Public Policy Process and Implementation Challenges-Sociology Sample

QUESTION

 

Assignment #1: Public Admin Purpose
Deliverable:
*Script Document
Word Count: 1000 8-10 references in apa form if asked in instructions
Assignment #2: Historical Poster
Deliverable:
*Poster in Word Document. Poster explaining history and development of public administration.
Word Count: 1000 8-10 references in apa form if asked in instructions
Assignment #3: Public Policy Process and Implementation Challenges
Deliverable:
*Narrated Slide Presentation on the American Public Policy Process – Includes speaker notes for each slide
Word Count: 750 or 15 slides 8-10 references in apa form if asked in instructions
ANSWER

ASSIGNMENT 1: PUBLIC ADMIN PURPOSE

Purpose of public administration

Public administration is a small part of the wider term “Administration”. Administration refers to management of different affairs related to people. Every human activity consists if some administration. Along with the growing issues of modern life the administration of public affairs as well as private affairs has become more complex. We All Belong Alliance (WABA) which is non-profit organization, dedicated to support disabled people through their work. So they have described the need of public administration to the people. Need of public administration lies with increasing complexity or modern life.

Intervention is a basic and important factor of state in day-to-day activities of its citizen. Evert aspects of citizen’s life comes into contact with some kind of government agencies. In ancient time need of citizens was less as they were hardly working in their villages itself and they got all the needed things from there as well. However, as per the views of Moynihan (2018, p.20), industrial and scientific revolution have changed this situation. The industrial products require a high amount of specialization which has changed living of the people. People have shifted to big cities in order to adopt the changes.

Different types of bureaucracies

Bureaucracy refers to a group of specific non-elected officials within government or other institutions. This group of people is responsible for implementing different rules, laws functions as well as ideas within the institution. According to Rasul & Roger (2015, p.458), this implementation has been done through a ‘system of administration marked by red tape, proliferation and officials’. A government administration should make out the decisions about the legislatures of a state which is a democratically elected representation. Public organizations have been set to fit into different types of bureaucracy.

Weberian bureaucracy has its origin within the works by Max Weber who is a notable German sociologist as well as administrative scholar and political economist whose contribution is significant in the study of bureaucracy. This bureaucracy described ideal types of government and public administration. Organized civil service of continental type called as Weberian civil services which are based on many aspects of modern public administration. As per the views of Kleinknecht (2016, p.1138), bureaucratization is the most rational and efficient way of organizing. It is the key part of rational legal authority.

Bureaucratic organizations structure

Most large and complex organizations in the business world and government are used to utilize a bureaucratic structure. As opined by Moynihan (2018, p.20), understanding of bureaucratic structure will help to determine different operational ways of government and large corporations. A bureaucratic structure of an organization has two main categories. First, the structure of the bureaucracy within an organization is hierarchical, which means the organization has clear and orderly levels of management.

In this hierarchy, lower level consists of subordinates. As per the views of Kleinknecht (2016, p.1138), subordinates are bound to answer or report to higher levels. Second category refers to set of objective laws by which organization is governed. Along with that second category consist of different procedures and rules as well which called as rational-legal authority. Employees, who are working in bureaucracy, give their obedience and work to the organization from which they are belonging to. Managers are responsible for exercise their authority through their formal or office position.

Different hierarchical structures of cabinet departments and independent agencies

Cabinet department is consisting of the most senior officers who are from executive branch of federal government of United States. They are heads of federal executive departments. Each of the cabinet department is designed with a similar structure of hierarchy. As stated by Waldo (2017, p.20), at the higher level of each department there is a secretary whose role is similar as the role of secretary of state and defense. After the secretarial position, there is a deputy secretary in each executive department.

Responsibility of a deputy secretary is to advise and assist the secretary. Along with the deputy secretary is also responsible to fill the office of secretary if it becomes vacant. After the level of deputy secretary, organization department varies. At the ground level each department has its own stuff. Departmental staffs are appointed by the internal supervisors. Duties and stuff qualifications are ranged widely according to departments. For example, national park service stuffs are under department of interior.

Independent agencies are operating as independent regulatory and service agencies in order to observe functionalities of government. The leaders of agencies tend to participate as members of boards as well a commission and councils. Independent executive agencies such as CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) help to gather intelligence as well as provide security assessments to policymakers in national level. This organization acts as a provider of primary human intelligence for the federal government.

Significance of accountability in the field of public administration

Accountability defined as actions and decisions taken by public officials which are subject to oversight and guarantee that government initiatives will meet their objectives. As opined by Rosenbloom (2018, p.25), Significance of accountability in the field of public administration is responsible for responding to the needs of community. Accountability is a significant measurement of good government. Accountability is important for evaluating the ongoing efficiency of officials who are appointed for taking care of public. Public bodies ensure that they are doing their job potentially. As per the views of Stritch et al. (2017, p.490), their work is for value for money in the provision of public services. By their work, the public officials are growing confidence in the public for government.

