3 Public Policy-Making Process

Avinash Samal

The process of public policy-making refers to the manner in which problems get
conceptualized and brought to the attention of the government for solution.
Government then formulates alternatives and selects policy options, and those
solutions get implemented, evaluated, and revised. In simple terms, it refers to
various activities by which public policy is actually formed, implemented and
evaluated. In fact, the process of public policy making involves an extremely
complex set of interacting elements over time (Sabatier 1999). It normally
includes hundreds of actors from governmental institutions, interest groups,
researchers and journalists, who are involved in one or more aspects of the
policy process. Each of these actors (either individual or corporate) has
potentially different values/interests, goals, perceptions of the situation, and
policy preferences. Understanding the public policymaking processes therefore
requires knowledge of the goals and perceptions of hundreds of actors
throughout the country involving possibly very technical scientific and legal
issues over periods of a decade or more.

Since there is no single process by which policies are framed, variations

in the content of public policies require variations in the manner of policy-
making. Welfare policy, natural resources regulation, economic liberalization
policy, and health policy are all distinguished by different processes. Public
policies in these areas are associated with specific governmental institutions,
patterns of behaviour, and political situations. Since the environment of each
policy area is unique, this does not mean that it precludes generalizations about
public policy. Rather, it means that there is no one grand theory of public
policymaking. However, understanding public policy making processes can be
attempted by considering such matters as: How do policy problems develop?
Who is involved in policy formation? On what kind of issues, under what
conditions, and to what effect?

Political scientists studying the policy processes have come out with
frameworks of policy processes that analyze the emergence of a problem to the
final enactment of a policy to address that problem. Though there are many
theoretical frameworks to analyze the policy process, the ‘policy cycle’
framework of analysis has been the pioneering and most popular one. Such a
framework shows the policy process to be one of sequential stages of activity
wherein policy-making activity is disaggregated into a series of discrete stages.
Though some of the political scientists are attempting to move beyond the
traditional framework of stages (Sabatier 1991), despite the many questions
raised regarding the impact one stage has on the next, there is little
disagreement about what the stages are. Viewing the policy making process as
a dynamic ongoing cycle, this framework states that once a policy has been
enacted to deal with a problem, the process does not stop. It needs to be
constantly monitored in order to see not only how it is operating, but also
whether it is in fact doing what it is supposed to? This chapter discusses the

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public policy making processes in terms of the stages of the policy process and
other frameworks developed later.

Early Versions of ‘Stages’ Model

Given the staggering complexity of policy process, the idea of simplifying public
policy making by breaking the policy making process down into a number of
discrete stages was first broached in the early work of Harold Lasswell (1956).
Lasswell divided the policy process into seven stages, which, in his view,
described not only how public policies were actually made but also how they
should be made. They are:

 Intelligence
 Promotion
 Prescription
 Invocation
 Application
 Termination
 Appraisal

These listings reflects the origin of what has arguably been the most
widely accepted concept of the policy process – the procedure by which a given
policy is proposed, examined, carried out and perhaps terminated. The policy
process begins with intelligence gathering, i.e. the collection, processing, and
dissemination of information for those who participate in the decision process. It
then moves to the promotion of particular options by those involved in making
the decision. In the third stage, the decision-makers actually prescribe a course
of action. In the fourth stage, the prescribed course of action is invoked as a set
of sanctions are developed to penalize those who fail to comply with the pre-
scriptions of the decision-makers. The policy is then applied by the bureaucracy
and the courts, and then it runs its course until it is terminated or cancelled.
Finally, the results of the policy are appraised or evaluated against the aims and
goals of the original decision-makers.

While this early analysis of the policy making process focused on decision
making within government, it had little to say about the external or
environmental influences on government behaviour. It simply assumed that
decision-making was limited or restricted to a presumably small number of
participants staffing official positions in government. Another shortcoming of
this early model was its internal logic, especially with reference to placing
appraisal or evaluation after termination, since policies would logically be
evaluated prior to being wound down rather than afterwards. Nevertheless, this
model was highly influential in the development of a policy science. Although
not entirely accurate, it reduced the complexity of studying public policy by
allowing each stage to be isolated and examined before putting the whole
picture of the process back together.

