Tampus AB POSC-LPS 3

June 2 , 2013 POSC 103

What are policies and what is its origin? Indeed, those are the very questions that are featured in the first reading material of the Oxford Handbook Policy written by Robert Goodin, Michael Moran, and Martin Rein. As a foreword, policies can mean or reflect a variety of ideas and intentions ranging from vague to specific ones. Policies may also be the result of professional practices or bureaucratic routines and this evident diversity of the term policy is the reason why it is hard to define and know its origin. One of the theories on the origin of policy is that of Kingdons (1995) analogy of the business meeting. It was perceived that policies came into being through an agenda policy makers talk about topics that interest them and then seek each others opinion to address the topics. By creating an agenda, the policy makers will have an outline of issues and by creating such, will lead things from obscurity to something that is discussed. However, there are limitations in using the agenda model to understand the origin of policy. The first one is that the analyses of the ideas gathered must undergo deliberation and must have formal approval of the legislative and executive authorities. The second limitation is that the theoretical models developed from the agenda have been developed primarily to apply it in the United States which makes the application problematic. It was also noted that the model lacks hierarchy found in political systems with fused executive and legislative branches. It also talks about the significance of executive dominance in a party system for the agenda model. It does not mean that the suggestion of minority groups or of below ranks will be ignored rather those who want to influence the policies have to convince the audience who has disproportionate influence on policy process: political members of the core executive. The four levels of abstraction are also introduced which discusses how policies emerge at each level: principles, policy lines, measures and activities/practices. In the level of principles, policy is considered as an intention. An example would be that of a proposal of a party unlikely to gain office and may have no chance of being put into action. Policy intentions take the form of principles general views about how public affairs should be arranged or conducted. Principles play a great role in the spread of policies demonstrated in studies of cross-national policy transfer. The second level is concerned with attending the specific issues or problem that a policy seeks to address. These policy lines refer to strategies take in regulating or dealing with a particular topic. It talks about policy as being competitive as a process by relating to a particular issue. A policy emerging as measures is a common stimulus in developing a policy. The measures developed to create a policy can lead to the development of other policies. Since according to Wildavsky (1980, 62-85), policies tend to feed on each other: the more policies that are made the more there have to be to cope with new circumstances, effects on other policies and unexpected consequences. A policy may create an unanticipated problem which has then to be addressed by other policies. This marks then the innovation in policy development in which Hogwood and Peters (1983, 1) argue that the true innovation in policy development is rare and that most policy making is actually policy succession: the replacement of an existing policy, program or organization by another. The fourth level talks about practices considered as an origin of policy not only because of the behavior of some officials which leads to the development of policies but also to the action and employment of programs. The fourth level mostly has to deal with the implementation of the policy. Most basically, the things stated so far are concerned with the agenda model stating that issues must undergo a formal deliberation by the formal legislative, executive and judiciary authorities but how about those policies created by workers and police officers who also have a degree of discretion in how they carry out their functions? They are called non-policies for they are a form of policies without agendas. Nevertheless, these so called non-policies exist with the administrative agencies. In conclusion, there is no simple answer to the question where policies come from and what they are. We cannot possibly regard the origin of policy in the same way we might consider the origin of a certain specie but the best we can do is indicate the events or things that led to the authorization or adoption of policies.