...Question: identify public policy problem and propose a policy to address it Introduction Definition: According Wikipedia Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. Other scholars define it as a system of "courses of action, regulatory measures, laws, and funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its representatives." Public policy is commonly embodied "in constitutions, legislative acts, and judicial decisions." Unemployment as a public policy problem In Kenya one of the public policy problems is unemployment. Unemployment in Kenya is where persons, who are able to work, are actually seeking jobs, but are unable to find work. According to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, there are nearly 2.5 million unemployed youth, and barely 125,000 are absorbed annually into formal employment. Some have referred to the problem as a ‘ticking time bomb’ saying the number of unemployed youth could rise to 14 million over the next seven years the causes of unemployment in Kenya rage from Government corruption to poverty, to lack of proper infrastructure but I think the cause of the high unemployment is Our Education system. Our education system is very academic. Our children go to school on Saturdays as young as standard 2, a standard 7 pupil wakes up...
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...Public Policy The case study concerning Ocean Policy Change has been an important issue for many years. There have been policy changes over the years on ocean dumping. Starting in the early 1970’s there was much controversy on environmental protection and public policy. The concerns were that there needed to be policies on ocean dumping and what measurements the government was going to take to control this practice. President Nixon stated that public policy should be “to ban unregulated ocean dumping of all material and to place strict limits on ocean disposal of any materials harmful to the environment” (Stewart et al, 2008). Hence, the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (MPRSA) was passed. This policy had the strictest principles regarding ocean dumping. There was a permit system put into place which was monitored by the EPA and Army Corp of Engineers. In 1973 it was determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to terminate all dumping even it was by permit. In the early 1980’s the city of New York applied for a permit to continue dumping the sludge from the sewer plants. The city brought a federal law suit asking for continued dumping of sewer sludge. The court in turn ruled that the EPA loosen their constraints on the dumping of sewer sludge. Due to the change of Presidents in 1981, there was even more leniency about the EPA guidelines or permits. There was more flexibility in the issuance of permits. Because of the knowledge and research...
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...Public Policy Problems In The Environment Public policy is characterized by Webster's as "The fundamental strategy or set of arrangements structuring the establishment of open laws, particularly such arrangement not yet formally articulated." The United States Government has numerous approaches in the region of the nature. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was made in 1970 to help distinguish natural issues in our country, and to set approach on the best way to manage those issues. Yet, with so much cash used by the legislature to manage issues with the nature, it must be noted that issues still exist, even inside the organization that was intended to help in any case. Amid the presidential fight of the last decision, an issue emerged concerning the "vitality emergency" that was driving fuel and oil costs up all through our nation. VP Al Gore upheld President Clinton's belief system of sitting tight for the best possible administrative activities to pass through Congress, and when the circumstances justified, give some restricted arrivals of oil from the national oil hold. Applicant George W. Bramble, on the other had, favored boring in the administration ensured grounds of Alaska to discover future oil saves with the goal that America would never again be so subject to remote oil. The issue with Bush's arrangement, as per Gore, was that this could be obliterating to the earth of the barely populated Alaskan wild. Despite the political, legitimate or moral ramifications...
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...Public Policy Everybody probably always wonder how rules, procedures, and practices are brought into the daily life of everyone in the United States. It all starts with public policy. Public policy is what governments decide. Policies aren’t the same as laws, but it is more a matter of how the laws are implemented. The public policy is formed in not that many steps or groups. “Policy is formulated with active involvement on the part of interest groups whose members do not seek election.” Also, the groups bring leaders and experts to define and discuss a problem and to reach a consensus on policies that address problems. You got those groups that will lobby on one particular issue and while others will research and train on the issues as that one group concentrates on one issue. There is a process that identifies the problem of the public policy. The four typical and main steps in public policy process is identifying a problem, formulating a policy, implementing the policy change, and evaluating the result. Each step is followed in order to make sure the process is done correctly. The first step is to outline the problem. After identifying and studying the problem, a new public policy may be formulated or developed. The next step would be once the new policy is an effect, then organizations and agencies will be responsible to carry out the policy. The final step is to evaluate, in which it is always ongoing. The person that is responsible for determining solutions for public...
