APPROACHES TO PUBLIC POLICY Introduction Public policy is

APPROACHES TO PUBLIC POLICY Ø Introduction Public policy is a device used to meaningfully address social problems. It is an instrument to guide social actions in accordance with certain predetermined set of goals. Public policies are primarily framed by the government to satisfy public needs and demands. They are the means by which ends of a collective community are served. Public policies serve as the yardstick through which the performance of the government is measured. Ø Some important definitions of Public Policy • According to Robert Presthus public policy is “a choice made by an individual or a group of individuals that explains, justifies, guides or outlines a certain course of action. ” • Thomas R Dye is of the opinion that public policy is whatever governments chooses to do or not to do. • B. Guy Peters defines public policy as “the sum of governmental activities, whether acting directly through the agents, as it has an influence on the lives of the citizens.

KEY FEATURES OF PUBLIC POLICY Ø Some of the key features of public policy are as follows: • It is formulated in response to some problems that require immediate attention. • Made on behalf of the public • A course of action adopted and pursued by the government to serve public interest. • Made by the government even if the ideas come from outside the government or through the interaction of the government and non governmental actors. • Having a legal and authoritative base.

APPROACHES TO PUBLIC POLICY • Over the years political scientists have tried to develop a number of approaches to understand the nature and process of public policy. The purpose of such exercise is to simplify and clarify our thinking about governmental politics administration, to identify important political and social forces in our community and to communicate relevant knowledge about socio political life and to direct inquiry into politics and to suggest explanations for political events and outcomes. • An approach is usually a simplified representation of some aspects of the real world. It helps in identifying problems and to understand the consequences of the policies in a better way. The major theoretical approaches that will come under brief examination here include: • Institutional approach • Rational theory approach • Incremental approach • Elite theory approach • Public choice theory

INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH • Traditional and the oldest approach to public policy, considers policy as an institutional output. • Traditionally government and its institutions have been the central focus of political science, and thus studies concerning public policy also revolved around it. • Public policy is determined by the governmental institutions which gives it political legitimacy. • Government universally applies policy to all citizens of the state and monopolizes the use of force in applying policy. • The relationship between public policy and governmental institution is very intimate because a policy can not become a public policy until it is opted, implemented and enforced by some governmental institution. • Focuses only on ‘who’ aspect of public policy making and ignores the ‘How’ aspect of it.

ELITE THEORY APPROACH • Important proponents of this approach includes; Pareto, Mosca and Michels. • Based on the assumption that, public policies are made by and for the small elite section of the society. • Elites can be governing elite who directly influence the policy making process and the non governing elite who play and indirect but an important role. • Society is divided into the few who have power and many who do not. • Only a small number of people allocate values for the whole society. • Policies flows downward from the elite to the masses and not vice-a-versa. • The movement of non elite to elite position is usually very slow and complex. • Public policies does not reflect the demands of the masses but rather the prevailing values of the elite.

RATIONAL THEORY • This approach has its root in the rational comprehensive decision making and implies that in the process of policy making the policy maker has a full range of policy options to choose from. • Herbert A. Simon, father of rational model describes rationality as, ‘a style of behavior that is appropriate to the achievements of given goals within the limits imposed by given conditions and constraints’. • It is based on the idea of maximization of gain or benefit. It advocates that government should choose those policy options which will result in gains to society that exceeds costs by greatest amount. • The concept of maximum social gain means that no policy should be adopted if its costs exceeds its benefit. • Policy is rational only when the difference between the values it achieves and the values it gets is positive and greater than any other policy alternatives. • Maximization of values or costs not only in monetary terms but also in terms of social political and cultural values.

INCREMENTAL APPROACH • Under this model, public policies are a continuation of previous policies with minimum changes. • Existing policies and programmes are considered as a reliable base. • Policy makers accept the legitimacy of the previous policies because of the uncertainty of new policies and various constrains such as time, costs, intelligence. • Thus public policy makers considers and implements very few and small policy changes at a time. • This approach does not give any importance to the role of new innovation and research in policy making.

PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY • This approach views public policy as a collective decision making by self interested individuals. • Policy makers are viewed as individuals who come together in politics for their own mutual benefit and by agreement among themselves so that they can enhance their own well being. • Therefore policy makers pursue their self interest in politics but even with selfish motives they can mutually benefit through collective decision making. • This model uses economic analysis to analyze public policy making. This model assumes that all political actors, voters, tax payers, bureaucrats seek to maximize their personal interest in politics as investors do in the marketplace.

CONCLUSION The preceding section delves into various models and approaches to get a better understanding of the public policy process. Each approach provides a separate focus on political life, and each helps us to understand different aspects of policy making. Thus it is not possible to arrive at a conclusion regarding the most satisfactory approach to understand public policy. It would be better to use them as organizing concepts that seems useful for the satisfactory analysis and explanation of public policy. Each of the approach can contribute something to our understanding of public policy.