⇒ Some policies can be confusing and contradictory e.g. governments may subsidise tobacco smoking but campaign to stop smoking
⇒ Public policy is all about trying to solve problems and this topic explains how policy is formed and the theories behind it
⇒ Politics is about how a society regulates and orders itself i.e. how it can be governed
⇒ This is something that people have been trying to work out for many years: from the Greek philosophers to modern theorists
⇒ However, these thoughts about how society is organised (or should be organised) doesn't really help us understand what exactly politics is
⇒ The Oxford English dictionary defines politics as ‘the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power’
⇒ Politics is also seen as a negative and inaccessible subject to many, so it is important to analyse why this many be and what makes politics particularly frustrating at times
⇒ The study of public policy is only about 50 years old, meaning our understanding of the fundamentals of public policy has come about fairly recently – debate still remains about whether or not there are a clearly defined set of rules about the public policy process
⇒ Defining public policy is difficult but it does have particularly features:
⇒ For example, a law that sends someone to jail for punching their spouse is a statement of government policy to crack down on domestic abuse
⇒ Policies are also not found in just a single form e.g. they can be a law, a regulation, or other text from government
⇒ ‘Problem’ is defined as ‘any question or matter involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty’
⇒ Public policy is about trying to solve the doubts, uncertainties, and difficulties faced by society
⇒ Classic liberalism is the dominant ideological foundation of many Western States
⇒ This says, inter alia, that power comes from the people – so when a Government acts, they are acting in the public interest
⇒ Public policy also affects everyone in some way, but not necessarily to the same degree
⇒ Governments are neither single minded with one set of goals nor are they completely neutral carefully balancing the pros and cons of policy