Understanding Public Policy And Its Importance

Discuss about the Public Policy. Economic policies considers budget and taxation policy and undertakes measures to support when economy is in recession. Educational policies consider that it is important to a person to have and access basic elementary and secondary education.

What is Public Policy?

The reason why citizens in any given country have a ruling authority is to try to solve the daily problems that ordinary citizens face in an organized manner. Every government have its way of addressing the issues that the citizens raise. However, in most of the circumstances, the authority makes use of public policies. The term public policy refers to the means in which the administration used to respond to the needs of the members of the society. Public policy is purposive and a course of action that perceive problem of an constituency and constructs a particular political process and adopts it to resolve the problem for example- policies for criminal justice, civil rights, drug policy, arts, gun control, abortion but it is important to know who actually enforces and influences the formation of policy formation. The first concern is general public because most of countries follow democracy in which citizen affects the policy. Policy makers have the ability to hold offices and senate and they are supported and vested in power by acquiring votes from their constituencies. Government is responsible for policies forming such as environmental policies to treat air quality and global warming. Economic policies considers budget and taxation policy and undertakes measures to support when economy is in recession. Educational policies consider that it is important to a person to have and access basic elementary and secondary education. Inclusion to these, new agricultural policy in US is formed due to unique geography, history, and weather. Agricultural policies have been formed to support industrialization especially commodity-based agriculture. The federal government developed the Dietary guidelines for Americans that emphasizes consumption of food produced by large-scale farming (Milevska, Chichevalieva, Ponce, and Winkelmann, 2017). According to Dunn, (2015). For example, if it is a matter of security, the government can come with a directive that maintains a certain number of police of police officers in a specific region. The study of public policies aims at analyzing how the government come up with essential programs to address the nation’s challenges. Although most policies are made to favor the maximum population but as different people has different perception, any rule can be beneficial to particular groups but on the other side it can be unbeneficial for to greater population (Sheikh, Sood, and Bates, 2015). Those who study public systems enjoy various advantages. They can assist in coming up with directives that solve poverty, health problems and address the general human rights in reference to Hill & Hupe, (2014). The best policy-making platform here is politics. Public policy determines the present and future decisions that both private individual, private institutional actions designed in order to solve the given and prevailing problem. Policy makers involves and undertakes a combination of processes that includes identifying the problem, formulating the proposals to resolving method, legitimating public policy, implementing it and finally evaluating it. Some of the example of public policies are EPA (Environmental Protection Act), Public health law, NACCHO (National Association of Country and City Health Officials), HIS program, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Drug Control Policy and other LPHA (Local public health agency) (Sheikh, Sood, and Bates, 2015). 

Types of Public Policies

Public policy refers to medium the government use responds to the social challenges regarding social, political and economic problems. For example, in the case of US, if the government have identified that many people are not able to afford the medical care, the Congress can pass some rules to ensure everyone can access treatment in reference to Vedung, (2017). One way of doing it is coming up with medical insurance for every citizen.

On the other hand, the federal government of America have three main branches which include Judiciary, Legislature and the executive. Beginning with the Judiciary, it is made up of Federal courts and the Supreme court. All of the three branches have different functions such as legislature creates the law. The law is formulated by elected body after a intense discussion within the senate. They also delegate some decision making power to executive to ensure that they inspect whether a proper framing of rules are formed or not. Executive is an appointed body sit in senate and is appointed by legislatives. This body is in charge of implementation and enforcement of law. Judiciary is a body that punishes the one who breaches and do not follow these rules. United States congress is the legislative branch of federal government. Moreover, a senate is made up of one from each state whether the population is less or more. Executive power is held by president of US. Power is delegated to the cabinet members. This branch enforced the establishment of Supreme Court in US. The judiciary functions to listen to cases and controversies (Nepstad et al., 2014). All these courts have judges of different levels. Consequently, the primary function of the Judiciary branch interprets what the laws mean. After, the interpretation the judges use the rules to determine various cases that have been laid before it in reference to Scalia, (2018). The second arm of the government is Legislature. The main work of legislature is to make and amend the laws, approve the government appointees and declare war between American and other nations. It is mainly comprised of the house of the representatives and the Senate. The third branch is the executive arm of the government. It is made up of the president and the cabinet members. The role of the executive is enforcing and carries out laws. For instance, the cabinet members advice the government on how to run the state. Simple justification of government act as a protector that protects citizens from violence.

There are numerous essentials of public policies. The primary importance is that it provides a guideline in which the authority governs people within the set duration. For instance, every political party have a manifesto that it intends to fulfil when the citizens give it opportunity. Once it is on power, the government would use the policies to guide it on what to accomplish at a specific time according to Morone & Kersh, (2016). On the other side, the citizens have an opportunity to examine the government using the strategies they have set in place. For instance, if it was a directive to provide free maternity, have the government fulfilled its promise? Everybody would like to be part of the rulers that meet its obligations. If by any chance the government fails to achieve the public policies, it will automatically fail to get support in the next general election according to Wilson, (2017).

