Public Policy Meaning, Scope, and Types PDF

PUBLIC POLICY- MEANING Public policy is device employed to address societal problems. It is an instrument to guide social actions in accordance to predetermined goals. Public Policy as an academic discipline emerged in the beginning of 1950s and since then it has been acquir...

PUBLIC POLICY- MEANING Public policy is device employed to address societal problems. It is an instrument to guide social actions in accordance to predetermined goals. Public Policy as an academic discipline emerged in the beginning of 1950s and since then it has been acquiring new dimensions. Public Policy as an academic pursuit cut across lot of other academic discipline eg., Political Science, Public Administration, Economics, Management and others. It is more interdisciplinary in nature. Today Public policy as a academic discipline focus on Policies themselves and also analyze the causes and consequences of government activity. The study of public policy is a recent discipline. Daniel Mc Cool argues that the modern policy studies began in 1922 but also notes, “the study of Public Policy did not suddenly spring into existence in the 1950s and 1960s. The study of Public Policy has evolved as a new branch of the social sciences called a “Policy Sciences”. This concept of policy sciences was first formulated by Harold Lasswell in 1951. Idea of Public It is important to understand the concept of “Public” for us to understand Public Policy. Eg., terms like public interest, public sector, public opinion, public health and others. ‘PUBLIC’ dimension is generally referred to ‘Public ownership’ or control for ‘Public Purpose’. The Public comprises that domain of human activity that requires governmental intervention or common action. W.F. Baber argues that the Public sector differs from Private sector on the following lines; 1. It faces more complex and ambiguous tasks. 2. It has more problems in implementing its decisions 3. It employs more people with wider range. 4. It is more concerned with securing opportunities or capacities. 5. It is more concerned with compensating for market failure. 6. It engages in activities with greater symbolic significance. 7. It is held to stricter standards of commitment and legality. 8. It has a greater opportunity to respond to issues of fairness. 9. It must operate or appear to operate in the public interest. 10.It must maintain minimal levels of public support. The Idea of ‘ Policy’ Policy denotes guidance for action. It may take the form of the following ways: A declaration of goals A declaration of course of action A declaration of general purpose An authoritative decision Birkland highlighted the key attributes of Policy: Policy is made in response to some sort of problem that requires immediate attention. Policy is made on the Public’s behalf. Policy is oriented towards a goal or desired state such as the solution of a problem. Policy is ultimately made by government, though ideas may come from outside the government or through the interaction of government and non-governmental 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. In simple words Policy is the ‘output’ of the political system. Public Policy is a combination of two expressions- ‘Public and Policy’ which refers to ‘domain and device’. It suggests that there are two types of actors involved in the process of Public Policy- Governments and Governed(People). On the one hand there is the government which has definite ideological goals to attain while devising public policy. On the other hand efforts to accommodate view points and counter view points to arrive at specific policies and policy priorities should be compulsorily observed. Defining PUBLIC POLICY The expression PUBLIC is derived from the Latin word POPULUS or POPLICUS. It refers to the people involved in activities for the fulfilment of common goals. This term is constantly engaged in politico-ideological activities which are relevant to the existence of citizens. So Public refers to a domain in which ideological priorities are articulated in the form of specific decision in the form of public policy. What constitutes this Public Domain? There are three major components- 1. The institutions that are critical in translating value preferences into policy priorities 2. The ideological context upholding specific value preferences. 3. The people who play critical roles by championing one set of ideological priorities as against another. The second expression POLICY is understood as an instrument to pursue predetermined ideological goals. The expression ‘POLICY’ is an acronym comprising sets of alphabets with specific meanings (Chakrabarthy and Chand, 2016). The first set is PO which is articulated as ‘Periodically Organized’; The second set is LI is expanded as ‘Legally Induced’ The third set is CY includes ‘ Calculated yields’. Hence a Policy denotes the following meanings; 1. Public policy needs to be transformed in accordance with the changing social, economic and political realities. 2. Public policy emphasizes the importance of the Constitution and other legal enactments in shaping Public Policy. 3. Public policy is always an outcomes based on very thorough calculations by those matter in its framing. Definitions of PUBLIC POLICY Y. Dror defines Policies as “ General directives on the main lines of action to be followed” Cochran and Malone defines the term Public Policy as the “study of government decisions and actions designed to deal with a matter of public concern” Sir Geoffrey Vickers defines it as “decisions giving direction, coherence and continuity to the courses of action for which the decision making body is responsible” Guy Peters “Public Policy is the sum of government activities whether acting directly or through agents as it has an influence on the life of citizens”. David Easton defines Public Policy as “the authoritative allocation of values for the whole society”. Thomas Dye states “Public Policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do”. Robert Lineberry says “It is what governments do and fail to do and for their citizens”. The following points will create the nature of public policy more clearly in your minds: Public Policies are goal oriented. Public policies are formulated and implemented in order to attain the objectives which the government has in view for the ultimate benefit of the masses in general. These policies clearly spell out the programmes of government. Public policy is the outcome of the government‟s communal(COMMUNITY ORIENTED) actions. It means that it is a pattern or course of activity or the governmental officials and actors in a communal sense (COMMUNITY BASED) than being termed as their discrete and segregated decisions. Public policy is what the government actually decides or chooses to do. It is the relationship of the government units to the specific field of political environment in a given administrative system. It can take a diversity of shapes like law, ordinances, court decisions, executive orders, decisions etc. Public policy is positive in the sense that it depicts the concern of the government and involves its action to a scrupulous problem on which the policy is made. It has the sanction of law and authority behind it. Negatively, it involves decisions through the governmental officials concerning not taking any action on a scrupulous issue Public Policy has the following key attributes: 1. Made in response to some problems that require attention. 