Concept of Public Policy

Public policy refers to the deliberate course of action (or inaction) adopted by a government or its authorised agencies to address public problems and achieve societal goals. It is what government chooses to do, why it does it, and how it does it. Thomas Dye's classic definition — "public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do" — captures its authoritative and purposive character. James Anderson defines it as "a purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern."

Key Features

1. Authoritative action — made by those with legitimate power (legislature, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy).
2. Purposive and goal-oriented — directed at solving problems or realising objectives.
3. Course of action, not a single decision — a pattern of decisions over time.
4. Dynamic and contextual — shaped by political, economic, social and cultural environment.
5. Includes inaction — deliberate refusal to act is also policy.
6. Public in orientation — concerns collective, not merely private, interests.

Types of Public Policy

• Substantive vs. procedural — what is done vs. how it is done.
• Distributive — allocation of services/benefits (e.g., subsidies).
• Regulatory — control of behaviour (e.g., traffic rules, licensing).
• Redistributive — shifting resources between groups (e.g., progressive taxation, land reform).
• Constituent — structuring government itself (e.g., constitutional amendments).

Policy Process (Stages Model)

Agenda setting → policy formulation → adoption/legitimation → implementation → monitoring and evaluation → feedback (continuation, modification or termination).

Limitations of Public Policy

1. Problem of definition and scope. The boundary between "public" and "private" is blurred. Many issues (family, market, religion) are treated as private yet have public consequences, making policy coverage ambiguous.

2. Agenda exclusion and power bias. Not all problems reach the agenda. Powerful elites, dominant parties and vested interests keep inconvenient issues off the table (Schattschneider: "the scope of conflict" is manipulated). Marginalised groups' concerns are often ignored.

3. Information and knowledge constraints. Policymakers face incomplete data, uncertainty, poor forecasting and weak research capacity. Policies are often based on assumptions rather than evidence.

4. Resource limitations. Financial, human and institutional resources are scarce, especially in developing countries like Nepal. Even well-designed policies fail for want of funds and capable staff.

5. Implementation gap. There is a wide gap between formulation and execution due to bureaucratic inertia, corruption, weak coordination, unclear roles, political instability and lack of accountability. Top-down policies often ignore local realities.

6. Political and value conflicts. Pluralist politics means competing values (equity vs. efficiency, growth vs. environment). Compromise often produces vague, watered-down or contradictory policies.

7. Time-lag and rigidity. Policies designed for yesterday's problems may be irrelevant today. Bureaucratic rules and legal rigidity make timely revision difficult.

8. Unintended consequences. Policies may produce side effects — e.g., subsidies causing market distortion, or welfare schemes creating dependency — which are hard to anticipate.

9. Measurement and evaluation difficulties. Outcomes are influenced by many factors; isolating a policy's real impact is methodologically difficult. Evaluation is often politicised or absent.

10. External constraints. Globalization, donor conditionalities, international agreements and geopolitical pressures limit national policy autonomy, particularly for small states like Nepal.

Conclusion

Public policy is the authoritative instrument through which the state translates intent into action for public welfare. However, its effectiveness is constrained by definitional ambiguity, power asymmetries, resource and information limits, implementation failures, political conflict and external pressures. Sound policy therefore requires inclusive agenda setting, evidence-based formulation, capable implementation machinery, and continuous monitoring and evaluation.

Elite Theory and Its Implications in Policy Making

1. The Concept of Elite Theory

Elite theory is a perspective in political science and public policy that holds that every society is divided into two broad groups: the few who hold power (the elite) and the many who are ruled (the masses). It rejects the classical democratic assumption that public policy reflects the "will of the people" and argues instead that policy is largely shaped by a small, organised, and resource-rich minority.

The theory developed through three main traditions:

• Classical elitism — Vilfredo Pareto ("circulation of elites"), Gaetano Mosca ("the ruling class"), and Robert Michels ("iron law of oligarchy").
• Democratic elitism — Joseph Schumpeter and later Robert Dahl, who saw elites as competing in elections, making democracy a method of choosing leaders rather than a system of popular rule.
• Modern elite theory — C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite, 1956), who argued that corporate, military and political elites in the USA are interlocked and dominate national decisions; and Floyd Hunter, who studied community power structures.

