Modeling the Policy-Making Process - Essay Example

?Models of the policy process misrepresent complex realities and should be avoided.’ Discuss. Ideally, policy is all about the principles that governorganizations and institutions to achieve their objectives. They are the rules by which a governing body adopts especially for purposes of decision-making for its senior officials. It covers a wide area including both the spheres of the public and private sectors. But this is often equated with public policy, which will be the focus of this paper. In this context, the working definition is that it is the plan or course of action taken by government to respond to a political issue or to enhance the social or political well being of society, hence, making it the end-result of policymaking. (Sidlow et al. 2010, pp. 345) With these variables in mind, the policy process is easily understood to present a multidimensional challenge involving numerous realities. As a result, policymakers become prone to errors because of these variables are misrepresented and, hence, misunderstood. The Policymaking Process Even when confined to public policymaking, the issue of policy is still too general. That is why this paper will further contract the topic into specific policy areas: those that are currently prioritized in the United Kingdom. Identifying these policy areas are important because they are fundamental in citing the relevant policy process to be investigated and further clarifying the discussion into context. Foreign policy, economic policy, EU policy and security policy are all formulated in Britain through several institutions within the Westminster System. In addition, they include not just the polity but also the citizens, the media, among other players. To demonstrate this, the case of foreign policy process will be cited. There are four stages in the foreign policy making in the UK. The first is the so-called articulation or initiation stage wherein stakeholders like concerned citizens and individuals successfully bring an issue into the attention of the policymakers. For example, there is the case of the 1,500 or so motorcyclists who effectively grabbed the attention of the media with regards to a proposed European Union laws on bikers. (BBC 2011) This demonstrated how individuals or groups such non governmental organizations could demand and initiate a foreign policy agenda. This was what happened in the past when several national interest groups in Britain joined with others from several European countries in their “big-bang strategy” that eventually helped facilitate the EU enlargement. Interest groups from nine European countries participated in this strategy and that hey came to be called as the Vilnius group or the “big bang group” who vigorously campaigned for a broad multistate accession. (Assenova 2003, pp. 16) The second stage involved the actual policy formulation, which would already involve the governmental policy process as bureaucratic agencies begin crafting and passing the policy. Countries like the UK and the US have given their respective executive departments the power to formulate foreign policy. This is also true in the case of economic and security issues. The implementation of the policy is considered as the third stage in the process. According to Smith and Dunne (2008, pp. 383), this is the most understated but important area since it “describes the agencies and individuals charged with carrying out the policy” and that “often, the final outcome is very different from the intent of the legislation.” Finally, the last stage of the foreign policymaking process is called the evaluation stage. This is the time when “parliamentary committees, special commissions, government ombudsmen, or watchdog groups review the policy process and policy outcomes and makes recommendations to stay the course or change.” (Smith and Dunne, pp. 383) The above policy process is roughly the same across all policy areas, although they involved some changes in the governmental agencies involved. Explaining this process becomes controversial. Some models focus on the role of individuals, groups and institutions and, hence, base their argument on the linear step-by-step characteristic of the process. Others models, on the other hand. are more concerned about the situations in the policy process, dictating their depictions of the supposed reality that transpires. Policy Process Models One of the most popular policy process models that best represent the rational school is the “policy stages model” or what some refer to as the “policy cycle model”. The framework is based on a modified version of the stages in policymaking cited earlier, arguing that it is a simple process characterized by cyclical phases. Here, when one stage or phase is completed, then the process could then logically proceed to the next. It supposedly provided a clear, coherent and seamless approach by which policymaking or policy change could be explained. This model, however, appears to be too simplistic and is most culpable of misrepresentations. By focusing on the stages and the classification of policy process components, the model is offering a representation of the policy process that is ideal or artificial, even, because it fails to account for certain facts in policy making such as the fact that the process in reality involves far more stakeholders, multiple levels of government, the variations by which these players interact, and a host of other variables. Some sectors also find that the sequencing