Subject: National and

International Affairs
Course Instructor: Muhammad Rehman
 Policymaking Process
What is Policy?
Policy is a broad statement of goals,
objectives and means that create the
framework for activity. Often take the form of
explicit written documents, but may also be
implicit or unwritten.
 Policymaking Process
What is Public Policy?
• Public Policy is the study of government
decisions and actions design to deal with a
matter of public concern.
•Whatever government choose to do or not to
do is called Public Policy.
 Policymaking Process
• Policymakers: In politics, policymakers are
people who are involved in making policies
and policy decisions.
 Policymaking Process
Policy Analysis:
• Policy Analysis describe the investigations that
produce accurate & useful information for
decisionmakers.
Policymaking Process

• Pol
icy

•
• Progra
• mmes
• Projects
 Policymaking Process
• Policy process The way in which policies are
inititated, developed or formulated,
negotiated, communicated, implemented and
evaluated.
 Policymaking Process
• Policy actors and Stakeholders
• Policy actors are those individuals, groups or
organizations involved in policy making.
• Stakeholders are all those who stand to be
affected, in whatever way, by the
introduction of a policy and who may be , but
are not necessarily, involved in policy making
 Policymaking Process
Stakeholders include:
• Those individuals and groups with an interest
in an issue or policy, those might be affected
by a policy, and those who may play a role in
relation to making or implementing the policy
– in other words, actors in the policy process
 Policymaking Process
International Actors
• International relations non-state actors
• Political scientist talk on interest groups or
stakeholders
• Development literature civil society
organizations.
• Social movements or people´s movements.
• Actors influence on local, national, regional,
international level.
 Policymaking Process
• Local actors: community health workes,
environmental officers, teachers in local
schools, and local businesses
• Coalitions ( Grassroot, professional,
community-based )
• Actors influence on the policy process is
related to the power.
 Policymaking Process
• Steps in Policymaking Process:
• Problem Identification
• Policy Formulation
• Policy Adoptation
• Policy Implementation
• Policy Evaluation
 Problem Identification
• Problem identification and issue recognition
– What is policy problem
– How does it get on the agenda of governance
–Agenda Setting
– Systemic Agenda
– Instituational Agenda
 Problem Identification
• Systemic Agenda
• All issues that are commonly perceived by
members of the political community as
meriting public attention and as involving
matters within the legitimate jurisdiction of
existing government authority.
 Problem Identification
• Instituational Agenda
• Consist of those items (Problem) that receive
the powerful and earnest attention of
decisionmakers, though they are not always
easily identified or agreed upon.
 Problem Identification
• Getting from the systemic to the institutional
agenda.
• Elites and Pressure groups who are powerful in
their own right have relatively little trouble getting
their issues before the public. Those who own the
media can publish stories on television shows.
• Special interest groups also frequently approach
the government with their perception of problem
and proposed solutions.
 Problem Identification
• Policy issue: typically move from private
decision-making to the public agenda when
they progress from the systemic to the
institutional agenda.
• Policy agenda are determined by tightly knit
groups that dominate policymaking in
particular area.
 Problem Identification
• Iron Triangles: are those reciprocal bonds
that evolve between parliamentary
committees and their staffs special interest
groups and bureaucratic agencies in the
executive branch.
Senators

Special Interest Bureaucratic

groups agencies/ Executive
Branch
 Policy Formulation

Policy formulation is the development of effective and

acceptable courses of action for addressing what has
been placed on the policy agenda.
 Policy Formulation
• Policy formulation is then concerned with the “what”
question associated with generating alternatives.
• What is the plan for dealing with problem?
• What are the goals and priorities?
• What options are available to achieve those goals?
• What are the costs and benefits of each of the
options?
• What externalities positive or negative are associated
with each alternatives?
 Policy Formulation
• Selecting alternatives:
• The formation of a policy not only a statement of
the goals of the policy but various alternatives for
achieving the goals.
• Rational analysis: as a plan for achieving
government efficiency through a comprehensive
review of all the policy options and an examination
of their consequences.
• Rational analysis of the budgetary process implies
that each option be consider.
 Policy Formulation
• Incremental approach: is actually more
rational
• Incrementalism is an approach to decision
making in which policymakers change policy at
the margins.
• Decision-makers begin with the current set of
circumstances and consider changing things in
only a small way.
 Policy Adoption
– How is a policy alternative adopted or enacted?
– Who adopts?
• How a bill become law and many veto points
in the process.
 Policy Implementation
– What is done, if anything, to carry a policy into effects?
– What impact does this have on policy content?
• Implementation means caring out the policy
operation
• Other means implementation is a continuation of
policymaking.
• Implementation has attracted a significant
amount of research because policies often do not
accomplish what they were designed to achieve.
 Policy Evaluation
• Evaluation is the assessment of how a
program achieves its intended goals
• All the earlier stages of the policy process look
toward a future goal to be achieved
• Evaluation looks backwards.
• Feedback permits modifications in the policy
to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
 Black Box

•Inputs (Demand & Political System Authoritative

Support) Decisions