Public Policy

Answer : Any public policy comprises two major parts i.e. policy formulation and policy implementation. The implementation, of late, has gained a prominent place in matters of public policy. The importance of the study of Comparative Public Administration (CPA) is well accepted today. There are two factors that make comparative studies significant. The first factor relates to the academic study of public administration. It is believed that through comparative public administration hypotheses, generalisations, models and theories can be constructed which can collectively help in the scientific study of public administration. The old orthodoxy of principles of administration is not considered valid any more and therefore now it is believed that generalization relating to administration structures and behaviour emerging out of comparative studies in different nations and cultures can help in formulating theoretical constructs which can provide a scientific basis to the study of public administration.

The implementation of any public policy though comprise later half of the policy process still it is very crucial for significant functioning of policy matters. In fact, the success of any policy depends upon how well the policy is being implemented.

The Implementation itself depends upon a number of factors viz. the allocated resources, the amount of flexibility available for implementation of any policy, the quality of available manpower and their skills, the process of monitoring and review of policy implementation, and moreover, the control and supervision of central agency which is also responsible for facilitating the coordination process among various factors.

More, the judgement of available resources, techniques, mode of implementation become very crucial to ascertain that what is effective in implementation and what is not.

So, the implementation is very crucial for success of any public policy and must be given due weightage.

Answer : Monitoring and evaluation of policies is as important as framing policies. Whenever a laxity in monitoring and evaluation of policies, it can Paralysethe policy implementation.

There are number of problems in policy implementation. Policy implementation concern over execution of policy has given birth to the new field of implemention studies. Woodrow Wilson aptly commented, “It is getting harder to run a Constitution than frame one”. Running is the implementation aspect of Government activities.

There are two ways of judging implementation : efficiency standard and responsiveness standard. Efficiency standard means, what aspects are produced for a given level of inputs and in what time period. The responsive standard reflects the accountability or popoular will to accept the implementation. In actual administration, there is always a trade off between efficiency and responsivesness. Before judging implementation objectivity a fair assessment of the problems in the implementation is essential.

The problems in policy implementation can be studied, analysed from the following four perspectives:

Policy Statements: The policy statement is not clearly worded and generally legal terminologies are given in the policies without proper explanation. In policy implementations there are lack of Foresightedness.

Supporing Services: The policies in government generally have lack of support from staff, infrastructure and shortage of time.

At the same time the policies are gignastic and unrealistic.

Pressure on Implementation: Political pressure is a major hurdle for implementation of policies. Vested interest and non-cooperation of citizens are also an hurdle.

Inclination of Implementators: The implementators’ lack of will, initiative and term spirit is also an hurdle. In Government policy implementation, there’s lack of motivation, which is also one of the major hurdles.

Generally laxity in implementation and monitoring the policies paralyse the policy implementation.

Answer : A policy decision involves action by some official person or body to approve, modify or reject a preferred policy alternative. If positive, it takes such forms as the enactment of legislation or the issuance of an executive order.

Policy formulation is a complex process. Demands for policy actions that are generated in the environment and transmitted to the political system; at the same time, the environment places limits and constraints upon what can be done by policy makers.

Differences in public policy and policy making in various countries can be explained at least partly in terms of political cultural variation. Social welfare programmes are older and more widely covered in west European countries than in the USA because there has been greater public demand and approval of such programmes in those countries. A political culture oriented more to the past than to the future may sanctify age-old traditions, customs and social moves in India more than perhaps in US, a country whose culture may be more future oriented, adaptable and innovative.

Next, citizen participation in the policy formulation in a parochial political culture is going to be essentially non-existent, and government will be of little concern and may believe that he can do little to influence public policy which may lead to his passive acceptance of governmental action that may be rather authoritarian in style. In these cultures chances of popular unrest culminating in violence are very high. In the participant political culture, individuals may organize into groups and otherwise seek to influence government action on citizens.

