Policy formulation

According to Anderson, policy is a purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern. This concept of policy focuses attention on what is actually done as against what is proposed or intended, and it differentiates a policy from decision, which is a choice among competing alternatives. As a result public policies are policies that are developed by governmental bodies and officials. In public policy process, there are five steps, and in each step there are some key questions that must be answered. For example: 1. Problem identification: what is a policy problem? What makes it a public problem? How does it get on the agenda of government? 2. Formulation: how is policy alternatives for dealing with the problem develop? Who participates in policy formulation? 3. Adoption: How is policy alternative adopted or enacted? What requirements must be met? Who adopts policy? What processes are used? What is the content of the adopted policy? 4. Implementation: Who are involved? What is done, if anything, to carry a policy into effect? What impact does this have on policy content? 5. Evaluation: How is the effectiveness or impact of a policy measured? Who evaluates policy? What are the consequences of policy evaluation? Are there demands for change or repeal? Meanwhile, Lester and Steward explained there are six stages of policy process, as follows: 1. Agenda setting Agenda setting is described as a set of political concerns meriting the attention of the polity, and it includes both systemic agendas and institutional agendas. 2. Policy Formulation Policy formulation or policy adoption usually defined as the passage of legislation designed to remedy some past problem or prevent some future public policy problem. Originally, policy formulation was explained in terms of an elitist or pluralist model. More recently, however, policy formulation is viewed as the result of multitude of forces that affect policy outputs, such as historical/geographic condition, socioeconomic conditions, mass political behavior (including public opinion, interest groups, and political parties), governmental institutions (including legislature, courts, and the bureaucracy), as well as elite perceptions and behavior. 3. Policy Implementation It has been described as what happens after a bill becomes law. Simply enacting legislation is no guarantee that action will be taken to put the law into effect or that the problem will be solved. Law must be translated into specific guidelines therefore the federal, state, or local bureaucracy can see to it that the intent of the legislation is achieved at the point where the policy is to be delivered. The implementation process can be defined as a series of governmental

decisions and actions directed toward putting an already decided mandate into effect. 4. Policy Evaluation Policy evaluation is concerned with what happens as a result of the public policy, that is, what happens after a policy is implemented. It is concerned with the actual impacts of legislation or the extent to which with the policy actually achieves its intended result. 5. Policy Change As an analytical concept, policy change refers to the point at which a policy is evaluated and redesigned so that the entire policy process begins anew. 6. Policy Termination Policy termination is a means of ending outdated or inadequate policies. Some programs are found to be unworkable and thus need to be abolished, whereas other programs are often scales back due to a shortage of resources or for purely non-rational or symbolic reasons. Essentially, policy termination is the end point of the policy cycle. It can mean many things, such as agency termination, policy redirection, project elimination, or fiscal retrenchment.

Policy Formulation
The expected result of policy formulation is some type of solution to public problem. According to Deborah Stone, there are five types of policy solution: (1). Inducement, which can be positive (ex, tax credits) or negative (ex, penalties for pollution); (2). Rules, or other forms of mandated behavior such as regulation governing pollution; (3). Facts, or the use of information to persuade target groups to behave in certain way, such as community right to-know information; (4). Rights, which give certain people rights or duties, such as civil rights legislation; and (5). Powers, whereby a decision-making body is charged with specific powers to improve decision making, such as the budgetary power of legislature to affect the state budget. These policy solutions can be in the form of congressional legislation, executive orders, judicial decisions, or others forms of policy outputs.

Actors in Policy Formulation

In the policy formulation, many actors are involved. Lester and Stewart8 explained that many actors are involved: a. Governmental Agencies Government agencies are the government institution (bureaucracy), the duty of them is to provide information to congress and executive branch that later becomes the basis for legislation. b The Presidency. The president and/or executive offices are often involved in the policy formulation. Such involvement includes presidential commission, task forces, interagency committees, and other arrangements. c. Parliament Congress is the institution that is most commonly associated with policy formulation, either through the development of new legislation or through the oversight and legislative review. d. Interest Groups Interest groups are extremely important in the process of policy formulation, essentially in the pluralism model. In this model public policy is shaped by bargaining, negotiation, and compromise among interest groups and other components.

Models in Policy Formulation

In USA, and followed by many countries, there are three models in analyzing policy formulation process a. Rational-Comprehensive Model This model based on the assumption that individuals make decisions on the basis of a rational calculation cost and benefits. It includes the following component: 1). The decision maker is confronted with a given problem that can be separated from other problems; 2). The goals, values, or objectives that guide decision maker are clarified and ranked according to the their importance; 3).A complete set of alternative policies for dealing with the problem are prepared; 4). The consequences (costs and benefits, advantages and disadvantages) that would follow from selection of each alternative are investigated; 5). Each alternative and its consequences, can be calculated and compared with the other alternative; 6). The decision maker chooses that alternative that maximizes the attainment of his or her goals, values, or objective.

b. The Incremental Model The key components of the incremental model are: 1). The selection of goals or objectives and the empirical analysis of the action needed to attain them are closely intertwined with, rather than distinct from, one another; 2). The decision maker considers only some of the for dealing with a problem, which will differ only incrementally for existing policies; 3). For each alternative, only a limited number of important consequences are evaluated; 4). The problem confronting the decision maker is continually redefined; 5). There is no single best solution for a problem; 6). Incremental decision making is essentially remedial and is geared more to the amelioration of presents, concrete social imperfections than the promotion of future social goals. c. The System Model The system model, originally developed by biologist and then applied to the study of politics by David Easton, suggest that public policy formulation is initially affected by demands for new policies or support for the existing policy. This model propose that inputs (demands and supports) are converted by the process of the political system (legislatures, the courts, etc) into outputs (policies or decision), and these in turn have consequences both for the system and for environment in which the system exist. Demands may be internal to the system (e.g., political parties or interest groups) or external to the system (e.g., ecology, the economy, culture, and demography). Support includes action that help the system operate and help to sustain it. Support is derived from: the political community, the regime or rules of the game, and the government itself.

James E. Anderson,1979, Public-Policy Making, Second Edition, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.p.3