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...contained in a known as public policy. In this vain, this essay is an attempt to define the term policy using examples from education. Furthermore, it will explain why it is necessary that each sphere of public life be enshrined in a public policy. The term Policy is not a precise term. Unfortunately, the term policy is something which takes different forms. There is push to designate policy as the ‘outputs’ of the political system, and in a lesser degree to define public policy as more or less like interdependent policies dealing with many different activities. Studies of public policy areas, on the centrally, have tended to focus on the evaluation of policy decisions in terms of specified values, that is, a rational rather than a political analysis. The magnitude of this problem can be recognized from the other definitions, which have been advanced by scholars in this field. To start with, Policy refers to those plans, positions and guidelines of government which influence decisions by government (e.g., policies in support of sustainable economic development or policies to enhance access to government services by persons with disabilities). In other words, policy is an action to achieve a goal (Bell & Stevenson, 2006). A policy establishes guidelines or direction for the City's actions with regard to one or more concerns, problems or opportunities. A policy can also be a general plan or approach to a specific need, problem or issue. This means that a policy is a general directive...
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...Public Policy: Beliefs and Influence To start off, how do you define public policy? This question is so simple, yet everyone seems to define it differently from one person to another. According to Thomas A Birkland, a political scientist specializing in the study of public policy, he writes “Considerable debate remains over whether there is one coherent set of principles that can govern the study and understanding of what we call public policy. Since, there are many ways to define public policy”. Laws and public policy should be influenced by cultural and religious beliefs to a certain extent. First off, this country was founded off of Catholicism and Christianity. The majority of our population still actively believes in them to this day. Not only does religion have the capability of keeping people in line, but it gives people an incentive to be good to one another. After all, sinning is bad and the way to go to heaven is through moral actions and projecting love to one another. People have deep rooted beliefs and it makes them scared to do bad things, since there is the possibility of going to hell. The 10 Commandments are a good thing to abide by since they encourage upholding moral action and truth. Because of this, there are some cases in which it is better to have laws and public policy influenced by religion. In these cases, religion would...
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...MODELS FOR POLICY ANALYSIS INSTITUTIONALISM: POLICY AS INSTITUTIONAL OUTPUT Government institutions have long been a central focus of political science. Public policy is authoritatively determined, implemented, and enforced by these institutions. Therelationship between public policy and government institutions is very close. Strictly speaking, a policy does not become a public policy until it is adopted, implemented, and enforced by some government institution. Government institutions give public policy three distinctive characteristics. •First, government lends legitimacy to policies. Government policies are generally regarded as legal obligations that command the loyalty of citizens. •Second government policies involve universality. Only government policies extend to all people in a society; the policies of other groups or organizations reach only a part of the society. •Finally, government monopolizes coercion in society, only government can legitimately imprison violators of its policies. The impact of institutional arrangements on public policy is an empirical question that deserves investigation. Federalism recognizes that both the national government and the state governments derive independent legal authority from their own citizens. PROCESS: POLICY AS POLITICAL ACTIVITY Today political processes and behaviors are a central focus of political science. Political scientists with an interest in policy have grouped various activities according to their relationship...
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...conflict when designing public policy. Efficiency is a comparative idea. It is a way of judging the merits of different ways of doing things. Efficient people are ones who get a lot done in a little time. Efficient allocations of resources are ones that yield the most total value for society from existing resources. Efficient choices are ones that result in the largest benefits for the same cost or the least cost given the benefit (Stone, 2002). According to Stone (2002), advocates of market mechanisms for policy making might argue that an exchange is efficient if it maximizes welfare at the present moment; inhabitants of the polis live over the long run and consider the time dimension a crucial part of most decisions. Another broad set challenges from the polis question, that an individual makes exchanges on the basis of full information about the objective alternatives and their subjective preferences. The challenge is impossible to have the type of information necessary for voluntary exchanges to result in efficiency. The market model requires accurate and complete information. But in the polis, information is always incomplete, interpretive and deliberately controlled. People can never have full information about the alternative available for satisfying their goals. Even if the money cost of information were zero, there would still be enormous time costs to process all the free information. Long term consequences are at issue in many public policy decisions as well-whether...