2. Core Assumptions

1. Power is unequally distributed in all societies, including democracies.
2. The elite is a minority, but it is organised, cohesive and conscious of its interests, whereas the masses are large, unorganised and apathetic.
3. Elites possess strategic resources — wealth, knowledge, status, institutional position, and control over information.
4. Public policy reflects the values and interests of the elite, not the demands of the majority.
5. Elites are not closed permanently; there is a circulation of elites (Pareto), but the structure of domination persists.

3. Implications in the Policy Making Process

(a) Agenda setting is elite-controlled. The issues that reach the policy agenda are those the elite consider important. Issues threatening elite interests are kept out — the "non-decision making" or "mobilisation of bias" (Bachrach and Baratz, Schattschneider).

(b) Policy formulation serves elite interests. Budget allocations, tax policy, trade policy and regulatory decisions tend to favour business houses, large landowners and organised interest groups rather than the poor majority.

(c) Bureaucracy and technocracy reinforce elitism. Senior civil servants, planners and experts form a policy elite whose technical knowledge and control of information give them decisive influence over policy options.

(d) Democracy becomes procedural, not substantive. Elections allow elite competition and change of faces, but the fundamental policy direction — economic system, foreign policy, resource distribution — remains largely unchanged. This is the "democratic elitism" critique of Schumpeter and Dahl's polyarchy.

(e) Interest groups and lobbying. Well-funded groups (chambers of commerce, industry federations) have far greater access to policy makers than weak, dispersed groups such as informal workers or marginal farmers.

(f) Iron law of oligarchy in organisations. Even trade unions, cooperatives and NGOs — formed to represent the masses — tend to develop their own leadership elites who negotiate policy on behalf of, and sometimes against, their members.

4. Critical Examination

Strengths:

• Realistically explains why policy often diverges from majority needs despite formal democracy.
• Highlights the role of power, resources and informal influence, which pluralist theory underestimates.
• Useful for analysing developing countries where state capture, patronage and oligarchy are common.

Weaknesses:

• Elitism is not monolithic. Mills' "power elite" is criticised for assuming too much unity; elites often compete and split (e.g., business vs. bureaucracy).
• Underestimates mass influence. Social movements, elections, media and protests do change policy — e.g., environmental and right-to-information movements.
• Pluralist critique. Dahl and others argue that in a polyarchy no single elite dominates all issues; different elites dominate different policy domains.
• Marxist critique. Marxists argue elite theory ignores the economic base — elites are merely agents of the capitalist class, not an independent group.
• Methodological problems. Identifying "who governs" is difficult; reputational and positional methods may overstate elite cohesion.
• Normative bias. It can become a self-fulfilling justification for authoritarianism or for excluding citizen participation.

5. Relevance to Nepal

In the Nepali context, elite theory helps explain:

• Dominance of a few political families and business houses in policy making.
• Elite capture of cooperatives, community forestry user groups and even NGOs.
• Policy continuity across governments despite changes in ruling parties.
• Weak implementation of pro-poor policies because they threaten elite interests.

6. Conclusion

Elite theory offers a powerful but partial explanation of the policy process. It correctly exposes the gap between democratic rhetoric and elite-dominated reality, and it highlights the strategic role of resources, organisation and information in shaping policy. However, it overstates elite unity and underestimates the countervailing power of elections, movements and pluralist competition. A balanced understanding treats elite theory as a complement to, not a replacement for, pluralist and Marxist approaches — recognising that policy making in most societies is a contested terrain where elites are dominant but not omnipotent.

Disjointed Incrementalism

Meaning

Disjointed incrementalism is a model of policy decision making developed by Charles E. Lindblom (1959, 1965) as a realistic description of how governments actually make policy. It is closely related to his idea of "muddling through" and is offered as an alternative to the rational-comprehensive model.

The model holds that policy is not made through a single, comprehensive, means-end analysis of all alternatives. Instead, it is made through:

• Small, successive increments from the existing policy base (the status quo), rather than large leaps.
• Mutual adjustment among many decision makers — parties, ministries, interest groups, legislators — who bargain and compromise rather than follow one central plan.
• Partisan mutual adjustment, where each actor pursues its own interest, and the public interest emerges as a by-product of this interaction.
• Successive comparison — decisions are compared only with the immediately available alternatives, not with all possible options.
• Fragmented decision making — power is dispersed among many centres, so no single actor controls the whole process.
• Remedial and incremental goals — policy aims to relieve present problems rather than achieve a grand future ideal.