Further, public policies can be seen emanating from conflicts between different groups viz. private and public, often with opposing interest and attitudes. One of the major sources of conflict in modern societies is economic activity. Thus it was that in many capitalist countries, organized labour, dissatisfied with the wages resulting information of union, bargaining with employers have often sought minimum wage legislation from the government. Implementing a public policy is a process of discovering what works and what does not work. Implementation should not be taken as a routine activity. It is only when policy becomes operational, some of its trivial aspects become routinized. During the implementation phase, the policy organization is always concerned with finding out how best the goals of the policy could be achieved.

Government’s efforts at administering or implementing policy pose staggering problems of resolving conflict and soliciting cooperation. Many and diverse agencies of implementation constantly collide with each other or discover overlapping responsibility. Further the problem may arise like limited competence on behalf of administrators, inadequate administrative resources etc.

These factors determine the diversity, fluidity and complexity of the implementation environment and facilitate or hamper the smooth implementation.

Answer : Public policy is the outcome of decisions about the political allocation of resources and it therefore characterized by the use of legal and coercive sanctions; by being of general concern; and by the application of political values to problem solving. Public policies are those adopted and implemented by the governmental authorities.

The idea that policymaking is partly a manifestation of power makes it necessary to consider now power is exercised in the policy-making process. There is a process through which public policy is made. Public policy is not an independent variable it is interrelated with several other components. Also public policy has long historical evidence since pre-democratic era. But history shows little evidence of systematic learning from policy experience.

The traditional studies described the institutions in which public policy was formulated. But, unfortunately the linkages between important institutional arrangement and the content of public were largely unexplored.

The process of public policy has evolved into what is virtually a new branch of the social the so-called policy sciences.

Answer : Policy may be defined as a deliberate course of action or inaction taken by those in office under the influence of values and pressures on the way resources are to be used. Policy is the outcome of decisions about the political allocation of resources and it therefore characterized by the use of legal and coercive sanctions; by being of general concern; and by the application of political values to problem solving.

The policy making process being with the ideas people have about the actions they want the government to undertake. A governmental decision may be made on the demand of the people. The governmental and administrative process comprise a vast mass of decisions made almost daily. The cabinet makes use the committee system to facilitate decision making in specific areas. Most of the decisions in various matters involving policy issues of less important are taken by the administrative secretaries.

The policy making process has to a large extent, been regarded as a ‘black box’ which converts demands into policies but whose structure is seen to be unknown and in accessible to observation.

Thus, policy is closely related to decision. However it is not the same as decision-making. Policy-making does involve decision-making but a decision does not necessarily constitute a policy.

Answer : The role of public administration in policy-making and its implementation has increased and still increasing in leap and bound. Since policy making is political act, one aspect of the dichotomy of politics and administration was that of politics is concerned with policy formulation, setting the goals or making of law whereas administration executes that policy or implements those laws. One is concerned with the ends and other is with the means or instrumentality by which the end is achieved.

Public Administration and politics are complementary to each other; it is futile to draw a dividing line between the two.

Today the public-administration plays an important role in policy-making. Formally policies are made by the ministers, but they cannot do so without the help of their administrative officials. The ministers consult their secretaries. These specialists place necessary information and statistics before their ministers. Success or failure of laws and policies depends upon the advice of the administrative officials. In this way both-Administration and politics—are coming together.

Delegated Legislation has also brought both public administration and politics together—because of excessive workload, technical nature and unexpected exigencies, the legislature enacts broad outlines in majority of statuses. The administrative officers, fill in the blanks of details.

To quite F. M. Marx “Whether the sphere of interest be public or private, administration is always the servant of policy-management denotes means and means have no significance except in terms of ends”. This view continues to be held by many scholars. Joseph La Palombara concedes that policy and administration can never be fully separated, but he asserts that bureaucracy is expected to be less directly involved, as a de facto matter, in policy-making in the western democracies than is true of less developed systems. Policymaking institutions are presumed to be strong enough to limit the bureaucracy to its instrumental role.

“To a considerable extent, in the west, bureaucrats share this norm and go to some pains to convince themselves and others that their essential role is primarily instrumental”. They are not supposed to “usurp” the role-making function.

