POLICY ANALYSIS AND

IMPLEMENTATION EVALUATION
Public Administration’s myriad impacts on the economy
and society have fostered concern about how well public
policies work and how their implementation could
improved.

There are two ways of judging policies:

Policy Analysis and Implementation Evaluation
Policy analysis can be prospective and retrospective.
-It seeks to determine how social, economic, and other
problems will be affected by different governmental
policy choices.
-It also considers the extent to which a policy achieves its
objectives and why it is successful or falls short.
Implementation Evaluation-
Focuses on whether implementation maximizes
appropriate values.

The Public Administration is an activist part of the

government. It is a means by which government seeks to
intervene in aspects of the economy, society and polity.
The Growing Concern with Policy Analysis
Only in 1960’s to 1970’s the systematic policy analysis
became a standard in public administrative function.
- Due to a shift in the nature of administrative
intervention in the 1960’s that made public
administration more salient in the work place,
neighborhoods, in families, and in society.
-However, perspective on the implementation tend to
follow what is known as the “Miles Law”
“Where one stands depends on where one sits.” what
one person considers service provided by public
administration, another may consider a constraint.

As public Administration provides more services to

people, it also engages in more extensive regulatory
activities.
In 1970s it was evident that many individuals and
groups thought that the administrative state had gone
too far in regulating their activities.
Retrospective policy analysis was strengthened by a
number of related administrative developments.
-Among these developments were a congressional
requirement that in many policy areas a percentage of
a program’s budget be set aside for program
evaluation.
Policy analysis can help by showing whether a program
is having the intended impact in a cost-effective
manner and with a favorable benefit-cost ratio.
APPROACHES TO ANALYZING PUBLIC POLICY
Two aspects o f Public Policy:
Policy output
Policy Impact or Policy Outcome
Policy Output- the outgrowth of policy.
- an official statement of governmental intent,
delineation of powers and methods, and allocation of
resources.
-it can be tangible and/or symbolic activity.
-Statutes, congressional resolution, presidential
proclamation, and allocation of staff and funds are
policy outputs.
Policy outcomes
Are concerned with performance.
What effect is the policy output having on the intended
target? Is the objective being achieved? If not, why not?
If so, is achievement related to administration?
Three basic models that policy analysts use to asses the
impact or outcome of a particular policy:
• Pure experimental
• Quasi-experimental
• Non-experimental
Implementation evaluation
Implementation evaluation depends on policy
analysis, but it is a different enterprise. In public
administration, the question is whether the
implementation of the policy is appropriate, rather
than whether it has the intended impact. What we
consider properly executed policy will often depend on
whether we adopt a managerial, political, or legal
perspective.
MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVES ON
IMPLEMENTATION
Traditional Management- values effectiveness,
efficiency, and economy in implementation. It places
less importance on such other concerns as customer
satisfaction, public participation, and procedural due
process.
The New Public Management- favors implementation
by “steering “ rather than “rowing”. It favors discretion
over rules add measures success in terms of customer
satisfaction and performance.
POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON IMPLEMENTATION

It tends to view a policy as appropriately executed.

Within the parameters of the policy having discernible
impacts on the target. if if affords representation to
those individuals and interest most affected by it.
Representation of demographic constituency
Interest. Political perspective is also concerned that
public administrative implementation be deemed to
substantively serve the interest of demographic groups
in legislative constituencies.
Accountability
LEGAL PERSPECTIVE ON IMPLEMENTATION
Focus on constitutional integrity, equal protection,
fairness (procedural due process), and protection of
the rights of those individuals who come into contact
with public administrative procedures.
The Constitutional Integrity- sometimes public
policies are in conflict with constitutional provisions
for the separation of powers of federalism.
Equal Protection
Focuses more on whether individuals or groups are
afforded equal protection of laws.
Procedural Due Process And Protection of
Individual Rights
the legal perspective toward public administration also
favors providing those dependent on administrative
services or subject to administrative regulation with
procedural protection against an adverse action.
CONCLUSION: THE COMPLEXITY OF POLICY DESIGN
The diverse managerial, political, amd legal
perspectives on implementation can make policy
design a complex endeavor. There is little agreement
concerning the basic criteria on which
implementation should be judged. Cost effectiveness,
Customer satisfaction, political accountability,
procedural due process, and other relevant values
often conflict with one another- in abstract and in day
to day administrative practice.
The traditional, managerial, political and legal
approaches all favor strictly limiting administrative
discretion, especially on the street level. By contrast
the NPM favors broad employee empowerment.

OVERHEAD POLICY- Are concerned with keeping

public administrative operations running on a day to
day basis. They include disbursement and accounting
for money, personnel functions such s compensating
and retiring employees, and the maintenance and
interior design of the physical plant of agencies.
SOCIOTHERAPEUTIC POLICIES

Such as war on poverty and the Model Cities Program-

seek to treat an undesirable condition that has become
associated with a particular group. The group could
have various attributes: it could be economic, urban,
elderly or rural.
REGULATORY POLICY
Regulation through administrative action.
Programs engaged in such functions as rate setting for
public utilities and common carriers; assuring the
purity or healthfulness of substances such as food,
water and air, and in promoting fair economic
competition and eliminating deceptive marketing
practices.