The word "disjointed" refers to the fact that these small decisions are not coordinated from one centre; "incremental" refers to the small size of the changes made.

Value in Policy Decision Making

1. Practical and realistic. Real policy makers face limited time, information, money and analytical capacity. The rational-comprehensive model demands complete information and full comparison of all alternatives, which is impossible in practice. Incrementalism works within these limits.

2. Reduces risk and cost of error. Because changes are small, a wrong decision causes limited damage and can be corrected in the next round. Large, irreversible decisions carry far greater risk.

3. Builds consensus and political feasibility. Small steps allow bargaining, negotiation and compromise among actors with conflicting interests. This makes agreement easier and reduces political conflict.

4. Maintains stability and continuity. Policy does not swing sharply with every change of government. Existing programmes continue, which gives predictability to citizens, investors and administrators.

5. Allows learning by doing. Each increment provides feedback. Policy makers learn from experience and adjust the next step accordingly — a form of trial-and-error learning.

6. Suits plural and democratic systems. In a democracy with many parties and interest groups, partisan mutual adjustment is a natural and workable method of reaching decisions.

7. Avoids the danger of central planning. Since power is fragmented, no single group can impose a comprehensive plan on society, which protects against authoritarian overreach.

Limitations

• It is conservative — it favours the status quo and may block needed radical reform.
• It is not suitable for crisis or emergency situations, where large and quick decisions are required.
• It may lead to drift and incoherence, since decisions are disjointed and uncoordinated.
• It gives advantage to strong and organised groups, while weak and unorganised groups are left out.
• It offers no long-term vision or direction for policy.

Conclusion

Disjointed incrementalism is valuable as a descriptive model because it explains how policy is actually made in most democratic systems — through small steps, bargaining and mutual adjustment. As a prescriptive model, however, it is useful mainly in stable conditions and routine decisions. In crises, or where fundamental reform is needed, a more comprehensive and planned approach is required. Thus its value lies in being realistic, low-risk and politically workable, but it must be supplemented by broader planning when the situation demands.

Importance of Policy Study

Policy study (also called policy analysis) is the systematic examination of public policies — their formulation, content, implementation and outcomes. Its importance can be examined as follows:

1. Understanding the policy process: It explains how policies are initiated, formulated, adopted, implemented and evaluated, helping students and administrators understand the role of actors such as the legislature, bureaucracy, political parties, interest groups and citizens.

2. Rational decision-making: Policy study supplies evidence, data and analytical tools (cost–benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, impact assessment) that help decision-makers choose the most efficient and effective alternative instead of relying on intuition or political pressure.

3. Improving policy quality: By identifying gaps, inconsistencies and weaknesses in existing policies, it contributes to better design, revision and reform of public policies.

4. Effective implementation: It highlights the administrative, financial and institutional requirements for implementation, thereby reducing the gap between policy intent and actual results.

5. Accountability and transparency: Systematic study makes the basis of policy decisions open to scrutiny, which strengthens accountability of the government to the people and legislature.

6. Evaluation and learning: It assesses whether a policy achieved its stated objectives, why it succeeded or failed, and what lessons can be drawn for future policies — promoting institutional learning.

7. Anticipating future problems: Through forecasting and scenario analysis, policy study helps governments prepare for emerging issues such as climate change, migration, unemployment and technological change.

8. Promoting good governance: It supports equity, participation, rule of law and responsiveness — the core values of good governance — by making policies inclusive and need-based.

9. Academic and professional value: For students of public administration, policy study develops analytical, research and decision-making skills essential for careers in government, NGOs, international agencies and consulting.

Conclusion: Policy study is indispensable because it links knowledge with action. It enables the state to make informed, timely and people-oriented decisions, ensures the efficient use of scarce public resources, and strengthens democratic governance through evaluation and accountability.

Public goods vs private goods (TU MPA, Second Semester — 5 marks)

Goods are classified by two properties: rivalry (does one person's use reduce what is left for others?) and excludability (can non-payers be kept out?).

Private goods are both rival and excludable:

• If one person consumes a unit (a plate of rice, a shirt, a seat on a bus), that unit is no longer available to anyone else — consumption is rival.
• The owner can exclude non-payers through price and property rights; only those who pay get the good.
• Because benefits are fully captured by the buyer, markets supply them efficiently through the price mechanism.

