what happened
and whether the policy was in fact implemented but also how the process and results
conformed to accepted standards. Outcomes and impacts are measurements of value,
ultimately rooted in the public purposes.

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Sound analysis of policy implementation is the best means that governments have for
improving both their policies and methods. It is the last step in the policy cycle, the transition
that returns it to a new cycle of problem definitions, objectives, and alternatives. Thus the
evaluator is an essential participant in the policymaking process as he looks forward to what
could be done as well as backward to what was (or was not) done. However, this potential for
learning is often not fulfilled, for reasons to be discussed yet.

7.4 The Procedural Benefits of Evaluation

Evaluation, done with a genuine intent to use what is learned, can have several benefits. First,
it is an essential part of the communication flow that enables elected executives, legislators,
and the general public to hold administrators accountable for their actions. Second, evaluation
enables administrators to change programs and outputs and to reorganize agencies when
necessary. Governments must continually adapt their means of implementation to changing
objectives and environments. Third, evaluation benefits program design and budgeting. By
seeing how each element of past programs worked in combination and how outside factors
influenced them, one can plan for the full range of conditions that will shape the success of
future efforts.

Often planners conceive of a program too narrowly and are not prepared to foresee and avoid
the many contingencies that are not defeat their efforts. A training program for unemployed
youths may have disappointing results if planners have not prepared to deal with factors
commonly influencing disadvantaged youth (for example, substance abuse; in this instance,
proper preparation would include adding counseling and rehabilitation components and
altering funding priorities to target those hindrances).

Sensitive evaluation can also contribute to the problem definitions and goal-setting stages. It
is tempting to blame youth unemployment simply on the lack of job skills or motivation to
work or on discrimination against minorities. But studies have repeatedly shown that such
persons cannot be pigeonholed so easily. The above obstacles are often present, but they may
be compounded by low intelligence, emotional disturbances, illiteracy, history of criminal
offenses and drug abuse, and physical disabilities. Learning to what extent these conditions

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are present should also lead to more realistic (and perhaps lower) expectations of what a
program with a given design and funding level can accomplish.

7.5 The Historical Development of Evaluation

Systematic evaluation came to be a major concern of policy analysts and implementers only
in the 1960s, when governments ventured deeply into innovative social polities. Economic
opportunity, criminal justice, education, civil rights, and urban development programs were
endowed with billions of dollars and intricate new administrative relationships. As each
program got underway analysts within and outside the agencies sought evidence of how well
it was working and how they could improve it. To their dismay, most evaluation studies
showed that the programs did not achieve their expectations. They also discovered that they
did not even know how to identify and measure the most important outcomes, which limited
the value of their work for future policy design (Weiss, 1987).

In the past two decades, evaluation of public programs has continued along many paths, using
a variety of methods. Although analysts have accumulated an impressive stock of data and
judgments, they have often been disappointed in their lack of direct impact on either the
content of policy or its implementation. Yet they continue to pursue and refine their craft,
confident that indirect contributions are also valuable. Administrators and their clients alike
do well to develop skills at various types of evaluation so as to maintain their vigilance over
the programs for which they are responsible or on which they depend.

7.6 Approaches to Evaluation

There is no standard model for evaluation; each study must be designed to fit its purposes and
circumstances. We can contrast the major alternatives along several dimensions. First,
evaluation may be pursued in an intuitive or a scientific mode. The former is relatively
informal and is guided largely by impressions and subjective judgments. Actually this
intuitive method of evaluating is constantly taking place as administrators and their clients
regularly reflect on what they are doing and the results their actions yield. Although

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necessarily subjective, it can often detect the needs and conditions that more systematic
means of evaluation must address. The following are an overview of approaches to valuation:

1. Intuitive: informal collection of information, relying for guidance on impressions and

subjective judgments.
2. Scientific: systematic collection and analysis of data, guided by social science theory
and the use of statistical methods.
3. Passive: relies on sources outside the program administrators to supply opinions and
criticism.
4. Active: information collected at the initiative of the evaluators, largely or completely
by standards of their choosing.
5. Narrow: focus on one program or segment thereof with intention only on improving
it.
6. Broad: focus on widespread program or many related programs, seeking results to
apply to many similar efforts.
7. Summative: surveys what the program or policy accomplished in factual, measurable
terms.
8. Formative: evaluates program outcomes and impacts to learn whether and how the
program or its process should be designed or operated differently.
9. Inside: done by the immediate administrators or others in the agency carrying on the
program.
10. Outside: done by anyone outside the program agency and with no involvement in its
administration.