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...The problems of race and urban poverty remain pressing challenges which the United States has yet to address. Changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations during the last 30 years have necessitated new and innovative analyses and policy responses. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide comparative data with which to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants are part of the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working/middle-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a traditionally liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of yuppies as a result of gentrification, and the movement of nearby-ghetto blacks into these urban renewal sites also invoke fear of crime and neighborhood devaluation among the gentrifying community. Not only is migration a common thread, but the persistence of poverty, despite the current economic boom, is the cornerstone of all these works. Poverty, complicated by the dynamics of race in America, call for universalistic policy strategies, some of which are articulated in Poor Support and The War Against the Poor. In When Work Disappears, William Julius Wilson builds upon many of the insights he introduced in The Truly Disadvantaged, such as the rampant joblessness, social isolation, and...
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...University SOC 320 Public Policy & Social Services Instructor: Bernie Colon February 18, 2014 Weekly Journal I’ve started this journal one week into this class, and became aware that sociology is a major undertaking, but so far it has been a great journey. Knowing my audience for this paper allows me to draw from my last 3 years of study, this in turn will allow me to qualify what I may have learned. Cultural Anthropology seems to be at the forefront of my thinking why? I will address this thesis at the end of this course. This journal will be with me for the next 5 weeks and like it or not I will reveal my thoughts and intuition concerning the given subject. Let’s get started. For your journal entry, you will explore aspects of your personal experience and/or beliefs regarding significant public policies and what you have learned in your readings. As you reflect, please address the following questions: What are the current major environmental issues? "The amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause dangerous climate change. We are already at risk...It's not next year or next decade, it's now." Report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): We are at the mercy of our environment and in my life time I have seen the environment destroyed. Sociology seems to be showing me another aspect in my comprehension of critical thinking. The environment became a legitimate policy issue in...
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...Policy evaluation can be better defined as a process by which general judgments about quality, goal attainment, program effectiveness, impact, and costs can be determined. It is an assessment of whether a set of activities implemented under a specific policy has achieved a given set of objectives. Once public policy has been operationalized through the formal adoption of laws, rules, or regulations, and the bureaucracy has taken action to implement the policy, some form of evaluation needs to be accomplished to determine if the policy has achieved the desired outcome or impact. Public policy represents the expenditure of limited public resources and or restrictions on certain types of individual or organizational behavior. Consequently, the public has a right to expect that their government officials are accountable for the validity, efficiency, and effectiveness of those policies. Policy evaluation is therefore an absolutely critical stage in the policy process whereby we can determine whether a policy’s effects are intended or unintended and whether the results are positive or negative for the target population and society as a whole. In essence, policy evaluation is the process used to determine what the consequences of public policy are and what has and has not been achieved. Elected officials, policy makers, community leaders, bureaucrats, and the public want to know what policies work and what policies don't, and the purpose of evaluation is to determine whether an implemented...
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...Public policy reaches into all parts of society, and addresses social problems in a purposeful way, that has been decided to be for the good of the people. Any level of government, whether federal, state or local may be in involved in a particular policy effort because of social problems, public demand for action on these problems, and formulate or produce solutions that become formal plans of action (Kraft & Furlong, 2013). Resources are allocated, according to policy guidelines, to citizens within the US. Because we are a representative democracy, public opinion often mirrors public policy (Pawson & Wong, 2013). Public policy effects the public and is driven by social & economic conditions, among other things. Issues are brought forward and contemplated before they are deemed appropriate for being proposed for legislation. A policy often starts with a public problem that has been pressed by the public and/or groups for formal adoption. The issues are brought forward, solutions discussed and if found feasible, then may pushed forward to be adopted by legislatures (Pawson & Wong, 2013). For instance, states have speed limits to reduce the number of accidents on the road ways. In a given area, if there are higher than average deaths, there may be a push to reduce the speed limit on that stretch of road. I commute about an hour and a half each day to work and am often thankful to police officers who enforce the speed limit. Without these policies in effect...