2. It is made on behalf of the public 3. It is a course of action adopted and pursued by the government to serve public interest. 4. It is reflective of what governments actually does. 5. The ideas for the public policies comes from the interaction of the government with non-government actors. 6. Government being a legal authoritative entity, people accept it as legitimate to pay taxes, obey traffic rules , follow pollution control norms and others SCOPE OF PUBLIC POLICY Because of increasing complexity of technology, social organization, industrialization and urbanization we are seeing that the there is enormous scope for the public policy to increase. Government is also concerned with the more complex functions of nation building and socio-economic progress hence there is increase in public policy. Governments of today are not only providers of day to day services like water, electricity supply and others but government is expected to be a innovator in many large scale enterprises. In many developing countries there is great pressure on governments to accelerate national development, make use of up to date technology, adopt necessary changes in institutions make use of resources and improve the level of living. For all the above said needs, we need public policies. The line of argument here is that all of us are greatly and variedly affected by public policies. The range of public policy is vast. Today public policies may deal with such substantive areas as defense, environmental protection, medical care and health. The expanding areas of public policy are education, housing, taxation, inflation, science and technology and so on. TYPES OF PUBLIC POLICY REGULATORY POLICY: These policies are concerned with the regulation and control of various activities. These policies usually deal with safety and quality control of various activities. In India policies that are made by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) are the example of Regulatory policies. DISTRIBUTIVE POLICY: Distributive policy grant goods and services to specific interest group of the population. All the welfare programmes are example of distributive policy eg., Agricultural subsidy policy for farmers, health care at subsidized rate for poor. REDISTRIBUTIVE POLICY: These policies aims at redistributing resources from one group to another. The main objective of such policies is to set up an equitable society through redistribution of social and economic services. Eg., Income tax policy. CONSTITUENT POLICY: Constituent policy are those which are concerned with setting up or new institutions or to reorganize the existing institutions eg., planning commission to NITI ayog. Relationship Between Public Policy & Public Administration Public Administration is detailed systematic execution of Pubic Law. Every particular application of law is an act of administration. It is the determined action taken in pursuit of a conscious purpose. Public Policies are framed by the legislature with the help of executive of the government whereas implemented by the executive or administrative part through legislative process. Public administration is primarily focused on how the bureaucratic processes work. Policy may be developed from bottom-up or top-down. Whichever way policy is developed, it form the framework within which public administration must function to ensure public policy is executed. In the developing countries like India, the administrative agency or bureaucracy plays a demonstrative and convincing role in the policy making process. The reason is that policy making institutions like political parties interest groups or pressure groups in these countries are weak and fragmented. As against all this, the bureaucracy is comparatively well knit organized and strong. In many cases or circumstances the initiative for policy or legislation comes from the administrative departments which in the light of the day to day experience of the working of administration are the first to know where a change or a new policy is needed. In such cases policy proposals emanate from them and the legislature puts its seal of approval on them. In case of policy proposals, how, where and when discretion is needed is left to the flexibility and discretion of the administrators. Public Policy and Public administration Woodrow Wilson in his essay, The Study of Administration published in 1887 attempted to distinguish between Policy and Administration. According to him policy making is political function while administration was to be concerned with the enforcement or implementation of policies. According to him administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics. Administrative questions are not political questions. Followed by Wilson, Goodnow provided a detailed study of the distinction between policy and administration, he also maintained that there should be difference between politics and administration. However, such rigid distinction has been disproved. Administration cannot be divorced from policy and politics. Luther Gullick and Appleby in works say that policy and administration are inseparable twins. According to them Administration is politics since it must be responsive to the public interest. To quote Appleby, “ Administrators are continually laying down rules for the future and administrators are continually determining what the law is, what it means in terms of action, what the rights of parties are with respect both to transaction in process and transaction in prospect.. Administrators also participate in another way in the making of policy for the future; they formulate recommendations for legislation and this is a part of the function of policy making”. Public officials of today are thus engaged both in policy formulation and policy execution and government is a mixture of administration and politics all the way up and down the line. As Peter Odegard puts it “ Policy and Administration are the Siamese twins of Politics”