Policy performance or post-implementation evaluation can take different forms or modes,

some of which are briefly discussed in the following manner:

(A) Performance Measurement: The Scientific Mode

The scientific mode of evaluation entails the systematic collection and analysis of data,
guided by social science theory and using statistical methods. Its results will be more valid
than the intuitive mode in those cases in which the necessary data can be obtained and are
interpreted with confidence. One common form is performance measurement, which Hatry
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(1989: 469) defines as the systematic and accurate measurement of the efficiency and
effectiveness of programs and organizational performance. It bases judgments on
quantification of such disparate factors as street miles paved, hospital mortality rates,
student reading test scores, and solution rates of crimes.

(B) The Passive/Active Continuum

Second, evaluations can take place on a passive/active continuum. Passive studies rely simply
on others, often clients of the program, for opinions and criticisms. Administrators tend to
assume that a program is working well unless evidence comes in to the contrary. If the
volume of complaints increases, then the program might get a more systematic look. In active
studies, by contrast, evaluators seek data on their own initiative, largely or completely by
standards of their own choosing. Volunteered information will be useful at times, but it
cannot be the core of a systematic effort. A high dropout rate by persons in job training
program clearly signals a problem. Some of the dropouts might willingly register their
complaints and tell why they quit, but active evaluation is necessary to learn each person's
reasons, particularly those that would not be expressed voluntarily.

(C) Scope: Narrow and Broad Surveys

Third, evaluations can vary in the scope of the survey. If very narrow, the survey can focus
on one class of youths in one job-training program in one city- It can seek data on who gained
employment, for how long, and for what wages. It should also permit a judgment on whether
the program made the crucial difference in clients' lives. A broad survey, by contrast, would
examine, for example, the results of all such programs around the country for a ten-year span
and inquire into the successes of tens of thousands of persons for a significant segment of
their lives. The narrow study is much easier to do and can give rapid feedback to a single
program still in process. The broader the study is, the more it can rise above variations in
local leadership and economic conditions and show what has worked well and badly for the
long term. But it takes much more time and money and its results may not be directly useful
to any individual program director.

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 (D) Summative and Formative Approaches

Fourth, evaluation may take a summative or a formative approach. To take the former is to
survey what the program accomplished in factual, measurable terms. One might state that a
certain percentage of the graduates of a youth employment program found jobs of specific
types, at a range of salary levels, and held them for specified periods of time. Any competent
evaluator, given the same data, would arrive at the same conclusion. If some quantitative
employment goals had previously been set, one could conclude that they had or had not been
achieved.

A formative evaluation, by contrast, requires more judgment on the part of the evaluator, who
seeks to learn whether and how the program should be designed or operated differently. It
may focus on the outcomes and impacts of an agency or one of its programs: why they
produced the results they did and whether they fulfilled the needs of the clients. Or it can
concentrate on the process by which the results were produced: for example, key decisions,
delivery systems, and agency-client interactions. If a program were failing, this method
would offer the best chance to learn why and how failures could be corrected during the life
of the program.

Often outcome and process evaluation are done in tandem (cyclically), since data from one
phase inform the other. Both require attention to the political and social contexts that either
support or weaken implementation. These assessments are potentially more controversial
than the summative evaluations, and equally competent evaluators can start with different
assumptions and arrive at equally different conclusions. Yet such studies also serve the
administrators better if they also mark out constructive paths for reform.

(E) Inside and Outside Evaluations

Who does the evaluation is also significant to its outcome. Each type of evaluator can supply
a unique perspective. An inside evaluation is done by the immediate administrators or others
within the agency, as in the youth employment programs mentioned earlier. They have the
advantage of being most familiar with the program and having direct access to the data, and
they have practical need of the results. But there is the obvious risk that they may cover up
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negative outcomes to avoid criticisms from outside the agency and ultimate program cuts,
and thus they may produce an overly favorable report.

Outside evaluation can be done bay anyone not involved in the program’s administration: for
example, legislators, auditors, interest groups, news media, or scholars. Evaluation can come
from outside the permanent machinery of government as well: Temporary commissions are
often appointed to investigate problems of high public concern. The clients of many programs
and the interest groups that represent them constantly assess, from their individual
perspectives, the programs that benefit or regulate them. Although members of the public
provide important perspectives, they also have obvious biases; policymakers are well aware
of such views and may even sympathize with them.

Useful evaluations have been done by scholars, journalists and researchers who can take
more independent postures. These include a graduate student writing a dissertation on a city-
housing program, a news reporter looking into a highway construction scandal, and a
consultant examining financial regulation on a contract from a bankers' association. All of
these persons' reputations depend on the quality of their work as judged by the criteria of
their disciplines or peers. Their conclusions also can reflect their own values: a politically
liberal scholar is likely to evaluate a social welfare program differently than one with
conservative views and both may select different evidence as most relevant to their
conclusions. Reporters and their editors are tempted to sensationalize their findings to gain
readers or viewers. Users of these evaluations must therefore not automatically take them as
paragons of objectivity.

