Analyzing Policy: The Role of Theory, Evidence, and Stakeholder Power

This report provides an analytical overview of policy, focusing on the nature of policy, the role of theory and evidence in its formation, and the influence of networks and stakeholders in the policy-making process. It examines the complexities involved in policy making, including ecological, social, and economic values, and discusses the roles of both official and unofficial policymakers. The report also explores the significance of policy transfer, distinguishing between soft and hard transfer policies. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of evidence-based policy, highlighting how theories like complexity and systematic theory contribute to effective policy formulation. Finally, the report analyzes how networks and stakeholders exert power in the policy formation process, considering the ethical dimensions and the need for stakeholder involvement to align policy recommendations with community values. Desklib offers a platform for students to access this and other solved assignments and past papers.

Analytical Overview of Policy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAINBODY ..................................................................................................................................1
1. The nature of the policy .....................................................................................................1
2. Role of theory and evidence in policy formation...............................................................2
3. How do networks and stakeholders exert power in the policy formation process?...........3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Policy is considered as a course or principle of action which are adopted or proposed by
an individual or an organisation. This also refers as a deliberate system of principles to assist
decision and attain potential results. A policy is a statement of intent and this is created as a
protocol or procedure (Davies,2012). Policies are majorly adopted by the higher authority of the
firm in respect to maintaining the appropriateness of organisational operations. This report
contents the study about the nature of policy, the complexities involved in the concept of policy
making, the role of theory and evidence in the policy formation and the power of networks and
stakeholders in the process of policy formation (Layman and et. al., 2012).
MAINBODY
1. The nature of the policy
Policy is defined through various ways, involving as a statement of government intent.
The nature of the policy is “The Limits to Evidence‐Based Policy: Evidence, Emotion and
Criminal Justice”. As per the opinion of Freiberg & Carson (2010), The evidence based or
rationalist approaches to criminal policy may request to expert, bureaucrats and a number of
academics, they often fail to compete successfully with the affective approaches to law and order
policies which resonate with the public and which appear to meet deep‐seated psychological
needs and requirements (The Limits to Evidence‐Based Policy: Evidence, Emotion and Criminal
Justice*, 2010). They also often fail to analyse that ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ are connected concepts
and that debates about criminal justice are played out in broader arenas than the academy, the
bureau or the agency. Policy making is effective for an individual or group to follow the
government norms and regulations (Claessens, 2014). Michael James Hill clearly identifies the
importance of relationship and practical aspects of policy-making along wit the overview of the
people and organisation engaged in the process.
Complexities in policy making
There are lots of complexities that policy makers need to deal with them in order to attain
desired objectives. Such complexities are clearly defined by Stone (2012). According to him, the
complexities are related with three values which includes ecological, social and economic. In
context with ecological, the policy made for companies to share its some part of profits or the
development of environment. In the context with social, the policy is made for the development
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of society whose actions decide the growth of country. In the context with economic, the policy is
made for people to contribute minimum part of their income to develop economy of country. It
also identified through an observation that the human behaviour often affects each of these values
simultaneously. Another complexities occurred due to having lack of knowledge that exist in the
policy main of sustainable development and structural uncertainties in this area. The third
complexities is related is the need to operate in a multi-actor policy context. The resources
involved in making policy such as money, information, support etc. the crucial actors in the
policy-making process into two, namely: official and unofficial policymakers. The two categories
of participants are involved in one way or the other in the policy process, and they are crucial and
influential in the sub-processes of policy initiation, choices, formulation, implementation and
evaluation. Unofficial Policymakers Unofficial policymakers do not occupy formal public
positions or political offices. They are not in government but they derive their relevance and
policy-making roles from government and the official policy makers. Mainly, they harness their
interests and demands, harmonise them and influence official policymakers to factor them into
the policymaking process. Official Policymakers: It refers to the official policymakers are those
who possess legal authority to engage in the formulation of public policy. Those involved in this
category are the legislators, the executive, the administrators and the judiciary. Each of them
performs policy-making responsibilities in a different way from the others. These are tends to be
spread over actors other than government. Some of these actors are found within the state
apparatus, due to typical organisation of public governance into distinct policy domains. Other
important factors are found in other domains of society. Providing the state's dependency on
these actors, government authority need to communicate with them and involved them in the
processes of policy development, implementation and evaluation. Yet the actors from different
area typically understand a given problem differently. Policy makers thus faces difficulties and
challenges in order to identify balance between policy alternatives which are more satisfactory in
both terms of problem-solving and that can count on sufficient support from stakeholders
(Aubinet, Vesala and Papale, 2012). There are some aspects which are useful to make an
effective policy such as policy transfer, hard transfer, soft transfer etc. Contemporary policy
making is deeply influenced by the borrowing, transfer and diffusion of ideas and models from
other countries, levels of government and supranational institutions. ‘Policy transfer’ describes
the transfer of policy solutions or ideas from one place to another, such as by one government
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importing the policy in another country. It is also known as diffusion policy. In Soft transfer
policy, the policy taker can easily transfer its policy to another person after following minimum
rules and regulations whereas in hard transfer policy, it is much difficult for an individual to
transfer its policy to another individual. According to the John Kingdom (2011), the political
system of country affects the policymaking due to which it is important to evaluate the system of
government constrains the making of public policy. In addition with this, it is required to
investigate the major actors involved in policy both inside and outside government and consider
theories or models which provides sufficient support to describe the relationship among these
actors. Therefore. All such complexities restricted policy maker to make an effective policy due
to which it is essential to consider such challenges and prepare policy accordingly so as to
eliminate any negative outcomes.
