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Public Policy and Analysis

In its broadest sense, public policy is a reflection of how people in political society define a good life, and how they try to achieve it through their political institutions. In this course we emphasize the pivotal roles played in the policy process by the public administration. Public policy comprises substantive perspectives and values, mixed with institutional processes for realizing them. The disparity between intended policy goals and consequences on the ground means that we need to pay attention to policy choices, policy outputs, and policy impacts. Practitioners have developed a variety of policy models that can help us improve our understanding of how these processes work. They are, therefore, abstract representations of reality and are useful for exploring policy processes and their outcomes. Perhaps the most common policy model is a linear policy cycle model that accounts for the various steps in the policymaking process. This model assumes that the most important thing to know about the policy process is that a predictable set of activities occurs in a series of predictable steps or stages over time. These steps, while not discrete, are roughly sequential and can be looped back at the end to create a cycle model. The goal of policy analysis is to improve policy outcomes while not becoming paralyzed with the obsession to develop the next cycle of data gathering and to extend the analysis. Policy may be subjected to legal analysis, feasibility analysis, impact analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and client-based analysis. Policy analysis will ultimately be judged by the extent to which it enables communities to weave together a shared sense of the common good.