POLICYMAKING PROCESS
HOW POLICIES ARE MADE?
POLICYMAKING PROCESS
Thomas R Dye’s 6-stage Model For policymaking
1. Problem Identification
2. Agenda Setting
3. Policy Formulation
4. Policy Legitimation
5. Policy Implementation
6. Policy Evaluation
POLICY CYCLE
1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION/DEFINITION
• Deciding what will be the problems is even more important than
deciding what will be the solutions.
• Designing a policy for public health
- Poor ratio of dr. and patient
- Poor quality of dr./stuff/nurse service
- Poor quality of infrastructure (for example rest room)
• Problem identification varies in:
• open society (easy access to government official)
• closed society (limited/ rare access to government official)
• Individuals and groups, it is said, can organize themselves to assume
the tasks of defining problems and suggesting solutions.
• Safe road movement: Ilias Kanchan and School Students
1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION/DEFINITION
What can people do in problem definition and how can they do it?
• People can define their own interests, organize themselves,
persuade others to support their cause, gain access to government
officials, influence decision making, and watch over the
implementation of government policies and programs.
I. Creating an issue;
II. dramatizing it;
III. calling attention to it, and;
IV. pressuring government to do something about it are important
tactics.
1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION/DEFINITION
What is really happened in PI? Who are the people or group
of people those who identify a problem?
• These tactics are employed by influential; for example, the
president of FBCCI
• Individuals;
• organized interest groups; (Shadhinata Chikitshok Parishad,
BMA)
• policy-planning organizations; - Willson centered, Brookings
institution, CPD
• political candidates;
• office-holders, and;
• perhaps most important, the mass media.
2. Agenda Setting
• Policy priority
• What to be included in the policy agenda?
2. Agenda Setting (cont.)
1. Unemployment
2. Price hiking
3. Disasters
4. Public transport
5. Internet and online activity
6. Liberation war monument
7. Satellite (white elephant)
8. infrastructure
2. Agenda Setting (cont.)
Agenda can be pushed into policy process by
• The bottom Up
• The top down
The Bottom Up
i. Mass people and social media
ii. Mainstream media
iii. Popular perceptions of policymaking
2. Agenda Setting (cont.)
The Top Down: Elite agenda setting
- It focuses on the role of leaders in business, finance, and the
media, as well as in government. These leaders may observe
societal developments they perceive as threatening to their own
values or interests; or they may perceive opportunities to advance
their own values and interests or their own careers.
- Sociologist G. William Domhoff, “begins informally in corporate
boardrooms, social clubs (boat club), and discussion groups, where
problems are identified as an ‘issues’ to be solved by new policies.
It ends in government, where policies are enacted and
implemented.”
2. Agenda Setting (cont.)
• Political Entrepreneurship: Candidates for public office
• Prime ministers and PMO staffs
• President and Gono Bhavan staffs
• Parliament and legislative staffs
• Secretariat
• Interest Groups
• The Mass Media: The media are both players and referees in the game
of politics
• News making
• Media bias : rely on their own political values and economic
interests as guidelines.
3. POLICY FORMULATION
• Policy formulation occurs in government bureaucracies; interest
group offices; legislative committee rooms; meetings of special
commissions; and policy-planning organizations, otherwise known as
think tanks.
• The details of policy proposals are usually formulated by staff
members rather than by their bosses, but staffs are guided by what
they know their leaders want.
• Think tank: bring together the leadership of corporate and financial
institutions, the foundations, the mass media, the leading intellectuals, and
influential figures in the government
• Few example of think tank in the USA: 1. The Brookings Institution 2. The
American Enterprise Institute 3. The Heritage Foundation 4. Center for
American Progress.
3. Policy Formulation (cont.)
Interest Groups and Policymaking:
• Interest groups influence government policy in a variety of ways. It is
possible to categorize efforts to influence government policy as follows:
1. Direct lobbying, including testifying at committee hearings, contacting government
offices directly, presenting research results, and assisting in the writing of
legislation.
2. Campaign contributions made through political action committees (PACs).
3. Interpersonal contacts, including travel, recreation, entertainment, and general
“schmoozing,” as well as the “revolving door” exchange of personnel between
government offices and the industries and organizations representing them
4. Litigation designed to force changes in policies through the court system, wherein
interest groups and their lawyers bring class-action suits on behalf of their clients
or file amicus curiae (friend of the court) arguments in cases in which they are
interested.
5. Grassroots mobilization efforts to influence Congress and the White House by
encouraging letters, calls, and visits by individual constituents and campaign
contributor
3. Policy Formulation (cont.)
Washington’s Top Lobbying Spenders
• Lobbying is a $3 billion business in Washington
4. POLICY LEGITIMATION
• Which people and institutions are involved in Policy Implementation?
• In Bangladesh: President, parliament, cabinet, judiciary.
• In the USA: The president, Congress, courts, federal agencies,
congressional committees, White House staff, and interest groups.
5. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
Who implements public policy?
• Bureaucracy: street/field level bureaucrats
• Government bureaus, departments, agencies
• Development agencies: NGO
What we need to implement a public policy?
• Budget
• Manpower
• Resource
• Strategies
6. Policy Evaluation?
• Reporting outputs of the policy
• Evaluating impacts
• Appraising peoples’ reaction and feedback
• Continuation of the policy : Reform or rectifying policy
or
• New policy
FIGURE: POLICYMAKING PROCESS
CHALLENGES IN POLICYMAKING PROCESS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
What are the challenges in policymaking process?
1. Information gap
2. Management Deficiency
3. Institutional Handicaps
4. Resource Deficiency
5. Stakeholders’ Acceptance
6. Capacity Deficit of Bureaucracy
HOW TO OVERCOME CHALLENGES?
FACILITATING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC POLICY FORMULATION
1. Literacy rate
2. Fundamental rights
3. Free media
4. Independent judiciary
5. Free and fair election
QUESTION
• How many phases are there in policymaking process? Who
are the participants in these phases? Describe the each
stage in details.
• Imagine that you are Bangladeshi policymaker and
assigned to design education policy. Being a policymaker
from a developing nation like Bangladesh, what challenges
could you face? How can these challenges be overcome?
Reading Materials
• The lecture is based on The Understanding Policymaking (Thomas
R Dye), 3rd Chapter
• https://shahidhraja.medium.com/public-policy-formulation-2-
process-challenges-c348b72c59e4
THANK YOU
