U.S. Government and Civics / Unit 11: State and Local Government and Public Policy
11.5 The Public Policy Process
Notes
Public policy is what government chooses to do or not do about a problem.
- Steps: (1) problem identification and agenda setting, (2) policy formulation (drafting options), (3) adoption (passing a law or rule), (4) implementation (agencies carry it out), (5) evaluation (judging whether it works and changing it).
- Agenda setting can be driven by crises, media, interest groups, citizens and officials.
- Types of policy: distributive (benefits for specific groups paid by all, such as highway projects); redistributive (shifting resources from some groups to others, such as programs for low-income families); regulatory (rules on behavior, such as food safety standards).
- Policy is made at every level: Congress, state legislatures, city councils, agencies and courts.
- Example: after several crashes at an intersection, residents ask the city for a traffic light (agenda setting); engineers study options (formulation); the council votes (adoption); crews install it (implementation); the city tracks crashes (evaluation).
Practice
After a new recycling law passes, the city's sanitation department begins collecting recycling bins. This step is:
Implementation is carrying out an adopted policy.
A state requires restaurants to pass health inspections. This is what type of policy?
Regulatory policy sets rules for behavior.
A year after a reading program begins, a school district studies test scores to see whether it worked. This step is:
Evaluation judges whether a policy achieved its goals.
Ready for more? Take the Unit 11 test.