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Student Papers in Public Policy

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Student Papers in Public Policy provides an outlet for multidisciplinary scholarship for undergraduate and graduate students interested in working in the public policy arena. The Purdue Policy Research Institute (formerly the Global Policy Research Institute) is helping to educate students by providing valuable background for those seeking career leadership opportunities in academic, governmental and international corporations where an interest and understanding of global issues is essential. Participants include PPRI Interns, participants in the PPRI Seminar in Global Policy course, and PPRI Graduate Fellows. PPRI Student policy briefs highlight the core ideas, findings, and policy implications of student research. They describe findings of original research or summarize the state of the literature and break down key points on a wide range of topics. These briefs have not undergone traditional peer-review, but have been reviewed by the course instructor and a PPRI staff member.

1 What is Public Policy?

Katherine Knutson and Henry Adebisi

1.0 Why did I write this book?

This morning I listened to news from NPR, a station born of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act. As I ate breakfast, I read the government-mandated nutrition label on the box of cereal. I left the house for work using a road maintained by taxes. The regulations that guided my hiring and employment, the programs that protect me from poverty and sickness, the laws that ensure I have access to clean air to breathe and water to drink, are just some of the many ways in which government policies impact my life on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the United States has experienced public policies in this way. The residents of Flint, Michigan, were exposed to toxic levels of lead in their drinking water supply over a multi-year period as a result of government decisions that failed to prioritize the health and wellbeing of the community. Similarly, years after over 600,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children were given legal protection to work and attend school without fear of deportation through an Executive Order, these Dreamers (as they are called in reference to a policy proposal called the DREAM Act ) are still living in legal limbo, without a permanent path to citizenship or access to many educational and employment benefits. What these examples suggest is that, whether for benefit or for harm, public policies directly impact the daily lives of people living in the United States.

Knowing the impact policy has on our lives leads me to many questions. How do policies that affect our lives so dramatically come into existence? What factors affect the decisions that government officials make? Why do we have this set of policies rather than something else? Why don’t we pass some policies that are very popular but do pass some policies that aren’t popular? Why do the policies that we have benefit some at the expense of others?

This book is an introduction to the study of U.S. Public Policy designed to address these questions. It was written for Gustavus students, by a Gustavus professor, and with contributions from Gustavus alumni. Because I had this audience in mind while writing the book, many of the examples are specific to the experience of Gustavus students and I’ve marked these with blue text. If you’re not a Gustavus student, you are welcome to skip these chunks without missing any of the main ideas.

This book is intended for those with some familiarity with the U.S. political system who want to learn more about the policies that govern our lives, want to understand why our policies look the way they do, and want to be able to analyze both policies and the policymaking process in a way that moves beyond the partisan rhetoric that characterizes contemporary politics.

I wrote this book after teaching U.S. Public Policy at Gustavus for 17 years. Over the years, I’ve used four different textbooks, each with various strengths and weaknesses. I’ve also witnessed the price of textbooks increase and the impact those extra costs have on students. I wrote this book for two primary reasons. First, I want to provide a free resource to my students so that everyone in the class has full access to the course material. Second, I want to present the material through themes that are not represented in any of the other existing textbooks on the subject.

Figure 1.1: My daughter takes one of the public policy textbooks I’ve used in this class for a walk in the Sohre Hall apartment, circa 2014.

This text explores the topic through two themes that permeate the book. First, I emphasize the impact of race, class, and gender on the formation and implementation of public policy. This approach is rooted in the theoretical framework, the Social Construction of Target Populations, first articulated by Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram in 1993, and described in more detail in chapter 5. [1] This theory calls our attention to the ways in which both political power and social constructions interact to produce policy outcomes and how these outcomes feed messages back to individuals about the political process and their value in the democratic process.

Second, I emphasize the importance and skill of writing in the field of public policy. Each chapter introduces students to a different genre common in the field and features reflections and writings from Gustavus alumni who work in a variety of public policy-related careers. Rather than thinking of writing as a separate process from learning about policy and policymaking, I hope that students will use writing as a way to learn about policy and policymaking and will develop practical skills to become better writers. I’ve found that most Gustavus students are very good at writing term papers; however, writing in public policy-related careers requires a different skill set…the ability to find and analyze different types of material, to synthesize information clearly and concisely, and to differentiate situations that call for an informative approach from situations that call for a persuasive approach, and respond accordingly.

I’m aiming for short, accessible chapters that summarize the most important concepts and theories, supplemented by sidebars that highlight contributions from Gustavus alumni. I’ll provide resources for learning more information about some of the topics, for those who want to dig a little deeper. Each chapter is guided by a key question. I find that defining research questions is an important part of my research process, and I encourage students to formulate their own research questions as we move through this material.

1.1 What is public policy?

With that said, let’s jump into the study of U.S. public policy and policymaking! Your first question might be: what is public policy? There are dozens of definitions, but the one I prefer combines aspects of definitions from both Carter Wilson and Thomas Dye: public policy is the authoritative statements and actions of the government that reflect what governments choose to do or not to do.” [2] Policymaking involves the processes for how governments do this and why they make the particular decisions they do. Or, to put it another way, public policy is the “what?” and policymaking is the “why?” and “how?”. These definitions give us space to talk about existing policies (or proposals) and to think about how they came into being (or why they failed to come into being) and what impact they have. Although lots of organizations make and have policies, in this book, we are especially interested in the policymaking activity of domestic government institutions. Domestic means that this book is focused on the policies and policy proposals that affect things within the United States rather than in foreign policy or the policies of other nation states. Government includes the institutions operating at the national (federal), state, and local level. And institutions include any of the bodies that are designed to formulate and implement public policy including legislatures, executives, bureaucratic agencies, and courts. Some of the individuals working in these institutions are elected, some are appointed, and some are hired based on their expertise or ability.

There are lots of ways we could approach the study of public policy. In this book, I will introduce you to some of the main theoretical approaches scholars of public policy have developed to make sense of public policy. The theories are meant to both explain what has happened in the past and to help us make predictions for future policymaking. Theories will never be able to explain all of an outcome and they usually won’t allow us to make completely accurate predictions, but they do help call our attention to the important aspects of the policymaking process. We will also learn some of the key terms (concepts) that are common in the field. I’ll bold any key concepts that you should know so that it is easy to find these important ideas. These terms are the vocabulary building blocks of the study of public policy and so it is important to understand what they mean and how to use them. In the first half of the book, I focus on big questions that help us understand the policymaking players and process. In the second half of the book, we dive into a few specific public policies, using the guiding questions from the first half to explore the policies in more depth.

1.2 Is there a pattern to public policy?

One way we could approach the study of public policy is by picking out a few policies that are interesting and learning more about them, but this would be pretty unsatisfying from the perspective of a social scientist. Social scientists want to be able to find commonalities between different topics and explain processes in addition to describing what we see. Social scientists who study public policy have taken a lot of different approaches ranging from developing frameworks or typologies that are fairly simple to developing very complex theories. In this section, I’ll introduce you to two foundational frameworks and one typology that have been very influential in the study of public policy. In subsequent chapters, I’ll introduce you to a few more complex theories that help to explain the policymaking process. The purpose of a theory is to provide us with an outline of how a process works and to call our attention to certain key aspects of the process. Theories offer a simplified version of the process rather than describing every detail of the process. You’ll notice that the different theories described in this book attempt to explain and call our attention to different aspects of the process. Ideally, a theory will offer some predictive power that will help us to make an educated guess about a future situation, but even when it doesn’t, a theory can still be useful because it gives us the tools to analyze a policy or policy process by drawing attention to the aspects and processes that are important.

1.2.1 Political Systems Model

One of the earliest attempts to make sense of the policymaking process comes from David Easton. [3] In a 1957 article and a 1965 book, Easton attempted to provide a broad framework for understanding how decisions are enacted in society. Easton’s Political Systems Model conceived the process as involving inputs and outputs into a political system embedded within an environment. Inputs include demands for action that come from individuals and groups as well as the support for the system that comes when individuals and groups accept the system of government, for example by paying taxes, obeying laws, and abiding by results of elections. The outputs of the political system are the policies such as laws, court decisions, and bureaucratic regulations. These outputs feed back into the political system, in a process appropriately called feedback .

Figure 1.2: The Political Systems Model

This process happens within a specific context, and Easton calls us to pay attention to four components of this context, what he terms “the policy environment.” First, he points us to the political environment, which includes factors such as which political party controls the government, approval ratings of politicians, the public mood, and voter turnout in elections. Second, is the economic environment. This includes the distribution of wealth and indicators of economic health such as unemployment, wages, and the gross domestic product . Third is the social environment. This includes the composition of the population according to factors such as age, race, gender, and immigration status. Finally is the structural environment. This includes the constraints placed on policymaking as the result of federalism and the separation of powers.

According to the Political Systems model, the outputs produced by the policymaking system provide feedback that then influences the next set of decisions.

The Political Systems model is useful because it calls our attention to the overall policy process and to key factors that we should consider in analyzing politics. It is definitely important to consider the policy environment and the inputs that shape policy outputs. It is also useful to think about the many different types of policy outputs, including laws, court decisions, and regulations. Easton also helps us remember that the policies themselves affect the creation of new policies (feedback). However, Easton’s model raises more questions than it answers. For example, what exactly happens in that “political systems” box? Do all aspects of the environment matter equally?

1.2.2 Lowi Typology

Working at about the same time, Theodore Lowi set out to create a more systematic way of classifying public policies. First in 1964 and then in more detail in 1972, Lowi outlined a method for categorizing public policies based on their impact or expected impact on society in terms of who pays for the policy (costs) and who benefits from the policy (benefits). [4] What Lowi developed is less a theory and more of a system of categorization, but I’m including it here because it was an early attempt to provide a systematic (and predictive) model of policy.

Lowi argued that costs and benefits can be diffuse (spread out among many people) or concentrated among a few. Distributive policies spread the costs out among a large group of people (largely through taxes) but concentrate the benefits among certain recipients. An example of a distributive policy would be a road or school. All people in a state pay taxes that go toward funding roads and schools, but only people who drive on the road or attend the school benefit directly from them. However, even though the immediate benefits are generally fairly concentrated, secondary benefits flow to the broader community and it’s fairly easy to understand those benefits. I might not drive on the road that was built, but maybe traffic on the road I do drive on is reduced because of the other road. Similarly, I benefit from others in society having good education even if I didn’t attend the school and, if I value education, I likely value education for others too. Because we don’t view these government services as mutually exclusive or in competition with each other (we don’t have to choose between a road and a school) and because we understand the broader benefits to society even when they don’t impact us directly, Lowi predicts that policymaking isn’t likely to be very contentious with distributive policies. Distributive policies create a lot of winners and very few losers because the costs are shared so broadly among members of society that most people don’t even notice the burden and the benefits are easily recognizable.

In contrast, regulatory policies concentrate the costs among a few people but distribute the benefits widely. Regulatory policies create rules and restrictions that impact individuals and businesses for the benefit of protecting the health, welfare, and safety of the public. Some scholars further differentiate between competitive regulatory policies and protective regulatory policy. Competitive regulatory policies control who is allowed to enter a market. When the government requires a doctor to have a license to practice medicine, it is establishing a competitive regulatory policy. Protective regulatory policies protect the public from harm. Restrictions on auto emissions or regulations on food producers are examples of protective regulatory policies. Regulatory policies limit the activities of individuals and businesses or require them to spend additional resources in order to meet government requirements. The broader community benefits from the regulation, but it is the individual or business that bears the cost. Regulatory policies can get controversial, but often the individuals and businesses being regulated have a large role to play in the creation or enforcement of the regulations.

Redistributive policies have concentrated costs and concentrated benefits, but the group that pays the costs is different from the group that gets the benefits. Most examples of this type of policy are related to income (social welfare policies that provide income support to the poor from taxes paid by the wealthy), but the groups could be based on age, race, gender, or any other division. Affirmative Action is viewed as a redistributive policy, shifting benefits of jobs from one racial group (white) to another (Black, Latinx, Asian, etc.). As you might expect, redistributive policies tend to be very controversial because they change the distribution of resources.

The fourth category in the Lowi Typology is constituent policies and these are policies that change government rules and structures. Constituent policies have broad costs and broad benefits. Lowi predicts that constituent policies will not be very controversial because not many people care about the rules and procedures of government other than the people who work in government.

