The government or public sector is concerned not on profit generation but on providing welfare to its people through being efficient in their economic, social and political programs. Public sector decision-making is thus different from that of the businesses or private sectors and the perspective of government is immensely larger than a firm, indicating a need for more rigorous studies and wider accommodation of considerations.Diverse Effects of Public Policies as Bases of Policy Decisions Public policies are made to maintain the fair balance in the society or to promote change and revamps in the current system.
For example, government can set minimum wage to ensure proper compensation for the workers and it can also draft policies that will induce initiatives in reducing household wastes. Although the goals of public policies are good sometimes policies carry negative effects. Disregarding the poor implementation, policies tend to overestimate or underestimate the effects they will incur.For example, compliance to car safety requirements causes offsetting behavior to the vehicle drivers that they will be less careful and thus an increased risk in driving (Traynor 62-69). The intent of requiring care safety gears is good but the policy was not able to see the other possible effects when it is implemented.
The problem of determining the most effective and efficient policies is not one way and is complicated thus a more rigorous public policy analysis should be done in order to reduce the risks of having policy failure.Public Policy Analysis Challenges Public problems often involve tradeoffs between effectiveness and costs and the government chooses decisions that are optimal. The effect of one public policy can be solved or compensated by other public policies: policies are interconnected to maintain balance and obtain what is optimal for the general society. Public policies may be different at different scales: state level policies are different from each other and may be different from the national level policies.
These could bring misunderstandings but if the central government will set standards from which the state level policies will deviate, order will still prevail. Policy analysis must be practical and as much as possible local in level because each generation and each different society faces new and dynamic public problems so public policies should also be timely to maintain values, promote equality and prosperity to everyone (Knoepfel, Larrue, Varone & Hill 26-27).Public sector problems are not easy to be defined because they are intertwined so before making public decisions lawmakers should be cautious that the decisions should mainly, if not only, target the single problem they are interested in addressing to. It has been mentioned that public analysis is concerned on determining what is optimal, the same goes when selecting among the optimal alternatives. However, due to some political reasons lawmakers select policies and measures that are myopic or short in time horizon (Kay 221-222).
Effects of Public Policy on Political Reasoning It can be inferred that public policy analysis, if disciplined and concerned on the welfare of people, is a potential tool in honing the leaders to become more responsible and functional. Since public sector is supposed to be non-profit through public policies the government could show their empathic and paternalistic concern for its people. The government also has the power (through choice of policies) in promoting the values which are essential to be kept (Boyle 23).