However, the overwhelming view and the practice of modern political systems do not subscribe to the making of neat distinction between policy-making and policy implementation. Not only in the fields of policy formulation and policy execution, are the relations between politics and administration so close, but also they extend to other fields as well as constitutionalism, local government and international relations.

In modern states, administrators make thousands of decisions at various levels involving the use of discretion which effect the rights of the parties, lay down rules, formulate recommendations for legislation etc., and this is a part of the function of policy-making. The functions of policy-making cannot, actually be vested exclusively at any point of or level in government.

“Wherever there is action affecting the public, there is policy making”. Much of the administration which may normally be left to the administrators is, according to Appleby, a kind of tentative delegation of power. In the perspective of each successive level everything decided at the level and above is “policy” and every thing that may be left to a lower level is “ administration”. Executives do not sit at two different desks, treating policy at one and administration at the other. Even intellectually, they more often deal with whole problems than they deal exclusively with problems of policy or problems of administration.

Effective policy implementation is going to test the coping capacity of the governments in today’s complex situations. Goals have to be clearly set; planning, programming and projections have to be followed step by step; and project management in all its ramifications has to have top priority in government. The strength of administration and the legitimacy of the govt. itself would depend more and more on the administration’s capacity to deliver the goods in time and in response to the demand of the citizens.

At last it can be said, that Public Administration is the complex of governmental activities that are undertaken in public interest at deferent levels. The discipline of public administration aims at a systematic study of these activities.

Answer : Public policy are those which are “developed by governmental bodies” and officials, though non-governmental actors and agencies may also exert direct or indirect pressure or influence in the policy-making process. The special characteristics of public policies as differentiated from other policies emanate from the fact that they are formulated by what David Easton has termed the “authorities” in a political system namely, elders, paramount chiefs, executives, legislators, judges, administrators, councellors, monarch, and the like.”

There are certain implications of the concept of public policy. First purposive or result-oriented action, rather than random behaviour is the hallmark of public policy. Second, public policy refers to the action of decisional pattern by public administrators on a particular issue over a period rather than their separate discrete decisions on that matter in an adhoc fashion. Third, policy is what governments actually do and what subsequently happens, rather than what they intend to do or say they are going to do. Fourth, public policy may be either positive or negative in form. Positively, it may involve some form of government action regarding any issue or problem; negatively it may involve a decision by government official not to take action on a matter on which governmental opinion, attitude or action is asked for. Lastly, public policy at least, 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.

Answer : A policy decision involves action by some official person or body to approve, modify or reject a preferred policy alternative. If positive, it takes such forms as the enactment of legislation or the issuance of an executive order.

Formally legislature performs the task of law-making in a political system. It is often said that the British and Indian parliaments merely consent to laws that are originated by political parties and pressure groups, framed by bureaucrats and introduced in the legislature by the government. This is because the government enjoying a comfortable majority in the legislature knows that it can get any measure of its choice passed by parliament. Legislature are more important in policy formation in democratic than in doctorial countries; and within democratic systems, legislature generally tends to show greater independence in policy formulation in presidential system (USA) than in the parliamentary system.

The Executive: In parliamentary countries all policies must have the approval of the cabinet and all important laws in parliament are introduced by the ministers of the government.

In the developing countries the executive probably has even more influence in policy-making than in modern countries. This is because there is often no strong bureaucratic base, and the executive plays a larger role in policy formulation because of a greater concentration of power in governmental hands coupled with less responsiveness to the legislature. In such countries pressure groups have little influence or impact in policy-making due to their lack of sophistication or coordination. However, executive decision-making is not done in a vacuum. The executive is expected to act in conformity with the constitution, statutes and court decisions.

Public officials are associated with policy formulation in there important ways. First, they have to supply facts, data and criticism about the workability of policy to the minister or the legislature if the initiative for policy-making comes for them. Secondly, very often the initiative for policy legislation originates from the administration. This is due to the fact that it is the administrators who are constantly in touch with the general public, and therefore, in a better position to understand the difficulties that arise in the implementation of policies. Thirdly, on account of lack of time and knowledge, the legislature passes skeleton acts and leaves the details to the administration. It is here that administrators have the maximum scope for policy-making. In order to execute these acts, the administration frames rules, regulations and by laws which is significant contribution to policy-making.