Public goods are non-rival and non-excludable:

• Non-rivalry (indivisibility): one person's consumption does not reduce availability to others. If a citizen enjoys national defence or street lighting, others enjoy the same amount at no extra cost; the marginal cost of an additional user is zero.
• Non-excludability: once provided, no one can be prevented from enjoying it. A person cannot be excluded from breathing cleaner air or from the protection of an army.
• Examples: national defence, flood control, public parks, street lighting, lighthouses, disease-eradication programmes.

Why the difference matters:

1. Free-rider problem — since non-payers cannot be excluded, people consume without paying, so private firms cannot recover costs and markets under-supply or fail to supply public goods. Government provision, financed by taxes, is therefore needed.
2. Zero marginal cost — charging a price would be inefficient since extra users cost nothing; hence public goods are usually provided free at the point of use.
3. Pure vs mixed goods — few goods are purely public. Club goods (cable TV) are excludable but non-rival; common-pool resources (fishing grounds) are rival but non-excludable. Merit goods (education, health) are excludable and rival but are publicly subsidised for equity reasons.

In short, a private good is rival and excludable and can be sold in the market, while a public good is non-rival and non-excludable, suffers from free-riding, and hence requires collective or government provision.

Underlying Ideas of Two Communication Theories

1. Systems Theory of Communication

The underlying idea is that communication is a system — a set of interdependent parts (sender, message, channel, receiver, feedback) that work together as a whole. Key assumptions:

• Wholeness: The system is more than the sum of its parts; each element affects the others.
• Interdependence: A change in one part (e.g., a noisy channel) affects the entire communication process.
• Hierarchy and openness: Communication systems exist within larger systems (organisation, society) and exchange information with the environment.
• Feedback and homeostasis: Feedback allows the system to self-correct and maintain balance.
• Equifinality: The same goal can be reached through different paths.

In public administration, this view treats an organisation as a communication system where structure, channels and feedback determine effectiveness.

2. Symbolic Interaction Theory

The underlying idea is that people act toward things on the basis of the meanings those things have for them, and meanings arise through social interaction. Key assumptions:

• Meaning is central: Humans interpret symbols (words, gestures) rather than merely react to stimuli.
• Meaning is constructed socially: It emerges from interaction, not from the object itself.
• Interpretation is an active process: People modify meanings through a self-reflective "looking-glass self" and role-taking.
• Self and society are linked: Individual identity and social order are created and maintained through communication.

In administration, this explains how officials and citizens construct shared understanding, how organisational culture forms, and why the same message may be interpreted differently by different groups.

In a liberal democratic system, public opinion is the aggregate of the views, attitudes and preferences of citizens on public issues. Since liberal democracy rests on popular sovereignty, consent of the governed and accountability of rulers, it provides a range of institutional and extra-institutional mechanisms through which public opinion is expressed, transmitted and brought to bear on government. These mechanisms can be grouped as follows.

1. Elections. Elections are the most fundamental and periodic mechanism of expressing public opinion. Through universal adult franchise, citizens vote for candidates and parties, thereby approving or rejecting policies, programmes and performance of the government. Elections convert public opinion into representation and give the winning party a mandate to rule. Free, fair and periodic elections, as noted by Robert Dahl in Polyarchy, are a defining condition of liberal democracy.

2. Political parties. Political parties act as aggregators and articulators of public opinion. They channel diffuse public demands into coherent policy programmes, educate and mobilise citizens, and provide a link between the people and the government. Party manifestos, election campaigns, rallies and public meetings serve as vehicles for expressing mass opinion. In the legislature, the opposition party performs the role of expressing alternative public opinion and holding the government accountable.

3. Pressure and interest groups. Trade unions, business associations, professional bodies, farmers' organisations, student unions and NGOs articulate the specific interests and opinions of particular sections of society. They use lobbying, petitioning, bargaining, strikes and demonstrations to influence policy. A. F. Bentley and David Truman viewed politics itself as a process of group struggle, in which public opinion emerges from the interaction of organised interests.

4. Mass media. Newspapers, radio, television and now social media are the principal channels for expressing and shaping public opinion. They disseminate information, provide a forum for debate, report public grievances and act as a watchdog on government. The media is often called the "fourth estate" because of its role in reflecting and mobilising public opinion. In the modern digital age, social media platforms have widened the space for spontaneous expression of opinion.

