Government policy aims to achieve goals and objectives like maintaining law and order, or safeguarding the environment. It takes many forms from regulations and subsidies to budgets and spending plans. Policy is implemented at the local, state, and national level as well as internationally.
There are five stages of a policy cycle: agenda setting, policy formulation, decision-making and implementation, and evaluation and maintenance. Agenda setting involves identifying a problem that needs the attention of the government and decides what should be done about it. This is often influenced by political ideologies and values. Policy formulation involves generating and evaluating different options for solving the problem, including the cost-benefits of each option. Decision-making and implementation involves selecting the best option and putting it into action. Finally, evaluation and maintenance evaluates the effectiveness of the policy in achieving its objectives and whether it should be continued or modified.
Developing policies can be difficult, as it’s not always clear what needs to be done. This is especially true in complex systems where outcomes are unpredictable and hard to predict. That’s why modern policymakers are engaging with a variety of stakeholders to co-create their decisions. These include interest groups, lobbying firms, and non-profit organizations along with varied communities of citizens. This new approach to policymaking is often referred to as “policy design.” It’s an effort to understand how to make policy better by thinking about the process in a more structured way. This will allow us to understand why and how policies are created in the ways that they are.