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...article I found was in the International Journal of Advertising titled, On the Need for Advertising and Public Policy Research by Charles R. Taylor. Charles Taylor is a Professor of Marketing at Villanova University in Villanova, Philadelphia. Charles Taylor’s main point and concern in this article is the need for Advertising scholars to perform impartial research in the public policy area. Taylor begins his editorial with examples of advertising regulation and affects of advertising on society with the topic of the obesity epidemic and advertising’s role in it. Taylor’s first reference is from an article written in The Australian which states, “Restricting television advertisements for junk food aimed at children would be one of the most cost-effective public health measures governments could make, yielding huge savings from preventing fat kids turning into sickly adults.” Another article that supports this claim is referenced is in the Journal of Obesity by authors who are on the Faculty of Health, Medicine, Nursing and Behavioral Sciences at Deakin University. A study done by Anne Magnus and Michelle Haby show that a range of “21 to 57% of all childhood obesity is being caused by junk food advertising in the U.S.” (Taylor, 601). Taylor then gets to his main point and states how all of these articles may be produced by intelligent doctors, researchers for the public health and so forth, but not one of these articles and/or estimates produced were from a “doctor-ally trained...
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...Leadership in Public Policy Making Dawn Miller PPA 601 Foundation of Public Administration Dr. Shavonnie Carthens September 15, 2014 Leadership in Public Policy Making Leadership is a significant role in any organization or agency that determines the conduct of actions as well as the course of action inside of the organization or agency. Leaders help develop clear visions, work multiple constituencies, know as well as understand social and ethical values, create vibrant networks, improves performance, and maintains values (Cropf, 2008, pg. 233). There are different levels of leadership abilities this depends on what each person wants to achieve and what the organization is requiring. The top leadership level is an executive level, the leaders at this level need to be practical, have personal skills as well as political skills. Leaders need to know that it is not only political factors that have a part in decisions or policy making but there are environmental issues too. Public policies that are successful usually have had a leader(s) that have developed, promoted, and executed some sort of public policy. Being able complete this accomplishment the leader(s) have learned or developed certain leadership traits. Traits that are important for a public policy are creativity, enthusiastic, follow through, responsibility, and persuasiveness. Characteristics that are different from a leader and a follower, intellectual, and endurance. Leadership traits are beneficial...
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...Kane Gibson BTEC level 3 Extended Diploma in Public Services (Uniforms) Unit 1 Government, Policies and the Public Service 14 January 2016 The impact of UK Government Policies on the Public Services Human rights Each UK citizen has certain rights, these include the rights to: Life, Prohibition of torture, Prohibition of slavery and forced labour, Liberty and security, A fair trial, No punishment without law, Respect for private and family life, Freedom of thought, conscience and religion, Freedom of expression, Freedom of assembly and association, Marry, Prohibition of discrimination, Protection of property, Education, Free elections, and Abolition of the death penalty. Environmental Air quality plan for reducing nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in Greater London urban area listing (UK0001) The Air quality plan is setting out what the government will be doing about improving the air quality in London as well as reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions. Another is “River Thames: application for registration of a launch” The government are setting out a registration for a powered boat to be in the river thames. The boats that are not included are Kayaks, canoes, and other non powered boats. The reason for this is to attempt reduction in emissions and other toxic wastes. All boats kept, rented, or let for hire must be registered with the Environment Agency (Inland Waterways) Order 2010 annually to calculate the amount of emissions entering the water. Affecting the military...
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