The Courts: In countries where the courts have the power of the judicial review, they have played an important role in policy formulation. The courts have often greatly affected the nature and content of public policy through exercise of the powers of judicial review and statutory interpretation in cases brought before them.

Basically, judicial review is the power of courts to determine the constitutionality of actions of the legislative and executive branches and to declare them null and void if such actions are found to be in conflict with the constitutional provisions. The judiciary has played a major role in the formation of economic policy in the United States. Many laws relating to such matters as property ownership, contracts corporations, and employer-employee relations have been developed and applied by the courts in the form of common law and equity.

Besides the official policy-making many other may participative in the policy-making process, like interest groups, political parties and individual citizens. They may considerably influence policy formation without possessing legal authority to make binding policy decision.

Answer : Policy-making is a function of the legislature and its executive, of the administration. Policy-making is a part of the political processes under which groups of individuals, communities and nations are governed. In developing countries, the executive has more influence in policy-making because of a greater concentration of power in governmental hands coupled with less responsiveness to the Legislature. Another limiting factor is the availability of resources.

Policy implementation is the process of carrying out authoritative public policy directives. During the implementation phase, the policy organization is always concerned with finding out how best the goals of the policy could be achieved. The policy-makers know that they cannot formulate a comprehensive law and therefore the administrators design large elements of the policy at the implementation stage. The function of implementation is the largest part of government and government’s effort at administrating or implementing policy pose staggering problems of resolving conflicts and soliciting cooperation. Many and diverse agencies of implementation constantly collide with each other.

Every policy should be implemented effectively as policies represent public will. More so in Less Developed as policies in such countries relate to development and growth, so vital for the welfare to the deprived masses. Further resources are scare in LDCs, and it is all the more essential to apply the scarce resources effectively.

Answer : Public policies in modern political system are purposive or goal-oriented statements. A public policy may be either positive or negative in form. In its positive form, it may involve some form of overt government action to deal with a particular problem. On the other hand, in its negative form it involves a decision by public servants not to take action in some other matter on which governmental order is sought. Public policy is based on law and it commands the obedience of the citizens. Public policy has thus a legally coercive quality that citizens accept as legitimate.

Policy-making and Decision-making are closely related to each other. However it is not the same as decision-making. Policy-making does involve decision-making but a decision does not necessarily constitute a policy. Decision-making often involves as identification of a problem, a careful analysis of possible alternatives and a selection of one alternative for action. Generally decisions are taken by administrators in their day-to-day within the existing framework of policy. The policy decisions eventually taken thus provide a sense of direction to the courses of administrative action. Policy decisions are decisions made by public official that authorize or give direction and content to public policy actions. They may include decisions to issue executive orders, promulgate administrative rules or make important judicial interpretations of laws.

Decision-making is an important constituent of the processes of policy-making and planning as the decision weaves individual choices into a web of relationships, which constitute a policy. Policies determine an area within which a decision is to be made and assure that the decision will be consistent with and contribute to objectives. Policies may be regarded as means of encouraging discretion and initiative, but within limits, policies are general statements or understanding which guide or channel thinking and action in decision-making.

Policy-making is essentially a manifestation of power. Power is described as the ability to bring about some change in the behaviour of other people. In terms of public policy, power may be defined as the capacity of an individual, or groups or holders of public offices to determine policy decisions. Such decision may relate to the choice of individuals for political offices and also to the selection of different purposive courses of action.

In policy-making power is executed by different individual and groups; the members of the Council of Minister, MPs, bureaucrats, interest group, individual citizen. Each set of forces exercise certain influences which taken together, make up the policy-making process. The process consists of the complex interrelationships of the decision made under the influence of powerful individuals and groups. Policy-making is thus an extremely complex analytical and political process to which there is no beginning or end and the boundaries of which are most uncertain.

