Public Policy

Sunny Jose
What is Public Policy?
• Whatever govts choose to do or not
to do (Thomas Dye)
• Regulate conflicts within a society
• Organise society to carry on conflicts with
other societies
• Distribute symbolic rewards & material
rewards
• Extract resources (money) from society
What is Public Policy?
• Regulate behavior, organise bureaucracies,
distribute benefits or extract resources

• Are govts free to choose?

• Context, ideology & governance

• Actions of govt and the intentions of such

action
• Political decisions to achieve societal goals
What is a policy?
• A course of action based on declared
and respected principle
• Action OR decision?
• A set of interrelated decisions concerning
the selection of goals and means of
achieving them in a specific situation
• What makes a policy PUBLIC?
Public
• In response to problems that require attention
• Oriented towards a goal or desired state

• Made on public’s behalf to serve public

interest

• Power of govt comes from the consent of the

governed
Public
• Public generally refers to a domain
• What constitutes this domain?
• Institutions which translate value preferences
into policy priorities
• Ideological context upholding value priorities
• People who play critical role championing
ideological priorities
• Role of public is central as pub policies are
articulation of social priorities
Features of Public Policy
• Deliberately designed to address societal
issues
• Designed by govt and institutions towards
specific goals
• Response to a perceived need or demand
• Creates a policy environment in which actors
and politics play out
• Authoritative decision by the govt
Context of Public Policy
• Public policies are context dependent
• Devoid of context, they lack salience
• Political context
• Economic context
• Socio-cultural context
• Governing context
Origin & Scope
 Regulation, redistribution,
infrastructure, & many more
 Warfare to welfare to well-being
 Policyanalysis as a subset of
advising the govt
 Advising as the subset of policy
analysis
 From govt officials to experts
Policy science
• Analysis of Policy
• How a policy emerged
• How it is implemented
• How (and why) does it work or
doesn’t work
• Who gets what and why
Policy science
• Analysis for Policy
• Informed policy
• Improved (better) policy
• Evidence based policy
• Speak truth to the power
Policy science
• Policy output: contents of a policy
decision
• Policy outcome: immediate
consequence of a policy decision
• Policy impact: policies’ effects on
intended purpose
• Policy or decision process
Decision Process: Lasswell
• Policy identification
• Policy estimation
• Policy selection
• Programme implementation
• Programme evaluation
• Policy termination
Decision Process: New
• Policy identification
• Agenda setting
• (capturing attention of policy makers)
• Policy formulation
• (devising & selecting policy options)
• Policy legitimation
• (winning political support & enactment)
• Policy implementation
• (creating institutional set-up)
• Policy evaluation
• Policy as a political activity
Approaches
• Policy as an institutional output
• Policy becomes policy only when govt
implements & enforces it
• Three distinctive features
• Govt lends legitimacy to policies:
important and binding
• Govt policies involve universality
• Govt monopolizes coercion in society:
only govt can act against the violators
Approaches
• Policy as maximum social gain
• Govt should prefer policies:
• whose gains to society exceed the
costs by greatest amounts
• Govt should refrain from policies if cost
exceeds gains
• Uses rational choice theory
• Rational policy: Gains exceed losses
and greater than other alternatives
Approaches
• Policy as collective decision making
• Uses public choice theory
• All political actors seek to maximise
personal benefits in politics
• James Buchanan: individuals come to
politics for own personal benefits
• People pursue self-interest in politics
• But they mutually benefit from collective
decision making
Social contract
• Linked to social contract theory (Locke)
• Govt itself arises from social contract
among individuals
• Who, for their mutual benefits, agree to
obey laws and support the govt
• For the protection of their lives, liberty &
property
Public choice theory
• Recognizes that govt must perform
functions that market can’t handle
• Govt must provide public goods
• (goods & services should be supplied to
everyone if supplied to anyone)
• Their costs exceed their value to any
single buyer
• Externalities: acts of one creates
problems for others (pollution)
Public choice theory
• Parties and individuals are not interested
in advancing principles
• They formulate policies to win elections
• They do not win elections to formulate
policies
Policy evaluation
• Several policy evaluation tools are
deployed based on their approaches
• Cost-benefit analysis, social impact
assessment to randomized control trials
Policy evaluation
• Speak truth to the power
• Knowledge of govt (process)
• Knowledge in govt (what policies offer
in substance)
• Knowledge for govt (policy problem to
impacts)