Lasswell’s formulation formed the basis for many other models. Typical of
these was a simpler version of the ‘policy cycle’ developed by Gary Brewer
(1974). According to Brewer, the policy process was composed of only six
stages:

 Invention/Initiation
 Estimation

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  Selection
 Implementation
 Evaluation, and
 Termination

In Brewer’s view, invention or initiation referred to the earliest stage in

the sequence when a problem would be initially sensed. This stage, he argued,
would be characterized by ill-conceived definition of the problem and suggested
solutions to it. The second stage of estimation concerned calculation of the risks,
costs, and benefits associated with each of the various solutions raised in the
earlier stage. This would involve both technical evaluation and normative
choices. The object of this stage was to narrow the range of plausible choices by
excluding the unfeasible ones, and to somehow range the remaining options in
terms of desirability. The third stage consists of adopting one, or none, or some
combination of the solutions remaining at the end of the estimation stage. The
remaining three stages comprise implementing the selected option, evaluating
the results of the entire process, and terminating the policy according to the
conclusions reached by its evaluation.

Brewer’s version of the policy process improved on Lasswell’s pioneering

work. It expanded the policy process beyond the confines of government in
discussing the recognition of problems and clarified the terminology for
describing the various stages of the process. Moreover, it introduced the notion
of the policy process as an ongoing cycle. It recognized that most policies do not
have a definite life cycle-moving from birth to death-but rather seem to recur, in
slightly different guises, as one policy succeeds another with minor or major
modification. Brewer’s insights inspired several other versions of the ‘policy
cycle’ model developed in the 1970s and 1980s; the best known of which were
set out in popular textbooks by Charles O. Jones (1970) and James Anderson
(1984). Each of these contained slightly different interpretations of the names,
number, and order of stages in the cycle.

These frameworks divided the policy process into a series of stages –

usually agenda setting, policy formulation and legitimation, implementation and
evaluation – and discussed some of the factors affecting the process within each
stage. This served a very useful purpose in the 1970s and early 1980s by
dividing the very complex process into discrete stages and by stimulating some
excellent research within specific stages – particularly agenda setting (Kingdon
1984) and policy implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973, Mazmanian
and Sabatier 1983).

Stages of the Policy Process

According to the stages model developed by a number of scholars, policy-making
is assumed to proceed in stages from policy initiation and agenda setting to
policy formulation to policy implementation and evaluation. The table below
lists out the commonly agreed on stages of policy process.

Table 3.1
Stages of Policy Process

Agenda Setting/ Policy Policy Implementati Policy

Policy Initiation Formulation Adoption on Evaluation
Attention of policy Developmen Building or Application of Involves
makers is drawn t of developing the policy by examining the

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to a problem that pertinent support for the consequences
might require and getting a government's of policy
government acceptable specific bureaucratic actions
attention and then proposed proposal machinery including
policy initiation courses of accepted often with whether or
takes place by action for such that citizen, state not the policy
setting the dealing with the policy is and local has been
agenda from the legitimized government effective
among the problems or cooperation
problems that authorized
receive the
government’s
serious attention

Agenda Setting/Policy Initiation

Agenda setting or policy initiation depends on a problem or problems to which
relief is sought from the government. In fact, policy initiation takes place in
terms of agenda setting by identifying certain problems and issues that engage
the attention of government usually because they are the subject of public
debate or concern. A problem is seen as a situation that produces a human
need, deprivation, or dissatisfaction, self-identified or identified by others, for
which relief is sought. Pollution, inflation, crime, unemployment, and poverty
are all problems because they produce sufficient anxiety and dissatisfaction to
cause people to seek relief. While there are all kinds of needs and wants; only
those that move people to action, and are articulated, become problems
demanding policy solutions. Agenda comprises of the list of subjects and
problems to which governmental and non-governmental actors are paying
serious attention at any given point of time, while agenda setting refers to the
narrowing of the set of issues that the actors want to focus on and address. It is
a process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose public and
elite attention. Group competition to set the agenda is fierce because no society
or the political system has the institutional capacity to address all possible
alternatives to all possible problems that arise at any one time.