Figure 1.3: Lowi Typology

Lowi’s typology offered a big step in trying to think about how different policies were related in terms of more than just topic. It provided some testable hypotheses (policymaking for these kinds of policies should look like this ) and called our attention to some of the important dynamics that shape policymaking like the allocation of benefits and burdens. However, as you have probably already noticed, there are some big flaws. First, not every policy fits neatly into a category; some policies have elements of multiple categories. Second, the distinction between distributive and redistributive policies is very much in the eye of the beholder; nearly every policy could be classified as redistributive, if you think about it in that way. In short, Lowi’s typology doesn’t provide definitive answers about public policy, but it did help move us along the path of finding more structured ways of classifying and analyzing policy.

1.2.3 The Stages Framework

Harold Lasswell gets the credit for conceptualizing the policymaking process as cyclical. [5] Lasswell identified seven distinct stages in the process of policymaking and many subsequent authors built on his idea. [6] The variation of this idea that is most commonly used today is the Stages Framework, also known as the Policy Cycle, outlined by James Anderson, David Brady, and Charles Bullock in 1978. [7] In more recent iterations, Anderson identifies five stages in the policy process: problem definition and agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation.

Figure 1.4: Stages Framework

In the first stage of the process, problem definition and agenda setting, the focus is on understanding what topics receive attention from policymakers. There are lots of problems in the country, but policymakers don’t care about them all equally and they don’t consider them all at the same time. Problem definition involves defining a situation as something that is worthy of attention from government. Agenda setting involves bringing the topic to the active attention of policymakers. Before any policy is made, government actors need to be aware of the issue and must believe that it is worthy of government attention and action.

In the second stage, policy formulation , government officials develop proposals for addressing the issue. Proposals or policies might originate from legislatures (Congress, at the national level; state legislatures, at the state level; or county commissions, city councils, or school boards, at the local level), executives (the President, governors, or mayors), bureaucrats, or courts. In this stage, policymakers draft the policy to address a problem.

In the third stage, policy adoption , government officials formally adopt the policy. At the federal level, this might involve Congress passing legislation and the President signing it into law. This is the formal process of turning a proposal into a law or regulation.

The fourth stage of the process is policy implementation. Policy implementation involves actually putting the policies that are passed into action. A lot of this work comes down to the administrative agencies and departments that make up the bureaucracy. Implementation happens at all levels of government, from teachers in your local school district who administer curriculum to the federal Internal Revenue Service who collect taxes.

The final stage, policy evaluation , involves efforts by government and other policy actors (like academics!) to find out whether the policy was effective in reaching its intended goals. Government programs cost a lot of money to run and so it is important to most people to make sure that the money is being spent properly and that it is creating the desired effects.

The Policy Cycle framework provides a straightforward and clear description of a very complex topic (policymaking). It calls our attention to important parts of the process and helps us identify some of the predictable elements of the process. However, you’ve probably already noticed that it is a very simplified version of the process. Most policies don’t work in a neat circle and the framework doesn’t help us understand how topics move from one stage to the next or why some of them get stuck at a particular stage or jump around. Nevertheless, this framework gives us an entry point into thinking about the policy process and you’ll notice that the chapters in this book are loosely organized according to this framework.

1.3 But what about the other ways of thinking about public policy?

The two frameworks and typology that I describe here are only a handful of approaches scholars have used to bring order to the study of public policy. We’ll explore a few more approaches in later chapters, but I want to take just a minute to address one of the main ways the general public and the media often classify public policy: in ideological terms. When people talk about public policies, you’ll often hear them talk about liberal or conservative policies (or policies favored by liberals or conservatives). Sometimes commentators will also throw in a mention of a political party. Hopefully you remember a bit about political ideology and political parties from previous classes, but it is worth a brief review.

1.3.1 Political Ideology

Ideology refers to an organized set of beliefs about the proper role of government in a society. Much of a person’s ideology is based on their answer to the question of what role the government should play in the economy. If we think about this as a continuum, there are those on one end of the spectrum (commonly referred to as the right side) who believe that the government should play a very minimal role in regulating the economy. These people favor low taxes, fewer regulations on business, and lots of freedom for individuals to operate on their own without government interference. The label we use to describe this ideology today is conservative. [8] On the other side of the spectrum (commonly referred to as the left side), there are people who believe that the government has an important role to play in regulating the economy in order to keep a fair playing field for all. These people favor government spending on programs that benefit people’s health and welfare and they support the government stepping in to regulate businesses in areas like consumer protection and workplace safety. The label we use to describe this ideology is liberal.

But there’s another dimension to ideology besides the economic aspect and that is the question of the role the government should play in regard to social issues, many of which involve questions that are related to race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and religion as well as behavioral decisions. Again, thinking of these on a continuum, there are some people who believe that the government should enforce a traditional social order (right side) while others believe that the government should protect individual rights and privacy even when these conflict with traditional beliefs (left side). It is fairly unhelpful that we also use the terms “conservative” and “liberal” to describe these two positions, respectively. Those who are conservative on social issues might oppose access to abortion, the legalization of recreational marijuana, or the teaching of critical race theory in schools. Those who are liberal on social issues would take the opposition positions on those issues.

The use of the two terms to reflect beliefs about both economic and social issues creates a lot of confusion because when someone identifies as “conservative”, it might mean that they are conservative just on economic issues or just on social issues or it might mean that they are conservative on on both economic and social issues. I think it is most helpful to think about these two dimensions of ideology as intersecting and then consider ideological positions based on both dimensions. Those who are conservative on both economic and social issues are usually called conservatives and those who are liberal on both economic and social issues are usually called liberals . Those who are conservative on economic issues but liberal on social issues are called libertarian . There’s no agreed upon term for those who are liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues , but Carter Wilson calls this group communitarian . [9]

Figure 1.5: Political Ideology Typology

There are a few other ideological terms that often get mentioned in political discussions. At the far right end of the social continuum (past conservative) is fascism , which advocates for complete control of public life by government. Socialism rests at the far left end of the economic continuum, emphasizing collective ownership of business. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that many of my students prefer to identify as “radicals”. It would be safe to place those students on the far left of both the economic and social dimensions of ideology.

A person’s ideology is shaped by lots of different factors including their families, friends, education, media consumption, religious beliefs, and personal experiences.

1.3.2 Political Party Affiliation

Closely related to the concept of ideology are political parties. Political parties are organizations of likeminded people who work together to win control of government through elections. Political parties are related to ideology in that the parties have an ideological leaning that is often (but not always!) shared among people who identify as members of the party. This has not always been the case, but the parties have become more ideologically cohesive in recent years. Today, most people who identify as part of the Republican Party hold a conservative or libertarian political ideology, while most people who identify as part of the Democratic Party hold a liberal political ideology.

Even though ideology and party identification closely overlap, it’s important not to use these terms interchangeably because they are still different concepts. In fact, even though the parties are more ideologically cohesive than they used to be, there is still a lot of ideological variation within each of the two major parties. For example, there are Democrats who are far enough to the left ends of the spectrum that they identify as Democratic-Socialists (Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, for example) and there are Democrats who consider themselves to be moderates or pragmatists (Representatives Dean Phillips and Angie Craig, for example).

If you read the news about public policies or talk to your family about it, chances are you’ll hear people use ideology and partisanship (support for a particular political party) to describe policies. [10] There’s definitely something to this… liberals and conservatives (and Democrats and Republicans) do have very different views of what policies are best for the U.S.

However, if our analysis of a policy only goes as deep as whether the policy is supported or opposed by a particular political party, we’ll miss a lot of the story. Knowing whether a policy is more liberal or more conservative doesn’t actually tell us very much about whether the policy will get enacted or ignored or how effective it might be. And. there are plenty of examples of a party in control of government failing to pass policies it supports (look no further than the failure of the Republican party to repeal the Affordable Care Act –a top priority for Republicans–when it controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency from 2017-2019).

That said, partisanship and ideology are important factors influencing the development of public policy and they will pop up in every chapter of this book. One way they show up is in the writing produced by people looking to shape policy and the policy process. Before we wrap up with this chapter, let’s take a minute to think specifically about policy writing.

1.4 What kind of writing happens in the field of public policy?

You’ve probably done a lot of writing in your years as a student. One of the most common genres (or types) of writing in an academic situation is a research paper where you collect and summarize information about a topic. You may have been asked to develop a thesis, or an argument, about your topic. This kind of writing assignment is useful in teaching you skills of research, critical analysis, and writing, but the final product (the research paper) is very different from the types of writing you find in the field of public policy.

In this book, I employ a rhetorical approach. The rhetorical approach asks us to consider the purpose and audience for our writing (and for evaluating things we read!) and reminds us that there are different genres (types of writing) all of which have a different set of conventions and expectations associated with them. I think the rhetorical approach is helpful because it gives us the tools to analyze the information we’re reading and to become more flexible and successful writers ourselves.

Everything that you write and everything that you read has a purpose –a reason for writing or a goal of communication–whether you realize it or not. Two of the most common purposes are to inform and to persuade. Informational writing involves providing a reader with information about a topic with the goal of summarizing information and presenting it in a clear and understandable format. Persuasive writing is meant to change someone’s mind about a topic or get them to act (or not act) on a topic. A piece of writing can be both informative and persuasive; they aren’t mutually exclusive. Other purposes in writing might be to evaluate, express, inspire, entertain, or learn. It’s a good idea when you begin the writing process to know what kind of purpose you have, otherwise you might write something persuasive when your boss (or professor) may have wanted something informative. It’s also important to think about purpose when you are reading something…was the author trying to provide you with information (like when you read a newspaper article) or were they trying to persuade you (like when you read an editorial)?

When you write, it’s also important to think about your audience. The audience refers to the intended recipient of your communication. In school, your audience has usually been your professor or teacher. Sometimes you are writing for yourself (like when you take notes or write in a diary). In your future career, you’ll probably be writing for a boss or employees. In the field of public policy, you might be writing for a policymaker (an elected official or bureaucrat) or for the public. Sometimes your audience is very specifically identified either by name or position like, for example, when you write a letter or memo that is addressed to a particular person. Other times, you are writing to a broader audience, like readers of a particular newspaper or website. In the case of both a specific and a general audience, you need to think about who that person or people are that are going to be reading your writing so that you can write effectively for them.

One question to ask about your audience is whether or not they are already knowledgeable about the topic of your writing. Answering this question helps you make decisions about the kind of language and level of detail you will use. If you’re writing to someone who knows a lot about the topic, you can use more technical language and jargon. If you’re writing to someone who knows very little about the topic, you’ll have to explain specialized terms.

When you are writing things that are persuasive in nature, you’ll want to think about whether your audience is likely to be sympathetic, skeptical, or even hostile to your argument. You might need to use different supporting evidence or logical reasoning for different audiences in order to be more effective.

Finally, you want to think about what genre of writing you are doing. Genre refers to the different types of writing that have different styles and writing conventions associated with the genre.

To give you an example, I wrote this textbook. The textbook is a genre that is meant to provide an overview of a topic and a summary of information to a student enrolled in a class. In writing this book, I’ve thought a lot about you (the audience) and your needs. I’ve thought about what terms you’re likely to be familiar with and which ones I might need to explain in more depth. I’ve also thought about the style and tone I should use so that you read this without falling asleep (too often!). I have also spent a lot of time thinking about the purpose of this book. There are lots of public policy textbooks (I’ve looked at over a dozen of them in preparing to write this book!) and so I’ve had to think about the purpose of writing something new. I know that my primary goal is to inform you about this content and I have a secondary goal of persuading you that it is both important and interesting. I’ve asked myself, what are the most important topics you need to know as an undergraduate student taking a course in public policy. Finally, I’ve thought a lot about the textbook genre and looked at a lot of examples of textbooks. I know that textbooks have certain writing conventions and styles like chapters, subheadings, key terms that are highlighted, discussion questions, and supporting material. I want my book to look and read like a textbook rather than like a novel or academic journal article and so I make stylistic choices to reflect this genre.

Learning to identify different genres when you encounter them in the wild is important because it helps us understand and interpret the things we are reading. Knowing what genre we’re reading gives us some insight into the audience and purpose of the text and can help us ask good questions about the text. Recognizing different genres is also the first step in learning how to write in different genres, and this is a critically important skill for anyone who has a job that involves any amount of writing (sorry to break it to you, but most of them do!).

There are tons of different genres–news articles, nonfiction books, and blog posts, to name just a few–but in this book, we’re going to focus on the genres that are common in public policy-related fields. You will read some different genres, including news articles, journal articles, bills and laws, and this textbook. You will also practice writing a few different genres as part of the class. We’ll focus on a different genre in each chapter of this book and I’ve included a bit of bonus material in the appendix. Let’s start with the press release genre.

