Politics' Inevitable Influence on the Policy Cycle: An Analysis

This essay examines the inevitable influence of politics on the policy cycle. It explores how political factors, including the self-interests of politicians and bureaucrats, impact each stage of policy making, from problem identification and agenda building to formulation, implementation, and evaluation. The essay discusses various factors such as unclear policy goals, political commitment, governance structures, institutional challenges, and donor dependence that can hinder effective policy implementation. It uses examples to illustrate how political considerations shape policy decisions and affect the quality of life for citizens, emphasizing the importance of understanding these dynamics in the context of both democratic and authoritarian regimes. The paper highlights the need for improved information bases and political commitment to enhance policy outcomes.

Politics Inevitably Influences
every part of the Policy Cycle.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Inevitably is the result or consequence of any activity or it is something which is
definitely going to happen. Political inevitably shows that today's politics has become inevitably
where the politicians are misusing their power and are playing the game of selfishness. When
someone gets power and he starts corrupting the all system(Hansen, 2013). Due to his actions the
policy stages gets affected because all the policies are framed by keeping self interest in scenario.
This all essay is about the influences of politics inevitably on policy cycle.
Main Body
Policy is the set of rules and principles which instruct and guide the organisation about
the certain guidelines which they have to follow. It is implemented as a procedure or protocol
and are adopted by generally by the senior governance body of the organisation. They can be
great help to the organisation bodies because they assist them in both subjective and objective
decision making. The policies which are made can be tested through analysing their nature and
the objective which is used(Rosenbaum, 2013). They are the part of the legislation and includes
Presidential orders , corporate privacy policies and parliamentary rules are some examples of
this. This can be well expanded as the political, managerial, financial and administrative
mechanism which are set to reach explicit goals.
There are lots of factors which influences the policy cycle and one of them is the politics.
The reason behind this is that the policy makers are the people who are sitting in the power. The
bureaucrats who frame the policy are under control of the politicians of the country. So whatever
the politicians will say they have to obey it and make certain changes in the policy. They will try
to shape those policies in favour of them because their personal interests are attached to it.
Lord Action who was one of the historian and politician gave a quote that “Power tends
to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The meaning of this phrase states that when a
individual gains power over other people they try to force them to do whatever he wants. He later
uses shortcut ways to gain more wealth and power(Cochran-Smith, Piazza, & Power, 2013) .
This way he becomes more greedy and the interest of the citizens of the country are over looked.
It is observed that normally this thing happen in the countries where rule of dictator is there. But
the scenario has changed and the democratic countries are also facing the same problem. The
government who are in majority wants to impose their ideology on the citizens of the nations by
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framing different policies. Whenever there are men, there is politics and it shows who gets what,
when or how. Politics is inevitable and they will be clash of interest in everything which
includes a lot of people. Policy is briefed as the actions taken by the government to resolve any
issue prevailing in the society. Overall with this the quality of life for the citizens can be
improved. On the federal level public policies are executed to control and regulate firms an
business(Gamble, 2010). There are lots stages which are involved in the policy making process
and these are highly influenced by the political inevitably. Whatever happens in the government
or policies the scenario of the policy can be changed by this. Following are some of the steps
involved in policy making process and how the political inevitable will impact them.
Identify the problem: The governing regime will look into the different matter of the country
and they will find look at the area which is troubling the most. They will try to know the issue
and will report it to the above authority. Priority will be given to the issues which are troubling
the people most and the government will also look at the things which will bring benefits to
them.
Agenda Building: The problem which has been identified will be called as attention of the
government. This is the way through the process by which the problem gain the public attention.
