Government policy encompasses laws, regulations, and court decisions that affect the lives of people, companies, and communities. These policies often affect a large segment of society (the public). They can be aimed at increasing economic expansion, decreasing inequality, safeguarding the environment, or something else. They may come in the form of tax exemptions, regulation and enforcement, or subsidization and other forms of government spending.
Developing effective government policies is a daunting task. Politicians and elected officials don’t usually have the specific expertise or tools needed to create and implement these types of policies. Instead, they rely on vast bureaucracies to take their directives and translate them into practical policy. These policy instruments can be anything from establishing the amount of pesticides allowed in food products to establishing minimum wage standards to enforcing consumer protection rules to creating bank safety regulations.
One important aspect of government policy is the concept of framing, which involves how a problem is interpreted and understood by humans. This helps explain why politicians can change their positions on issues (e.g. going to war on drugs but defending poppy fields in Afghanistan, or increasing military funding while cutting social welfare programs), and why their attention to the next election can cause them to abandon previous commitments (e.g. supporting the war on terrorism but promoting anti-gay marriage).
Policymaking has traditionally been described as an iterative process that goes through 4 stages: Agenda setting – Recognizing that a certain subject is a problem that needs further government attention. Policy formulation – determining which solutions are best and evaluating their costs and benefits. Policy implementation – Enacting the final decision made in the previous stage. Policy evaluation – Assessing the success of the policy in practice and deciding what to do with it in the future.