1.5 What is a press release?

Press releases (also called media releases) are short documents (usually only 1-2 pages in length) that are written to provide basic information about an event or action that is going to happen or that has already happened. Press releases are commonly written and distributed by government officials (such as legislators), but they are also used by advocacy groups, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

Press releases have two audiences. The main audience for a press release are journalists. This is because the main purpose of a press release is to get the media to cover your story. To do this effectively, a press release needs to look professional, include newsworthy information, and make the job of the journalist easy by providing all of the relevant information.

The second audience for a press release is the public, which often includes policymakers.

The primary purpose of a press release is to inform. A press release might be informing people about an upcoming event or it might be informing them of something that has already happened. A press release might also have another purpose. For example, a Member of Congress issuing a press release about a bill they sponsored might be intended to inform their constituents about the bill but it might also be intended to persuade them that the bill is an important proposal that should be passed.

The press release genre has a very formal structure and most press releases look fairly similar. The words “Media Release”, “News Release,” or “Press Release” are usually clearly written at the top. A press release might include a statement that says “For Immediate Release” to communicate that the information in the document is meant to be shared at the moment it is received. The top section also contains information about the author of the release and contact information.

A press release is written a little like a news article, with an attention grabbing headline; a lede (the first sentences that are meant to grab the readers’ attention) that answers the big questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how; and details provided in an inverted pyramid style. The inverted pyramid is the idea of putting the most important information toward the top of the article and details of lesser importance toward the bottom. A press release will usually include quotations from relevant sources and you might notice that the source names are bolded.

At the bottom, press releases usually include a paragraph that describes the organization or the person issuing the press release. And a press release ends with a marker (usually three hashtags) centered at the bottom to signal the end of the release.

The ultimate goal for most writers of a press release is that media outlets will use a lot of the press release verbatim…in other words, the goal is to basically write the news article for the journalist, which allows the writer of the press release to control how the story is framed and presented to the public.

In addition to sending press releases to media outlets, government officials and other organizations that issue press releases often post them on their websites. As a side note, when you’re researching a topic, press releases can be a very helpful way of figuring out what an individual or organization thinks about a topic. Individuals and organizations use press releases to indicate which issues they care about and to articulate their positions on issues.

Even though the body of a press release can look a lot like a newspaper article, it is important to remember that it is not a newspaper article; press releases are marketing tools not impartial coverage of events. Since press releases are often posted on a website, they can also sometimes look like blog posts, but the information provided at the top of the page should help you recognize it as a press release.

Take a look at this press release on the Gustavus website: https://news.blog.gustavus.edu/2022/11/22/gustavus-recognized-for-student-voter-participation/ Can you spot the stylistic markers that make it a press release? Who issued it? What media outlets do you think they might have sent this to? What members of the public do you think they hope will read it? What purpose do they have for writing it?

1.6 Why do you write?

Figure 1.6: henry adebisi ‘18.

I am a current law student at the University of Wisconsin and a former Compliance Analyst of four years at Ameriprise Financial. At Gustavus I studied Political Science but the path to getting that degree was not simple. Originally, I studied Computer Science, with Political Science as a minor. I chose Computer Science because I had an interest in it in high school as a fun hobby, and I enjoyed the coding club led by our teachers. To my dismay, at Gustavus I realized I did not have a strong passion for Computer Science. I put off doing the work for the classes and would find myself reading every single word of my Political Science readings. Unfortunately, as a first-generation college student I felt compelled to complete the degree to maximize my chances of getting a well-paying job. I want to assuage anyone’s worry who is reading this— it is okay for your passions to change. Pursue the degree that makes you passionate and hungry to learn. In my case, my hunger and passion were a perfect fit in the Political Science department at Gustavus, and later at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

As a Compliance Analyst, my focus was monitoring new and upcoming regulations and law by the SEC, FINRA, and state legislatures. In my role I reported to two teams. On team one, my focus was communicating the new regulations and helping the business implement the changes and monitoring the changes through audits. For the second team, I worked with leaders in the company to create training to educate the entire company on upcoming regulatory changes or legal topics the company leaders wanted to address.

I wrote concisely to convey ideas and decisions. I wrote to team members, teams I audited, or high-level senior leaders. This was in the form of emails, reports, and company-wide training. Often, I would read 10-30 pages of new regulations and I would have to condense down the main findings to one page of training or a short email. Often, I would read 10-30 pages of new regulations and I would have to condense down the main findings to one page of training or a short email. This style of writing was jarring to me at first, because of the perceived contrast to academic writing. The focus was not to sound smart but rather to convey my ideas to people who would read them quickly. While this sounds easy, it is a skill that I still have trouble mastering, and it’s now a part of my editing process.

As a law student, I research and write to answer legal questions simulating the type of legal questions a client and then ultimately a supervising attorney could ask me. I used to think of legal writing as long-winded Latin filled documents, but the legal writing faculty actively fought this misconception. The professors consistently said do not write to sound like a lawyer but rather focus on communicating complex legal ideas or arguments in an accessible manner. The main form of writing here is objective legal memos that answer clients and supervise attorneys’ legal questions.

When I research a new topic, I strive to keep it all condensed into one document on Word that I can reference. This document will often contain hyperlinks and snippets of what I want to directly include in my writing. I also now include a sentence of why a snippet or link is relevant, because I found I forgot why a law, policy, or article was relevant without some context.

My writing process begins with an outline. I think it’s helpful to consider how your final document will ultimately be organized. Outlining is also helpful for me because I have a tendency to write in a scattershot way and so it helps me stay focused and concise. After I finish my first draft, I revise that draft a subsequent day so I can catch any minor mistakes and see if it makes sense. I continue my editing process referencing a document that I made for myself that includes common mistakes I make. To conclude I try to seek a peer review, because I find that sometimes I may write something that’s great to me but is not clear to someone else.

What I’ve learned about writing is that often it is not how smart you are that dictates how well your writing will be perceived. The most valuable asset you can lend your writing is time. What I’ve learned about writing is that often it is not how smart you are that dictates how well your writing will be perceived. The most valuable asset you can lend your writing is time. This was something I struggled with coming from high school where I could write a paper the night before and still do well. My first college papers were graded harshly, and I thought this was more reflective of my intelligence instead of realizing I need to give my papers more time. The polish and level of nuance professors and later employers are expecting you to engage in is not something that can be accomplished the night before. I now try to finish my papers 3-4 days before the due date. That way each day I can edit the paper in a small and focused way. One day can be sentence clarity, the next day punctuation, another day passive voice and so forth. Obviously, you cannot control the time you have for every paper, but especially in the school context where a syllabus dictates the semester, strive to give your papers more attention and time.

1.7 What comes next?

In this chapter, we learned a basic definition for public policy and policymaking. We were introduced to a few of the early attempts to make sense of policy and policymaking and talked a bit about the impact of ideology and partisanship. And we learned about the genre of press releases. In the next chapter, we’ll find out more about the people involved in the policymaking process.

Questions for Discussion

What are some of the public policies that impact your life the most? How much do you know about them and how did you learn what you know? What questions do you have about these policies?
Where do you fall ideologically? What factors do you think impacted your ideology? Do you identify with a political party? Why or why not? What factors do you think impacted your party affiliation (or lack thereof)?
Do you enjoy writing? Why or why not? What kind of writing (genres) are you most familiar with or comfortable with? What is your writing process like?
What questions does the material in this chapter raise for you about public policy, the policymaking process, or writing about public policy?

Agenda Setting : Bringing the topic to the active attention of policymakers.

Audience : The intended recipient of your communication.

Communitarian : liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues

Competitive Regulatory Policies : Public policies that control who is allowed to enter a market.

Constituent Policies : Public policies that change the rules and structures for how the government operates.

Conservatives : Those who believe the government should play a limited role in the economy but should play an active role in preserving traditional morals and values.

Distributive Policies : Public policies that spread the costs of a policy out among a large group of people (largely through taxes) but concentrate the benefits among certain recipients.

Domestic : Focuses on the policies and policy proposals that affect things within the United States rather than in foreign policy or the policies of other nation states.

DREAM Act : The DREAM Act is a policy proposal that would protect a group of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. The full name of the proposal is the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. It was first introduced into Congress in 2001 but it has not yet been enacted into law.

Fascism : Rests at the far right end of the ideological continuum, advocating for complete control of public life by government.

Feedback : Feedback refers to the way the outcomes or effects of a public policy influences the development of new policies or the revision of existing policies.

Genre : The different types of writing that have different styles and writing conventions associated with the genre.

Government : The institutions operating at the national (federal), state, and local level to structure social interactions within a community.

Gross Domestic Product : The GDP is a measure of economic activity that reflects the monetary value of the goods and services produced in a country within a specific year.

Ideology : An organized set of beliefs about the proper role of government in a society. Liberal and conservative are two of the main terms associated with ideology.

Institutions : Any of the bodies that are designed to formulate and implement public policy including legislatures, executives, bureaucratic agencies, and courts.

Inputs : Demands for action that come from individuals and groups as well as the support for the system that comes when individuals and groups accept the system of government, for example by paying taxes, obeying laws, and abiding by results of elections.

Inverted Pyramid : This term is related to news articles and involves putting the most important information toward the top of the article and details of lesser importance toward the bottom.

Lede : This term is related to news articles and references in the first sentences in an article that are meant to grab the readers’ attention; answers the big questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how; and details provided in an inverted pyramid style.

Liberal : Those who believe the government should play an active role in regulating the economy but should play a limited role in preserving traditional morals and values.

Libertarian : Those who believe that the government should play a limited role in regulating the economy and should also play a limited role in preserving traditional morals and values.

Outputs : In the political system, outputs are the policies such as laws, court decisions, and bureaucratic regulations.

Partisanship : Support for a particular political party.

Persuasive Writing : This type of writing is intended to change someone’s mind about a topic or get them to act (or not act) on a topic.

Policymaking : The processes of designing, passing, and implementing a government policy.

Policy Formulation : The process of designing and passing a government policy.

Policy Adoption : The process of formally adopting a government policy.

Policy Implementation : The process of actually putting the government policies that are passed into action.

Policy Evaluation : Efforts by government and other policy actors (like academics!) to find out whether the policy was effective in reaching its intended goals.

Political Systems Model : This theory of policymaking conceives the process as involving inputs and outputs into a political system embedded within an environment.

Political Parties : Organizations of likeminded people who work together to win control of government through elections and that help to structure and organize the policymaking process.

Press releases : Short documents (usually only 1-2 pages in length) that are written to provide basic information about an event or action that is going to happen or that has already happened. (Also called media releases)

Problem Definition : Defining a situation as something that is worthy of attention from the government.

Protective Regulatory Policies : Public policies that are designed to protect the public from harm.

Public Policy : The authoritative statements and actions of the government that reflect what governments choose to do or not to do.

Purpose : A reason for writing or a goal of communication. Common purposes include informing, summarizing, persuading, encouraging, and entertaining.

Redistributive Policies : Public policies that have concentrated costs and concentrated benefits, but the group that pays the costs is different from the group that gets the benefits.

Regulatory Policies : Public politics that concentrate the costs among a few people but distribute the benefits widely.

Rhetorical Approach: This approach to analyzing written texts asks us to consider the purpose and audience for our writing (and for evaluating things we read!) and reminds us that there are different genres (types of writing) all of which have a different set of conventions and expectations associated with them.

Socialism: This ideological perspective rests at the far left end of the economic continuum, emphasizing collective ownership of business.

Theory : Provides an outline of how a process works and calls attention to certain key aspects of the process. It is meant to explain what has happened in the past and to help us make predictions for future policymaking.

Additional Resources

The New York Times : Reading the U.S. news section of The New York Times each day is a great way to stay up to date on current political events. A subscription to the New York Times is free to Gustavus students: http://orgs.gustavus.edu/senate/documents/OnlineReadershipDocNov2022.pdf

The Pew Political Typology : The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan (no political party affiliation) research organization that focuses on politics and social issues. They’ve created a short ideology quiz for the purpose of better understanding the political beliefs of people in the U.S.

Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy,” American Political Science Review 87, No. 2 (June 1993): 334-347. ↵
Carter Wilson defines public policy as “the authoritative statements or actions of government which reflect the decisions, values, or goals of policymakers” [Carter Wilson, Public Policy: Continuity and Change 3rd Edition (Illinois, Waveland Press, Inc., 2019),17] while Thomas Dye [Thomas Dye, Understanding Public Policy (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 1] defines public policy as “whatever governments choose to do or not to do.” ↵
David Easton, “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,” World Politics 9, no. 3 (April 1957): 383-400; David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965). ↵
Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory,” review of American Business and Public Policy: The Politics of Foreign Trade , by Raymond A. Bauer, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and Lewis Dexter, World Politics 16, No. 4 (July 1964): 677-715; Theodore J. Lowi, “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” Public Administration Review 32, No. 4 (1972): 298-310. ↵
In fact, Lasswell is credited as being the founder of “policy sciences” through his 1951 chapter. [Harold, Lasswell, “The Policy Orientation” in The Policy Sciences: Recent Developments in Scope and Method , ed. Daniel Lerner and Harold Lasswell (California: Stanford University Press, 1951), 3-15.] ↵
Harold Lasswell, The Decision Process (Maryland: University of Maryland Press, 1956). ↵
James Anderson, David Brady, and Charles Bullock, Public Policy and Politics in America (Massachusetts: Duxbury Press, 1978). This version of the framework outlined six stages: Problem formation, policy agenda, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation (p. 8). ↵
The definitions of the terms conservative and liberal have changed a lot over time and are likely to change again in the future. ↵
Carter Wilson, Public Policy: Continuity and Change 3rd Edition (Illinois, Waveland Press, Inc., 2019), 29. ↵
When people use the term [pb_glossary id="90"]bipartisan[/pb_glossary] , it means that members of both parties worked together on something. ↵

The DREAM Act is a policy proposal that would protect a group of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. The full name of the proposal is the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. It was first introduced into Congress in 2001 but it has not yet been enacted into law.

The authoritative statements and actions of the government that reflect what governments choose to do or not to do.

The processes of designing, passing, and implementing a government policy.

Focuses on the policies and policy proposals that affect things within the United States rather than in foreign policy or the policies of other nation states.

The institutions operating at the national (federal), state, and local level to structure social interactions within a community.

Any of the bodies that are designed to formulate and implement public policy including legislatures, executives, bureaucratic agencies, and courts.

Provides an outline of how a process works and calls attention to certain key aspects of the process. It is meant to explain what has happened in the past and to help us make predictions for future policymaking.

This theory of policymaking conceives the process as involving inputs and outputs into a political system embedded within an environment.

Demands for action that come from individuals and groups as well as the support for the system that comes when individuals and groups accept the system of government, for example by paying taxes, obeying laws, and abiding by results of elections.

In the political system, outputs are the policies such as laws, court decisions, and bureaucratic regulations.

Feedback refers to the way the outcomes or effects of a public policy influences the development of new policies or the revision of existing policies.

The GDP is a measure of economic activity that reflects the monetary value of the goods and services produced in a country within a specific year.

Public policies that spread the costs of a policy out among a large group of people (largely through taxes) but concentrate the benefits among certain recipients.

Public politics that concentrate the costs among a few people but distribute the benefits widely.

Public policies that control who is allowed to enter a market.

Public policies that are designed to protect the public from harm.

Public policies that have concentrated costs and concentrated benefits, but the group that pays the costs is different from the group that gets the benefits.

Public policies that change the rules and structures for how the government operates.

Defining a situation as something that is worthy of attention from the government.

Bringing the topic to the active attention of policymakers.

The process of designing and passing a government policy.

The process of formally adopting a government policy.

The process of actually putting the government policies that are passed into action.

Efforts by government and other policy actors (like academics!) to find out whether the policy was effective in reaching its intended goals.

An organized set of beliefs about the proper role of government in a society. Liberal and conservative are two of the main terms associated with ideology.

Those who believe the government should play a limited role in the economy but should play an active role in preserving traditional morals and values.

Those who believe the government should play an active role in regulating the economy but should play a limited role in preserving traditional morals and values.

Those who believe that the government should play a limited role in regulating the economy and should also play a limited role in preserving traditional morals and values.

Political ideology that is liberal on economic issues but conservative on social issues.

Rests at the far right end of the ideological continuum, advocating for complete control of public life by government.

This ideological perspective rests at the far left end of the economic continuum, emphasizing collective ownership of business.

Organizations of likeminded people who work together to win control of government through elections and that help to structure and organize the policymaking process.

Support for a particular political party.

Officially titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and more commonly known as "Obamacare," the ACA was enacted in 2010 and changed nearly every aspect of the U.S. healthcare system by expanding eligibility for Medicaid and creating new requirements for insurance companies.

A reason for writing or a goal of communication. Common purposes include informing, summarizing, persuading, encouraging, and entertaining.

This type of writing is intended to change someone’s mind about a topic or get them to act (or not act) on a topic.

The intended recipient of your communication.

The different types of writing that have different styles and writing conventions associated with the genre.

Short documents (usually only 1-2 pages in length) that are written to provide basic information about an event or action that is going to happen or that has already happened. (Also called media releases)

This term is related to news articles and references in the first sentences in an article that are meant to grab the readers’ attention; answers the big questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how; and details provided in an inverted pyramid style.

This term is related to news articles and involves putting the most important information toward the top of the article and details of lesser importance toward the bottom.

This approach to analyzing written texts asks us to consider the purpose and audience for our writing (and for evaluating things we read!) and reminds us that there are different genres (types of writing) all of which have a different set of conventions and expectations associated with them.

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name: Henry Adebisi

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> Public Policy
> What is public policy? Concepts, trends and issues

Book contents

Frontmatter
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
1 What is public policy? Concepts, trends and issues
2 How are policy choices made and implemented?
3 Where does policy change come from? Context, ideas and people
4 What happens when policies come to the ground?
5 Knowing the consequences of public policy

1 - What is public policy? Concepts, trends and issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2018

In recent years, three distinct fields of enquiry have developed that contribute to our understanding of public policy. The first of these is the field of policy sciences that grew in response to a call by Harold Lasswell in the 1950s, to overcome the weaknesses of conventional disciplines in understanding the poor record of development policy. This evolved as an inter-disciplinary field, drawing on several disciplines. Contributions to this field came to be organised around the journal Policy Sciences. The second was the field of policy studies, that emerged as a sub-field of political science; contributions to this field of enquiry were organised around the journals Policy Studies Review and Policy Studies Journal . The third was the field of policy analysis, further developed by a Ford Foundation grant in the 1990s, which began as a group of institutions doing applied micro-economics, later broadening under the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management . Policy analysis was an applied extension of microeconomics to the study of public policy.

Each of these fields retains a distinct approach to the study of public policy. However, they suffer from several weaknesses in terms of their applicability to a context beyond the one in which they developed. Policy sciences, in particular, emerged as a very inter-disciplinary field, drawing on several concepts across disciplines. However, the large bulk of this literature is rooted in western contexts and has been developed by western scholars. There remains a question of whether these terms and concepts can be used to understand public policy processes in the global South. Within the international public policy scholarship, there is a burning question of whether tools, theories and concepts that explain policy change developed in the north can be used to understand policy processes in the South.

In general, efforts to understand the relevance and application of these concepts and theories to a Third World context are lacking. There remains a critical challenge of integrating public policy literature developed in the global North with the policy experience of the global South. The large number of books on public policy available to Indian students are written by western authors and cater to a western context; they use examples and cases from Britain and the USA. This is of little relevance to Indian students, who need something tailored to or drawing upon an Indian context.

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What is public policy? Concepts, trends and issues
Vishal Narain
Book: Public Policy
Online publication: 20 October 2018
Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108581615.001

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16.1 What Is Public Policy?

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain the concept of public policy
Discuss examples of public policy in action

It is easy to imagine that when designers engineer a product, like a car, they do so with the intent of satisfying the consumer. But the design of any complicated product must take into account the needs of regulators, transporters, assembly line workers, parts suppliers, and myriad other participants in the manufacture and shipment process. And manufacturers must also be aware that consumer tastes are fickle: A gas-guzzling sports car may appeal to an unmarried twenty-something with no children; but what happens to product satisfaction when gas prices fluctuate, or the individual gets married and has children?

In many ways, the process of designing domestic policy isn’t that much different. The government, just like auto companies, needs to ensure that its citizen-consumers have access to an array of goods and services. And just as in auto companies, a wide range of actors is engaged in figuring out how to do it. Sometimes, this process effectively provides policies that benefit citizens. But just as often, the process of policymaking is muddied by the demands of competing interests with different opinions about society’s needs or the role that government should play in meeting them. To understand why, we begin by thinking about what we mean by the term “public policy.”

PUBLIC POLICY DEFINED

One approach to thinking about public policy is to see it as the broad strategy government uses to do its job. More formally, it is the relatively stable set of purposive governmental actions that address matters of concern to some part of society. 1 This description is useful in that it helps to explain both what public policy is and what it isn’t. First, public policy is a guide to legislative action that is more or less fixed for long periods of time, not just short-term fixes or single legislative acts. Policy also doesn’t happen by accident, and it is rarely formed simply as the result of the campaign promises of a single elected official, even the president. While elected officials are often important in shaping policy, most policy outcomes are the result of considerable debate, compromise, and refinement that happen over years and are finalized only after input from multiple institutions within government as well as from interest groups and the public.

Consider the example of health care expansion. A follower of politics in the news media may come away thinking the reforms implemented in 2010 were as sudden as they were sweeping, having been developed in the final weeks before they were enacted. The reality is that expanding health care access had actually been a priority of the Democratic Party for several decades. What may have seemed like a policy developed over a period of months was in fact formed after years of analysis, reflection upon existing policy, and even trial implementation of similar types of programs at the state level. Even before passage of the ACA (2010), which expanded health care coverage to millions, and of the HCERA (2010), more than 50 percent of all health care expenditures in the United States already came from federal government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Several House and Senate members from both parties along with First Lady Hillary Clinton had proposed significant expansions in federal health care policy during the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton, providing a number of different options for any eventual health care overhaul. 2 Much of what became the ACA was drawn from proposals originally developed at the state level, by none other than Obama’s 2012 Republican presidential opponent Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. 3

In addition to being thoughtful and generally stable, public policy deals with issues of concern to some large segment of society, as opposed to matters of interest only to individuals or a small group of people. Governments frequently interact with individual actors like citizens, corporations, or other countries. They may even pass highly specialized pieces of legislation, known as private bills, which confer specific privileges on individual entities. But public policy covers only those issues that are of interest to larger segments of society or that directly or indirectly affect society as a whole. Paying off the loans of a specific individual would not be public policy, but creating a process for loan forgiveness available to certain types of borrowers (such as those who provide a public service by becoming teachers) would certainly rise to the level of public policy.

A final important characteristic of public policy is that it is more than just the actions of government; it also includes the behaviors or outcomes that government action creates. Policy can even be made when government refuses to act in ways that would change the status quo when circumstances or public opinion begin to shift. 4 For example, much of the debate over gun safety policy in the United States has centered on the unwillingness of Congress to act, even in the face of public opinion that supports some changes to gun policy. In fact, one of the last major changes occurred in 2004, when lawmakers’ inaction resulted in the expiration of a piece of legislation known as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (1994). 5

PUBLIC POLICY AS OUTCOMES

Governments rarely want to keep their policies a secret. Elected officials want to be able to take credit for the things they have done to help their constituents, and their opponents are all too willing to cast blame when policy initiatives fail. We can therefore think of policy as the formal expression of what elected or appointed officials are trying to accomplish. In passing the HCERA (2010), Congress declared its policy through an act that directed how it would appropriate money. The president can also implement or change policy through an executive order, which offers instructions about how to implement law under the president's discretion ( Figure 16.2 ). Finally, policy changes can come as a result of court actions or opinions, such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), which formally ended school segregation in the United States. 6

Typically, elected and even high-ranking appointed officials lack either the specific expertise or tools needed to successfully create and implement public policy on their own. They turn instead to the vast government bureaucracy to provide policy guidance. For example, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act (1972), it dictated that steps should be taken to improve water quality throughout the country. But it ultimately left it to the bureaucracy to figure out exactly how ‘clean’ water needed to be. In doing so, Congress provided the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with discretion to determine how much pollution is allowed in U.S. waterways.

There is one more way of thinking about policy outcomes: in terms of winners and losers. Almost by definition, public policy promotes certain types of behavior while punishing others. So, the individuals or corporations that a policy favors are most likely to benefit, or win, whereas those the policy ignores or punishes are likely to lose. Even the best-intended policies can have unintended consequences and may even ultimately harm someone, if only those who must pay for the policy through higher taxes. A policy designed to encourage students to go to liberal arts colleges may cause trade school enrollment to decline. Strategies to promote diversity in higher education may make it more difficult for qualified White or male applicants to get accepted into competitive programs. Efforts to clean up drinking water supplies may make companies less competitive and cost employees their livelihood. Even something that seems to help everyone, such as promoting charitable giving through tax incentives, runs the risk of lowering tax revenues from the rich (who contribute a greater share of their income to charity) and shifting tax burdens to the poor (who must spend a higher share of their income to achieve a desired standard of living). And while policy pronouncements and bureaucratic actions are certainly meant to rationalize policy, it is whether a given policy helps or hurts constituents (or is perceived to do so) that ultimately determines how voters will react toward the government in future elections.

