POLS 5001: Government Decision Making and Implementation Report

This report examines government decision-making and implementation, drawing on the works of Kettl and Shafritz & Hyde. It explores various decision-making approaches, including rational decision-making, public choice, bargaining, and participative decision-making, as well as the role of budgeting in the process. The report also discusses the limitations inherent in decision-making and the importance of risk mitigation. Furthermore, it delves into the concept of public administration, highlighting the functions of street-level bureaucrats, the interplay of managerial, political, and legal theories, and the significance of budgeting systems in resource allocation. The analysis emphasizes the importance of making informed decisions, proper budget allocation, and effective public administration to address the challenges faced by government institutions.

Reading Head: GOVERNMENT DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION 1
Government Decision making and Implementation
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Institutional Affiliation
Course
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GOVERNMENT DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION 2
Government decision making and Implementation
The week’s discussion was based on the formulation and implementation of decisions in
government. Based on the works of Kettl (2018) he gave a broader scope on the issue arguing
that the foundation of decision making is the availability of information and the interpretation of
the information by others. The author adds that values also are significant in decision making
because of the complexity of government settings. In his book, he highlights in chapter 10 the
various approaches adopted by governments in dealing with the complexity of decision making.
Through his works, the reader can grasp various approaches to decision making and the impact
of budgeting on government decision making.
First, he provides a rational decision making where it focuses on economics with the aim
of producing more output with minimum inputs. The approach requires a great deal of
information and depends much on values. Further, he brings out the concept of a public choice
approach which is centered on identifying an individual’s utility to depict given traits. Kettl
argues that understanding the objectives of the principals and agents helps the involved parties to
give forecasts on how the bureaucracies will shift (Kettl, 2017). Bargaining is another decision-
making theory where choices arise from a bargaining power of various processes by making and
correcting the deviations as they arise till perfection. Lastly is the participative decision making
that involves gathering views from different parties to come up with a binding decision about a
specific issue (Lapsley & Ríos, 2015).
The chapter also informs the reader that the decision-making process is prone to
limitations that influence the process of coming up with better decisions. Therefore, it is better to
set plans to mitigate risks as they arise in the course of the decision-making process.

GOVERNMENT DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION 3
Budgeting is also part of kettl’s discussion on making an informed decision in
government institutions. In chapter eleven, Kettl (2018), shows the reader that budgeting forms
the core of the governance process and supports many other fundamental factors. The section
informs the reader that budgeting forms the basis for evaluating the impacts of taxation and the
expenditure of the same in the economy. Further budgeting forms the basis of analyzing the
implications of the economy on the budget, the adoption of the budget in settling conflicts in the
various arms of the government (Marcelo et al , 2016).
The reader is informed on how the budget brings out the functions of the government in
the society by allocating resources to facilitate the execution of the projects. It can be argue that
budgeting defines public policy choices as well as executing them as the chapter furnishes us.
The section attempts to explain that the main issue in budgeting is to determine the best grounds
of assigning a certain amount of money on a given project than the other. Therefore, without the
budget, it is argued that the approaches discussed above will be futile since they require
resources to be implemented (Shafritz & Hyde, 2016). More precisely budget gives life to the
decisions made through the various approaches highlighted. The ideas of kettl on decision
making process provides the reader with a clear picture of how decisions can be formulated in
government institutions.
From the works of Shafritz and Hyde, (2016) Classics of Public Administration, we can
gain an understanding of the meaning of public management, the differences, and similarities of
private and public management. In page 402, there is an overview of the functions of the street
level workers who act as government agents in delivering to the society. The authors depict the
role of street bureaucrats in the community as the mediators between the government and the

GOVERNMENT DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION 4
citizens. The learner is also given the green light on how the street –level bureaucrats perform
crucial functions in controlling social conflicts (Hupe & Hill, 2015).
Moreover, the chapter provides the six key risks and the ways to eliminate them are the
mere reflection of the financial crisis taking place in the American community (Dahl, 2018). The
authors single out public finance as the core of the conflict on the future of the governance state.
It is the fact that an objective for public budgeting in times of instability and unforeseen risks has
to be made by the public role it performs.
We gain an insight of the three theories that give out the core issues of the public
administrative theory. The theories include; managerial, political and legal theories. The theories
intertwine thus collaborating to give public administration three different dimensions. Further,
the chapter provides the basis on which public governance can be enhanced by making use of
budgeting systems that instill effectiveness in the process of allocating resources. The insight
into how the review of both past and present performance indicators can be useful in improving
public administration.
The two writings we have looked at rotate on the theme of managing public resources
which start with the formulation of proper decisions. It must be made real through budget
allocation which entails the main question as to why some projects require more money than
others. In the second article Shafritz and Hyde provides the mode of public administration
highlighting the contemporary issue, public budgeting during uncertainty and other performance
measures. The significant aspect is that every government institution has its approach to making
decisions and public administration problems arise from managerial, political and legal aspects.

GOVERNMENT DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION 5
References
Dahl, R. A. (2018). The science of public administration: Three problems. In Democracy,
bureaucracy, and the study of administration (pp. 60–76). Routledge.
Hupe, P., & Hill, M. (2015). Understanding street-level bureaucracy. Policy Press.
Kettl, D. F. (2017). Politics of the administrative process. Cq Press.
Lapsley, I., & Ríos, A.-M. (2015). Making sense of government budgeting: an internal
transparency perspective. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 12(4),
377–394.
Marcelo Gordillo, D., Mandri-Perrott, X. C., House, R. S., & Schwartz, J. Z. (2016). Prioritizing
infrastructure investment: a framework for government decision making. The World
Bank.
Shafritz, J. M., & Hyde, A. C. (2016). Classics of public administration. Nelson Education.