What is the policy-making process? In your view, which is the most important stage in the policy process, and why?

Authors Avatar

Q8: What is the policy-making process? In your view, which is the most important stage in the policy process, and why?

Policy-making process involves a linked series of actions or events. It focuses on the way in which policy is made (process), rather than on the substance of policy itself and its consequences (product). In general, there are four main stages of the policy-making process, which are initiation, formulation, implementation and evaluation. The institutions or participants of policy-making process include political leadership, citizen participation or interest groups, legislature and legislators, bureaucracy and judiciary. In this essay, I will use the government policy to overcome traffic congestion in Singapore as a case study to illustrate the different stages. In my view, the implementation process is the most important stage in the policy process.

Central to understanding policy-making process is the understanding of how decisions are made. Decision-making is a process that focuses on the people involved in the policy process and on the part of the process that deals with choosing among alternative course of action. This led us to the different theories of decision-making process: the Rational Actor Model (Rationality), the Incremental Model (Incrementalism), Bureaucratic Organization Models and the Belief System Model.

The Rational Actor Model occurs in a very methodological, neat, problem solving process. Its features include the appraisal of problem, to identify the goals and rank order them, to canvass the possible alternatives, to consider the consequences of each alternative and finally to select the alternative that most closely matches the referred goals. In the Incremental Model, decisions are made through small or incremental moves on particular problems rather than through a comprehensive reform program. It is also endless because it takes the form of an indefinite sequence of policy moves. It focuses on making necessary changes and sees policy as variations of the past. In this model, the decisions are the product of bargaining. It implies that policy-making is a messy or untidy process of muddling through.

The Bureaucratic Organization Models basically means getting into the “Black Box”. The “organizational process” model looks at values, assumptions and regular pattern of behavior in the organization. The policy itself is placed within the context of the organization’s objectives, overall strategy and structures. The “bureaucratic politics” model involves bargaining between personnel and agencies. Lastly, there is the Belief System Model where the role of beliefs and ideologies and political values held by political parties and politicians determine what is to be done. Such ideologies often have the effect of excluding ideas, information and empirical evidence when they fail to support the political party’s core beliefs.

The first stage of the policy-making process is initiation or agenda setting process. Agenda setting is the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose public and elite attention. It means getting problems to government. The participants of this process include governmental and non-governmental actors. The first component of initiation gets at the recognition of the problem with agenda setting. Without the perception of a problem, there is no incentive for the organization to disturb the status quo or to expend organizational energy initiating the policy process. A condition becomes a problem when we come to believe we should do something about them. A problem can be formally defined as a condition or situation that produces needs or dissatisfactions on the part of people for which relief or redress is sought.

Join now!

Using the case study to illustrate this stage, traffic congestion (initially a condition) becomes a problem because it causes car owners to miss their appointments or be late for work. Traffic congestion is really a matter of time and money. Government or authorities need to solve the problem as it would save a lot of time and money and this would improve the welfare of the population as a whole. Government authorities like the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and academics suggest that traffic congestion may develop due to the size of vehicle population or limited amount of road space.

The ...

This is a preview of the whole essay