Can public policy be improved?

DOI10.1177/014473948300300201
Date01 September 1983
Published date01 September 1983
CAN
PUBLIC
POLICY
BE
IMPROVED?
HOWARD
ELCOCK
AND
MALCOLM
STEPHENSON
Much
of
the
policy
analysis
and
public
administration
literature
is
concerned,
explicitly,
with
proposals
to
improve
the
quality
of
public
policy.
Academics
seek
to
give
guidance
to
a
variety
of
policymakers,
including
councillors,
local
government
professionals,
members
of
health
authorities,
health
service
professionals,
civil
servants
and
so
on.
Here
we
review
the
state
of
this
art,
discuss
the
value
of
various
approaches
to
improving
policy
and
consider
whether
yet
other
approaches
might
be
valuable.
Policy
is
perhaps
above
all
the
creature
of
politics,
including
ideological,
party,
organisational
and
persona
I
varieties.
Political
influence
is
always
both
a
powerful
source
of
policy
and
an
important
source
of
uncertainty
for
the
policymakers
and
administrators
faced
with
changing
party
fortunes,
domestic
and
foreign
crises
as
well
as
the
rise
and
fall
of
individual
politicians.
A
change
of
party
control
sometimes
produces
a maj
or
ideological
shift
in
the
policy
objectives
set
by
the
organisation's
leaders,
for
example
from
socialist
plan-
ning
to
free
market
competition.
More
commonly,
however,
such
a
change
demands
only
a
marginal
shift
in
policies
and
financial
priorities.
The
corollary
of
this
climate
of
uncertainty
is
that
an
actor's
view
of
what
might
constitute
improved
policies
depends
on
his
position
in
the
governmental
structure:
whether
he
is
a member
of
the
Government,
the
Opposition,
a
pressure
group,
the
civil
service
and
so
forth.
Furthermore,
policies
are
made
in
an
increasingly
turbulent
environment
and
resource
constraints
make
decisions
about
priorities
more
difficult.
Policy
and
priority
decisions
nonetheless
have
to
be
made.
I
THE
POLICYMAKERS
Policymakers
themselves
are
a
diverse
collection
of
people,
including
the
public,
politicians
and
profess-
ionals.
The
relationships
among
them
are
complex.
They
may
consider
policy
as
either
intention
(ideology)
or
action.
The
constraints
upon
them
are
equally
diverse.
However,
for
each
policymaker
we
may
hypothesise
that
he
or
she
will
wish
to
achieve
objectives
(political,
professional
or
personal).
To
do
so
he
or
she
requires
information
about
problems,
opportunities
and
constraints,
as
well
as
about
the
feasible
choices
available.
Thus
in
general
we
agree
with
Quade
that:
(1)
Policy
analysis
is
valuable
because
it
can
help
a
decision-maker
by
providing
information,
by
isolating
and
clarifying
issues,
by
revealing
in-
consistencies
in
aims
and
efforts,
by
generating
new
alternatives
and
by
suggesting
ways
to
translate
ideas
into
feasible
and
realistic
policies.
Its
main
contribution
may
be
to
yield
insights,
part-
icularly
with
regard
to
dominance
and
sensitivity
of
the
parameters.
It
is
now
more
than
an
adjunct,
although
a
powerful
one,
to
the
judgement,
intuition
and
experience
of
decision-makers.
The
next
sections
are
concerned
with
what
social
scien-
tists
can
offer
as
an
adjunct
to
the
judgement
of
policy-
makers.
THE
STATE
OF
THE
ART:
FRAMEWORKS
Several
approaches
to
the
improvement
of
public
policy
have
been
proposed.
To
assess
their
overall
contribution,
a
framework
is
required.
The
main
elements
of
the
policy
environment
can
be
represented
as
a
series
of
Chinese
boxes,
as
in
Figure
1.
No
order
of
causality
is
implied
here.
Whether
policy
is
an
output
of
the
political
system,
a
determinant
of
politics
or
one
element
in
a
seamless
web
need
not
concern
us
yet.
The
contents
of
the
boxes
are
simply
the
elements
whose
interaction
produces
policy
decisions.
2

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