The Public Policy Process
Public policy exists to solve problems affecting people in society (1). Making public policy means deciding what is and is not a problem, choosing which problems to solve, and deciding how to solve them to benefit society. People are likely to differ on the problem and on how to solve it, so conflict is to be expected. Typically, governments decide which problems will be addressed and how to address them.
A frequently quoted definition says that public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do (2). Other definitions emphasize that government is only one policy-making institution; cultural authorities in religion or business or education make public policy, too. Still other definitions shift the focus from authority to the activity of making policy choice. Those definitions widen the scope of choice-making beyond political institutions, emphasize the importance of process, and point to the influence of context on decision (3). From the perspective of functional communication, the most important characteristic of policy making activity is that it is a process occurring in a context.
As problem-solving activity, public policy making has three basic components: the problem, players, and the policy. A problem is something perceived to be ‘wrong’ in a society or its environment. A player is an influential participant in the process. A policy is a goal with a plan of action to solve the problem (4). Problems, players, and policies function within political systems and public discourses to give those components their real meaning in particular contexts and situations.
To illustrate: In the United States, health care costs are rising too fast and too many people are unable to afford care. That’s a problem. In general public discourse, most people agree that it is a problem, although there is disagreement on the causes and effects. Most people agree that something must be done, but there is disagreement on what to do. That’s democracy.
In 1993, the federal government acted. The Clinton administration proposed to guarantee health care for all Americans from birth to death. The proposal had two goals, expanding health care coverage to uninsured people and reducing the rate of spending on health care. The plan of action included consumers organized into alliances to bargain for cheaper health care; employers and employees sharing costs of health insurance; care providers offering a basic package of services for guaranteed fees; caps on fees to reduce costs, and federal administrators setting standards for care, protecting consumers’ rights, and ensuring that providers fulfilled their responsibilities. That’s a policy.
Members of Congress proposed alternative policies. Lobbyists for a spectrum of interested groups informed and influenced all the proposals. The Clinton administration advocated their proposal. The development of these proposals represented institutional (governmental) discourse about a particular problem. Influential participants who made proposals, or the president, legislators, and lobbying groups, were the players. In the end, none of the proposals was adopted. Instead, legislators modified the existing health care system to incorporate some elements of the administration’s plan and some elements of alternative plans. That’s politics.
The outcome is the present policy solution to the public problem of health care (5).
An overhaul of the national health care system is an extraordinary initiative. For understanding public policy making as an ongoing democratic process, ordinary or ‘unsexy’ (as journalists like to say) illustrations might be better. Budgeting exemplifies these regular, workaday processes. An actual state budget development is described in the scenario to the right, shown from the viewpoint of the communications director for the chairman of a state senate’s budget committee.
(1) Coplin, William D. and Michael K. O’Leary, 1998. Public Policy Skills, 3d ed. Washington DC: Policy Studies Associates, 3
(2) Dye, Thomas J. l987. Understanding Public Policy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1
(3) Clemons, Randall S. and Mark K. McBeth, 2001. Public Policy Praxis. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; MacRae, Duncan, Jr. and Dale Whittington, 1997. Expert Advice for Policy Choice. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press
(5) Description taken, with added interpretation, from Wolpe, Bruce C. and Bertram J. Levine, 1996. Lobbying Congress: How the System Works, 2d ed. Washington DC: Congressional Quarterly Inc, 104-116.