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INTRODUCTION
This preliminary chapter explores the efforts that have been made to
understand and explain the public policy process. It lays down the conceptual
requirements and theoretical considerations in the study and understanding of
the policy process.
This chapter also takes a look at types of study of public policy making,
the meaning of policy, the aspects of policy, and the policy process model.
Objectives
The scientific study of policy has a long history. People have sought to
apply social science knowledge to problems of government and to influence the
activities and decisions of government in a variety of ways. Individuals such as
Keynes, the Webbs, Karl Marx, Machiavelli and even American president
Woodrow Wilson were involved in the study of policy.
and concerns with means, with a large group of analysts who are concerned
about both. The typology proposed by Hogwood and Gunn (1981, 1984) points
to seven varieties of policy analysis, illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Types of study of policy making (Source: Hogwood and Gunn, 1981)
First, there are studies of policy content, in which analysts seek to describe
and explain the genesis and development of particular policies. The analyst
interested in policy content usually investigates one or more cases in order to
trace how policy emerged, how it was implemented and what the results were.
Third, there are studies of policy outputs, which seek to explain why
levels of expenditure or service provision vary between countries or local
governments. In Dyes terminology, these are studies of policy determination
(1976), studies which take policies as dependent variables and attempt to
understand these policies in terms of social, economic, technological and other
factors.
Fifth, there is information for policy making, in which data are marshalled
in order to assist policy-makers reach decisions. Information for policy may
derive from reviews carried out within government as part of a regular
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Finally, there is policy advocacy, the activity which involves the analysts
in pressing specific options and ideas in the policy process, either individually or
in association with others, perhaps through a pressure group.
MEANING OF POLICY
ASPECTS OF POLICY
Fifth, the study of policy has one of its main concerns the examination of
non-decisions. This is what Heclo and Smith are pointing to in their references to
inaction. Much political activity is concerned with maintaining the status quo
and resisting challenges to the existing allocation of values. Analysis of this
activity is a necessary part of the examination of the dynamics of the policy
process.
Finally, the definitions cited above raise the question of whether policy
can be seen as action without decisions. Can it be said that a pattern of actions
over a period of time constitutes a policy, even if these actions have not been
formally sanctioned by a decision? In this sense, policy may be seen as an
outcome, which actors may or may not want to claim as a consequence of
purposive activity.
life processes interact with each other and with the environment to produce a
changing but none the less stable bodily state. Easton argues further that
political systems are like biological systems and exist in an environment which
contains a variety of other systems, including social systems and ecological
systems.
One of key processes of political systems is inputs, which take the form of
demands and supports. Demands involve actions by individuals and groups
seeking authoritative allocations of values from the authorities. Supports
comprise actions such as voting, obedience to the law, and the payment of taxes.
These are feed into the black box of decision making, also known as the
conversion process, to produce outputs, the decisions and policies of the
authorities. Outputs are distinguished from outcomes, which are the effects that
policies have on citizens. Within the systems framework there is allowance for
feedback, through which the outputs of the political system influence future
inputs into the system. The whole process is represented in Figure 2.
Environment Environment
Demands
Outputs
Inputs
THE
Decisions
Support POLITICAL and actions
SYSTEM
Environment Environment
Inspite of its value, the systems model has weaknesses. The following
points of criticism had been raised against it, as follows:
3. The system, and in particular the way processes occur within the black
box, may itself be the object of political action. This is what Dror (1986)
called meta-policy. This is concerned with setting and changing the
systems and structures within which the processes that are concerned
with substantive policy outputs occur. Examples of meta-policy
making are the determination of constitutions and the battles for
political power characteristic of nation building or the disintegration of
empires.
Other authors who do not share Eastons systems framework have also
used the ideas of stages in the policy process for the purpose of analysis. Jenkins
(1978, p. 17) recognizes complex feedback flows and identifies the following
stages:
Initiation
Information
Consideration
Decision
Implementation
Evaluation
Termination
This topic focuses primarily on policy making, the first of the three major
steps in the policy process, the others being policy implementation and policy
evaluation. The lesson is divided into three (3) major topics, namely: policy
making models, a typology for the analysis of the role of the participants in the
policy process, and steps in developing educational policy.
