Policy Analysis

1. Policy Analysis Stacey M. Kesten EPS 654: Program Evaluation December 10, 2011

2. “The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions.” Antony Jay, Management and Machiavelli (1973)

3. Understanding Policy: A personal Approach • Take 5 minutes to think about examples of policies in each of the following areas: • Individual/Personal Policies • Family Policies • Organizational Policies (Adapted from Health Canada, Smith, 2003)

4. What is Public Policy? “There is general agreement that public policy includes the process of making choices and the outcomes or actions of particular decisions ; what makes public policy “public” is that these choices or actions are backed by the coercive powers of the state; and that, at its core, public policy is a response to a perceived problem.” (Birkland, 2001).

5. Pubic Policy Includes • “Whatever governments decide to do or not do.” (Dye, 1984) • Government response to a problem at the societal level (Nagel, 2001) • Economic • Technological • Social • Political • International • Legal

6. Public Policy Analysis Is: • A Process • Assessing Situations • Defining Problems • Clarifying Values and Goals • Developing and Recommending Options • Implementing and/or Evaluating Outcomes

7. Definitions From a historical perspective: • “In its widest sense the process of producing knowledge of and in policy processes. Policy analysis originated at that point in history when knowledge was consciously cultivated such as to permit the explicit and self-reflective examination of links between knowledge and action.” (Dunn, 1981)

8. A contemporary perspective: • “Public policy analysis can be defined as determining which of various alternative public or governmental policies will best achieve a given set of goals in light of the relations between the policies and the goals.” (Nagel, 2002)

9. Five Key Elements of Policy Evaluation (Nagel, 2002) • 1. Goals, including normative constraints and relative weights for goals • 2. Policies, programs, projects, decisions, options, means, or other alternatives that are available for achieving the goals • 3. Relations between the policies and the goals, including relations that are established by intuition, authority, statistics, observation, deduction, guesses, or other means • 4. Drawing a tentative conclusion regarding which policy or combination of policies is best to adopt in light of the goals, policies, and relations • 5. Determining what is necessary for a second best or other alternative to become the best alternative

10. Relationship Between Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation • Focus is on assessing possible solutions to public problems vs. analyzing and evaluating actual programs and/or outcomes • Both are concerned with asking fundamental questions: • What have we done? • What is the merit of something? • What is the worth of something?

11. Key Elements of Quality Policy Analysis (Nagel, 2002) • 1. Validity • 2. Importance • 3. Usefulness • 4. Originality

12. Example of Policy Analysis Method • Eight-Fold Path (Bardach, 2011) • Define Problem • Assemble Evidence • Construct Alternatives • Select Criteria • Project Outcomes • Confront Trade-Offs • Decide • Tell Story

13. Basic Policy Analysis in 6 Steps • Six-Step Process (Patton & Sawicki, 1993)

14. Why Conduct Policy Analyses? • Facilitate social betterment • Continuous management • Ensure effectiveness • Facilitate improvement • Government accountability