Of the thousands of problems and issues for which people seek

governmental action, only a small number of them receive serious attention.
Only those problems that receive serious attention from the policy-makers
compose the policy agenda. Agenda setting thus begins when decision makers
first recognize a problem, feel the need for government to address it, and start
searching for a solution.

Agendas can be highly general or they can be highly specialized.

According to Cobb and Elder (1983), agendas can be classified into two main
types such as systemic agenda and institutional agenda. The systemic agenda
covers all issues that are generally recognized to deserve public attention and
are matters within the government’s legitimate jurisdiction. An example of such
a matter would be ‘education’ or ‘health’. The institutional agenda, on the other
hand, involves all issues explicitly up for active and serious consideration by the
authoritative decision makers, for example, actual legislative bills. The
institutional agenda is narrower in scope than the systemic agenda.

The ‘normal’ agenda sequence is for issues to arrive on the systemic

agenda before they are put onto the institutional agenda. This creates a
problem for policy makers and other involved actors in a sense that if the lag

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time between moving from the systemic to the institutional agenda is too long,
the issue could fall apart and prove critical to the political system. The viability
of the political system is a function of its ability to cope with the lag between
these two agendas.

Having discussed the agenda setting and policy initiation, the crucial
questions that arise at this stage are why some problems or issues move onto
the agenda while other issues are ignored? How does an issue gain access to the
political system?

The chances of an issue proceeding to the agenda depend on how it is

generally perceived within the political system. If an issue is thought to be a
conflict or a crisis, if an issue is advocated by a visibly powerful interest group,
or if an issue is backed by the bureaucracy, there is a good chance that the issue
will move on to the agenda. So depending upon the power, status, and number
of people in the group, the government may be compelled to put the matter on
the agenda.

Political leadership is another important factor in agenda setting. For a

variety of reasons such as: (a) its usefulness in winning votes for election, (b)
wide citizen interest in the policy area, (c) officials' concern for public interest,
and so on, leaders may take a problem seriously, publicize it, and propose
solutions. The individual ministers in particular and the Cabinet in general are
the main agenda setters in India. Starting from economic liberalization,
disinvestments to environmental regulation; all-important national agendas are
set by the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister.

The agenda-setting process is complex and multifaceted. In order to com-

prehend it, one must look not only at the dynamics of the process but also at the
interactions and roles of various governmental and non-governmental partici-
pants.

Agenda setting or policy initiation often emerges from the political

agenda. In an established democracy, the agenda cannot be controlled by a
single group. It is the product of debate between a variety of competing though
often unequal forces. Clearly the governing party exerts a large and proximate
influence on the agenda. This is especially so in countries such as the UK,
where party manifestos are examined intensively during the election campaign
and the single winning party is given the tools to put its proposals into effect.
Elsewhere in the democratic world, however, coalition bargaining and a
tradition of consensus politics conspire to ensure that the connection between
election outcomes and policy initiation is more opaque. Even in the U K,
ministers find their times increasingly occupied by pressing tasks unrelated to
manifesto promises. Policy agendas are fluid and fast flowing because they are
made as much by events as by politicians.

Using four organizing concepts to form a model of agenda building, John

Kingdon (1984) provides an interesting framework of agenda setting. First, he
argues that agenda setting should be viewed as a garbage can that consists of
the coupling of streams of problems, politics, solutions, participants, and choice
opportunities. Next, policy ideas are recombined and incubated over the years in
“policy communities” of specialists and experts. Third, “policy entrepreneurs”
provide the linkage between ideas and decision makers. Such individuals are
advocates who are willing to spend their resources in the promotion of an idea;

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they might be elected officials, civil servants, lobbyists, academics, or
journalists. Finally, there are structures of opportunity for ideas to become part
of the agenda. Kingdon refers to such structures as “policy windows”, which
“policy entrepreneurs” must take advantage of. In Kingdon’s model policy
windows open and close as a result of changes in the problem and political
streams.