It is seen that groups and organizations bring influences to bear on those who are vested with the power of taking and enforcing decisions. Such decision makers comprise those who occupy formal offices within the constitutional system.

The policy-making process at last can be said that it begins with the ideas people have, about the actions they want the government to undertake. The policy-making process has, to a large extent, been regarded as a ‘black box’ which converts demands into policies but whose structure is seen to be unknown and inaccessible to observation.

Answer : Public Policy is the outcome of decisions about the political allocation of resources and it therefore characterized by the use of legal and coercive sanctions; by being of general concern; and by the application of political values to problem solving. Public policies are those adopted and implemented by the governmental authorities.

In a democratic set up, policy-making is a function of the legislature, a political body and its executive, of the administration. In actual practice, while the broad policy is down by the legislature, the detailed policy is drawn by the administration.

Administration is inevitably bound by with policy and through policy with politics. Legislative bodies now are generally unable to initiate within themselves solutions for the extraordinarily complex and often technical problems with which they are faced. Representatives are hard pressed by time, by their constituents, and by a proper concern with politics and elections. The initial formulation of policy has escaped from legislative chambers and now rests principally with official agencies and with outside groups.

The administration agencies, furthermore, are the source of the basic data, and special information required to reach legislative decisions. It is impossible for any legislative body to collect, organize and make available the mass of factual information, which regularly piles up in the departmental files.

The energy, with which administrative action is taken, may be affected by policy consideration and by external political pressures. The enforcement of statute such as goods and drug Acts, the inspection of mines, buildings and the fixing of utility rates are representative of areas in which resistance is frequently encountered and in which contending forces struggle to dominate official action. Legislative bodies may respond by reducing appreciation and thus terminate effective enforcement. Conversely, policy may be substantially modified by mere lack of executive energy or will. Thus administrative decision in the time of implementation can have a great impact on public policy formulated by the legislative.

Policy formulation is concerned with the identification of desirable choices for the future and the direction of action. Once the ends are identified with related value judgements, they have to be operationalised into goals, taking into account facts, resources, means & implementation process.

Any policy is as good or as bad as its implementation. Bad implementation can nullify good policies despite their intrinsic soundness. As lack of implementation can undo any policy, the policy makers should make sure that the implementors do understand the policies and that they have an effective machinery to implement the policy.

Implementation brings into play organization structure processes and motivation. The policy function is the mechanism that regulated system behaviour over the time to optimize realisation of conflicting relations without wrecking the system in the process. Learning feedback and capacity to adapt to the changing environment must therefore be the cornerstone of the edifice. Use of learning feedback to modify intervention strategies is again the first step in developing adaptability or organizations, since implementation will then be a crucial input to policy and decision-making and will help concentrate the powers or organizations towards performance.

Answer : Policy analysis is a technique to measure organizational effectiveness through an examination and evaluation of the effect of a programme. Policy analysis is a systematic and data-based alternative to intuitive judgements about the effect of policy.Policy advocacy is concerned with what governments ought to do or bring about changes in what they do through discussion, persuasion, and activism. On the other hand, policy analysis is concerned with the examination of the impact of policy using tools of the systematic inquiry. The purpose of policy analysis is not to eliminate advocacy but to raise the level of argument among contending interesting interests.

Basically public analysis involves – a rigorous search for the causes and consequences of public policies. This search involves the uses of scientific standard of inferences, 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 purpose of policy analysis is to provide maximum information with minimal cost about the likely consequences of proposed policies and secondly, the actual consequences of policies already adopted. To achieve these two purposes, various method or approaches are applied such as systems analysis and simulation, cost benefit analysis, new approaches to budgeting and policy evaluation.

Policy analysis is an inter-disciplinary upon data from other disciplines. It is essentially an impact research. The four key elements in which policy analyses research are in goals, means, methods and profession. Goals refer to the societal benefits minus the societal cost that one is seeking through public policy decisions. On the means element, there is a growing need for means that are politically and administratively feasibly. As regards the method, they refer to the procedures whereby one can determine the relations between alternative policies and given goals. Finally on the element of the profession of policy-analysis, there is a substantial growth in the policy analysis training programmes, research centres, funding resources, scholarly associations and other government institutions.

