Public Policy
Public Policy
This domain tests the policy cycle, models of decision-making, implementation and evaluation.
Core rules and concepts
- The policy cycle: agenda setting, formulation, adoption or legitimation, implementation, evaluation, and feedback or termination.
- Models include rational-comprehensive, incremental (Lindblom), mixed scanning (Etzioni), and garbage-can or organised anarchy (Cohen, March, Olsen). Models are lenses, not literal descriptions.
- Actors include ministers, civil servants, legislatures, courts, parties, interest groups, media and citizens.
- Implementation can be top-down (clear goals, controls) or bottom-up (street-level discretion, local adaptation); success depends on resources, incentives, coordination and capacity.
- Evaluation assesses relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability; it is not merely financial audit.
Worked example
A state announces a skill-training scheme. Agenda: youth unemployment. Formulation: departments design eligibility and courses. Adoption: cabinet and budget approval. Implementation: district offices and training partners. Evaluation: placement rates and equity. A delay in reimbursing partners is an implementation problem, not proof that the original policy goal was wrong.
Traps
Do not equate policy with law. Do not assume a rational model is how decisions actually happen. Do not treat implementation as automatic once a policy is announced.