Policy Formulation
Once a decision has been taken to address a specific problem, the next stage is
policy formulation. Policy formulation is often seen as crucial stage in the policy
process because it develops a particular issue into a firm policy proposal
through a process of debate and discussion. It involves the development of
pertinent and acceptable proposed courses of action for dealing with public
problems. Policy formulation does not necessarily result in the adoption of a law,
order, or rule of some sort. In short, the fact that a problem is on the policy
agenda does not mean that the government will act effectively to resolve it.
Various actors are involved in policy formulation, including the Cabinet, various
departments and agencies of the executive branch, legislators, political parties,
interest groups etc. (Anderson 1984) Similarly, at the state and local level of
policy making, legislators, executives, agency staff, and interest groups are
involved. The usual interest group, administration and Parliamentary
Committee interaction occurs during this stage as compromises are reached
about how to address an issue.

The Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister is the major source of policy
proposals in Indian political system. If we expand our focus to include the
various departments and agencies, then clearly most policy originates in the
executive branch. Career bureaucrats occupying higher positions in
administration formulate policy ranging from standard of nutrition to major
changes in the foreign policy. Executive commissions, committees, and advisory
groups are also sources of executive policy formulation.

Legislators and interest groups are probably the next most frequent
sources of policy formulation. Interest groups often formulate policy proposals
and then get it formally proposed by favourably inclined officials.

Policy Adoption
Successful policy formulations must deal with the question of selecting courses
of action that can actually be adopted. In other words, policy proposals have to
be so formulated that will be acceptable not only to the people who make policy
decisions but also to most other actors. Thus it so happens that, in most cases,
decision makers are influenced by what they need to win policy adoption.
Certain provisions will be included and others dropped, depending upon what
builds support for the proposed policy. The more actors involved in the adoption
process, the more difficult it is to get an “acceptable” proposal. The process of
building support for adoption can be understood as policy legitimation.

Policy adoption is the act of choosing which policy alternative will be

finally chosen as the preferred course of action to meet the problem. However,
policy adoption does not always entail the familiar pattern of executive
proposals, legislative approval, and presidential assent. Adoption strategies and
policy formulation differ depending on how many branches of government are
involved in the adopting process.

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Policy Implementation
Policy implementation comprises the actions through which policy is put into
effect sometimes in ways that differ from the original intentions of policy
makers. In fact, it starts after the decision to adopt a particular course of action
is made and ends successfully when the goals sought by the policy are achieved
and the costs are within reasonable expectations. Implementation can therefore
be defined as the process of directed change that follows a policy adoption. The
content and effect of public policy may be greatly changed during the
implementation stage. The implementation or administrative stage of the policy
process is quite important because without application the policy has no effect,
and the application of policy proposals sometimes changes the nature of policy
itself. As Edelman (1964) observes, policies are often vague and general and the
actual meanings are attached during implementation stage. Some scholars
believe that most policies are made during this stage (Meier 1979, Ripley and
Franklin 1982). In fact, there is considerable evidence that most ‘de facto’
policies are made by street-level bureaucrats, who are the administrators and
who interact with clients (Weatherly and Lipsky 1977, Lipsky 1980).

Often a decision by government to “do something” is seen by the general

public as the end of the matter. However, in practice, the policy decision that
emerges from the formulation and adoption stages sets off a long and complex
chain, i.e. the implementation process where any multitude of things can go
wrong, including, for example, judicial constraints, abandonment by the public,
and resistance by those who must alter their patterns of behaviour so as to
comply with the policy (Gunn 1978)). Moreover, there is a tendency for
implementation to become largely bureaucratic and rule laden (Downs 1967).
Thus it is not uncommon for the original policy to be distorted, for the original
goals to be forgotten, and for bureaucrats to substitute their own objectives as
they implement policies. Thus public policies often fail to have their intended
effects due to the dynamics of the implementation process.

