Essential of a Good Public Policy

Disciplined Application of Intellect to Public Problems

Leslie Pal defined public policy as "a course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities in addressing given problems or a set of interrelated problems (2010)." In essence, this implies that policies are instrumental in tackling issues of concern to the political community. Rationalists argued the importance of policy analysis as having enough data and analysis hopes to solve problems in technical terms, without having to contaminate values. In public policy, the most important overarching value is the interest of public and is a benchmark or touchstone demonstrating what is done by democratic governments. For example, the Public Service has Values and Ethics Codes and under the law, the "democratic mission is to assist Ministers serve the interests of their public." The political system analyzes policies with an attempt to gain consensus, competition, the rule of law, inclusion, and gain good governance. Therefore, political or government institutions look at policy analysis as a directional tool for delivering their objectives to their populations (Pal 2010).

Taxation is a field of policy that generates income for the government. It discourages and encourages some behaviors as an instrument: lower business taxes, for instance, encourages investment and higher "sin" taxes on drinking and alcohol discourage smoking and drinking. Both these scenarios are technical considerations, but it should be remembered that overly high tax levels result in tax evasion, which lowers company yields. Leslie Pal also defines policy analysis as the disciplined application of intellect to public problems. The process of policy analysis as like multidisciplinary inquiry is designed to assess, create, and communicate information useful in improving and understanding policies. Policy analysis is important because its interaction ensures that problems are solved through bargaining, experimentation, and exchange. In this case, the emphasis is on the central cognitive aspect. The health sector, for instance, uses policy analysis to help them reduce mortality rates in their organization and increase the productivity of their staff by improving work conditions (Pal 2010).

Policy analysis makes not only instrumental recommendations for policy-making; but may also analyze the values and argumentation systems underpinning political and social debate. Therefore, policy analysts seek to improve the quality of debate through identifying the limited or one-sided arguments nature or showing the existence of blind spots in debates. Policy analysis is a means to the end because it gives analysts the opportunities to advise their clients regarding the most effective strategies to apply in achieving certain goals in a given political constellation. Policy analysis makes it easier to understand policy by illustrating the argumentations and quality and therefore, individuals can schematically make judgments based on criteria like logic, justification, and richness. Argumentative policy analysis is used in producing recommendations and situation improvements for those parties who have been talking at cross-purpose for many years.