The controversy about the way policy decisions should be made has been
a dispute between an approach which is distinctly prescriptive rational
decision making theory and alternatives of a more pragmatic kind, which
suggest that most decision making is incrementalist, and that this offers the
most effective way to reach accommodations between interests.
Rationality has a place in this model, in that the task of rational decision is
to select that one of the strategies which is followed by the preferred set of
consequences.
Incremental Model
comprehensive model, or as they call it in this context, the synoptic ideal. They
argue that it is not adapted to the following:
problems. These criteria may be met when there is a large measure of social
stability. But where these conditions do not prevail, and where a society is
seeking to bring about significant social changes, then incrementalism will not be
appropriate.
Etzioni (1967) accepts the argument that a series of small steps could
produce significant change, but adds that there is nothing in this approach to
guide the accumulation; the steps may be circular leading back to where they
started, or dispersed leading in many directions at once but leading nowhere.
In place of incrementalism, Etzioni outlines the mixed scanning model of
decision making, a model he suggests is both a good description of how
decisions are made in a number of fields and a strategy which can guide decision
making.
Policies are made in a context in which there are contested value systems -
inevitably strongly linked to competing interests which are articulated to
varying degrees by political parties.
There are general ideas embodied in the typology. One is that there are
different kinds of policy. A distinction is drawn between issues perceived to
have major redistributive consequences, in terms of either resources or power,
which include regulatory and constituent policies. It is recognized that it may
not be so much the types of policy per se which are important, but rather the
ways people are affected and the numbers and kinds of people affected. Wilson
(1973) has distinguished concentrated and dispersed costs and benefits.
According to Pacquing, there are four steps in developing policy. The first
step is problem formation and agenda setting. This is the stage when policy
makers look at the environment for the concerns of the community in order to
address these in formulating policies.
Thinking of ways to ease out problems and to eradicate them may seem
easier said than done. One of the hindrances to finding solutions to the problems
encountered in the educational system is that some Filipinos who occupy
positions of leadership tend to look for solutions to social crises rather than
prevent them from developing. What education leaders should do is to prevent
these problems from further causing serious damage to the image of education.
In this connection, Pacquing cited the policy of DepEd of re-assigning the District
Supervisor from one district to the other. The District Supervisor has to be made
mobile as an effort made by DepEd to address the complaints about the immoral
behavior committed in the area of assignment. Another DepEd finding regarding
the District Supervisor includes graft and corruption while in the field.
The second step in policy formulation and agenda setting is to find out the
reactions of those making the policies regarding demands and complaints.
It has been asserted that such considerate relationship is not the case.
Teachers who expressed their grievances are ignored by leaders in education.
The result of such a situation is for the teachers to make use of the parliament of
the street. What about the teachers who state their demands and who acted as
prime movers to legitimize their complaints-what will be their lot? Will they
become subject to reprisal of their school leaders?
Policy Adoption
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An example of such lame policy is the Magna Carta for Public School
Teachers. The Magna Carta for Public School Teachers should not have been
granted as it can not be implemented. Perhaps the policy makers may not have
thoroughly analyzed and considered the costs/benefits of the policy impeding
its enforcement.
This part presents and discusses the following major subject titles, namely:
policy implementation process, models of policy implementation, the nature of
policy rule framework, policy as input or output, and public policy and
accountability. It also proposes a model of the policy implementation process.
In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a neglect of the study of
policy implementation. Then, policy implementation was regarded as mundane
and taken for granted. This neglect of the processes by which policies are
translated into action was explained by Gunn (1978) who argued that academics
have been pre-occupied with policy formulation thereby leaving the practical
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The policy implementation process starts with the policy standards and
objectives. These policy standards and objectives should be clear, the clearer the
objectives the more effective is the implementation of the policy. Ambiguous
policy standards and objectives may result to conflict in policy implementation
and interpretation.