Until quite recently relatively little attention was paid to the process of
implementation by governments and academics. This neglect, however, is being
altered by an increasing body of literature that can be referred to as
implementation theory (Pressman & Wildavsky 1973; Mazmanian and Sabatier
1983). Much of the theory attempts to build ‘perfect’ models of implementation
that outline the conditions that must be met for successful actualization of
policy. One can also find in the literature various perspectives as to what imple-
mentation involves. Political scientists may differ in their perceptions. But all
agree that implementation is, in many respects, an opaque phenomenon, as its
most consequential characteristics are difficult to detect and as it is a pliant
process that can undergo rapid transformation.

Majone and Wildavsky (1984) argue that implementation should be seen

as evolution. They argue that it is shaped by the original policy making from
which it springs. Therefore, policies consist of a variety of goals, ideas, and
dispositions, each connected in some disarray. Others see implementation as a
composite of statutory structures, problem tractability, and non-statutory forces.
These authors argue that there are several categories of variables embedded in
the implementation process and these affect the achievement of policy
objectives. The variables include social, economic, and technological conditions
and the target groups that are involved. According to another group of theorists
(March and Shapire 1982), implementation should be viewed as planning,
hierarchy, and control. This requires that administrative structures must be

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hierarchically organized to ensure that the higher levels of administration can
ensure effective implementation by not allowing the actual day-to-day
administrators to implement as they see fit; rather they must implement as they
are told to. This necessitates organizational control, which is accountable to the
‘creators’ of policy. Another way to see implementation is, as Eugene (1977)
argues, the playing out of many loosely interrelated games, in which all the
players have goals and strategies and the arena is uncertain, and therefore so is
the outcome. This perspective views implementation as political with a backdrop
of constant accommodation and bargaining.

Just as there are different types of agendas, different types of implementa-

tion can also occur (Berman 1980). The first such type is programmed
implementation, which tries to eliminate or control the problems and pitfalls
that await implementation by thorough, explicit programming of implementation
procedures. Programmed implementation places high value on clarity and
rationality and rests on the assumption that the problems that plague
implementation are the result of (1) ambiguities of policy goals, (2) the
involvement of an excessive number of actors, (3) overlapping jurisdictions of
authorities, (4) misperceived interests, and (5) conflicts. The second type of
implementation that can occur is adaptive implementation, which tries to
improve the process by allowing for adjustments to the original policy mandate
as events unfold. In contrast to programmed implementation, clarity and
specification are seen as barriers to implementation, for they produce rigidity in
the face of shifting political realities.

The last type of implementation that can occur is premeditated non--

implementation, i.e. behaviour deliberately aimed at preventing implementation
from occurring. Such behaviour ensures that the policy will never be more than
partially accomplished. Usually, because of the multi-dimensional nature of the
policy process, implementation is a combination of the programmed and
adaptive types, though premeditated non-implementation often occurs because
policy goals and objectives are vague.

As regards the question of who is responsible for implementation, one

should realize that it is not the focus of policy makers, who are in reality only
moderately interested in it. Bureaucracy is the major actor in implementation of
public policy. But other actors, such as the legislature and the courts, may also
be involved in the implementation process.

Legislature affects implementation in a number of ways. In some cases it

passes specific detailed legislation, which severely limits the amount of
discretion administrators have available to them. The courts’ relationship with
policy implementation is more direct than is the legislative relationship. In many
instances the very meaning of a policy results from judicial interpretation of
rules or statutes. Reservation policy for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), for
instance, has been substantially shaped by judicial interpretation. Pollution
control through the introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in New
Delhi and environmental regulation, etc. are some of the examples of judicial
administration of policy. However, the most important way in which courts affect
implementation is through interpretation of statutes and administrative rules
and regulations.

