Nature of Public Policy

 

According to Anderson (1975), “the nature of public policy as a course of action can be better or fully understood if it is broken down into number of categories, these being policy policy demands, decisions, statements, outputs and outcomes. In practice, they will not necessarily occur in a neat sequential order."

1. Policy demands

Policy demands are the claims made by individuals or other actors with the government in a political system for action or inaction on some perceived problem. Such demands may range from a general insistence that the government ought to do something to a proposal for specific action on the matter. There are various factors which gives rise a need of policy demand. They may be  as for examples, the ideology of democracy, political factor, economic factor, and pressure of general public (Mather 2001). This has enforced the government to formulate a particular policy to overcome the problem. In the Nepalese case, an increasing pressure from the general public to band polluted vehicles in Kathmandu valley had forced the government to realize a need to control pollution produced by such vehicles. Similarly, due to an increasing pressure from donor communities to undertake economic reform programs to achieve macroeconomic stability, had forced the government to realize a need of economic reforms in Nepal in the decade of eighties.

2. Policy decisions

Realizing a need of policy, the next step is to make policy decision. Policy decisions are the decisions made by public officials that authorize or give direction and content to public policy actions as accordance to the demand of individuals or other actors of a political system (Anderson 1975). It includes decision to enact a law or policy by the parliament, issues executive orders or edicts, promulgate administrative rules, or make important judicial interpretation of the-law. For example, after realizing the need to control environmental pollution, the government enacted the Nepal Mass Emission Standard 1994. In the same way, realizing need to reform the economy, the government initiated various programs including external sector reform, privatization and liberalization, and financial sector reform to liberalize the economy after the restorati of a multiparty democracy in 1990. All these are policy decision made by the in course of materializing policy demand.

3. Policy statements

Policy statements are a formal expression or articulation of public policy They include legislative statutes, executive orders and decrees, administrative rules and regulations, and court opinions. In addition, it includes statement and speech made by public officials indicating intentions and goals of realize them. The policy statements are sometimes ambitious and policies issued by different agencies of a political system may be responsibility of the top political leaders to make the policy statement as realistic as possible and to reconcile conflicting interest of the stakeholder.

1.     Policy outputs

 Policy outputs are tangible manifestation of public policies. It is what the government does as distinguished from what it says - it is going to do.The matters like tax collection, highway construction, provision of irrigation facilities, distribution of drinking water telephone lines and electricity, and school enrollment ae policy output. As for example, during the Ninth Plan, the government had the policy statement to bring down poverty level to 32%, it is the policy output.

6.Policy Outcomes

Policy outcomes are the consequences for a particular social group or groups, intended or unintended, that flow form action or inaction by the government (Anderson 1975). Policy outcomes show effect of public policies on life of the people. In other words, it shows whether there is divergence between policy output and policy outcomes, i.e.. commitment and outcome. In the Nepalese context, several programs have been implemented to reduce poverty, to reduce inequality, and to generate employment opportunities. In order to see the policy outcome, we should study about their effect in the society, on where the policies are being implemented. As for example, how much improvement was brought on the living standard of the people, how much of employment opportunity was generated by the programs, how much of the inequality was reduced h the poverty alleviation programs, how much of the poor got institutional credit facilities. Questions such as these may be quite difficult to answer, but they direct our attention to assess the impact of public policy.