5. Public meetings, demonstrations and strikes. Rallies, protest marches, sit-ins, bandhs, strikes and signature campaigns are direct and visible means of expressing public opinion, especially when institutional channels are seen as unresponsive. They are forms of peaceful assembly guaranteed as a fundamental right in liberal constitutions.

6. Petitions and referendums. Petitions allow citizens to formally place demands before the legislature or executive. Referendum, plebiscite and recall are devices of direct democracy through which the electorate directly accepts or rejects a specific policy, constitutional amendment or law, thereby expressing opinion in the most direct form. Switzerland and some states of the USA make extensive use of these devices.

7. Political parties' consultative and advisory bodies. Advisory committees, commissions of inquiry, planning bodies and consultative councils invite public opinion on specific issues. Public hearings and consultations before legislation are increasingly used to gather stakeholder opinion.

8. Opinion polls and surveys. Scientific sample surveys, opinion polls and referenda conducted by media houses, research organisations and academic institutions measure and publicise public opinion on issues, leaders and policies. Though not binding, they influence the agenda of government and parties.

9. Legislature and its committees. The parliament is the institutional forum where public opinion is debated and translated into law. Question hour, zero hour, motions, debates and parliamentary committees provide space for raising public grievances and opinions.

10. Decentralised and local bodies. Local governments, ward committees and gram sabhas in countries like India provide a grassroots mechanism through which local public opinion is expressed and transmitted upward.

Conclusion. In a liberal democratic system, public opinion is expressed through a combination of electoral, institutional, associational and direct mechanisms. Elections and parties provide the formal channel; media, interest groups and protests provide the informal channel; and referendums, petitions and opinion polls provide the direct channel. Together they ensure that the government remains responsive, accountable and legitimate, which is the essence of liberal democracy.

Bureaucratic Rationality

Bureaucratic rationality is the idea that a bureaucracy organises work through formal rules, defined hierarchies, written records, and impersonal standards rather than through personal ties or tradition. It is most closely associated with Max Weber, who treated it as the purest form of legal-rational authority and the most technically efficient way of administering large organisations.

Key features:

• Hierarchy of offices — authority flows downward through clearly ranked positions.
• Division of labour — tasks are split into specialised, routine functions.
• Formal rules and regulations — written, stable, and uniformly applied to all cases.
• Impersonality — officials act as officeholders, not as individuals; decisions follow rules, not personal likes or dislikes.
• Merit-based recruitment — appointment and promotion by qualification, examination, or seniority, not by kinship or favour.
• Written documentation — files and records preserve continuity and accountability.
• Career and salary — officials hold full-time paid posts with defined prospects.

Weber's argument: Because it is predictable, calculable, and efficient, bureaucratic rationality becomes indispensable to modern states and capitalist enterprises. It is "rational" in the sense of matching means to ends systematically, not in the sense of being humane or just.

Critical examination:

1. Goal displacement — Merton showed that strict adherence to rules can turn rules into ends in themselves, producing "trained incapacity" and rigidity.
2. Irrationality of rationality — Weber himself warned of the "iron cage": rational organisation can trap individuals in a dehumanising system.
3. Impersonality as evasion — officials may hide behind rules to avoid responsibility (the "banality of evil" argument of Arendt).
4. Red tape and delay — excessive formalisation slows decisions and breeds corruption.
5. Political bias — the claim of neutrality is questionable; bureaucracies serve dominant interests and resist democratic control.
6. Cultural limits — critics note that Weber's model reflects Western, legal-rational assumptions and fits poorly with developing societies where patronage and personal networks persist.

Conclusion: Bureaucratic rationality is a powerful analytical concept that explains the efficiency and predictability of modern administration, but it is double-edged — the same features that make it effective also generate rigidity, alienation, and resistance to change. It must therefore be balanced with flexibility, accountability, and democratic oversight.

Economic Constraints on Policy Making

Economic constraints are the limitations imposed by a country's resource base, fiscal capacity, and economic conditions that restrict the range of policies a government can adopt and implement. In developing economies like Nepal, these constraints are particularly binding. The major ones are explained below.

1. Limited financial resources (fiscal constraint). Public policy requires money. A country with a narrow tax base, low tax compliance, and a large informal economy cannot raise sufficient revenue. Nepal's tax revenue is around 20–22% of GDP, leaving little fiscal space. Governments must therefore choose between competing demands — health, education, infrastructure, defence — and cannot fund all of them.