The stages in policy analysis are as follows:

1. Identifying the underlying problem.
2. Determining alternatives for policy choice.
3. Forecasting the consequence.
4. Evaluating the outcomes.
5. Making a choice.

As the future is always uncertain, it is questionable whether policy analysis can find solution to the problems faced by the society. Too often, the policy analysis deals with subjective topics and must rely upon the interpretation of results.

Secondly policy analysis cannot provide solution to problem when there is no general consensus on what the problems are. It is incapable of resolving value conflicts. Social

Answer : The study of implementation process, problems and remedies is still in its infancy. The nature of implementation process is exactly opposite to policy adoption process; instead of becoming centralized in one place, it gets dispersed to every place. Implementation should not be taken as a routine activity. It is only when policy becomes operational, some of its trival aspects become routinized. During the implementation phase, the policy organization is always concerned with finding out how best the goals at the policy could be achieved. Implementation always makes and changes policy in some degree. The policy makers also know that they cannot write a law that can cover all aspects of contingencies, and all possible cases. In short, administrators design large elements of the policy at the implementation stage.

Instead of ‘top down’ character of the kind of implementation studies, an alternative bottom up approach has been developed. Implementation is being carried out from bottom and further taking it towards top position. All organizations and institutions cannot implement all types of public policies. They have to be selected and chosen. In this selection the structure of the organization plays an important role. It determines how the policy will be carried out. It is an important asset as well as a potential liability. It provides a continuity and stability to the implementation process. However, the bureaucratic norms can also produce rigidities and inertia and distort the implementation of policy goals.

Answer : Policies are general statements or understandings that guide thinking in decision-making. The essence of policies is the existence of discretion within certain limits, in guiding decision making. Policy may be defined as a deliberate course of action or in action taken by those in office under the influence of valued and pressure on the way resources are to be used or not to be used. Public policy is the outcome of decisions about the political allocation of resources and is therefore applicable by the use of legal and coercive sanction, by being of general concerns and by the application of political values to problem solving. Public policies are those adopted and implemented by the government authority. In policy making power, is exercised by different individuals and groups. The prime minister, cabinet, council of ministers, members of parliament, pressure groups, leader etc. Each of powers constitute one of the influences which together make up the policy making process. The process, consists of a sequence of related decision made under the influence of powerful individuals and groups.

From the Political Perspective, a policy is a public need assuming importance as far as possible, appropriately assessed for its actual fulfilment. It involves and identified and definite public problem and the preparation of the state to meet it in a particular style. It conceives a lieu of action to activate certain result, positive or negative or disclose a resolve to refrain from acting on a specific issue or matter. It is a co-ordination of ideas, views and opinions, and an accommodation of wants and demands of many social groups, and a reconciliation of plurality of interests. Policy is essentially fabricated contrivance adopting a cause of action to achieve some socially significant goal.

Policy implementation is the process of carrying out authoritative public policy directions. It is neither easy nor automatic, the implementation process should be viewed as a process of strategic interaction among human’s special interests all pursuing these goals. Which might or might not be compatible with the goals of the policy mandate. Implementation is one part of the policy process and is seated and interdependent with the other parts. The policy makers cannot write a law that can cover all aspects, contingencies, and all possible cases, therefore the administrators who implement the policy, design large elements of the policy.

The function of implementation is the largest part of government and government’s efforts at administering or implementing policy staggering problems of resolving conflicts and solicity cooperation. Money and diverse agencies of implementation constantly collide with each other or discover overlapping responsibilities. A variation in policy direction and its actual implementation may arise due to factors such –

People implementing public policy often receive conflicts, instruction, from more than one source most administration, take orders from more than one superior.

Limited competence of administrative capability: Administrators sometimes do not have the knowledge as how to do what the policy requires them to do. In such situations, administrator may explain a variety of policies of their own design or choice.