Finding a Middle Ground

The social safety net.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States created a set of policies and programs that constituted a social safety net for the millions who had lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings ( Figure 16.3 ). Under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt , the federal government began programs like the Work Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps to combat unemployment and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation to refinance Depression-related mortgage debts. As the effects of the Depression eased, the government phased out many of these programs. Other programs, like Social Security or the minimum wage, remain an important part of the way the government takes care of the vulnerable members of its population. The federal government has also added further social support programs, like Medicaid, Medicare, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, to ensure a baseline or minimal standard of living for all, even in the direst of times.

In recent decades, however, some have criticized these safety net programs for inefficiency and for incentivizing welfare dependence. They deride “government leeches” who use food stamps to buy lobster or other seemingly inappropriate items. Critics deeply resent the use of taxpayer money to relieve social problems like unemployment and poverty; workers who may themselves be struggling to put food on the table or pay the mortgage feel their hard-earned money should not support other families. “If I can get by without government support,” the reasoning goes, “those welfare families can do the same. Their poverty is not my problem.”

So where should the government draw the line? While there have been some instances of welfare fraud, the welfare reforms of the 1990s have made long-term dependence on the federal government less likely as the welfare safety net was pushed to the states. And with the income gap between the richest and the poorest at its highest level in history, this topic is likely to continue to receive much discussion in the coming years.

Where is the middle ground in the public policy argument over the social safety net? How can the government protect its most vulnerable citizens without placing an undue burden on others?

Link to Learning

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Law and Public Policy

Getting started, books & articles, legislation & government reports, reports & working papers, news & current awareness, agencies, think tanks & advocacy groups, data sources, getting help, ready..set...go prepare for summer success.

This guide was originally prepared for the Law and Policy Research Sessio the Ready... Set... Go! Prepare for Summer Success event.

Reference Works

Don't forget print sources! These reference works can give quick background and cross-references when you are starting your research.

Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy, 2d ed., edited by Evan M. Berman ; Jack Rabin, founding editor. (print) Widener WID-LC JK9 .E525 2008x
Encyclopedia of American Public Policy/ Byron Jackson (print) Kennedy School Ref JK468.P64 J33 1999 Widener RR 3631.7
The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy / edited by Michael Moran, Martin Rein and Robert E. Goodin (print) Kennedy School Reserve Lamont REFERENCE JA71 .O945 2006x Widener Harvard Depository H97 .O88 2006

Public Policy Research Guides

These research guides may also include useful resources. Guides from other schools may link to protected databases or local copies of print items. Check HOLLIS to see if we have access to a particular database.

Harvard Kennedy School Library & Knowledge Services: Public Policy
Georgetown Law Library: Public Policy Research
University of Massachusetts: Public Policy and Administration Research
University at Albany: Public Administration and Policy

Subject Specific Research Guides

Public policy research often overlaps with other disciplines. The following guides can provide a useful starting point for specific areas of research. If your subject isn't represented below, try googling your subject and the phrase (in quotes!) "research guide."

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Search HOLLIS Classic

Search HOLLIS+ for books and articles

Useful subject terms include:

Social Policy
Public Policy (Law)
Political Planning

Not at Harvard? Try searching WorldCat

WorldCat.org (OCLC) more... less... WorldCat is the largest library network in the world. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their free resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information. ##WorldCat's coverage is both deep and wide. You can search for popular books, music CDs and videos—all of the physical items you're used to getting from libraries. You can also link to many new kinds of digital content, such as downloadable audiobooks you can listen to on many portable MP3 players. You may additionally find authoritative research materials, such as documents and photos of local or historic significance; abstracts and full-text articles; and digital versions of rare items that aren't available to the public.

Find Public Policy Articles

PAIS International (Harvard Login) PAIS International indexes the public and social policy literature of public administration, political science, economics, finance, international relations, law, and health care, International in scope. Current:1972-present Archive: 1937-1976 more... less... PAIS International indexes the public and social policy literature of public administration, political science, economics, finance, international relations, law, and health care, International in scope, PAIS indexes publications in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The database is comprised of abstracts of thousands of journal articles, books, directories, conference proceedings, government documents and statistical yearbooks.
PolicyFile (Harvard Login) Description: PolicyFile provides abstracts (more than half of the abstracts link to the full text documents) of domestic and international public policy issues. The public policy reports and studies are published by think tanks, university research programs, research organizations which include the OECD, IMF, World Bank, the Rand Corporation, and a number of federal agencies. more... less... PolicyFile provides abstracts (more than half of the abstracts link to the full text documents) of domestic and international public policy issues. The public policy reports and studies are published by think tanks, university research programs, research organizations which include the OECD, IMF, World Bank, the Rand Corporation, and a number of federal agencies. The database search engine allows users to search by title, author, subject, organization and keyword.

Restricted Access: HarvardKey or Harvard ID and PIN required

Proquest Government Periodicals Index (Harvard Login) Government Periodicals Index covers the publications of federal departments and agencies responsible for fundamental societal concerns: business, agriculture, national security, the environment and natural resources, health and safety, food and nutrition, transportation, and more. more... less... ProQuest Government Periodicals Index provides indexing and links to full text articles from over 300 periodicals published by agencies and departments of the United States Federal government. The index provides detailed access by subject and author. ####Updated quarterly (March, June, Sept, and December), Government Periodicals Universe covers the publications of scores of federal departments and agencies responsible for fundamental societal concerns: business, agriculture, national security, the environment and natural resources, health and safety, food and nutrition, transportation, and more. With each update, the service adds approximately 2,500 articles that reflect the enormous diversity of federal interests.
Policy Commons Database for public policy, with more than 3 million reports, working papers, policy briefs, data sources, and media drawn from a directory of more than 21,000 IGOs, NGOs, think tanks, and research centers.

Public Policy Journals

Harvard Law & Policy Review
Stanford Law & Policy Review
Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy
Hein Online Law Journal Library: Advanced Search In the subject field, select Public Law and Policy to narrow your search to relevant journals. Note by selecting Public Law and Policy, you will be able to view a long list of policy-focused law journals.
JSTOR Public Policy & Administration Collection of full-text journals relating to public policy. Coverage varies by title. more... less... JSTOR (www.jstor.org) is a not-for-profit organization with a dual mission to create and maintain a trusted archive of important scholarly journals, and to provide access to these journals as widely as possible. Content in JSTOR spans many disciplines, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. For complete lists of titles and collections, please refer to http://www.jstor.org/about/collection.list.html.
Search HOLLIS for U.S. law & public policy journals

Law and Legislation

THOMAS A resource created by the Library of Congress, THOMAS provides access to a wide range of legislative materials including public laws, pending bills, committee reports and hearings. It also provides access to the full text of legislation from 1989 (101st Congress) to the present. This is a good resource for compiling legislative history materials.
House and Senate Hearings, Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, and Digital US Bills and Resolutions A major source of information about the members of Congress and their legislative activities and a primary resource for accessing the many publications of the U.S. Congress from 1789 to present
LexisNexis State Capital Extensive access to state legislation, administrative law, and commentary more... less... LexisNexis State Capital provides access to the legislation and administrative law of all 50 states. Consult this resource to retrieve: the full text of bills, current state statutory codes and constitutions, adopted regulations as available in current state administrative codes or as initially published in state registers and proposed regulations as also located in recent state registers. Tracking reports of the status of current bills and proposed regulations are provided as well. Coverage of current legislative issues and developments by state newspapers of record and other publications is also offered by State Capital. In addition, current state legislative directory information and the Martindale-Hubbell Law Digest are included in this resource.
Federal Legislative History (HLSL Research Guide) For more detailed links for finding legislative history, please consult our Federal Legislative History Research Guide

Congressional Research Reports

The Congressional Research Service provides background research for members of Congress. CRS Reports are not automatically made public, so there is no single source for finding CRS Reports. Try these resources to locate CRS Reports on your issue.

Every CRS Report Open access to selected public research reports produced by the Congressional Research Service
Harvard Kennedy School: Research Guide to Congressional Research Service Reports

Government Research Reports and Analysis

Proquest Government Periodicals Index (Harvard Login) more... less... ProQuest Government Periodicals Index provides indexing and links to full text articles from over 300 periodicals published by agencies and departments of the United States Federal government. The index provides detailed access by subject and author. ####Updated quarterly (March, June, Sept, and December), Government Periodicals Universe covers the publications of scores of federal departments and agencies responsible for fundamental societal concerns: business, agriculture, national security, the environment and natural resources, health and safety, food and nutrition, transportation, and more. With each update, the service adds approximately 2,500 articles that reflect the enormous diversity of federal interests.
National Journal Group's Policy Central (Harvard Login) more... less... National Journal’s Policy Central is a collection of resources on U.S. politics and policy, including the National Journal with archives dating back to 1977; the Hotline, a daily briefing on U.S. politics; CongressDaily, a twice daily update on activity in the U.S. Congress; Technology Daily; Poll Track; Markup Reports; Ad Spotlight; and the Almanac of American Politics.
CQ Press Electronic Library (Harvard Login) A comprehensive reference resource for research in U.S. politics, elections, government, and public policy. Includes CQ Weekly, the Washington Information Directory, Congressional, Federal, Judicial Staff Directories, CQ Researcher, the Congress Collection, Voting and Elections Collection, and more. more... less... A comprehensive reference resource for research in U.S. politics, elections, government, and public policy. Includes CQ Weekly, the Washington Information Directory, Congressional, Federal, Judicial Staff Directories, CQ Researcher, the Congress Collection, Voting and Elections Collection, and more.
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) The GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. GAO investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. Non-classified GAO reports are available online or via the GAO's iPhone app.

Working Papers

If you're looking for works in progress or articles that have been accepted, but not yet published, here are some places to search.

SSRN: Social Science Research Network SSRN contains both full text and abstracts of forthcoming and scholarly working papers--as well as published articles--in a full range of social science disciplines: law, economics, management, negotiation, politics, etc.
BePress BePress is another academic repository that contains both published and working papers.
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers A collection of policy research working papers, policy research reports, and world development reports in the World Bank's Archives.
Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Working Paper Series Index to HKS working papers on research in a number of areas related to public policy.

Grey Literature

"Grey Literature" refers to documents produced by entities that are not primarily publishers. It can include reports, memos, working papers and internal documents. These research guides give some good sources and tips for locating these types of materials.

Grey Literature Research Guide (University of Michigan)
Grey Literature Research Guide (NYU)

Looking for a report written by a think tank, non-profit, or other NGO? The links below include tools that can help you search across think tank sites, find organizations by topic, and more.

If you know which organization you're looking for, you can of course go directly to an organization's website. If you have trouble finding something you think should exist on a specific site, remember it's easy to create a custom search engine with Google. For example, if you are looking for the recent Rand report Planning for an Aging Nation, you would type the following into the search box:

"Planning for an Aging Nation" site:rand.org

This will limit your search to just Rand's website. You can limit your search further to just results in PDF by running the following search:

"Planning for an Aging Nation" site:rand.org filetype:pdf

UNC Think Tank Google Search This custom Google search engine allows you to search across 300 of the most important US and international think tanks.
HKS Think Tanks Directory The Kennedy School Library's directory of think tanks covers US and International organizations.
Think Tank Rankings (International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania) Global directory of top think tanks by region, subject, and special achievement, i.e. most innovative proposals, best new think tank.
NIRA - National Institute for Research Advancement (Japan, 2005) Directory A worldwide directory of think tanks that provides descriptions of the organizations' work, operating budgets, and officers.
Master Government List of Federally Funded R&D Centers (National Science Foundation)

News Sources

Nexis Uni (Harvard Key) Nexis Uni contains major newspapers and magazines with coverage for about the last 30 years.
Proquest Historical Newspapers If you're looking for older news stories, Proquest may have it. Its coverage includes the New York Times, Washington Post, and WSJ, as well as several other major regional US and African American newspapers dating from the 19th-late 20th centuries.
Widener Collection of Newspapers on Microfilm If you're in the Boston area, remember that Widener Library has a large collection of newspapers on microfilm including regional and local titles.
Factiva Factiva is a database of over 8,000 business and news publications, most in full text. Sources are in 22 languages, date back as far as 1969, and include trade journals, newswires (Dow Jones, Reuters, and others), media programs, and company and stock reports more... less... Factiva is a database of over 8,000 business and news publications, most in full text. Sources are in 22 languages, date back as far as 1969, and include trade journals, newswires (Dow Jones, Reuters, and others), media programs, and company and stock reports. Find information on over 22,000 public and private companies including description, history, current stock quote, financial data, competitors, and the latest news on business activities. Search publications by title, industry, geographic locations, type, and language.
National Journal Group's Policy Central (Harvard Login) National Journal’s Policy Central is a collection of resources on U.S. politics and policy, including the National Journal with archives dating back to 1977; the Hotline, a daily briefing on U.S. politics; CongressDaily, a twice daily update on activity in the U.S. Congress; Technology Daily; Poll Track; Markup Reports; Ad Spotlight; and the Almanac of American Politics. more... less... National Journal’s Policy Central is a collection of resources on U.S. politics and policy, including the National Journal with archives dating back to 1977; the Hotline, a daily briefing on U.S. politics; CongressDaily, a twice daily update on activity in the U.S. Congress; Technology Daily; Poll Track; Markup Reports; Ad Spotlight; and the Almanac of American Politics.

