Public Policy Analysis

Public Policy Analysis is the study of slew of government agendas made for the welfare of public which directly affects a society or a specific community. The analysis of policy is initiated to find the best available policy among various suggestions which would effectively achieve the given set of goals. Topics covered under public policy analysis differ from traffic rules, development of particular style of infrastructure, setting up of new buildings to smoke laws, public mandatory requirements. Before passing a law, the government incepts a series of statistical studies and analytical reading to know the pulse of the public.

The concept of public policy analysis is derived to impart the government with practical statistics and facts about the extent of impact made by the passed bills. Policies that has minimal or no influence in bringing about a change are immediately withdrawn to avoid further expenditure. Impact of political powers on creating public policies is unavoidable as legislators look forward to eccentric laws for their benefit while politicians or government official favor policies that gives them better vested powers to make decisions.

Crisis in society occurs on day to day basis ranging from petty problems like shortage of water supply in small community to higher, threatening situations like increased crime rate, vandalism, environmental pollution etc. The purpose of the government is to come up with suitable solutions for these and public policy analysis comes into picture to find out how far these goals are meeting the public requirement. It is done by a group of expert researchers at work who start the inception which has several steps divided into different stages before the final report is submitted.

Analysts begin by gathering evidences to identify the root cause of the problem, its outcome and provide possible solutions to rectify it. Methodological approach includes conducting public opinion surveys, detailed examining of specific cases and interviewing experts of the field to gather in depth knowledge about the problem. For a comprehensive knowledge on the impact of the problem, massive large scale statistics are the widely adopted method. Then begins the second stage when they start finding the cause behind the problem and immediate solutions are offered by the government if it is caused due to some specific laws issued. Issues related to social attitude and behavior of society within particular age group or community is solved by psychological approach to convince them for better behavior.

Public Policy Analysis keeps the society and its activities under check including the functioning of the government emphasizing its duties to be carried out.

Questions:

• What is the purpose of public policy analysis?
• How do analysts identify the problem?