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Understanding Public Policy & Public Policy Advocates | ||
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Public policy is what public officials within government, and by extension the citizens they represent, choose to do or not to do about public problems. Public policy advocates help government officials to make sound decisions in respects to public problems for their clients. Public problems refer to conditions the public widely perceives to be unacceptable and therefore requiring intervention. In any given case, the choice depends on how the public defines the problem and on prevailing societal attitudes about private action in relation to the government’s role. Public policy is a course of government action or inaction in response to public problems.
The term policy refers in general to a purposive course of action that an individual or group consistently follows in dealing with a problem. A policy is a standing decision characterized by behavioral consistency and repetitiveness on the part of both those who make it and those who abide by it. Public policy advocates support and present client perspectives before public officials so that appropriate policies can be legislated. Whether in the public or private sector, policies also can be thought of as the instruments through which societies regulate themselves and attempt to channel human behavior in acceptable directions.
The language of public policy can prove to be difficult for those not trained in the field. Analysts, policymakers, and commentators sometimes speak without much clarity about intentions (the purposes of government actions); goals (the stated ends to be achieved); plans or proposals (the means for achieving goals); programs (the authorized means for pursuing goals); and decisions or choices, that is, specific actions that are taken to set goals, develop plans, and implement programs. Public policy advocates, having substantial amounts of expertise, can translate the expectations of clients so that they can become essential elements. These elements of public policy can be found in many different legal expressions such as laws, executive orders, regulations, and judicial rulings. They also can be seen in the way that policymakers, such as presidents, governors, or legislators, describe how they view public policy in any given area. Both the legal statements and the actions of policymakers can define what public policy is at any given time. Public policy advocates help policymakers give definition to public policy on behalf of clients.
Public policy is associated with formally approved policy goals and means, as well as the regulations and practices of agencies that implement programs. Looking at public policy this way emphasizes the actual behavior of implementing agencies and officials, not merely the formal statements of policy goals and means found in laws and other expressions of government policy. Public policy advocates help clients to understand what public policy is at any given time.
Whatever the level of government, public policy advocates seek a multitude of goals that also affect all members of society. For laws that govern personal conduct, policies aim to restrict individual behavior as a way to protect lives or prevent injuries and property damage; that is, the goal is to promote the public’s welfare or common good. After government enacts the laws, public policies also affect how the mandated services aimed at the public good are provided.
Any level of government, whether federal, state, or local, may be involved in a particular policy effort because social problems, and the public demand for action on them, manifest themselves from the local to the national level. At the local level, failing public schools, high crimes rates, crowded highways, or air pollution might attract enough attention to spur the school board, mayor, or city council to find remedies. At the national level, concern about inequitable access to health care or the country’s heavy reliance on imported oil may galvanize policymakers and lead to policy developments. Public policy advocates help to bring the demands of their clients to the government arena and build coalitions to facilitate policy agendas.
Public policies reflect not only society’s most important values but also conflict between values. Policies represent which of many different values are given the highest priority in any given decision. As it was put by David Easton (1965) politics is “the authoritative allocation of values for a society.” What Easton means is that the actions of policymakers can determine definitively and with the force of law which of society’s different and sometimes conflicting values will prevail. Because public policy often deals with tough questions, reflecting conflicts over fundamental human values, the resulting policies are going to affect people’s lives. For these reasons, public policy advocates help clients develop a fuller understanding of public policy and the ways governments make policy decisions in addition to providing policymakers with critical information to guide appropriate response. Because policy advocates have knowledge of policy history, understand present legal requirements in various public programs, policymaking, and policy analysis, and have an overview of current public policy debates, public policy advocates have a better grasp of why governments make the decisions they do and are better able to identify the strengths and weaknesses in present policies as well as in proposals to change them.
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Basic concepts: | ||
Government:
Government refers to the institutions and political processes through which public policy choices are made. These institutions and processes represent the legal authority to govern or rule a group of people. In the United States, the federal Constitution describes the government’s institutions, which include Congress, the president, the various agencies of the executive branch, and the federal court system. Each is granted specific but overlapping legal authority to act under a system of separation of powers. At state and local levels, parallel government institutions develop policy for citizens within their jurisdictions, guided by the authority granted in state constitutions and in state and local statutes and ordinances. The American system of governance adheres to the principle of federalism. In a federal system, the national government shares authority with the states and local governments. Quite often, national policies, such as those dealing with environmental protection, are implemented chiefly by the states through an elaborate system of intergovernmental relations in which the federal government grants legal authority to the states to carry out national polices. In other policy areas, such as education, crime control, and land use regulation, state and local governments play the dominant role.
Politics concerns the exercise of power in society or in specific decisions over public policy. Harold Lasswell (1958) put it best when he said politics is about “who gets what, when, and how.” The term is used to refer to the processes through which public policies are formulated and adopted, especially to the roles played by elected officials, organized interest groups, and political parties. This is the politics of policy making. Politics can also be thought of as how conflicts in society are expressed and resolved in favor of one set of interests or social values or another. Politics in this case refers to the issue positions that different groups of people (gun owners, environmentalists, health insurance companies, automobile companies) adopt and the actions they take to promote their values (hiring public policy advocates, campaign contributions). These collections of individuals with similar interests often become active in the policy-making process. So politics is about power and influence in society as well as in the processes of policy making within government. It concerns who participates in and who influences the decisions that governments make and gains and who loses as a result. Public policy advocates aim to ensure their clients come out on the winning side of the bargaining table.
In the United States of America and most other democracies, politics is also related to the electoral processes by which citizens select the policymakers who represent them. In this sense, politics concerns political parties and their issue agendas and the political ideologies, philosophies, and beliefs held by candidates for office, their supporters, and their campaign contributors. Defenders and critics of specific policy actions may offer arguments based in economics, history, ethics, philosophy, or any number of other ways in which to think about what is in the public interest. Still, no one doubts that electoral politics is a major component of the policy-making process.
Politics exerts this strong influence on policy making in part because elected officials necessarily must try to anticipate how their policy statements and actions might affect their chances for reelection. Policymakers are therefore sensitive to the views of the groups and individuals who helped them win office in the first place and whose support may be essential to keeping them in office. These political incentives motivate public officials to pay particular attention to the policy preferences of their core constituencies, especially the activists, while also trying to appeal to the general electorate. For Republicans, the core constituencies include business interests, political conservatives, farmers, and suburban and rural residents, among others. For Democrats, the core constituencies are labor interests, environmentalists, political liberals, residents of urban areas, and others.
Public policy analysis is the examination of components of public policy, the public policy process, or both. It is the study of the causes and consequences of policy decisions. Public policy analysis is the use of reason and evidence to choose the best policy among a number of alternatives. Policy analysis uses many different methods of inquiry and draws from various disciplines to obtain the information needed to assess a problem and think clearly about alternative ways to resolve it. The same information also shapes public debate and deliberation over what actions to take. Public policy analysis encourages deliberate critical thinking about the causes of public problems, the various ways governments and/or the private sector might act on them, and which policy choices make the most sense. Doing so requires not only knowledge of government and politics but also the ability to evaluate the policy actions.
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Copyright (c) 2005-2009 Randy Cannon. All rights reserved.