Governing body sets the agenda that what will be the issue and what approach will be used by
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them. In the basic simple language it can be analysed that those problems which are not resolve
by the common people the governing regime of that nation will take into the subject. They
should look at the areas where they can see scope of improvement and what regions will be
modified. In country like Australia illegal immigration is one of the main issue which needs to be
resolved. The local people are facing the problem because they are not getting employment
because the workers who belongs from different countries come to Australia for getting any kind
of job. They are increasing the labour turnover so this require a serious look in the matter so they
need to make certain changes so that the local people can get the priority. They have to plan a
policy which could reflect the interest of the citizens of the country. At the same time Visa
related policy should be tightened for the country's who does not have friendly relation with
Australia(Brownell and et. al., 2010). There should be exchange programs between the countries
who shares a friendly bond with them. All the trade roots and sea ports should be checked
properly because these are the areas from which cases of illegal immigrates are more in number.
On the other hand they also have the issue of crime and it is increasing every month. They have
to put some sort of restrictions and set the agenda of zero percent tolerance. Every crime has to
be taken on serious note and certain policies including laws has to be formed to make citizens
free from any crime. They should be provided with an environment where all the people can live
in harmony and any area where the changes of any illegal activity is there should be reported to
the police security. They can organise different awareness campaigns, seminars and the
workshops to make sure that citizens are aware about the basic safety techniques which they can
adopt while they are in any danger. The flooding of a town near a river raises the question of
whether houses should be allowed to be built in a floodplain. There should also be new laws on
fighting the terrorism activities.
Formulation and Adoption: This is a way through which they decide what what approach has
to be used to resolve that issue or solve the problem. The opposition parties, courts and pressure
groups are involved in this. There might be chances that contradictory proposals can be made in
this. There might arise different situations where the President might have a opinion on a issue
but the opposition parties will have another policy for the immigration(Heijungs, Huppes &
Guinée, 2010). The policy formulation has a tangible outcome. In this before it goes to the
opposition party that bill goes to the a regulatory body who propose certain suggestions. The
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process gets continue after the acceptance and it is done when the policy is passed by the
opposition.
Implementation: Task of implementation of policy is done by a body other than bodies who has
formulated or adopted the policy. For example; Government of Australia has given some
mandate improved water quality standards, but the Environment Protection Authority (EPA)
gives information on those standards and the process for evaluating compliance through
regulations. It will be the different departments or the agencies of the government who will make
sure that policies are implemented in better way. Other than the government bodies the judiciary
of the nation also looks after the process of implementation(Demirgüç-Kunt & Servén, 2010).
They exercise power to intervene into the matter and try to can make certain required changes so
that interest of the government is made.
Evaluation and termination: It is one of the crucial step which involves inspection of the
policy. They make sure that does the policy is working well and what changes they have
experienced. This is not an easy activity and for that those individuals who are part of the
governing body whether inside and outside normally use cost benefit analysis. With this they can
know which is the best answer. For example; if Australian government is spending certain
amount of money for a specific policy sop they will look at the benefits that what they have got
from the expenditure.
Termination of the policy after implementation is quite a tough task and if it is terminated that
means it has clearly did not shown positive results and as acted as barrier for the growth. There
might be lots of policies which has been taken by the government because it has hampered their
image or shown negative consequences.
The policy process can be impacted by a lot of factors and they exists in the political
environment or it can be said that they are attached to the government in some or other way.
Unclear Policy Goals: There are some policies which are inefficient in learning from the past
experience. They desire for those targets which is ambitious and suddenly and does not complete
their desired results. The reason for this is that no reliable data is present for the education
planning in Australia. It is seen that the official document sometime has many issues which raise
the question of credibility(Goodwin, 2013). There are a big difference in the data of the
government and the data of the non government bodies. So a concerned has to be raised and they
should strengthen their information base so that policies can be improved.
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Political Commitment: There are many problems related to the politics and politicians which
hampers the implementation of the policy. It is observed that the success of the implementation
of the policy depends on the support of bureaucrats and the political leadership. Reform
programs made by the government has seen the failure because their was absence of political
commitment. Each government who comes in power has disconnected or terminated the policies
made by previous governing body.
Governance Structure: The issues of corruption among the politicians and civil servants is one
of major hurdle in the proper implementation of the policy. The reason behind this is that there is
lack of coordination behind between the political leaders and the officials in the government.