Elements of POSDCORB

POSDCORB refers to planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting. Moynihan (2018, p.21) stated that it is the activity of public administration which is applied in daily activities of this administration. This process is consisting of various steps and stages. These steps are involved in various administrative process of public administration.

  • Planning is the essential step for establishing a broad sketch of the proposed work.

  • Organizing refers to classifying and defining the proposed work.

  • Staffing involves in recruitment of new people for the work.

  • Directing part comes when decision-making part is encountered by the public officials for the work.

  • Coordinating refers to interlinking of various elements and parts of the proposed work.

  • Reporting is about regular updating of the ongoing works.

  • Budgeting involves all the activities under finance, budgeting, auditing and control.

Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) role

Government accountability office is a legislative agency of United states which is responsible for monitoring and auditing government spending and operations. GAO tracks the information about executive and legislative branches of the government. The head of GAO is Comptroller General. GAO serves the role of watchdog over government spending (Waldo 2017, p.20).

Reference List

Kleinknecht, A., Kwee, Z., & Budyanto, L. (2016). Rigidities through flexibility: flexible labour and the rise of management bureaucracies. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 40(4), 1137-1147. Retrieved on 27 March 2019. Retrieved from http://alfredkleinknecht.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CJE-2015-Rigidities.pdf

Moynihan, D. (2018). A great schism approaching? Towards a micro and macro public administration. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 1(1). Retrieved on 25 March 2019. Retrieved from http://journal-bpa.org/index.php/jbpa/article/view/15

Rasul, I., & Rogger, D. (2015). The impact of ethnic diversity in bureaucracies: evidence from the Nigerian civil service. American Economic Review, 105(5), 457-61. Retrieved on 28 March 2019. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/71bb/9614d15fe2d8ea10bedde56302c9983e064b.pdf

Rosenbloom, D. H. (2018). Administrative law for public managers. Abingdon: Routledge. Retrieved on 27 March 2019. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429962783

Stritch, J. M., Pedersen, M. J., & Taggart, G. (2017). The opportunities and limitations of using Mechanical Turk (Mturk) in public administration and management scholarship. International Public Management Journal, 20(3), 489-511. Retrieved on 22 March 2019. Retrieved from https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/144732984/The_Opportunities_and_Limitations_of_Using_Mechanical_Turk_Accepted_manuscript_2017.pdf

Waldo, D. (2017). The administrative state: A study of the political theory of American public administration. Abingdon: Routledge. Retrieved on 27 March 2019. Retrieved from https://townofmedina.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/04-11-2018-Monthly-Board-Meeting-Minutes-Approved.pdf

ASSIGNMENT 2: HISTORICAL POSTER

Importance of public administration to society

Public administration is a specialized subject for study, which can be studies from various ways and perspectives such as instrument for development and change, instrument of government as well as it is significant in modern domestic welfare state. Potential of the people of the country can be determined by the administration of the country and it also gives a proper shape to people’s merit and desire. So it is very much important for country’s development and change. Public administration is important part of government as government’s most important function is to maintain order and peace of the country as well as protect the property and lives of its citizen.

Phase 1 (1887–1926)

Politics-administration dichotomy

Public administration was included in subject of political science by Woodrow Wilson and thereby this is considered as a separate discipline. It is emphasized in this phase that administration and politics are two distinct activities in the context of societal development by government. As opined by Jørgensen & Rutgers (2015), politics in this context has the responsibility to maintain policies of the state and administration is responsible for executing these policies for well being of its people. Government’s legislative branch provided the framework for policies with the help of judicial interpretations. Executive branch is responsible for judging these policies efficiently. As per the views of Deguchi (2016), in early part of twentieth century “Public Services Movements” were taking place in American Universities. Political science which is a part of public administration, concerned with various training for citizenship as well as professional preparation like journals and laws.

Phase 2 (1927–1937)

Consider: scientific management

Politics dichotomy that has described in previous section gave rise to fact dichotomy. Everything related to public administration was thought to be scientific at that time. As opined by Stoler et al. (2016), search for universal or scientific principles than begun to start. Development of scientific management in business schools significantly focused on assembly line. At this time principles of administration had been developed under the section known as Administrative Management. It later assigned with higher management. Principles of efficient physical movement had been developed for optimal efficiency of assembly line which is related to public growth. The whole idea of scientific management is based on finding of ‘one best way’ for organizing things which is important for every work situation. As influenced by the views of Deguchi (2016), principles of scientific management should be mastered by significant contributors. These were the principles which are applicable to every organization under administration and to every situation. Scientific management include the process of organization which are bundled up by the acronym POSDCORB which stands for :

  • P for Planning

  • O for organization

  • S for staffing

  • D for directing

  • CO for coordination

  • R for reporting and

  • B for budgeting

Application of scientific management would not always depend on function and nature of the organization as well as on historical and cultural background of the country.

