Public Policy and Policy Analysis
The policy cycle and models
Understand the stages heuristic: agenda setting, formulation, adoption/legitimation, implementation, evaluation, and termination or succession. Know models: rational-comprehensive, incremental (Lindblom), mixed scanning (Etzioni), garbage can (Cohen, March, Olsen), multiple streams (Kingdon: problem, policy, politics streams with a policy window), punctuated equilibrium, and elite/mass and group models. Learn tools: regulation, subsidy, taxation, direct provision, information, and market mechanisms; and criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, equity, feasibility, and political acceptability.
Implementation and evaluation
Top-down implementation (pressman and wildavsky) versus bottom-up/street-level bureaucracy (Lipsky). Evaluation distinguishes formative vs summative, output vs outcome, and monitoring vs impact evaluation. Recognise the principal-agent and collective action problems in delivery.
Traps
- Agenda vs formulation. Getting an issue on the agenda is different from designing options.
- Output ≠ outcome. Number of clinics built is output; health status is outcome.
- Rational model is a benchmark, not a description of real decision-making.
- Incrementalism is not irrational; it is a strategy under bounded rationality and political constraint.
Worked example
A government announces free textbooks. Agenda setting was political commitment; formulation involved printing and distribution logistics; implementation depends on schools; evaluation should measure learning outcomes, not merely books delivered. If asked to evaluate, choose outcome indicators and compare with a counterfactual.