Why Study Public Policy?

PA 206 PUBLIC POLICY AND PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION
MR. ELRIC BATILARAN, MPA
JADE E. JANDOC
MPA-NT
REFLECTION PAPER
The topic ‘Why Study Public Policy’ is a tool in bridging or closing the gap between
the actuality of Public Policy and the theories behind which is a reference to it.
The book cover everything there is to know about Public Policy. So basically, the
person who is in charge of creating public policy is the government. Furthermore,
going beyond a single policy has its pre-requisites. It requires analysis, authority, and
organization. There are as well bunch of questions posed and were also addressed
in the refence material about Public Policy.
There are principal elements and patterns that must be considered in policy
dynamics—which influences organizational and political behavior. There is likewise a
thing called policy contents and processes which are produced through studying the
interplay of three dimension of undertaking public problems. Political theories has
always focused on thee analytical dimension. Policy actors are those who interact to
determine the content and process of public policy making. Structures institutions
that serves as constraints these actors’ efforts, and lastly, set of ideas and
knowledge that inform their deliberations and actions.
To further expound, policy making is fundamentally about constrained actors
attempting to match policy goals with policy means in a process that can be
characterized as ‘applied problem solving’. Matching goals and means is a process
that has two dimensions—technical and political. The former is about the optimal
relationship between goals and tools to address a particular problem, while the latter
one is called political since, in reality, not all actors typically agree on what constitute
a policy problem.
There are a lot of experts who defined Public Policy. One is Thomas Dye who
describe public policy as anything government choses to do or not to do. In his
definition, he specifies that the government is the primary agent of public policy
making which leads to a safe assumption that the decisions of private businesses
and interest groups are not public policies. He further added that government enjoys
a special role in policy making. Secondly, he added that the choice between to do
something or nothing is a public policy matter. Lastly, he emphasized that public
policy is a conscious choice of the government, meaning the action done by the
government and its decision yields unintended consequences. To out everything in a
nutshell, public policy is centered to as an applied problem-solving process.
Another expert is Jenkins. He defined public policy as a set of interrelated decisions
taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning goals and means of achieving
them within a specified situation. He clarified that in the specification of the policy
content must be composed of goals and means. However, he expanded further that
policy making is a dynamic process and acknowledges that a policy is a result of

interrelated decisions. He also added, improving Dye’s work, that a governments
capacity to implement decision is a significant component of public policy and plays
a vital role in the action that the government will take into consideration. He also
never failed to mention that public policy making is definitely a goal-oriented
behavior.
In studying public policy, there are implied methods because it is not an easy thing to
do. It is considered as demanding that it cannot be pursued simply by accessing
previous records of decision making. Some analyst explained that policy making has
two approaches, one is it is reasonably objective—in this technique, public policy
students must be skilled in evaluating the policy outcomes. The other approach is
subjective interpretive, in this kind of technique, however, discerns and critiques the
government intentions and actions. But these two serves to underscore how
orientation towards policy making as a social phenomenon to which gives an impact
to analytical techniques and outcome.
In the framework of Policy cycle, one of the many scholars, Laswell, divided the
process into seven stages –intelligence, promotion, prescription, invocation,
application, termination and appraisal. He further analyzed that policy making
focused on decision-making with the government. Brewer, an expert in this field that
policy process is composed of only six stages –invention, estimation, selection,
implementation, evaluation and termination. Furthermore, Brewer’s definition
improved Laswell’s by expanding beyond the confines of the government.
There is also stages in Applied Problem Solving which was parallel to Stages in
Public Cycle with corresponding Key Actors Involved. This model facilitates
understanding of multi-dimensional processes by disaggregating the complexity of
the entire process into number of stages and substages.
•••
Scholars of comparative public policy are interested in systematically studying public
policies and their origins to gain a better understanding of the causes, factors and
institutional or actor constellations that bring about different kinds of policy
decisions.
Public policy is a course of action that guides a range of related actions in a given
field. They rarely tackle one problem, but rather deal with clusters of entangled and
long-term problems. Public policy provides guidance to governments and
accountability links to citizens. Decision making is clouded by values, rather than
based purely on objective data. Most issues tend to involve deeply held values or
interests and large amounts of money, making the policy process very complex.
Policy comes from those who have legitimate authority to impose normative
guidelines for action. It is made by elected officials acting in concert with advisors
from the higher levels of the administration.
A policy framework is a broad set of policies that governs the actions of groups and
organizations. The broad set of policies forms a web and impacts new policy
development and policy amendments. The presence or absence of a policy affects

all other policies within the web (both existing ansd new).
REFERENCES
COMPARATIVE APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF PUBLIC POLICY-MAKING
Authored by: Sophie Schmitt
Routledge Handbook of Public Policy
Print publication date: November 2012
Online publication date: December 2012
Print ISBN: 9780415782456
eBook ISBN: 9780203097571
Adobe ISBN: 9781136223259
UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING BASIC PUBLIC POLICY CONCEPTS

Melissa Mackay, University of Guelph
Louise Shaxton, Delta Partnership

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PA 206 PUBLIC POLICY AND PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION

MR. ELRIC BATILARAN, MPA

policy making is a dynamic process and acknowledges that a policy is a result of

development and policy amendments. The presence or absence of a policy affects

UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING BASIC PUBLIC POLICY CONCEPTS

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