Phase 3 (1938–1959)

Consider: challenges to the dichotomy; challenges to the universal principles of administration

As certainty of principles would not last long so there had to be challenges that had to be faced. These challenges came from two directions. As per the views of Stoler et al. (2016), serious objections were raised against administration dichotomy. It was identified this two entity such as politics and administration were connected with each other and therefore could not be separated. And the second reason was principles related to administration had been challenged in the context that they are not logically valid. Awareness had been raised during this time that the issue can be solved by ‘value-free’ administration. Challenges related to the dichotomy are:

  • There were some values which are pre eminence in any organization. So it is not possible to experience as value free scientific principles having application universally.

  • Administrations are being carried out human organizations that have different personalities. So it is difficult to find principles which are applicable to all administrative situations.

  • The social is different for different countries. The functionalities of social framework vary country wise as well as in the organization of same country. So it is not actually possible to devise universal principle of administration.

Therefore the moral of the discipline is very low. As stated by Jørgensen & Rutgers (2015), it was important to understand human behavior by which the organizational behavior can be understood.

Phase 4 (1950–1970)

Consider: the relationship between public administration and political science; comparative and development administration; new public administration

At the time of demolishing the principles related to administration, two paradigms had been introduced. These two paradigms were related to mutually reinforcing components related to public administration. As per the views of Vigoda-Gadot, E. (2016), thus two components are based on social psychology and another one related with prescribing for public policy. Some of the public admins are involved in strengthening the conceptual connectivity of public administration with the political science disciplines. There were two reasons behind this. In this phase several developments can be seen regarding comparative and development administration as well as new public administration with administrative science.

Phase 5 (after 1970)

Consider: administrative science; focus on public interest

Public administration focuses strongly on the ground of public interest during last three decades. The discipline related to public administration has made a significant progress in establishing its place and identity in public administration. As per the views of Grimmelikhuijsen (2017), due to this, administrative science has tale two different directions. Firstly, it has focused on the route of administrative science to study the ways in which organizations work and the reasons. Along with that behavior of the people organization has also considered as focused area in this context.

Technological advancement in public administration

In area of public administration, there are many issues and challenges that organization will face in order to reach the company goals. There are six ways by which public administration has been affected by technology.

  • Easy access of mobile technology

  • Improvement of teaching capabilities in the areas of public administration

  • Effectiveness of social media

  • Security improvement of with encryption of data

  • Solution for data storage through cloud

  • Cost reduction with environment friendly technology

Reference list

Deguchi, M. (2016). Globalization, glocalization, and Galapagos syndrome: Public interest corporations in Japan. Int’l J. Not-for-Profit L., 18, 5. Retrieved on 15 March 2019 Retrieved from http://www.icnl.org/research/journal/vol18iss1/v18n1%20revd%20Deguchi.pdf

Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Jilke, S., Olsen, A. L., & Tummers, L. (2017). Behavioral public administration: Combining insights from public administration and psychology. Public Administration Review, 77(1), 45-56. Retrieved on 22 March 2019 Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/puar.12609

Jørgensen, T. B., & Rutgers, M. R. (2015). Public values: Core or confusion? Introduction to the centrality and puzzlement of public values research. The American Review of Public Administration, 45(1), 3-12. Retrieved on 21 March 2019 Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0275074014545781

Stoler, A., Kessler, J. B., Ashkenazi, T., Roth, A. E., & Lavee, J. (2016). Incentivizing authorization for deceased organ donation with organ allocation priority: The first 5 years. American Journal of Transplantation, 16(9), 2639-2645. Retrieved on 24 March 2019 Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ajt.13802

Vigoda-Gadot, E. (2016). Building strong nations: Improving governability and public management. Abingdon: Routledge. Retrieved on 23 March 2019 Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317170921

ASSIGNMENT 3: PUBLIC POLICY PROCESS AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES

Public Policy Process

Public policy process consists of six stages which overlapped each other. As per the views of Birkland (2015), along with these stages there are some additional mini stages as well. It is a loop process. The stages are discussed below:

Identification of problem

The problem is identified and articulates by institutions and individuals under status quo policy. Elite opinion or public opinion expresses dissatisfaction with this policy. Different institutions such as parties, mass media and interested groups are present at this stage (laits.utexas.edu, 2019).

