What is Public Policy?

POL 109

The Policy Cycle

Identify social goals and problems in order to make an appropriate policy to address it and go through cycles to make changes. 1) Identifying societal goals, 2) Diagnosing social problems, 3) Prioritizing societal problems, 4) Identifying appropriate institutions for action, 5) Formulating policy solutions, 6) Evaluating competing solutions, 7) Implementing policy, 8) Enforcing and monitoring policy change, 9) Evaluating policy successes and failures, 10) Making revisions, 11) Killing programs as needed

Lowi’s Four Types of Public Policy

Constituent (diffuse cost and benefit), Regulatory (concentrate the cost and diffuse the benefit), Distributive (concentrative benefit and diffuse the cost), Redistributive (concentrative benefit and cost)

Incrementalism

Making policy in small steps based off previous movements

Punctuated Equilibrium

Lack of information causes problems not to be addressed until it is severe and then the reaction is often an overcorrection

What Causes Policy Change?

Context, Socioeconomic, Events or shocks, Public opinion, Technical development/learning, Friction between and interdependence of governments, The rise and fall of organized interest groups

Policy Drift

When stagnation and gridlock cause policy change instead of institutional movement