2. Role of theory and evidence in policy formation
Policy formation is a process of creating policies for a business organisation or for
government in order to improve the quality of life for its citizens, Government are made public
policies which are enacted to regulate industry and business in order to protect citizens at home
and abroad, to aid state and city governments and people such as poor through funding programs,
and to encourage social goals. It is developed for better future planning. Policies are created to
ensure smooth functioning of operations. In this process of policy formulation, theory and
evidence plays a significant role.
Theories are the overall framework and guidelines which helps in developing policies
which includes plans and procedures of business operations. There are various types of theories
which can be used such as complexity theory and systematic theory. Theory of complexity has a
great contribution towards effective policy formulation as it helps in classifying activities or
operations according to their implied effect on organisation. This theory functions to simplify the
complexities of a business by segregating every decision, activity and personnel into various
parts. Another theory of policy formulation is Systematic in which manager of an organisation
systematically classifies operations of a business entity in order to emerge the local interaction
between policymakers and policy followers. These theories helps in provide a certain blueprint so
that all the employees has a clear view of activities that what they have to do and to whom they
are answerable for their responsibilities (Pollack, 2015).
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According to the Hill(2013), Evidence is the most important aspect of policy formulation
as it provides a reliable rational against the policy. Evidence can be referred as a set of reasons
due to which key factors of policies are determined. For example, if in an organisation manager
has developed a policy for their growth to increase the prices of their manufactured goods then
they have to provide a evidence that how this policy will help in attainment of organisational
objective. These evidences plays an important role in policy formulation as they provide certain
rationale behind the policies which are created. According to Freiberg and Carson identify that
evidence- based policy is the most common model of policy, but incorrectly assumes a direct
relationship between policy and evidence. They also argue that it constitutes emotion/affect as a
barrier to good policy, rather than a fundamental aspect of it. And Weiss argues that even though
'evidence' is seen commonly viewed as 'objective', it is actually imbued with value thus never
apolitical because it is produced by researchers with their own cultural, social, disciplinary, etc.
values.In an organisation, typically managers are the employees which are held responsible for
policy creation and they have to give a specific reason behind their policies.
Both evidences and theories helps an organisation to develop effective policies. These
factors are widely considered while formulating and implementing a policy. These aspects are
considered as they root of policy formulation as they ensure that organisation is going in right
direction with the help of policies (Howlett, Wellstead and Craft, 2017).
3. How do networks and stakeholders exert power in the policy formation process?
Policy formation and decision making in a network is an analysis of effective strategies
and the plans for better understanding of relevant principles and the policies. It plays vital role in
decision making and strategies planning. According to the Callahan and Jennings (2012), he field
of many years focused in general on the dilemmas generated by high technology medicine rather
than on issues of population health and the ethical problems of public health programs and
regulations. In order to integrate the ethical problems related with public health into the field of
public health and also into the field of bioethics, the time should be allotted. Public health
increase the number of moral issues that extend beyond the earlier boundaries of bioethics and
require their won form of ethical analysis. The key thought is that, in a procedure of
collaboration, experts and partners touch base at regular perspectives about the method for
dissecting and about the discoveries. Stakeholders includes a person, group, or organisation
which play a major role in making an effective policy. Stakeholders contributes to inputs in
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policy formulation and should be given an ample time, efficient and effective ways to evaluate
the policy. It increases the effectiveness level of policy through giving them proper suitable
advices which can influences the behaviour and interest of policy taker. Stakeholders input may
also help articulate the values of the broader community affected and align policy
recommendations with these expectations. The process contains the practical evaluation control
and management of accounting policies and the management tactics are considered in this
stakeholders exert power. In the best case, they will achieve finish agreement. Rather, there
might be accord about various discoveries and dispute about different discoveries. The type and
extent of key stakeholder involvement in policy development may depend on a number of
factors, including the specific context of the policy development (e.g., large biobank, small state
genomics program); the purpose of the engagement; available resources; and the power-sharing
structure of the groups involved. Therefore the engagement methods used will likely vary.
