Stages Model Of The Policy Process Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The stages model of the policy process is a widely used, if sometimes controversial, representation of the various steps that lead to a policy outcome, from definition of a policy problem to development of a solution through implementation and evaluation. Peter DeLeon (1999) traces the model back to Harold Lasswell, the architect of today’s policy sciences, but there have been a number of variants since then. The stages model typically depicts policy making as a cyclical process, in which policies move through a regular series of procedural steps. Though a number of scholars have criticized the model, it has influenced a generation of policy studies and remains the preeminent model of policy making for students of political science and public administration.

Most contemporary descriptions of the model include many or all of the following six stages:

Issue Emergence or Problem Definition: A previously unspecified issue, or an issue normally of private concern, becomes seen as a public problem that is rightly addressed by the action of governmental authorities.
Agenda-setting: This newly defined policy problem becomes part of the government action agenda. (The first and second stages are combined in many formulations of the model; other variants differentiate among

levels of government agendas, for example, contrasting a broader institutional agenda with a more urgent decisional one.)

Alternative Selection: One solution to the policy problem is elevated above all others, for reasons both practical and political.
Enactment, Adoption, or Legitimation: The chosen policy solution takes on the force of law, either through legislation, executive order, court order, or some other mechanism of governmental authority.
Implementation: The policy solution is actually put into practice; in other words, this stage concerns what happens “on the ground” or “in the field.”
Evaluation or Analysis: The policy is evaluated against initial goals, in order to help policy makers continue on their present course or choose a different policy solution.

While most proponents of the model admit that the divisions between stages are loosely delineated, they either imply or explicitly require that policies proceed from first stage to last.

The stages model has been criticized, first on methodological grounds. Paul Sabatier and Hank Jenkins-Smith (1993) have argued that the stages model is not actually a model, because it lacks any idea of the causal mechanisms necessary for theorizing and the testing of hypotheses. Instead, they claim, it is merely a heuristic, no more than a (severely limited) tool for education. Moreover, others have claimed that the model fails on empirical grounds. Because of the representation of policy as moving through discrete steps within a larger process, the stages model implies a sequential description of how policies are formed and implemented. Robert Nakamura (1987) noted that many policies actually are decided in a much more disorderly fashion, so that the stages model excludes some policies and leads us to misunderstand others. Deborah Stone (2001) agreed, decrying the “unrealistic ‘production’ model, according to which policy is assembled in stages, as if on a conveyer belt.”

Still, even if merely a heuristic, the stages model has been defended by DeLeon and others as a useful, if somewhat artificial, representation of the functional aspects of policy making. Indeed, seminal policy studies have been focused on functionally discrete parts of the policy lifespan, including John Kingdon’s 1995 award-winning study of agenda-setting and alternative selection, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, and Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky’s 1973 groundbreaking research on implementation, Implementation. By separating out the functional components of the policy process, its defenders claim, the stages model enables scholars to sharply delineate the actors and activities involved in each part, while hopefully not obscuring the connection of each to the policy-making process as a whole.

Bibliography:

DeLeon, Peter. “The Stages Approach to the Policy Process: What Has It Done? Where Is It Going? In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier, 19–32. Boulder, Colo.:Westview, 1999.
Kingdon, John W. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 1995.
Nakamura, Robert. “The Textbook Policy Process and Implementation Research.” Policy Studies Review 7, no. 2 (1987): 142–154.
Pressman, Jeffrey, and Aaron Wildavsky. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dash in Oakland, rev. and exp. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1984.
Sabatier, Paul A., and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith. Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Boulder, Colo.:Westview, 1993.
Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox:The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: Norton, 2001.

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