Current Awareness

If you're following an issue, there are a number of ways to keep up on developments. Lexis and Westlaw both have alerting services that will send you an email when there are new results for a search you've run. Some general academic databases listed in this guide also have alerting services.

Lexis alerts Set up a Lexis alert to be notified when new results are available for a search. You can set alerts in most database types and for new Shepard's results.
Justia's BlawgSearch Find legal blogs in your research areas to follow, or search across the legal blogosphere. Either way you can subscribe to results with your favorite RSS reader.
Google News Search news sites with Google and subscribe to the results.
ABA Blawg Directory Browse by region to find local law blogs

U.S. Government Agencies

Federal Agency Directory (Louisiana State University Library Online directory created as partnership between LSU and the Federal Library Depository Project
Leadership Connect (Harvard Login) Leadership Directories, also known as Yellow Books, contain current contact information for the leaders of major U.S. government, business, professional and nonprofit organizations. more... less... Leadership Directories researches contact and biographical data for hundreds of thousands of thought leaders in America - with emails, phone numbers, addresses, and background information. It provides web-based directories with in-depth organization profiles and verified contact information from companies, government agencies, Congressional offices, law firms, news media outlets, healthcare organizations, and nonprofits.
State and Local Government on the Web Links by state and subject.

International Agencies

List on IGOs (Northwestern University) Comprehensive guide to Intergovernmental Organizations compiled by librarians at Northwestern Univerisity
Duke Searchable NGO Database This is a selected searchable database of NGOs.
International Organizations (United States Institute for Peace) Alphabetical list of international organizations.
Yearbook of International Organizations Online Searchable database of approximately 63,000 international organizations. more... less... The Yearbook of International Organizations Online is a searchable database of approximately 63,000 international organizations. The information for each organization includes name, address, biographical information for company officers, history and aims, personnel and finances. All types of organizations are included such as formal structures, informal networks, professional bodies and recreational clubs.
Worldwide NGO Directory

Think Tanks

Interest groups and associations.

CQ Guide to Interest Groups and Lobbying in the U.S. Overview and analysis of interest groups and lobbying in American politics from the 18th century to the present.
OpenSecrets Open Secrets tracks money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy, and includes federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available
Political Advocacy Groups: A Directory of United States Lobbyists Online directory of lobbying groups organized by subject.
data.census.gov The U.S. Census Bureau’s online tool for accessing population, economic, geographic and housing information.
Court Statistics Project The CSP collects and analyzes data relating to the work and caseloads of US courts.
Statistical Abstract of the United States An authoritative and comprehensive summary of historical statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web. Sources of data include the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private organizations, covering the years 1889-2011. Historical supplements include statistics from the colonial era through 1970.
ICPSR The ICPSR, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. All ICPSR datasets at Harvard University are maintained by the IQSS Dataverse Network. (Harvard University ID and PIN required).
The Supreme Court Database A the definitive source for researchers, students, journalists, and citizens interested in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Database contains over two hundred pieces of information about each case decided by the Court between the 1953 and 2008 terms. Examples include the identity of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed, the parties to the suit, the legal provisions considered in the case, and the votes of the Justices.
Proquest Statistical Insight (Harvard Login) indexes and abstracts of the statistical content of selected publications of U.S. federal and state agencies, non-governmental associations, commercial publishers, universities, and international, research and business organizations. more... less... Proquest Statistical Insight is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts the statistical content of selected United States government publications, state government publications, business and association publications, and intergovernmental publications. The abstracts may also contain a link to the full text of the table and/or a link to the agency's web site where the full text of the publication may be viewed and downloaded.
Statistics Sources This resource indexes statistical resources alphabetically, topically and geographically, including international sources. It is available in print in the reference room at HA1 .S7.
WDI Online (World Development Indicators) WDI (World Development Indicators) Online contains statistical data from the World Bank for almost 600 development indicators and time series data from 1960 for over 200 countries and 18 country groups. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators. more... less... WDI (World Development Indicators) Online contains statistical data from the World Bank for almost 600 development indicators and time series data from 1960 for over 200 countries and 18 country groups. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators. Results can be scaled, indexed against a particular year, viewed by percentage change, and charted. Data can be exported in Excel.

Public Opinion

American National Election Studies ANES contains downloadable data sets for U.S. elections and public opinion from 1948 to the present.
Gallup Analytics (Harvard Login) The Gallup Brain is a searchable record of more than 70 years of public opinion and includes answers to hundreds of thousands of questions, and responses from millions of people interviewed by The Gallup Poll since 1935. more... less... Fully searchable records of Daily U.S. Data - economic, well-being, and political data collected daily since 2008 of 1,000+ interviews; World Poll Data - economic, social, and well-being data collected annually since 2005 in 160+ countries, 1.5 million+ interviews worldwide; and Gallup Brain - historical Gallup trends on thousands of topics from the U.S. and world dating back to the 1930s.
General Social Survey The GSS contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest. Many of the core questions have remained unchanged since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies as well as replication of earlier findings. The GSS takes the pulse of America, and is a unique and valuable resource. It has tracked the opinions of Americans over the last four decades.
The Roper Center Public Opinion Archives The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research is a leading archive of social science data, specializing in data from surveys of public opinion. The data held range from the 1930s, when survey research was in its infancy, to the present. Most of the data are from the United States, but over 50 nations are represented.
Pew Research Center for People and the Press The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent, non-partisan public opinion research organization that studies attitudes toward politics, the press and public policy issues.

Additional Data & Public Opinion Sources

Databases for Statistical Research (Harvard Law School Library
Harvard Library Data Research Guides
Public Opinion Data Sources (Harvard Library)

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Policy Topics

Line graphic with the globe of the world rolling down an uncertain line graph.

International Relations & Security

Foreign policy skill is mostly a value judgment—but at least one aspect of strategic competence can be measured.

Research by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Richard Zeckhauser and Jeffrey Friedman (PhD 2013), an associate professor from Dartmouth College, shows that traditional measures of foreign policy competence rely on value judgments that almost always leave room for reasonable disagreement.

Dr Priya Sarin Gupta, medical director with Mass General Brigham, checks the blood pressure of a patient outside a Community Care Van in Chelsea, MA.

Cities & Communities
Poverty, Inequality & Opportunity
Social Policy

Cash benefits changed the way people in a low-income community used the health system, new study finds

Predicted seat totals in the 2024 General Election are displayed onto the exterior of BBC Broadcasting House on July 05, 2024 in London, England.

How anti-incumbency and a ‘first-past-the-post’ system helped elect the Labour Party in the UK

People watch the June 27, 2024 debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.

Democracy & Governance

Can a bad debate performance shift voter preference?

Fairness & Justice
Gender, Race & Identity
Education, Training & Labor

Intersectional Peer Effects at Work: The Effect of White Coworkers on Black Women's Careers

This paper investigates how having more White coworkers influences the subsequent retention and promotion of Black women.

Advocacy & Social Movements

People, Power, Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal

At a moment when our democratic abilities seem to have eroded, and political, economic, and technological forces have weakened the capacity for collective action, People, Power, Change is a once-in-a-

What the United States Can Learn From China

Amid China’s rise, Americans should ask what Beijing is doing right—and what they’re doing wrong.

Morality Is the Enemy of Peace

The conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine can only end with deals that don’t satisfy anyone completely.

Watch & Listen

"How A.I may revolutionize health care... and what has slowed down" text over an image of Professor Soroush Saghafian.

Science, Technology & Data

The Promise and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize health care delivery. At the same time, several obstacles stand in the way to wider adoption of A.I. tools. Professor Soroush Saghafian, director and founder of the Public Impact Analytics Science Lab at Harvard Kennedy School, in partnership with the Mayo Clinic, is working on solutions that would improve the design of these tools.

Human Rights

Racial Justice Without Borders

Diversity Matters: The Importance of Inclusivity in Business

What is equity?

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Public Health Rep
v.133(1 Suppl); Nov-Dec 2018

The Importance of Policy Change for Addressing Public Health Problems

Keshia m. pollack porter.

1 Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

2 Institute for Health and Social Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

3 Policy Change Workgroup, Bloomberg American Health Initiative, Baltimore, MD, USA

Lainie Rutkow

Emma e. mcginty.

4 Johns Hopkins Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy Research, Baltimore, MD, USA

Some of the nation’s greatest public health successes would not have been possible without policy change. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of “Ten Great Public Health Achievements”—including motor vehicle safety, tobacco control, and maternal and infant health—all involved policy change. 1 Because of these public health achievements, the average life expectancy at birth for people living in the United States increased by more than 30 years, from 47.3 years in 1900 to 76.8 years in 2000. 2 The age-adjusted death rate in the United States continued to increase to 78.8 years in 2014. However, it decreased to 78.7 years in 2015 and then to 78.6 years in 2016. 2 This emerging trend is the result of numerous public health challenges, especially the opioid and obesity epidemics, which continue to burden society.

In this Commentary , we make the case for the central role of policy in mitigating America’s public health challenges. We first define policy, then propose principles that are essential for policy change and are based on the authors’ collective experiences, and conclude with implications for local health departments, academics, and the next generation of public health leaders.

Defining Policy

The term “policy” refers to a standard set of principles that guide a course of action. 3 - 5 Public policies are established by the government, whereas private or institutional policies are created by organizations for institutional use. Many public policies are legally binding, meaning that individuals and institutions in the public and private sectors must comply with them. In contrast, policies created by private institutions do not carry the force of law; however, within an institution, compliance with such policies may be required ( Table 1 ).

Examples of policy types, by government level of enactment and category



Governmental
Federal	Created by US Congress Codified in US code	Created by federal administrative agencies Codified in Code of Federal Regulations	Cases heard within the federal court system US Supreme Court is highest court in the nation	Presidential and gubernatorial executive orders are legally binding and allow for rapid policy change Some policies do not have the force of law (eg, guidance documents produced by federal, state, or local agencies)
State	Created by state legislature Codified in state legislative code	Created by state administrative agencies Codified in state code of regulations	Cases heard within the state court system
Local	Created by local legislative body Codified in local legislative code	Created by local administrative agencies Codified in local code of regulations	Cases heard by local courts
Nongovernmental
Private
Institutional	Must comply with laws at the federal, state, and local levels	Must comply with regulations at the federal, state, and local levels	May initiate or be subject to litigation	May develop policies to be applied by institutions

a Includes appropriations processes.

b Includes policies that do not carry the force of law and/or are created outside the processes associated with legislation, regulation, and litigation.

In the United States, public policies may be enacted by federal, state, or local governments. Typically, public policies created by a lower level of government (eg, local) must comport with policies created by a higher level of government (eg, state). In addition, in some instances, a higher level of government (eg, federal) may preempt, or prevent, a lower level of government (eg, state) from enacting policies in a particular area. 6 This process, known as “ceiling preemption,” may stifle policy innovation, particularly at the local level.

Legally binding public policies fall into 3 primary categories: legislation, regulation, and litigation. Legislation, or statutory law, is created by a legislative body comprising elected representatives (eg, from US Congress, state general assembly, or city council). Regulations, which are promulgated by federal, state, or local administrative agencies, typically add specificity to policies that are described broadly in legislation. Finally, litigation refers to the body of public policy created through judicial opinions. Other policy tools, such as presidential or gubernatorial executive orders, are legally binding and bypass traditional legislative or regulatory processes, allowing for more rapid policy change.

Of note, some public policies do not carry the force of law. Most often, these policies are guidance documents produced by administrative agencies. Although guidance cannot be enforced, the expectation is that it will be followed or will provide answers when the law is unclear.

Principles for Effective Public Health Policy Change

Effective policy change is more likely to improve health when key principles are considered. We outline 4 principles that we believe bolster effective public health policy change. We define public health policy as laws, regulations, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve public health goals in a society. These principles are based on the authors' collective public health policy experiences and are grounded in the policy sciences literature. These principles are listed, along with references and examples of experiences that informed them, in Table 2 .

