Abstract

The idea that policy development can be thought of as a series of steps in a decision-making process was first broached systematically in the work of Harold Lasswell, a pioneer in the field of policy research (Lasswell 1956, 1971). In most recent work, a five-stage model of the policy process has been most commonly used. In this model, “agenda-setting” refers to the first stage in the process when a problem is initially sensed by policy actors and a variety of solutions put forward. “Policy formulation” refers to the development of specific policy options within government when the range of possible choices is narrowed by excluding infeasible ones, and efforts are made by various actors to have their favored solution ranked highly among the remaining few. “Decision-making” refers to the third stage in which governments adopt a particular course of action. In the fourth stage of “policy implementation” governments put their decisions into effect using some combination of the tools of public administration in order to alter the distribution of goods and services in society in a way that is broadly compatible with the sentiments and values of affected parties. Finally “policy evaluation” refers to the fifth stage in the process in which the results of policies are monitored by both state and societal actors, often leading to the reconceptualization of policy problems and solutions in the light of experiences encountered with the policy in question (Howlett et al. 2009).