How Public Policy is Made

The relevant public policy in the context is the directive that the government have given concerning abortion. It shows that no one should abort, the life of an individual begins at conception. There it means that the person who commits abortion is a killer and can face severe penalties including that of a life sentence. The policy ensures that life is highly valued no more deaths would be as a result of abortion. The senate often debates on domestic policies that addresses health, safety, and educational welfare of the citizens. Social policy relates to issues faced by general public or everyday citizens. The government undertakes social insurance programs such as social security and unemployment insecurity during recession. It includes cash assistance, housing assistance, several public assistance programs and food stamps (Zhang, Yang, Wang, Gillespie, Clarke, and Yan, 2015). Health policy focuses on providing the adequate two meals for a day and Medicare facilities. Public health policy implements and enforces regulation in regards to protect them from food scarcity or nutritional less food (Gerston, 2014). Educational policy is concerned with education of citizens. Generally, primary and secondary education is the purview of government and moreover, federal and state senate have involved completely. In US, department of education is at cabinet level. Environmental policy focuses on regulating in such a manner that citizens interacting with the environment for their business profits should not hamper the renewable resources especially which cannot be recycled. Government policies attempts to make such programs that can aware the public how to recycle or reuse those products. Criminal justice policy focuses on law and order. It involves the behavior that is illegal and perpetrators are punished. It also involve crime prevention programs such as anti-trust campaigns. Economic policy attempts to maintain a favorable and healthy economy such as currently government has been encouraging existing and huge domestic ventures to enter in international market. Apart from this, it has also started promoting new ventures with new business ideas (Head, and Alford, 2015). 

Even though the public policies create an effective way of governing citizens, there is an instance that the society still blames the government. It is therefore essential to get some alternatives to come up with the policies. The first issue is the priority. The government sometimes come up with directives that do not address current issues. The reason is that the political parties do not consult widely. It is imperative that the authority should involve other avenues such as the non-governmental organization to make sound policies. The issue like health matters should receive priorities. The second alternative way is to consult the ordinary citizens on what things they need to be given priority thus creating a balance of the policies. It is very important to understand that a government cannot adopt socialist policy wholly. It has to focus and undertake traits of capitalist economy because it would not be able to stand among other countries in economic terms in this globalized globe. Hypothetically, even if the country has surplus resources to serve its public in every field than also it is not sure that utility and wants of public is finished or they are satisfied. A government should be combination of both socialism and capitalism traits (Chetty, 2015).     

In conclusion, policy study is a vast area. It assists the individuals with information that would support various sectors to come up with directives. When making policies, the government should have priority and involve every stakeholder.  

References

Chetty, R., (2015). Behavioral economics and public policy: A pragmatic perspective. American Economic Review, 105(5), pp.1-33.

Dunn, W. N. (2015). Public policy analysis. Routledge.

Gerston, L.N., (2014). Public policy making: Process and principles. US: Routledge.

Head, B.W. and Alford, J., (2015). wicked problems: Implications for public policy and management. Administration & Society, 47(6), pp.711-739.

Hill, M., & Hupe, P. (2014). Implementing public policy: An introduction to the study of operational governance. Sage.

Milevska, N.K., Chichevalieva, S., Ponce, N.A. and Winkelmann, J., (2017). The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: Health System Review. Health systems in transition, 19(3), pp.1-160.

Morone, J. A., & Kersh, R. (2016). By the people: Debating American government. Oxford University Press.

Nepstad, D., McGrath, D., Stickler, C., Alencar, A., Azevedo, A., Swette, B., Bezerra, T., DiGiano, M., Shimada, J., da Motta, R.S. and Armijo, E., (2014). Slowing Amazon deforestation through public policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains. science, 344(6188), pp.1118-1123.

Scalia, A. (2018). A matter of interpretation: Federal courts and the law: Federal courts and the law. Princeton University Press.

Sheikh, A., Sood, H.S. and Bates, D.W., (2015). Leveraging health information technology to achieve the “triple aim” of healthcare reform. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22(4), pp.849-856.

Sheikh, A., Sood, H.S. and Bates, D.W., (2015). Leveraging health information technology to achieve the “triple aim” of healthcare reform. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22(4), pp. 849-856.

Vedung, E. (2017). Public policy and program evaluation. Routledge.

Wilson, W. (2017). Constitutional government in the United States. Routledge.

Zhang, M., Yang, R., Wang, W., Gillespie, J., Clarke, S. and Yan, F., (2015) Job satisfaction of urban community health workers after the 2009 healthcare reform in China: a systematic review. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 28(1), pp.14-21.