There is also the lack of corporation among the various governing bodies at local and national
level.
Institutional Challenges: With the internal conflicts related to the culture barrier existing in the
government as also hampered the rigidly of the policy and if has not become successful. The
people who were given the role of implementing the policy and promote it among the citizens
has failed in their attempt. They need to develop leadership, motivation, innovation, planning,
forecasting, coordination and etc., skills so that they can show flexibility in their work. It is
analysed that politics has been known as important issue to understand policy
management(Wolfe, Jones & Baumgartner, 2013).
Institutional Constraint: Those who is given the role of analysing the policy they face the
problem of institutional acceptance on policy results. Characteristics of institutional limit what
can or will be done. Any body who is given the command to do things in certain specific way fail
to innovate very often. They looks to integrate the new demands into the current pattern of the
policy.
Donors Dependence: There are some of the environmental elements which can impact the
implementation procedure. Economic, social and political conditions existing at certain time as
well as the nature of the public views that prevail in the implementation environment. These also
have the cultural aspect as well. Any influence of the donors can lead to the failure. Donors are
the people who exist in the external environment but is attached to the government in some or
other way.
Constraints of Politics: The operations or activities of political leaders constrain policy
evaluation. There are lots of useful ideas which are wasted because the political leaders who is
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representative the citizens oppose those ideas. After discussion of the ideas in the parliament
there is lack of agreement and they have to drop the idea of amendment. The people who has the
duty of analysing the policy suffers from such political constraints when certain policy issues are
evaluated.
Budgetary Constraint: This factors also put some influence on the policy analysis. It can be
observed that whatever is the capabilities of the government may not match to the expectations.
It does not matter whether the policy is accepted or rejected they should make sure that they have
resources to do them. There are very less chance chances that the leaders of the government and
the opposing party will might not allow to pass the budget which is required to complete that
task. Whatever the estimated cost is should be given for the policy(Geneau and et. al., 2010). If
the estimated amount or budget is not allocated the policy may fail to show its effect in future
and may lead to termination of the plan.
Values: Policy analysis is not value free because value judgement also influences how they
record or show that information. They should make sure that they follows the values and works
by keeping values and interest of the people in mind.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it has been concluded that policy are made by the government so
that they can improve the condition of their country but its the politics and politicians who
decided how things will be executed.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Rosenbaum, W. A. (2013). Environmental politics and policy. Cq Press.
Hansen, A. H. (2013). Fiscal policy & business cycles. Routledge.
Cochran-Smith, M., Piazza, P & Power, C. (2013, January). The politics of accountability:
Assessing teacher education in the United States. In The Educational Forum (Vol. 77.
No. 1. pp. 6-27). Taylor & Francis Group.
Gamble, A. (2010). The political consequences of the crash. Political Studies Review. 8(1). 3-14.
Brownell and et. al.; (2010). Personal responsibility and obesity: a constructive approach to a
controversial issue. Health Affairs. 29(3). 379-387.
Heijungs, R., Huppes, G & Guinée, J. B. (2010). Life cycle assessment and sustainability
analysis of products, materials and technologies. Toward a scientific framework for
sustainability life cycle analysis. Polymer degradation and stability. 95(3). 422-428.
Demirgüç-Kunt, A & Servén, L. (2010). Are all the sacred cows dead? Implications of the
financial crisis for macro-and financial policies. The World Bank Research
Observer. 25(1). 91-124.
Goodwin, M. (2013). Regions, territories and relationality: exploring the regional dimensions of
political practice. Regional Studies. 47(8). 1181-1190.
Wolfe, M., Jones, B. D & Baumgartner, F. R. (2013). A failure to communicate: Agenda setting
in media and policy studies. Political Communication. 30(2). 175-192.
Geneau, R and et. al., (2010). Raising the priority of preventing chronic diseases: a political
process. The Lancet. 376(9753). 1689-1698.
Online
What is public policy making process?. 2017. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.quora.com/What-is-public-policy-making-process>. [Accesses On 23rd
August 2017].
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