Principles for effective public health policy change and examples of how each principle has been used


Use evidence to inform policy	is a publication designed to provide policy makers and other audiences with information on injury problems in Maryland and offer solutions on how they can be addressed through policy decisions. Each topic includes 3 primary sections: (1) How does this affect the United States? (2) How does this affect Maryland? and (3) What do we know about solutions? The purpose of the publication is to help bridge the gap between injury research and policy and to provide policy makers with evidence-based policy interventions to guide their initiatives.
Consider health equity	Equity is one of the core values of a Health Impact Assessment (HIA). HIA is a pragmatic approach to determine the potential positive and negative health effects of proposed policies, projects, or programs. Health equity can be advanced through HIAs by having the HIA team authentically engage the community to address the social determinants of health and root causes of inequities in the assessment and recommendations. For example, an HIA of proposed changes was made to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as part of the reauthorization of the federal Farm Bill in 2013-2014 under the Agricultural Act of 2014. The HIA process and products highlighted health equity, and the analysis informed policy discussion about inequities in the social determinants of health (eg, food insecurity).
Design policy with implementation in mind	Multiple US jurisdictions are considering legalization and implementation of safe consumption sites, which are places where people can legally use opioids or other previously purchased drugs under medical supervision. Safe consumption sites have been implemented in Canada and Europe and have been shown to decrease overdose deaths, transmission of infections, and public drug use; however, until recently, such sites did not exist in the United States. San Francisco announced plans to open a safe consumption site in 2018, and several other jurisdictions are considering doing the same. Safe consumption sites are illegal under current federal law and unpopular with some segments of the public because of their goal of improving the safety of drug use rather than eliminating drug use. Thus, implementation must be carefully planned. One example of a jurisdiction designing a safe consumption site policy with implementation in mind is Baltimore. As that city began considering a safe consumption space, a local foundation partnered with research experts to create a safe consumption site implementation strategy for Baltimore.
Use proactive research: policy translation strategies	The Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy is a partnership between researchers from across the United States and a Washington, DC–based advocacy group focused on advancing evidence-based firearm policy. The consortium developed a new evidence-informed gun violence prevention policy, the gun violence restraining order law, and other evidence-based federal and state firearm policy recommendations. The consortium engages in various policy translation activities, including hosting state forums in which consortium researchers discuss the evidence behind the group’s policy proposals with state legislators and advocates; developing state-specific policy memorandums to educate policy audiences about the group’s recommendation; leading advocacy activities, such as legislative testimony; and delivering technical assistance to states that implement the consortium’s policies. ,

1. Use Evidence to Inform Policy

Although policy formation is a complex process involving multiple factors, including feasibility considerations, stakeholder interests, and political values, 3 sound research evidence should serve as the public health community’s starting point when it designs and advocates for public health policy solutions. Policy design should be based on the best available research evidence, with an understanding that the strength of that evidence may vary across public health issues and change over time. 14 For emerging public health problems, research evidence in support of policy solutions may be limited. In these scenarios, research on related policy mechanisms from other fields or in nations outside the United States may help inform policy development. 15 All policies, but especially new policies, little-studied policies, or evidence-based policies that are tailored to meet the needs of various subpopulations, should include mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation to determine the policy’s effectiveness. 16 , 17 Evaluation results can be used to refine implementation and support policy scale-up in additional jurisdictions.

Numerous evidence-based policies address public health problems. For example, “The Community Guide” is a collection of evidence-based findings from the Community Preventive Services Task Force and is one source of information for these evidence-based policies. 18 With consistent implementation, these known evidence-based policies can lead to dramatic short-term and long-term improvements in public health.

2. Consider Health Equity

Health equity refers to every person having an opportunity to attain his or her highest level of health. 19 In formulating policy, considering health equity means “optimizing the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, learn, and age; working with other sectors to address the factors that influence health; and naming racism as a force in determining how these social determinants are distributed.” 20 For example, data support the important role that residential segregation of black and white people, because of racist housing policies, has played in health disparities by race in the United States, leading to higher rates of child poverty and adverse birth outcomes among black children than among white children. 21

Policies that address and dismantle these underlying political, economic, social, and physical determinants of health can advance health equity. 22 For example, when land development changes are proposed, planners and policy makers should consider how these changes may lead to gentrification and displacement of historically marginalized populations, which have implications for their health. 23 By considering health equity, questions such as how a policy will increase or decrease access and opportunity for communities of color, in addition to how a policy may lead to other unintended consequences, can also be raised. Equity considerations can also be included during policy implementation, evaluation, and monitoring, to ensure that equity is promoted through indicators that can document progress toward health equity–related goals (eg, percentage of policies that address the social determinants of health). 24

3. Design Policy With Implementation in Mind

Policy should be designed with implementation in mind. Too often, enactment of a new policy (eg, when a bill is signed into law) is seen as the end of the policy process. 25 Instead, it is only the beginning. Implementation determines the policy’s success or failure. Policies that include clear, concrete definitions of the target population and detailed regulations are more likely to be successfully implemented than policies that leave such criteria subject to interpretation. 26 , 27 For example, to be effectively implemented, a state law prohibiting the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages in schools should define which types of schools are subject to the law, criteria for defining a sugar-sweetened beverage, the date by which schools must comply with the law, and the sanctions that will be imposed on schools that do not comply with the law. These types of details are typically developed during the regulatory process, after enactment of federal, state, and local laws.

Implementation should be considered from the beginning of the policy design process. People who design policy should contemplate factors such as whether a new or existing agency will implement and enforce the policy, whether new personnel will need to be hired and/or whether existing personnel will need to be trained, and whether administrative changes (eg, creation of new eligibility forms or electronic monitoring systems) are needed. 28 - 30 Policies that make minor changes to existing policies are simpler and quicker to implement than policies that make major changes to the status quo, and those designing public health policies should plan accordingly, in terms of both resource allocation and timing. 27 , 29 Full implementation of policies that enact new programs, for example, will take substantially longer than full implementation of policies that change only eligibility criteria for, or categories of, services covered by existing policies.

4. Use Proactive Research-Policy Translation Strategies

To increase translation of research into policy, proactive strategies that bridge the research and policy worlds to increase adoption and implementation of policies shown to be effective in research studies are needed. 16 , 31 Researchers and policy makers have unique skill sets and professional incentives. For example, researchers are skilled in producing research evidence, and the academic promotion process emphasizes peer-reviewed publications of research findings. In contrast, policy makers are skilled in policy development, analysis, political negotiation, and coalition building, and their professional incentives are focused on reelection. 32 - 34 In addition, researchers have deep expertise in a narrowly defined field of study, whereas policy makers have working knowledge across an array of topics. Furthermore, although research can be slow, the policy process often moves quickly, with short windows of opportunity for new policies to be developed and enacted. For example, some state legislative sessions are as short as 30 days per year. 35 To advance evidence-based public health policy, research-policy translation models must bridge these differences. These models should include training for researchers about how to ask policy-relevant research questions, the steps of policy process, the politics of the policy process, and how to engage with policy makers. 16 , 36 - 38

To substantially increase translation of evidence into policy, however, research-policy translation initiatives must go beyond these activities to include long-term coalition building and formal partnerships between key research and policy stakeholders (eg, academic–public health department partnerships 39 , 40 and national coalitions focused on advancing evidence-based policy). 41 An example of the coalition model of research-policy translation is the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy, a partnership between researchers from across the United States and an advocacy group based in Washington, DC, that focuses on advancing evidence-based firearm policy. 42 Since its formation in 2013, the consortium has developed an evidence-informed gun violence prevention policy, created a gun violence restraining order law, and conducted a range of activities—including hosting forums in which consortium researchers discuss the evidence with state legislators and advocates 42 , 43 —that contributed to the law’s passage in 8 states. 44

These types of formal research-policy translation models can address multiple barriers to enactment and implementation of evidence-based policy. Engagement of broad coalitions can help increase stakeholders’ recognition of the value of policy change and facilitate partnerships between advocates and policy makers adept in formulating political strategy. In addition, these types of models can help to identify gaps in the evidence base of public health policy issues and, by strengthening partnerships between researchers and policy makers, inform the development of policy-relevant research to fill those gaps.

Implications for Public Health

Various actors play important roles in applying these principles to the design and implementation of evidence-based public health policy. Public health departments are responsible for numerous local and state public health policies. For these public health professionals, applying these principles involves engaging with stakeholders from other sectors (eg, transportation and planning) in other salient government agencies to promote strong cross-sector partnerships. Decisions made in sectors outside of public health and health care, such as education, transportation, and criminal justice, strongly influence health and well-being. 45 Thus, efforts to improve public health through policy change must involve decision makers and stakeholders from these other sectors. In the United States, more communities than before are adopting multisector approaches, and local and state health departments are initiating much of this activity. 46 Tools such as Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) are being used to identify potential public health effects of decisions proposed by other sectors ( Table 2 ). An HIA is a practical approach to determine the potential, and often overlooked, health effects of proposed policies, projects, or programs from nonhealth sectors, as well as provide practical recommendations to minimize risks and improve health. 47 Involving these other sectors in decisions that influence the determinants of health can also address underlying inequities and present an opportunity for health departments to consider health equity. 8

For academic practitioners, advancing policy change requires that academics not only generate policy-relevant research, but also translate and disseminate findings to practitioners, advocates, and policy makers. Having open communication channels between academics and public health practitioners provides opportunities for practitioners to share the types of data that are useful for policy debates and advocacy efforts, and it helps ensure that academics are asking the right questions needed to generate policy-relevant results. Some faculty are reluctant to engage in these translational and policy engagement activities because these activities are often not evaluated as part of their promotion process. Having institutional supports that recognize policy engagement and translational activities as part of scholarship and consider these activities during the faculty promotion process could bolster faculty participation in policy change activities. 48

Academics also have the important role of training future public health leaders to amplify public health policy change. Policy development is one of the core functions of public health 49 ; however, public health professionals have cited policy development as one of the areas in which training is needed. 50 Future leaders need to be trained in policy sciences, including policy analysis, communication, implementation, evaluation, and translational research, along with the politics of the policy process. In addition to these policy competencies, training in health equity and research translation will further prepare future leaders to engage in effective public health policy change.

Policy change can help address current and future public health issues in the United States. The 4 principles we outlined should undergird all policy efforts to optimize their impact.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The authors declared the following funding with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article was produced with the support of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, which is funded by a grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies.

TERM PAPER TIPS

slight variations in theme, usually to redefine the scope of the paper
how best to implement : focus carefully on a case study
I asked you to do a policy brief , a short report: 8 pages double spaced, the equivalent of 4 pages single spaced
Your policy brief gets right to the point and should depart from a breezy or personalized style of a composition essay. Your policy report should be crisp, factually based, and tightly structured
The report normally reads as if it were by a professional staff analyst providing a background report, often with recommendations to the elected official, say a United States Senator sitting on the appropriate Senate Committee for your topic

How your grade is determined...

And what you should do..., to improve your grade.

Depth : Your report digs beneath the surface (say the level of a page 17 newspaper article on the subject) probing beyond the obvious and indicating a serious intellectual grasp of the topic. You know this material!
Content : Your research has not only been substantial, but is woven into the fabric of your report. You are careful not to make assertions not supported by your facts but your research has supported your conclusions. You use this material!
Paragraphs which do not merge a series of loosely connected sentences, but convey a single assertion
Sentences which balance complexity with clarity
Careful choice of precise words , giving you complete control over meaning
An introduction which clearly indicates to the reader the intent and scope of the report. Regard the first paragraph as the mission statement of the. Do not extend your introduction unduly, but rely on a clear and careful introductory paragraph . Frankly, a flat or rambling first paragraph more often than not tips me off that the paper will not hold together well.
A conclusion which logically flows from the main argument of the paper. The ending is not simply tagged on as mere opinion but has been carefully drawn from the logic and evidence of the report.
The main argument , which has been indicated by the case developed in the report. Go back and read the theme sentences of each paragraph to determine if they connect and, taken together, support the conclusion. Indeed, ask yourself if your argument has connected the introduction to the conclusion.
Use headings and subheadings to highlight to the reader what is going on within each block of the report. In this assignment, there might be perhaps 3 or 4 major headings. These devices help orient the reader --- and keep the writer focused on the job at hand.

Keep these criteria in mind. I do when I grade your work! Frequently, I wonder whether a particular student ever considers these criteria, which I specify well in advance. Please do so: it works for you and for me .

Revise Frequently

Research indicates that the real value of word-processing comes from frequent revision , not simply the ease of producing the term paper. Too often, students submit work which plainly indicates that they have not proofread the paper before handing it to me. This is simply lazy and sloppy. Don't do it! Revise!