of the stages tend to be inaccurate, which threatens its capacity to provide credible representation of the process. In an apparent reaction to the weaknesses of the policy stages model, Multiple Streams Framework was devised. It is attributed to John Kingdon. This model views the policy process as chaotic, complex and is formed as a result of the interaction of three processes or streams. These streams - the problems, public policies and politics – can randomly interact in a so-called “window of opportunity” and lead to a policy change. As opposed to the conceptualization of the policy process as logical step by step process, the model is more concerned about the sheer diversity and differences that characterize the issues, players, relationships and interactions in the process. According to Gidron and Bar (2009, pp. 5), this framework takes some ideas from the so-called “Garbage Can” model for the organizational choice in the way the streams are explained to come together amidst the wider political process, which, for its part, is typified by an “organized anarchy.” The Garbage Can model argues that the policy process is not unlike a garbage can in which participants develop and dump a variety of problems and solutions. (Maguire 2008, pp. 51) Gidron and Bar (pp. 5) further explained that, “the process of continual change and the intermittent involvement of all kinds of decision makers, whether politicians, bureaucrats, and others, is the base point for a policy system that is far away from the sequential model of policy-making.” The key elements in this model are institutions and the political streams (electoral trends/changing of regimes, interest groups and pressure groups, among others) that are capable of influencing and introducing problems and issues; and of shaping and implementing policy. Out of the chaos, these elements are the organizational force that makes the process work. Now, the problem with the Multi Stream Model is that it is too extreme in its focus on chaos to the point that it exaggerates the fluidity of reality. The framework banks on the idea that each stream cannot change policy on its own. Furthermore, coming together is seen as not enough to initiate policy change. Rather, a window of opportunity or luck must be present in order for the streams to interact and the policy process to begin. This reasoning is not legitimate. It ignores the organizational capabilities of the political and social institutions and their capacity to influence the setting of policy agenda. Misrepresentation In consideration of the above models, with their respective weaknesses, and the policy environment as explained previously, there is a seeming disconnect in the way policy process is explained. The fact is that there are just numerous variables involved in policymaking and in resolving political, economic and a host of other issues in process that it becomes challenging to encapsulate and integrate them into one all-encompassing model, without being contradictory (at least in the context of the two models used by this paper). But the offshoot is that reality tends to get twisted and misrepresented. This is particularly highlighted through several approaches designed to analyze the policy process. For example, Fox, Bayaat and Ferreira (2006, pp. 65) posited several approaches by which each of the above models can be examined. These include: the functional process model, which looks at the who and the how of policymaking; the elite/mass model, where the roles of the elite, the masses and the executive institutions are analyzed; the group model, which focuses on the influence of interest groups on the policy maker and the outcomes of the influence; and, the institutional model, which is concerned with the relationship between institutions involved in policymaking and policy implementation and the effects of the relationship on policy. In using the above approaches, the need is underscored for mechanisms that would comprehensively depict the reality of the policy process. On one hand, there is the fact that the policy process landscape is fluid and random. But on the other, there is also the fact that institutions and other variables could have an organizing capacity that tempers the fluidity of the policy process. This is the reason why both the rational models such as the Policy Stages Model and the Multi Streams Model have elements that could do more effectively when combined. For instance, the Multi Streams Model can be more effective in its representations if it integrates the stages model’s capability to explain the activities of individual and group players, and most, importantly, the institutions because they impact, one or another, policy change. References Assenova, M 2003, The debate on NATO's evolution: a guide, CSIS, Washington, D.C. Fox, W, Bayat, S and Ferreira, N 2006, Guide to Managing Public Policy. Juta and Company Ltd., Cape Town. Gidron, B and Bar, M 2009, Policy Initiatives Towards the Third Sector in International Perspective. Springer, New York. Maguire, L 2008, Developing distance education policy within a state system of higher education: The faculty perspective. ProQuest, Ann Arbor, MI. "Motorcycle Action Group stages EU protest on M4 and A55," BBC News 11 September 2011. Available from: [22 November 2011]. Sidlow, E, Henschen, B, Gerston, L and Christensen, T 2010, Govt, 2011. Cengage Learning, New York. Smith, S and Dunne, T 2008, Foreign policy: theories, actors, cases. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Read More