Building of agenda

It is an important step to set the agenda before a policy can be adopted and formulated. Alternatives are essential for the policy processes being executed as well as for the outcomes. In order to mitigate the problems list of items must be considered. An idea for solving the problem passes through several levels including wide range of political system agenda as well as presidential agenda, congressional agenda and bureaucratic agenda. These agendas will be fixed by think tanks, media, government groups and interest groups.

Policy making

Policies must be formulated in order to mitigate the issues that have been identified and passes through various levels of political system. After the formulation stage, the policies must be taken though congressional process and the formulated policies than redefined through bureaucratic process (Ward et al. 2018).

Budget making

In budgeting stage, Congress is responsible for deciding of budgets that has been set for each policy. Before allocating money to the policy processes the policy has been authorized before introducing it to annual budget.

Implementation of policies

It is the responsibility of bureaucracy to implement the policies that has been authorized and finalized. Implementation stage includes adoption of rules and regulations as well as providing service and products.

Evaluation

After implementation of those policies, the policies have been evaluated by numbers of actors in order to see that whether the policies are solving the problems that had been arisen or not. An analysis related to costs and benefits of policies has been done by the Congress (laits.utexas.edu, 2019).

Challenges in implementing policy at local level

Implementation of policy can be referred to as enactment of proposed solution. In order to implement policy at local level it is essential to properly communicate policy to relevant governing body. Communication and educating about policy are the key factors in implementation of policy. This communication process should be initiated from policy makers (Ward et al. 2018).

One of the major problem in implementing policy at local level is that often policy makers only considers perspective of individuals belonging to higher levels of government while formulating and implementing policy. They tend to neglect perspectives of individuals belonging to lower level of government body. Local level has to follow all the policies formulated by higher level of government even though they do not have much contribution in it. Implementation of policies can also get harden if there is any presence of past conflicts between policy maker and local level. Often it can be observed that frequent changes in policies make local level to react negatively as they are the one who gets most affected. Hence it is necessary to take perspective of their views and opinions before formulating any policies (Wallace, 2013).

Challenges in implementing policy at state level

Implementation of policy at state level is much easier than compare to local level. This is because often perspective of state level is taken into consideration while formulating the policies. Clark (2017) stated that stringent policy can create a conflict between state level and national level government bodies. Another problem associated with implementing policy at state level is that it stringent regulations followed by state level government bodies. If there is no flexibility in implementing policy then it might lead to various issues. Implementation of policies at state level can be difficult if there is no single or dominant agency.

Challenges in implementing policy at national level

National level government bodies are the main responsible entity in terms of formulating and implementing policy throughout the nation. As opined by Woolcock (2018), outcome of policy implementation can be symbol of ineffective usage of politics and compromise. If the policy implementation uses bottom up approach then in order to evaluate the effect of policy becomes difficult for national level government body. Another challenge faced related to implementing of policies at state level is that often they lack knowledge regarding assessing information of local resources and infrastructure. Lack of knowledge and absence of proper communication will affect the whole policy implementation process (cbpp.org, 2013).

Reference List

Birkland, T. A. (2015). An introduction to the policy process: Theories, concepts, and models of public policy making. Abingdon: Routledge. Retrieved on 24 March 2019. Retrieved from https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/download?dac=C2015-0-79063-8&isbn=9781317509806&format=googlePreviewPdf

cbpp.org (2019). An Update on State Budget Cuts Retrieved on 27 March 2019. Retrieved from https://www.cbpp.org/research/an-update-on-state-budget-cuts

Clark, L. F. (2017). Implementing Multilevel Food and Nutrition Security Frameworks in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities for Scaling Up Pulses in Ethiopia. Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 32(1), 56. Retrieved on 26 March 2019. Retrieved from https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2018/00000014/00000003/art00006

laits.utexas.edu (2019). The Public Policy Process Retrieved on 25 March 2019. Retrieved from http://www.laits.utexas.edu/gov310/PEP/policy/

Wallace, I. (2013). Characteristics of Successful Public Policy Inforgraphic Journal [online] Retrieved on 26 March 2019. Retrieved from https://infographicjournal.com/characteristics-of-successful-public-policy/

Ward, V., Smith, S., Keen, J., West, R., & House, A. (2018). Creating and implementing local health and wellbeing policy: networks, interactions and collective knowledge creation amongst public sector managers. Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice14(3), 477-498. Retrieved on 26 March 2019. Retrieved from https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2018/00000014/00000003/art00006

Woolcock, M. (2018). Enhancing public health outcomes in developing countries: from good policies and best practices to better implementation. Scandinavian journal of public health46(22_suppl), 10-18.

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