Goverment and Public Policy (Research Paper Sample)

How do ideas get onto the political agenda and get taken seriously by policy-makers?
* Introduction
¯ Political agenda and policy makers
¯ Definition of Policy
* The Policy-Making Process
¯ Importance of Policy-Making Process
¯ Function of Policy Makers in Policy-Making Process
* Policy-Making Concept and Political-Agenda Setting
¯ Agenda-Setting Theory and Policy Makers
* The Political Stream
¯ The National Mood and Policy Makers
* Contributors in Policy Making
¯ The Impacts of Contributor’s Resources in Policy Making
* Policy Networks and Programs
¯ Policy Maker’s Ideas and Networks Structure
* Politics and Policy Making
* How Legislative Process Influence Policy Makers
¯ Legislative Actors and Policy Makers
* Conclusion
Introduction
Policy making has been customary viewed as a function of the political parties. Nevertheless, despite over years of sustained efforts to promote policy making, politicians, policy makers and civil servants progresses to show concern about the way policy is formed and whether it is ready to accomplish future challenges. The concerns require to be taken seriously. The power of policy making is integral to the power of the entire government as well as the entire nation. When policies become unsuccessful, the costs can be substantial. Many people would claim that the quality of policy making depends on the strength of the politicians. However, when it comes to carrying out a collective examination of the results of policy making, the challenge of assessing the quality of policy making mounts up. What matters is the way in which a government and its political system operate. Do people participate in the policy-making process? Do policy makers necessarily have an understanding of the policy easier? Most importantly, How do ideas get onto the political agenda and get taken seriously by policy-makers?
Developing policy making lies within the scope of the state. The term ‘policy’ has many definitions because there are distinct points of view and diverging opinions and definitions from different scholars. According to Cairney (2011) policy is decisions that provide guidance, continuity and coherence to policy actions for which the decision-making body is accountable. Kingdon (2011) defines policy as goal statements, particularly addressing the known problems and opportunities related to a policy area. Nevertheless, all these definitions of policy seem to have three common aspects; they concentrate on goals or objectives, the course of action and on the directions.
The Policy-Making Process
The policy-making process is not a linear process, but it is cyclical representing a progressive spiral. It can be divided into policy initiation. Policy processes design, policy analysis, policy formulation, policy decision, policy dialogue, policy implementation and policy implementation and evaluation. However, this paper emphasis will be directed on how the policy-making process influences the strategies of policy makers in getting their ideas into the political agenda.
In reference to the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK), the process that is applied tends to involve the life of the former and well-being of the latter (Bache, 2013). The politicians and Policy makers in the EU and the UK usually create an agenda and support it through debate and discussion in order to enable the parties concerned to understand it. Issues concerning quality of life, personal undertakings, education, health, political voice and governance, social linkages and relationship, environments, insecurity and economics are prioritized. The setting of the agenda is relevant to the policy-making process because this is where an issue is examined and gets policy formulation, evaluation, policy formulation and hopefully becomes law. The main EU policy makers are the Parliament, the commission and the nations as represented in the Council. In most cases, the interest groups, and other authoritative agencies come together to formulate and adopt particular strategies for addressing and reaching a resolution of the pressing political issue. Similarly, in the context of the American policy-making process, the policy ideology lies between the lines of the liberal and the conservative, though it is only the interest groups that organize and try to influence the political agenda (Joshua et al,2007) .For instance, the presence of the special interest group supports the policy-making process. The special-interest groups try their best to influence the political agenda directly or indirectly. These groups may represent people based on gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, profession, race or any other factors (Joshua et al, 2007) Fortunately, not all issues are addressed when a consensus over policy are not attained. During the agenda step, the policy makers attempt to maintain an issue on the political agenda or no action will be carried. Indeed, some of the factors that aid an issue to stay on the political agenda have good political policy entrepreneurs. Thus, with good policy entrepreneurs, there is more concentration that is brought to the issue, which can assist it to stay on the agenda. Political policy entrepreneurs are people and groups that concentrate public and political attention on the particular issue at hand and recommend solutions (Hood, 1986). In addition, they assist to put people together and open doors for the policy agenda on the issue. Indeed, they extend time to look for resources in pursuit of policy objectives with the political process.
It is the duty of the policy makers to examine the implementation of the policy (Howett, 2009).Prior to the formulation of a policy, it must be implemented and evaluated before it becomes a law. Policy implementation concerns the cooperation of the national and local government in the US. It requires the Congress to certify or approve it, making them take serious actions that go against policy implementation. Of course, they work as "watchdogs." Policy evaluation is the final step in the policy-making process and concerns evaluating the proposed policy and its success of national government support during the implementation process. When a policy passes the implementation policy; both external and internal groups evaluate it (Howett, 2009)
Policy-Making Concept and Political Agenda-Setting
In one way or the other, the need for policy makers keep on emerging due to uncertainties occurrence of issues such as inflation and catastrophes (Prince, 2011). Researchers might not consent on a suitable policy in such cases, though they may consent that the problem of such an issue should be addressed. In fact, such a case has to first get onto the political agendas of the government for any action to be carried. Agenda setting is the process by which challenges and optional solutions gain or lose public and expert attention (Cairney, 2011). According to the theory of agenda setting (Cairney, 2011), the challenge becomes political when it becomes extremely serious. For example, some writers claim that the economic growth in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development states in EU, during the 20th century resulted in adequate serious problems that the welfare country had to emerge (Zahariadis, 2014). Similarly, the growth of the agricultural industry may be seen as having generated the environmental challenges so serious in nature that policy makers could no longer ignore them (Zahariadis, 2014). In such a case, the issue is placed by the policy makers on the political agendas of the states where contemporary agriculture is considered a relevant economic activity. This way of comprehending agenda setting is certainly calming from the perspective of the policy makers.
For instance, the presentation of agenda-setting theories further than national systems to the European Union provide a new dimension because of its different features (Bache, 2013). Perhaps, the limited chance for direct public engagement, the nonexistence of a Europe-wide media system and the tendency of political parties and interest groups to be arranged more powerful at national rather than European level. In addition, the European Union is seen as a highly complex polity in contrast to the simpler polities of some of its member states. In the latter, power, sway and voices are diffused through various levels and models of governance, while compound polities have a tendency towards consensus formation, decision making in simple polities is more based on the majority. Hence, while the latter offers more access points for agenda-setting, the former offers great strength for swift decision making in the EU (Bache, 2013).
Nevertheless, competing hypothesis of agenda setting result to distinct anticipations (Prince, 2011). For instance, in any political process, several policy makers work toward getting ideas onto the political agenda. They are facilitated through taking the benefits of the coupling of policy ideas with upcoming challenges as long as the political situations are favorable. Initially, policy maker's thoughts are shaped by combining and recombining in a process that carries some likeness to a certain biological system. Second, a political steam, independent of the stream of policy thoughts, consists factors such as the formation of a new government, interest group lobbying or the ideas help by politicians of the mutable national mood. Lastly, a problem stream works as a channel for the challenges of the community. The policy-makers are presented with windows of chances only when these three independent streams come together (Prince, 2011)
Public policy theorist are important in the agenda setting (Prince, 2011). In America, public policy theorist notes the significance of policy images in agenda setting (Joshua et al, 2...