Inter-Organizational
communication and
enforcement activities
Policy standards
and objectives
Performance
Characteristics of the
implementing agencies Disposition
of imple
mentors
Policy resources
between agencies required to make those links has to be very close to 100 percent
if a situation is not to occur in which a number of small deficits cumulatively
create a large shortfall. They thus introduce the idea of implementation deficit
and suggest that implementation may be analyzed in this way.
There has been a concern to examine how the nature of policy may have
an impact, with attempts to develop Lowis (1972) typologies of policies to
explore how this may influence the implementation process. Hargrove (1983)
argues: It is assumed that it is possible to classify types of policies so that the
categories can be used as basis for predicting the implementation process within
each category. He goes on to amplify this: The plausibility of using a typology
as a point of departure follows from the idea that different kinds of policy issues
will evoke different sets of participants and levels of intensity according to the
stakes presented by the issue. Implicitly this suggests that underlying the
question of whether some kinds of policy may be harder to implement than
others are issues about the probability of outside interference.
Mountjoy and OToole (1979) have linked the theme of policy specifically
with the notion that organizational linkages create hazards for successful
implementation. They identify some policies which avoid these hazards because
of the clarity of their mandates and the security of their resources.
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Elmore has coined the term backward mapping, which he defines as:
The proponents of this approach argue that it is, by comparison with the
top-down model, relatively free of predetermining assumptions. It is likely to
imply assumptions about cause and effect, about hierarchical or any other
structural relations between actors and agencies, or about what should be going
on between them.
The table below highlights contrasts between the two perspectives that
tend to lead to them having different preoccupations, and thus in some respects
contribute to situations in which they do not really engage with each other.
Top-down Bottom-up
Policy rule framework seen
as Rigid Flexible
Policy seen as An input An output
Accountability seen as Deference to a Adaptability to customer/
depending upon legislative process client/regulates needs
In other words, the study of the history of any particular policy is likely to
involve an examination of the following:
Political manifestos.
The responses in the Queens speech at the beginning of a
parliamentary session.
Green and white papers which set out policy objectives in general
terms.
Parliamentary debates.
The Bill and subsequent Act which give the policy its primary legal
shape.
Regulations enacted after the passing of the Bill.
Circulars, codes and other instructions to officials.
Detailed notes, reports and accounts of working practice.
The central problem is that, while some policies pass out of the legislative
stages with very clear rule structures, enabling implementation deficits to be
easily identified, others are much less fully formed.
The bottom-up approach may also be used to the same end, as in Elmores
backward mapping methodology. But in addition, in some of the bottom-up
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studies the focus is simply upon an ongoing activity. Clearly, very many studies
of public policy practitioners concerned with how teachers teach, regulators
regulate and so on operate in this way without needing to raise questions about
whether new interventions from the top have any effect.
Stances on Accountability
However, setting on one side of the conflict over where democratic policy
making should occur, we seem, nevertheless, to have a conflict between the
desirability of a prescriptive approach and the reality of the need to recognize
that implementation involves a continuation of the complex processes of
bargaining, negotiation and interaction which characterize the policy-making
process.
Summary
Summary
The second part of this chapter explained the two major models of policy
making, specifically the rational model and the incremental model, from which
school managers may select a particular model to adopt in developing policies. It
also discussed alternative perspectives of policy making. This part also
described ways of analyzing the roles of the various participants, whether they
be highly-placed decision makers or street-level bureaucrats, in policy making.
Moreover, it presented in great detail the steps in developing policy from
problem formulation and agenda setting, and finding reactions of policy makers
to policy adoption.
Having gone through the lessons on various types of the study of policy
making, the meaning of policy, the aspects of policy, and the policy process
model, you, as student of Policies and Issues in Educational Management, are
now prepared to proceed to the next chapter, i.e. policy making.
Activities
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Activity No. 2. Interview teachers from various schools and find out the extent of
their participation, if any, in policy formulation in their respective
schools.
Activity No. 3. Find out how school managers react to complaints aired by their
subordinates on certain policy matters or issues.