Brief Summary
This lecture introduces the concept of public policy, highlighting its complex definition, importance, characteristics, and relevance to science. It covers the definition of policy, its nature as a process, product, and output, and explores what policies can and cannot do. The lecture also discusses the role of goals in policy-making, differentiating between short-term and long-term objectives, and provides examples to illustrate these concepts.
- Public policy is difficult to define due to varying opinions and perceptions.
- Policies guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes at individual, group, and organizational levels.
- Goals are essential in policy-making, serving as desired states that societies or organizations aim to achieve.
The lecture begins by acknowledging the difficulty in defining public policy due to diverse opinions and perceptions. The term is broadly applied to activities by politicians, bureaucrats, and government agencies related to policy matters. It is noted that not all government programs are public policies, and policies are not always formal laws. The lecture aims to define public policy, analyze its importance, describe its nature and characteristics, and discuss its relevance to science.
A policy is defined as a deliberate system of principles that guides decisions and achieves rational outcomes for individuals, social groups, or organizations. Policies are typically adopted by governing bodies within organizations, serving as rules for staff to follow in their responsibilities. Examples include return-to-work policies, which are developed through specific procedures and steps. Policy is also a process of decision-making, exemplified by the development and production of the COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, policy can be an output, such as the delivery of goods and services or the enforcement of stay-at-home orders. Policies are implemented in various sectors, including education, health, and agriculture.
Policies are predetermined decisions and rules applicable to everyone, especially those within organizations, based on their actions. Policies operate at political, management, financial, and administrative levels. Examples include equal opportunity policies, health and safety policies, codes of conduct, and policies related to attendance, vacation, and disciplinary actions.
Policies often emerge in response to policy demands, reflecting what governments can and should do. An example is given of Elon Musk's vision for SpaceX on Mars, where he suggests the company might create its own laws, potentially leading to both positive and negative impacts.
Goals are essential in policy-making, representing the desired state of affairs that a society or organization aims to achieve. These goals can be short-term or long-term. Short-term goals must be accomplished to reach long-term objectives. Goals can be abstract values or specific and concrete targets. For example, a government's long-term goal might be the removal of poverty or addressing climate change, which requires setting short-term goals to achieve comprehensive change.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “Lecture 1 pptx Part 1-BLG 605”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:07 Hello everyone, welcome to BLC 605 lecture 1. In this lecture, we'll talk about the introduction and overview about what is public policy and its development. So developing a definition that is acceptable to everyone is difficult because so many people have different opinions, different conceptions and different perceptions what constitutes a public policy and this term has been appropriated as a generic concepts that covers many activities and that are performed by politicians, bureaucrats and government agencies which are related to polit policy matters. Sometimes um as people we are surprised
0:53 to learn that not all government programs are public policies of the government and power and that public policies are not always formal pieces of law that are created by government. So in today's um lecture we're going to be learning about the definition of public policy and some other related terms. Of course analyzing the importance of public policy describing the nature and characteristics of the public policy and what policy can or cannot do and of course because this course is related to science policy. So we're going to be describing the rationale for public policy and its
1:38 relevant to science and then we're going to wrap up. So there are some definitions uh for policy. A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. So policy could be for an individual or could be for social groups and a policy are generally adopted by governor's body within an organizations. So in ence the policy are the rules that staff who are part of the organizations abide by as they carry out their various responsibilities. And I think at this point you can relate to some of the policies you have in your workplaces where you're working if you
2:24 are uh or you know if you're going to be working you're going to follow certain policies that um these days we have to follow the policy of return to work. Um if you're not entitled to be at the workplace you should not be there. So these policies have to be um implemented has to be drawn and how they came up to are by using some procedures and some steps that describe how to complete a task or how to complete a job. So policy itself is a process um that um is used to refer to a process of
3:11 decision making and also the product of that process. So for example um in covid vaccine the product is the covid vaccine but there was a process that actually led to the covid vaccine. So we can say that it started with the process of so many steps and there was a decision making um step that actually led to the production of COVID vaccine which is the product and policy could be an output. So where um policy could be seen as what actually government delivers like uh delivery of goods and services or enforcement. So we got a stay-at-home
3:58 order and we have to follow the policy of stay-at-home order uh by the government which was delivered and it was uh sent to everyone like you know on over the media and of course there are other areas uh of uh policies that could be implemented uh is and an education uh health and agriculture. So when we can say that policies um what kind of policies are there like they are predetermined disease and rules uh which could be um applicable for everyone especially the people who are in the organizations and of course based on
4:44 their uh actions and of course there are a lot of levels that policies can be understood as as a political level as a management level as a financial and administrative levels. And there are a lot of examples to these like you know because one day one of you could be the policy maker and you're going to be you know making the policies. So they could be equal opportunity policies in the workplace, health and safety policy like we have at Ryerson. uh code of conduct policy and uh policies for attendance, vacation, time off and of course uh you know if there are some conflict within
5:30 the employees there's a disciplinary action policies and of course the compliant policies as well. So what policies can and cannot do? So mostly policies emerge in response to policy demands. So means that if the environment thinks that this policy must be made then they emerge and that involve that if we know that the governments can do not just what they say they are going to do but they can actually do something. So for example in this um slide you can see I said that Elon Musk I think everybody know who Elon Mus Musk is. He's the um CEO and um
6:18 and he thinks that um he's going to have the SpaceX will makes its own laws on Mars which is his own um spaceship. Um in this case he claims that no earthbased government has authority or sovereignity over marian activities. So he could do whatever laws he wants to like you know the article I was reading and it says that maybe wives are not allowed to have boyfriends and maybe banning pets on the um in the households and or having the monthly stimulus checks. So there could be a positive impact or there could be um negative impact of the policies. So another uh
7:05 thing I think we always think about in p when you're talking about policy are the goals. So I think as a career um person like you all are in final year or almost final year you have long-term goals and some of you have short-term goals. So but goals are what we kind of makes us do whatever we want to do. So it is like desired state of affairs that um a society or an organization attempts to realize in this case for you guys that um for example for you have some short-term goals at this point that how we want to get there if whatever we want
7:51 to accomplish and we need to accomplish those short-term goals before we reach to the long-term goals. Maybe it will take a month or a week or year or uh and build on those uh with having our long-term goals. So goals can be understood in a variety of um perspectives. It could be as an abstract and the value that a society would like to acquire and the goals could be specific and concrete. So for example um maybe for government long-term goal could be removal of poverty. So in order to do that or it could be a climate change and in order to do that um government has to come up with the short-term goals and to reach
8:39 to having complete change in the climate and al or removal of poverty. So you can actually pause here or you can pause here and think about what other example um that you can think of that could be goals. So we can start our while we think about it, we can shorten this uh video and start with the next one uh in our