The major means of policy administration is, of course, the administrative

agency. Most of the sectoral policies are administered by various units of

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administrative agencies in respective line departments. Administrative agencies,
which are numerous, often act in situations where they have a wide range of
discretion in the elaboration of policy and its implementation. For a number of
reasons, legislature often delegates great authority to an agency, which in turn
makes policy in the implementation process. It is thus obvious that agencies,
courts, and the legislature can often alter policy through its administration.

Policy Evaluation
The last stage of the policy process is policy evaluation. At this stage those who
have made and implemented policy, or those who are interested or affected,
attempt to determine whether or not the policy has worked. Thus, evaluators are
concerned with appraising the content of policy and its effects. In other words,
policy evaluation is concerned with assessing what actually happened as a result
of the policy implementation? It asks questions whether the purposes of the
policy were met and how implementation might be improved. In some cases,
evaluation might result in the policies being changed or even abandoned.

From the discussion made above, it is evident that policy does not always
achieve its intended objectives and at times even produces unintended
consequences. The reasons why policy does not always do what it is supposed to
do are multiple. Some have already been discussed, but briefly, we can cite
additional reasons, including unclear goals, inability to see how to achieve those
goals, adversarial conditions within the system, and ambiguous criteria for
success. What this dictates is that policies need to be examined to see how they
are working. It should be noted that evaluation does not have to wait until an
actual policy has been implemented. It can occur throughout the policy process.
Evaluation can be undertaken by a variety of governmental actors as well as
nongovernmental actors, including the media, academics, and interest groups.

Patton (1981) states that there are over one hundred types of evaluation
approaches. All of these, however, can basically be categorized as one of two
distinct but interrelated categories of evaluation. The first, process evaluation,
looks at the extent to which a particular policy is implemented according to its
stated guidelines. This type acknowledges that a policy and its impact may be
modified, elaborated upon, or even negated during implementation. The second,
impact evaluation, is concerned with examining the extent to which a policy
causes a change in the intended direction. This requires the specification of
operationally defined policy goals, delineation of criteria of success, and
measurement of progress toward the stated goals. Of late, many methodological
tools have been developed to carry out evaluation research (Nachmias 1980;
Rossi & Freeman 1989)

Having discussed the various stages of the public policy making, it must
be noted that though it is important to distinguish the five different stages of the
policy process, these divisions are more analytical than chronological, meaning
that in real policy making they often overlap. In fact, policymaking is a
complicated and interactive process and the content of policies is not merely
determined in the decision making phase. Rather, as Nelson (1996) observes,
policy content is negotiated over and over again in problem definition,
legislation, regulation, and court decisions and again in the decisions made by
street level bureaucrats. In fact, arguing in favour of insulating administration
from partisan political interference, Goodnow (1900) observed that when one
moves beyond general execution to specialized administration (i.e. present day
regulators having specialized knowledge, technical expertise and quasi-judicial

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authority) “much must be left to official discretion, since what is demanded of
the officers is not the doing of a concrete thing but the exercise of judgment.”

Policy-making therefore does not end with the cabinet decision on a

particular issue or that of the legislature enacting the laws. In fact, it takes
place at various stages. By virtue of the power of ‘delegated legislation’ through
which the legislature transfers some amount of law making power (framing of
detail rules and regulations) to the executive, right from the secretariat to the
block/taluka level, the administrators at various levels interpret the policy, and
define and refine it from time to time.

Stages Model and the Logic of Applied Problem Solving

In order to save ourselves from the confusion created by a plethora of models of
policy stages and their variants, it is necessary to clarify the logic behind the
policy cycle framework. In the works of Brewer, Jones, and Anderson the
operative principle behind the notion of the policy cycle is the logic of applied
problem solving, even though they themselves did not explicitly state this logic.
The stages in applied problem solving and its corresponding stages in the policy
process are depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 3.1
Five Stages of the Policy Cycle and Their Relationship to Applied
Problem-Solving

Applied Problem-Solving Stages in Policy Cycle

1. Problem Recognition 1. Agenda Setting
2. Proposal of Solution 2. Policy Formulation
3. Choice of Solution 3. Decision-making
4. Putting Solution into effect 4. Policy Implementation
5. Monitoring Results 5. Policy Evaluation

As shown in the figure, agenda-setting here refers to the process by which

problems come to the attention of governments; policy formulation refers to how
policy options are formulated within government; decision-making is the process
by which governments adopt a particular course of action or non-action; policy
implementation relates to how governments put policies into effect; and policy
evaluation refers to the processes by which the results of policies are monitored
by both state and societal actors, the outcome of which may be
reconceptualization of policy problems and solutions.