Better still, have a friend read it for you. Swap papers. Find out if others can find glaring problems and make helpful suggestions. This "peer review" can go a long way toward a higher quality report. Do it!

Keep it simple and straightforward

Clarity and simplicity carries elegance to this task. An elaborate, complicated paper is not asked of you.

Good luck. Watch for more tips as I get the time to get more material onto the World Wide Web. I really do enjoy reading good stuff and feel dejected when I get sloppy reports from students.

Also, do not forget to look at the term paper proposal tips page .

Agenda review notes
Policy Formulation review notes
Implementation review notes
Budget review notes and new Budget notes
Evaluation review notes

Return to my GeoCities home page and to my Ramapo College site's home page .

Public Policy

The Master in Public Policy (MPP) is a two-year program that prepares students to understand complex public policy problems and craft concrete solutions. Through coursework, exercises, and fieldwork, students master concepts and skills that draw on the social sciences but are adapted for action. MPP graduates are versatile—they lead change in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. Many distinguish themselves in more than one of these sectors during the course of their careers.

The Ph.D. in Public Policy Program provides exceptional scholars with advanced graduate training to prepare them for positions in academia, government, and at research organizations. Candidates are trained to conduct policy analytic research, help shape and execute public policy, and teach the next generation of educators, researchers, and practitioners. The program encourages scholarly research that empowers public policy practitioners to make informed decisions. Coursework reflects this approach by combining core requirements—in theory (economics, politics and management, and normative theory) and methods (advanced methodology, analytical, and quantitative empirical)—with primary and secondary concentrations.

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Current Public Policy Papers

ACP public policy papers summarize and dissect published research and discussion on current issues involving clinical practice, medical education, bioethics, and health care financing and delivery, and make specific recommendations for internal medicine physicians, patients, and policy makers. Read about ACP's public policy development process .

Learn more about where ACP stands on important and timely issues:

Racial Health Disparities, Prejudice and Violence

Health care reform/access, payment/delivery system reform, health information technology, medicare and medicaid, controlling costs, improving effectiveness, prescription drugs and public health related topics, workforce and physician shortage, coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19), acp policy compendium, updated july 2024.

Download an up-to-date summary of ACP's policy positions.

^ Back to Top

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, Queer and Other Sexual and Gender Minority Health Disparities (June 2024)
The Integration of Care for Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Other Behavioral Health Conditions into Primary Care (August 2015)
Full Paper
Assessing the Patient Care Implications of "Concierge" and Other Direct Patient Contracting Practices (November 2015)
Retail Health Clinics (October 2015)
Artificial Intelligence in the Provision of Health Care (June 2024)
Health Information Privacy, Protection, and Use in the Expanding Digital Health Ecosystem (April 2021)
Policy Recommendations to Guide the Use of Telemedicine in Primary Care Settings (September 2015)
Clinical Documentation in the 21st Century (January 2015)
Full Paper and Issue Brief
Full Paper
Appendix 1: Playbook
Principles Supporting Dynamic Clinical Care Teams (September 2013)
Full Paper and Issue Brief

All rights reserved. Individuals may reproduce all or parts of Public Policy Papers for educational, not-for-profit uses. These papers may not be reproduced for commercial, for-profit use in any form, by any means (electronic, mechanical, xerographic, or other) or held in any information storage or retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher.

For questions about the content of Public Policy Papers, please contact the ACP Division of Governmental Affairs and Public Policy , 25 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001-7401. 202-261-4500. To order copies of position papers, please contact us .

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Cisco Nexus 3550 シリーズ

Field-Programmable Gate Array（FPGA）のプログラミングを念頭に置いて構築された、超低遅延のプラットフォーム、スイッチ、コンポーネントです。

Cisco Nexus 3000 シリーズスイッチ

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Cisco MDS 9000 シリーズソリューション

クラウド、アプリケーション、およびビッグデータのパフォーマンスを最適化するために構築されたストレージエリアネットワーキングソリューションです。

Cisco Catalyst IE9300 高耐久性シリーズスイッチ

高密度光ファイバ接続と厳格なネットワーキングのニーズに対応する、高性能のラックマウント型スイッチです。

Cisco Industrial Ethernet 5000 シリーズスイッチ

復元力が高く、産業環境でのスケーラブルな集約が可能です。

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拡張性と安全性に優れた産業用ネットワーキング向けの PoE およびエッジコンピューティングを搭載する、すべてが GE の DIN レール取り付け型モジュラスイッチです。

小規模企業および LAN コンパクト

Cisco business 350/250/110 シリーズスイッチ.

直感的なダッシュボード、高度な機能、広範なセキュリティを備えた、小規模企業ネットワーク向けの構成要素です。

Cisco Catalyst 1000 シリーズスイッチ

最新の小規模オフィスに適したエンタープライズグレードのネットワークアクセスを提供する、管理しやすいスイッチです。

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スマートビルディングやビル内に光ファイバケーブルを引き込む FTTO ネットワーク向けに最適化されているうえ、エンタープライズクラスのセキュリティ、管理機能、信頼性を備えています。

Cisco Meraki MS120 シリーズ

消費電力が少なく静音設計になっているうえ、奥行きの浅いラックオプションも用意されているため、ワイヤリングクローゼット、オフィス、およびクラスルームに柔軟に導入できます。

Two talented designers in a creative pod

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シスコの広範なスイッチングソリューションにより、ネットワークのセキュリティを強化できます。

スイッチングソリューションの詳細を見る

Cisco software-defined access.

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IMAGES

Name: Public Policy Research Paper Purpose: To research a
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PUBLIC POLICY 3000 Essay Example
Public policy analysis in six steps [12].
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(PDF) Writing public policy: A practicum

VIDEO

Public Policy Concept Nature and Scope
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National Telecom Policy
A Governance Analysis Of Public Policy In India
12th English Original Public Paper|How to present your paper?|Live Demo|Public Exam 2024!
Regulatory Policy In India

COMMENTS

Student Papers in Public Policy
Student Papers in Public Policy provides an outlet for multidisciplinary scholarship for undergraduate and graduate students interested in working in the public policy arena. The Purdue Policy Research Institute (formerly the Global Policy Research Institute) is helping to educate students by providing valuable background for those seeking career leadership opportunities in academic ...
What is Public Policy?
I've found that most Gustavus students are very good at writing term papers; however, writing in public policy-related careers requires a different skill set…the ability to find and analyze different types of material, to synthesize information clearly and concisely, and to differentiate situations that call for an informative approach from ...
PDF Tips for Writing Policy Papers
This workshop teaches the basic strategies, mechanics, and structure of longer policy papers. Most policy papers are written in the form of a white paper, which offer authoritative perspective on or solutions to a problem. White papers are common not only to policy and politics, but also in business and technical fields.
(PDF) Policy Analysis: A Systematic Approach to ...
This paper describes a systematic process for examining complex public policy choices that has been developed and. refined over the past 50 years and is often called policy analysis. Its purpose ...
1
Policy analysis was an applied extension of microeconomics to the study of public policy. Each of these fields retains a distinct approach to the study of public policy. However, they suffer from several weaknesses in terms of their applicability to a context beyond the one in which they developed. Policy sciences, in particular, emerged as a ...
PDF WISE GUIDELINES for Preparing a Public Policy Paper
A public policy paper defines an important current issue (could also be referred to as a problem), provides an up-to-date analysis of the issue, and makes recommendations to policymakers that are designed to fix the issue. The intent of writing the paper: • Fully informs policymakers, giving them the information, they need to resolve the problem.
16.1 What Is Public Policy?
PUBLIC POLICY DEFINED. One approach to thinking about public policy is to see it as the broad strategy government uses to do its job. More formally, it is the relatively stable set of purposive governmental actions that address matters of concern to some part of society. 1 This description is useful in that it helps to explain both what public ...
Public Policy Making and the Policy Making Process Term Paper
The Nature of Policy. The argument of Lindblom was that the process of policy development is both a systematic and rational process and that "policy makers are constrained in their ability to develop policies on a blank sheet of paper. As a result, they pursue an approach which makes incremental changes to existing policies."
Research Guides: Law and Public Policy: Reports & Working Papers
SSRN contains both full text and abstracts of forthcoming and scholarly working papers--as well as published articles--in a full range of social science disciplines: law, economics, management, negotiation, politics, etc. BePress. BePress is another academic repository that contains both published and working papers.
WRITING A POLICY PAPER
writing a policy paper . one way to understand the dimensions of a policy paper is to juxtapose it against other common research vehicles: discussion papers disseminate research quickly in order to generate comment and suggestions for revision or improvement.they may have been presented at conferences or workshops already, but will not yet have been published in journals.
43 Overview Of Public Policy: The Public And Its Policies
The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy aspires to provide a rounded understanding of what it is to make and to suffer, to study and to critique, the programs and policies by which officers of the state attempt to rule. Ruling is an assertion of the will, an attempt to exercise control, to shape the world. Public policies are instruments of this assertive ambition, and policy studies in the mode ...
(PDF) Public Policy and Policy-Making
Policies ar e government administrative actions, including laws, regulations, decisions, or orders. Public policy is a more specific term, which refers to a long series of actions carried out to ...
Term Paper: Public Policy
Term Paper. Pages: 15 (4206 words) · Bibliography Sources: 5 · File: .docx · Topic: Teaching. Public Policy-Making: Public School Funding (K-12) in New York State. The objective of this work is to demonstrate an understanding of the policy process as well as key policy terminology and policy concepts. Additionally this work will demonstrate ...
(PDF) Implementing Public Policy
Implementing Public Policy. January 2007. In book: Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics, and Methods (pp.89-107) Publisher: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis. Authors: Helga Pülzl ...
Policy Topics
How anti-incumbency and a 'first-past-the-post' system helped elect the Labour Party in the UK. Harvard Kennedy School comparative politics expert, Pippa Norris, explains how a confluence of factors helped propel the Labour Party to a historic victory despite only receiving 34% of the vote. Featuring Pippa Norris.
PDF What Is Public Policy? 1 distribute
also distribute goods and services. They do so directly by giving money to people who fall into certain categories (e.g., the unemployed) or by directly providing. public services, such as education. They also do so less directly by structuring incentives for individuals to behave in certain ways and to make one ec.
The Importance of Policy Change for Addressing Public Health Problems
Defining Policy. The term "policy" refers to a standard set of principles that guide a course of action. 3-5 Public policies are established by the government, whereas private or institutional policies are created by organizations for institutional use. Many public policies are legally binding, meaning that individuals and institutions in the public and private sectors must comply with them.
Public Policy: Term Paper Tips
Many of you have already provided term paper proposals or have seen me after class or in my office. I have rejected no proposal, but usually have made suggestions along these lines: ... Other new pages for fall, 1998, Public Policy courses! Public Policy Cycle chapter review notes now available: Agenda review notes; Policy Formulation review ...
Public Administration Policies
Public policy making process has been viewed to be a long process that has to be undertaken in phases. ... Get a custom term paper on Public Administration Policies---writers online . Learn More . In its operation, public administration functions may be practiced at the central, intermediate, and local levels of government and as a result of ...
Public Policy
The Master in Public Policy (MPP) is a two-year program that prepares students to understand complex public policy problems and craft concrete solutions. Through coursework, exercises, and fieldwork, students master concepts and skills that draw on the social sciences but are adapted for action. MPP graduates are versatile—they lead change in ...
Current Public Policy Papers
Full Paper; Long-Term Services and Supports for Older Adults: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians (July 2022) ... For questions about the content of Public Policy Papers, please contact the ACP Division of Governmental Affairs and Public Policy , 25 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001-7401. 202-261-4500. ...
What do you understand by term Public Policy?
The third section analyse with an evaluation of implementing public policy's impact and recommendations for continued progress. Finally the section four concludes the paper. Public Policy Possibly Thomas Dye offered the best known and most shortest difination of public policy as 'anything a government chooese to do and not do' (2003, p. 5).
Public Spending Pressures in the UK: United Kingdom
This paper characterizes UK public spending pressures over a ten-year horizon and their implications for public deficits and debt levels. The analysis is based on a 'bottom-up' scenario for total public expenditure, that includes, inter alia, implementation of the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, public investment to support the Balanced Pathway to Net Zero, and state pension spending under ...
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PDF Table of Contents
White Paper: DIR Fees Simply Explained, P. HARMACY . T. IMES (Oct. 25, 2017). 56. Id. 57. ... Policy and Regulatory Revisions in Response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency; Additional Policy and Regulatory Revisions in Response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, 87 Fed. Reg. ... CVS Long-Term Care Pharmacy Sued by DOJ Over ...