2. Budget deficit and public debt burden. When expenditure exceeds revenue, the government borrows. High domestic borrowing crowds out private investment (raising interest rates), while external borrowing creates debt-servicing obligations and dependence on lenders. Debt servicing consumes a large share of the budget, reducing funds for development policy.

3. Balance of payments and foreign exchange constraint. A country that imports more than it exports faces pressure on foreign reserves. Nepal's large trade deficit limits its ability to import capital goods and essential commodities. Policies that require foreign exchange — such as large infrastructure imports — become difficult to sustain.

4. Inflation and macroeconomic instability. High inflation erodes purchasing power and hurts fixed-income groups. Expansionary fiscal or monetary policy may worsen inflation, forcing the government to adopt contractionary measures that slow growth. Thus inflation limits the freedom to stimulate the economy.

5. Low level of savings and investment. Low per capita income means low savings, which limits domestic capital formation. The government cannot rely on domestic savings to finance investment, and must depend on foreign aid and borrowing — which come with conditions.

6. Dependence on foreign aid and conditionalities. Aid-receiving countries often face policy conditions set by donors (IMF, World Bank) — liberalisation, privatisation, subsidy cuts. This reduces national sovereignty in policy making and may conflict with domestic political priorities.

7. Structural weaknesses of the economy. A narrow production base, dependence on a few commodities (e.g., remittances and agriculture in Nepal), poor infrastructure, and low productivity limit what policies can achieve. Remittance dependence, for instance, makes the economy vulnerable to external shocks.

8. Unemployment and poverty. High unemployment and poverty create political pressure for immediate relief measures, leaving little room for long-term structural reform. Policies must balance short-term welfare with long-term growth.

9. Resource scarcity. Limited land, capital, technology, and skilled manpower restrict the scope of industrial and developmental policy.

10. Global economic forces. Globalization, trade rules (WTO), and international financial markets constrain national policy. A small economy cannot easily deviate from global norms without risking capital flight or trade penalties.

Conclusion. Economic constraints narrow the policy space available to governments. Effective policy making therefore requires realistic assessment of resource availability, prudent fiscal management, and prioritisation of objectives. In Nepal, overcoming these constraints demands domestic resource mobilisation, export diversification, and prudent use of foreign aid.

Q1. What is the linkage between policy makers and policy receivers, and why is it vital?

Policy makers (legislature, ministers, bureaucracy, commissions such as the National Planning Commission) authoritatively decide; policy receivers (citizens, households, firms, communities, local governments) bear the results. The link runs both ways: demands and support flow upward from society, and decisions, services, taxes and rules flow downward. This link gives public policy its meaning (a policy matters only through what it does to people) and its power (the state can tax, regulate, compel or reward). When the link is weak, policies are poorly targeted and poorly complied with, as in many rural programmes that never reach the intended group.

Q2. "Society benefits or suffers because of government activity; sometimes both occur simultaneously." Discuss.

• Benefits: public goods (roads, schools, health posts), social protection such as Nepal's social security allowances, regulation that protects consumers, and macroeconomic stabilisation.
• Suffering: higher taxes and compliance costs, displacement caused by development projects, poorly designed or corrupt implementation.
• Both at once: a highway or hydropower project brings electricity and market access to many people but displaces some families. A ban on a polluting industry gives cleaner air but costs workers their jobs. As the passage says, the more controversial a policy, the more likely one segment gains at another's expense, so policy makers must weigh and compensate.

Q3. Why do some government decisions have greater impact than others?

The passage says the range of policy questions is so wide that impacts differ. The reasons are:

• Scope: how many people are affected (the national budget versus a local ward rule).
• Depth: how much it changes lives (land reform versus a minor licensing change).
• Resources: the money and power committed.
• Salience and controversy: how strongly groups mobilise.
• Irreversibility: constitutional or large investment decisions are hard to undo.
• Implementation capacity: a weak administration blunts even a well-designed policy.

Hence each policy question has its own unique impact on those "in its path".

Q4. Public policy defines prevailing values and solves prevailing problems.

Policy results from politics and government working together. It expresses society's values: a commitment to inclusion shows up in reservation and federalism policies, and a commitment to welfare in health and education policy. These values are made authoritative and binding through law and budget. Policy also addresses concrete problems (unemployment, poverty, disaster risk) through the policy cycle: agenda setting, formulation, adoption, implementation and evaluation. Values shape which problems are chosen and how they are solved, and the solutions in turn reinforce or change the values.