Several different models describe a type of continuum, or different levels, of stakeholder
involvement in decision making. The idea is to establish which stakeholders have the most
influence by estimating each stakeholder;s individual power over and interest in the
organisation's affairs. The stakeholders with the highest combination of power and interest are
like;y to be those with the most actual influence over objectives. Power is the stakeholders ability
to influence objectives while interest is the stakeholders willingness. In the basic leadership
process, the discoveries about which agreement is come to will be more order for the choice to be
made than those about which there is contradict (Staš and et. al., 2014) .
Negotiable knowledge: The findings mainly associated with defining the grandness
committed with proper appropriation, management and control of defining the assumptions used
in policy formation. Stakeholders perspectives assist users to form the policies viable and flexible
to them. It is considered subject to defining the meaning and cooperation subject to determining
the plans and the analysing the facts in more effective and better manner. Another observation
associated with analysing the strategies and plans for appropriate accounting formation. An
expansive number of choices is taken amid the process: about the information, the framework
limits, the conclusion drawn from the break reports, thus on. An imperative inquiry for the
partners concerns the idea of the pledge to these decisions. Such a responsibility may be
exceptionally debilitating for partners (Aurenhammer, 2012). Therefore, it is important to
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negotiate the information about the information related with policies so that the involved parties
are much are about the terms and conditions before engaged in policy formation.
There are type of views and aspects occurs in terms of managing the stakeholders interest
which affect the process of policy formation. There are four major design principles are made in
terms of making adequate policy structure. The stakeholders participating in making the research
transparent, tolerating redundancy in the research, parties a repetitive opportunities of advancing
their own interest and proper sense of urgency are considered in this context. All things
considered, they don't recognize what impact the decision of an informational index will have on
the discoveries. Neither do they know the results of the summation of the different choices for the
outcome. This is the reason there is a third govern of the amusement, saying that partners can put
off their promise to a choice (Role of theories in policy formulation, 2015).
CONCLUSION
From the above given report it has been concluded that the policy formation is considered
as the most essential element which plays vast role in providing an appropriate direction to the
people to follow the government rules and regulations. There are various complexities occurred
in formation of policy due to which it is essential for policy maker to consider such in order to
implement them more successfully. Policy may provide rise to legislation if it required to be
declared or enforceable or, on rare occasions, if its presentation as legislation has significance.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aubinet, M., Vesala, T. and Papale, D. eds., 2012. Eddy covariance: a practical guide to
measurement and data analysis. Springer Science & Business Media.
Aurenhammer, P., 2012. Development cooperation policy in forestry from an analytical
perspective (Vol. 13). Springer Science & Business Media.
Claessens, S., 2014. An overview of macroprudential policy tools (No. 14-214). International
Monetary Fund.
Howlett, M., Wellstead, A. and Craft, J. eds., 2017. Policy work in Canada: Professional
practices and analytical capacities. University of Toronto Press.
Davies, P., 2012. The state of evidence-based policy evaluation and its role in policy
formation. National Institute Economic Review. 219(1). pp.R41-R52.
Pollack, M. A., 2015. Policy-making in the European Union. Oxford University Press, USA.
Staš, M., and et. al., 2014. Overview of analytical methods used for chemical characterization of
pyrolysis bio-oil. Energy & Fuels. 28(1). pp.385-402.
Online
Role of theories in policy formulation. 2015. [Online] Available through:
<https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/key-theories-in-policymaking-how-to-
explain-what-is-going-on-in-scotland/>
The Limits to Evidence‐Based Policy: Evidence, Emotion and Criminal Justice*. 2010 [Online]
<https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/key-theories-in-policymaking-how-to-
explain-what-is-going-on-in-scotland/>
>
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