Policy Flow Analysis: A Conceptual Model for Comparative Public Policy Research

Abstract

EXPANDING interest in policy making parallels a crisis in the institutions of democracy. Policy making is fundamental to government for committing resources and defining the priorities guiding governmental action. In industrial and developing societies, where increasing complexity, rapid change and continuous tension are concomitants of existence, traditional administrative agencies, rooted in nineteenth-century experience, are placed under ever increasing stress as they adapt to the altered environment which they now serve. Concern for policy making signals a reawakened sensitivity to the importance of value choices. It is value choice, implicit and explicit, which orders the priorities of government and determines the commitment of resources within the public jurisdiction. The proposed model focuses on the changed role of the executive, legislative and judicial participants in the policy process, with a view to explicating the relationship of values to public policy. To this end, the model identifies actors, groups and agencies and suggests the critical interactive processes that blend power and value in determining policy choices. The model is applicable to the dynamics of the policy-making process in at least the ministerial and presidential systems of western industrialized countries and may have potential use in other jurisdictions as well.

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