What is Public Policy? - Peters Ch. 1

Our readings for this week are meant to set the stage for the rest of our class. For most of the subsequent weeks will be discussing a policy area - like healthcare policy or immigration policy - but first we need to understand what we mean when we use the term public policy and how the American context affects our policy choices and decisions.

In this first chapter, Peters tackles these two primary questions "How do we define public policy?" and "What policy tools does government have at its disposal?" In reference to the first question, Peters defines public policy as "the sum of government activities, whether pursued directly or through agents, as those activities have an influence on the lives of citizens" (p. 4). This is certainly not the only way to define public policy, but lets pull apart this definition a bit.

• The sum of government activities: Peters define public policy as the totality of government action. This definition is broad in the sense that it includes implementation, all levels of government, and action on a variety of substantive issues.  It can be interpreted as somewhat narrow by today's standards, however, as many have sought to redefine what it means to be public versus private. Many scholars want to extend the definition to activities taken by corporations or NGOs working on their own behest. We can draw from history for an example. At the turn of the 20th century many workers were living in company towns where healthcare, housing, schools etc. were provided by the company. In Peters' definition this would not be considered public policy even though the services provided by the companies are very similar to what government provides today.
• Pursued directly or through other agents: Peters broadens his definition back out here. He allows for businesses and non-profits to be public policy actors if they working on behalf of the state. "Contracting out" to for-profit or non-profit organizations has become an increasingly popular strategy for delivering government services so this is an important part of the definition.
• As those activities have an influence on the lives of citizens: Peters restricts his definition once again to those activities that affect the citizenry. I think that this is unintentionally narrow. We have foreign policies, trade policies, and immigration policies that directly affect individuals who are not citizens. As a world leader, American public policies also affect non-citizens indirectly. Further, our policies have an effect on the animal and natural world. I doubt that Peters would argue that foreign policies are not public policies so I think the use of citizen here is just poor word choice.

Hopefully, you came into this class with at some ideas about what public policy might be. How did your definition differ from Peters? Do you think his definition is too broad, just right, or too narrow?

Welcome to Contemporary Policy Challenges Fall 2011

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great summer and you are ready to get back into the swing of things. If you are reading this post, you are either someone who really loves public policy or (more likely) a student in my online section of PAF 340 for the Fall semester of 2011. This class is an intermediate undergraduate class that will guide you through some of today's theoretical, critical, and applied issues in public policy. My hope is that you have come into this class with some knowledge of current events and an interest in learning more about how policy decisions are made. For each week, you'll have a theoretical chapter on the policy process or policy theory and a chapter on a substantive policy issue. You will also be assigned optional documentaries and podcasts to help you understand the readings better. I will be blogging at least twice a week, and you can ask me questions here. It's a big class so we have two TA's who are also doctoral students in the School of Public Affairs who may be weighing in from time to time, Matt Heil and Mark Martz.

My hope is that by the end of the course you will have a better idea of how policy is made in the American political context. I also hope that you will understand the complexity of public policy issues and emerge a public policy skeptic whenever you hear that a problem is simple and a solution obvious. I hope that you enjoy the multimedia components of this class and the use of blackboard, twitter, and this blog. I look forward to getting to know you better as the semester progresses.