Advantages of Stages Model

The most important advantage of this conception of the stages model as an
analytical tool is that it facilitates the understanding of public policy-making by
breaking the complexity of the process into any number of stages and sub-
stages, each of which can be investigated alone or in terms of its relationship to
any or all the other stages of the cycle. This aids theory-building by allowing the
results of numerous case studies and comparative studies of different stages to
be synthesized. Second, the approach can be used at all socio-legal or spatial
levels of policy-making, from that of local governments to those operating in the
international sphere. Also, as discussed above, this permits examination of the
role of all actors and institutions involved in policy creation, not just those
governmental agencies formally charged with the task, as was the case with

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earlier versions.

Disadvantages of Stages Model

The principal disadvantage of this model is that it can be misinter preted as
suggesting that policy-makers go about solving public problems in a very
systematic and more or less linear fashion (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier 1993).
This, obviously, is not the case in reality, as the identification of problems and
the development and implementation of solutions are often very ad hoc and
idiosyncratic processes. In other words, decision-makers frequently simply react
to circumstances, and do so in terms of their interests and pre-set ideological
dispositions (Stone 1988). Similarly, while the logic of systematic problem
solving may be fine in the abstract, in practice the stages are often compressed
or skipped, or followed in an order unlike that specified by the model. The cycle
may not be a single iterative loop, but rather a series of smaller loops in which,
to cite just one case, the results of past implementation decisions may have a
major impact on future policy formulation, regardless of the specifics of the
agenda-setting process in the case concerned.

Second disadvantage is that it is unclear exactly at which level and with

what unit of analysis the policy cycle model should be used. Does the model
present an overall picture of all governmental activity, from the legislative to the
judicial? Or is it only applicable to specific kinds of decisions taken by specific
kinds of organizations such as bureaucracies?

Third, and perhaps most important, the model lacks any notion of cau-
sation. It offers no pointers as to what, or who, drives a policy from one stage to
another.

The weaknesses of the framework underscore the complexity of the policy

process as well as the need to develop better intellectual devices to facilitate its
understanding. While the five-stage cycle helps analysis by disaggregating the
policy process, it does not well illustrate the nuances and complexities of public
policy-making. Mazmanian and Sabatier (1980) therefore argued for a better
model that would delineate in greater detail the actors and institutions involved
in the policy process, help identify the instruments available to policy-makers,
and point out the factors that lead to certain policy outcomes rather than others.
In the following section we present, in brief, some of the more promising
theoretical frameworks of policy processes that have been developed and
modified in the recent years.

More Promising Theoretical Frameworks

Institutional Rational Choice
Institutional rational choice is a family of frameworks focusing on how
institutional rules alter the behaviour of intendedly rational individuals
motivated by material self-interest. Although much of the literature on
institutional rational choice focuses on rather specific sets of institutions, such
as the relationships between Congress and administrative agencies in the
United States, the general framework is extremely broad in scope and has been
applied to important policy problems in the United States and other countries
(Ostrom 1986, 1990; Ostrom et al., 1993, 1994). It is clearly the most developed
of all the frameworks and is arguably the most utilized in the United States and
perhaps in Germany.

