QUESTION 9 a) Define public policy b) Elaborate on 5 steps involve in policy making (a) Public policy is a general statement of goals.

It is a long-term statement of plan or a course of action taken by a government to address an issue or a matter of national importance and to resolve a problem or a crisis. Policies are expressed in the form of laws, regulations, decisions and actions. According to Dimock (1957), Public policy is the blue-print of the government in providing the various development programmes to the people. A public programme consists of all those activities designed to implement public policy. Often this calls for the creation of organizations, public agencies, and bureaus, which in turn need to create more policies that give guidance to the organizations employees on how to put into practice the overall public policy. Public policies are those that government adopt to address certain specific problems. As a direct result of the 1969 ethnic riot, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced in 1971. NEP aims to eradicate poverty and restructure the Malaysian society in order to erase ethnic identification with their economic functions.

Reference: Peter Johnson Website (http://www.peterdjohnson.net/publicpolicy01.htm )

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