(F) Timing

It is also necessary to choose when to evaluate a given program. It is common to conduct

formative studies while a program is under way so that midstream adjustments can be made.
Yet these studies have the disadvantage of not being able to identify long-range outcomes and
impacts that could lead to conclusions that would differ from those of a short-range study. If
the real evaluation is left to the end of a program, there is no possibility of correcting it,
although the knowledge gained can benefit similar programs in the future.

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The choice of evaluator and type of study must depend on the study’s main objective. If the
goal is to find and correct ongoing problems in a program/ there is an advantage to research
done close to the process. On the other hand, long-range evaluation of a controversial
program is best done by one or more outsiders. When the aim is to improve administrative
procedures and techniques, it may be wisest to involve several evaluators and techniques.

7.7 Standards for Evaluation

All evaluations, by definition, are value-laden. They must draw upon one or more standards
in judging whether and how well a policy or program succeeded. In fact, a thorough
evaluation must take into consideration all of the expectations that the chief executives,
legislators, clienteles, and general public may hold of the program, and these may not be fully
compatible with one another. The evaluator must not only choose which criteria to use but
also how to rank them in importance and how to relate the evidence to each one. The
following are standards for evaluation of a policy:

1. Effectiveness: fulfillment of the program goals, the extent to which the policies are
achieving the intended benefits.
2. Efficiency: the margin of benefits gained from a program over the resources invested
in it.
3. Legality: conformance to law and the national/federal and state constitutions.
4. Responsiveness: meets the needs and demands of clients and is modified on the basis
of their reactions to the program.
5. Technical criteria: standards set by the professional groups operating within
government that define acceptable practice in their respective fields.
6. Political criteria: resolution of conflict and maintenance of cooperation among
contending groups in the administrative department.
7. Equity: extent to which public programs' benefits and costs are distributed such that
no group or individual receives less than a minimum benefit level or pays more than a
maximum cost.

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What guidance or lessons are administrators likely to get from evaluations conducted by any
of the above standards? Analysis of the major social programs "were not well equipped to tell
how programs managed to make an impact on people's lives or what factors prevented them
from doing so. They could not explain why programs worked or failed. Evaluation did not
yield many clues about promising directions for change." Contrary to many expectations/
"few evaluation reports lead to direct and immediate changes in policy or practice. More
often, evaluation reports are cited, referred to, used in testimony, or footnoted/ to support
positions already taken. More than a signal for direction, evaluation becomes ammunition in
policy battles." The plurality of standards and conflicts among the involved parties is plainly
one reason for this.

7.8 Procedures for Evaluation

Just as there are many forms of evaluation, there are many valid approaches to generating
findings and conclusions. What is presented below are not a precise format but rather a list of
items that defines moderately systematic evaluations and directs a general order in which
analysis most logically occurs. Ideally, one plans the evaluation procedure along with the
program’s implementation in order to obtain performance information when it is needed.
Otherwise, the analysis has to be "tacked on” later. In conducting an evaluation of a policy,
the analyst:

1. Identifies the relevant audience and its concerns on the isuue;

2. Lists the goals that the program as implemented should have accomplished and the
standards that are to be applied;
3. Collects all relevant performance data—resource inputs and output measurements;
4. Portrays the changes in the targeted situation resulting from the policy by comparing
what resulted from the program with what would have happened in its absence;
5. Compares the inputs with the outputs, the goats with the results, and the costs with the
benefits;
6. Identifies reasons for the results obtained in steps 4 and 5; and
7. Recommends changes in the policy or the method of its implementation,

The last stage of evaluation is necessary if one seeks directly to influence future choices:
recommending changes in the policy or its implementation. Such admonitions can range from

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detailed prescriptions for reducing costs and tightening supervision to a comprehensive
redrafting of policy goals and philosophy or they may simply call for keeping things as they
are, claiming that all is well.

Prescriptions for change can range from the obvious to the visionary. If they simply reflect
the preferences of the evaluator with no real concern for feasibility, they are useless. Those
that broadly sketch a "best of all possible worlds" solution but detail no clear path to get there
are also of limited value. On the other hand, recommendations can be very "safe," stating and
justifying what those involved have already decided to do. Perhaps the most useful
prescriptions are those that have a real chance of making improvements but are controversial
enough to warrant serious debate.

The validity of evaluation studies is a major concern for both analysts and users. If a study
accurately evaluates what it intended to, it is said to have internal validity. It provided an
accurate picture of Oakland’s allocation of street improvements and their outcomes. This
internal validity is the most important aim of most studies. External validity is the
transferability of the finding to similar settings. This goal may be of low priority to a purely
internal evaluation.

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