The Multiple-Streams Framework

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The multiple-streams framework was developed by John Kingdon (1984) based
upon the “garbage can” model of organizational behaviour (Cohen, March, and
Olsen, 1972). It views the policy process as composed of three streams of actors
and processes: (1) a problem stream consisting of data about various problems
and the proponents of various problem definitions; (2) a policy stream involving
the proponents of solutions to policy problems; and (3) a politics stream
consisting of elections and elected officials. In Kingdon’s view, the streams
normally operate independently of each other, except when an “window of
opportunity” permits policy entrepreneurs to couple the various streams. If the
entrepreneurs are successful, the result is major policy change. Although the
multiple-streams framework is not always as clear and internally consistent as
one might like, it appears to be applicable to a wide variety of policy arenas and
has been cited a number of times in the Social Science Citation Index.

Punctuated-Equilibrium Framework
Originally developed by Baumgartner and Jones (1993), the punctuated-
equilibrium (PE) framework argues that policymaking in the United States is
characterized by long periods of incremental change punctuated by brief
periods of major policy change. The latter come about when opponents manage
to fashion new “policy images” and exploit the multiple policy venues
characteristic of the United States. Originally developed to explain changes in
legislation, this framework has recently been expanded to include some very
sophisticated analyses of long-term changes in the budgets of the federal
government.

The Advocacy Coalition Framework

Developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1988, 1993), the advocacy coalition
framework (ACF) focuses on the interaction of advocacy coalitions – each
consisting of actors from a variety of institutions who share a set of policy
beliefs – within a policy subsystem. Policy change is a function of both
competition within the subsystem and events outside the subsystem. The
framework spends a lot of time mapping the belief systems of policy elites and
analyzing the conditions under which policy-oriented learning across coalitions
can occur. It has stimulated considerable interest throughout the countries of
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) –
including some very constructive criticisms.

Conclusion
Over the past five decades, scholars and analysts working towards the
elaboration of a policy science have addressed a series of interrelated questions
about the policy processes raised in numerous case studies, comparative
studies, and conceptual and theoretical critiques. At a very general level, these
scholars have dealt with a range of conceptual and methodological issues that
have helped to clarify some of the difficulties noted above with respect to the
early policy cycle frameworks. Although these studies have been undertaken
from a number of theoretical viewpoints and have been oriented towards the
resolution of specific questions relating to those perspectives, their findings
have been remarkably similar and, despite their different origins, have
collectively identified a common focus and set of variables that play a significant
role in policy-making processes and their analysis.

Methodologically, these studies share a common focus on the processes

that exist at the meso or sectoral level, involving the analysis of policy ‘sectors’
or ‘fields’ or ‘domains’. Rather than attempting to explain all government policy-

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making at a territorial or state level, or within a ‘political system’, they have
focused instead at functional levels of state activity. More substantively, these
studies have highlighted the critical roles played by different types of policy
actors in affecting policy processes and policy outcomes. As policy-making
involves a multitude of actors, who interact with each other in countless ways in
pursuit of their interests, the results of their interaction are what public policy is
all about. But these actors are not completely independent and self-determining,
since they operate within a set of existing social relations and policy ideas that
serve to constrain their behaviour. Understanding the activities and interactions
of policy actors is therefore a key facet of understanding the policy process.
Terms and concepts developed in many case studies of actor behaviour have all
centred on the idea that policy actors can be usefully grouped together in
conceptual units active at the sectoral and subsectoral levels of policy-making,
variously termed as ‘sub-governments’, ‘advocacy coalitions’, ‘policy networks’,
and ‘policy communities’, among others.

In addition, many studies have also identified long-term patterns in the

structures or ‘regimes’ within which actors work, the nature of the ideas they
hold, the lessons they learn from their own and others’ experiences, and the
types of instruments they use to implement policies. The existence and longevity
of these patterns suggest that despite frequent fluctuations in detail, the overall
nature of the operation of policy cycles in specific sectors is quite stable.
However, an improved model of the policy-making process can be built on the
foundation provided by the old policy cycle framework. While retaining the basic
elements of this framework to simplify the subject matter and to structure its
analysis, it can focus at the sectoral level in order to capture the complexities of
actor behaviour and the dynamics of policy-making missed by the older frame-
work.
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