The policy process model

Influenece on agenda setting

Appraising policy formuation

Instruments of public policy

1.Regulation

One of che besr-known policy instruments, regularion, encompasses severa!

different kinds of governmenr actions, including che laws rhat legislatures
enact and che rules bureaucracies adopt. Regulations are governmenr decrees
rhat either require or prevenr citizens from doing some-rhing. Particular
requiremenrs ensure compliance by individuals, corporations, and other units
of governmenr. Typically, che regularions impose sanctions, such as fines or
imprisonmenr, for failure to comply.

2.Government Management

Governmenrs use che direct services or direct managemenr of resources as

instrumenrs of public poligr. Education, defense, public parks, and most
municipal services, such as police and fire protection, are examples of policies
that governmenrs implement by providing che service direcdy to citizens.
According to James E. Anderson (2006, 17), "privatization supports
transferring many governmenr assets or programs to che privare sector and
contracting with privare companies to handle many public services, whether
che collection of garbage or che operation of prisons." Policymakers evaluare
the options by using criteria such as effectiveness, cose, and accounrability to
che public, and the public sector remains responsible for ensuring che quality
of che work, even though che private sector is providing che services.

3. Taxing and Spending

Governmenrs also use their ability to tax and spend to achieve policy goals and
objectives. One form of spending policy is che direct payment of money to
citizens. Social Security is an obvious example. Governmenrs also provide
monetary paymenrs as a way of promoting certain activities. For example,
under welfare reform.

4. Market Mechanisms

Governments can take advantage of market mechanisms as a form of public

policy. Using the market may be an explicit decision by government not to
intervene in any way bue instead to allow the laws of supply and demand to
work.

5. Education, lnformation, and Persuasion

Another policy instrument available to the government is educating citizens

while attempting to persuade them to behave in a certain way.

6. POLICY TYPOLOGIES

Policymakers are likely to think about policy options in terms of the tools ar
rheir disposal. For example, what will be more effective in reducing toxic
chemical emissions, regulation or information provision approaches?

According to Lowi, ali government functions can be classified into three rypes:
distributive, redistributive, and regulatory.
Individual programs or grants that a government provides with-out regard to
limited resources or zero-sum situations (where one group's gain is another's
loss) are characterized as distributive policies.

Redistributive policies different from discribucive policies. For every

rediscribucive policy, winners and losers are associaced wich its approval,
which makes such policies concroversial and difficulc co adopt. Because
rediscributive policies provide benefits no one category of individuals as the
expense of another, they often reflect ideological or class conflict.

Lowi's final policy cype is regulatory policy. According to Kenneth Meier, a

leading scholar of regulacion, "Regulacory policy is governmenc restriction
ofindividual choice to keep conduce from cranscending acceptable bounds"
(Meier 1993, 82).This has two o subcategories. The first, competitive
regulation, is mostly associaced wich regulating specific industries and cheir
practices, such as compucer sofrware and communicacions companies. The
second, social or protective regulation, protects che general public from
accivities that occur in the prívate sector.