Public Policy: Models of policy-making and their critique; Processes of conceptualisation, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and review and their limitations; State theories and public policy formulation.
PUBLIC POLICY - CONCEPT & MEANING:
Public Policy in the broad term refers to the policy (plan of what to do) that is formulated and implemented for the benefit of the public. If read in light of the narrow view of Public Policy then it relates to plan of action to be pursued by the Govt.(because Public is also used as a synonym for Government in many places).
There is no unanimity on the definition of Public Policy. However,Public Policy can be described as the overall framework within which the actions of the government are undertaken to achieve its goals. It is a purposive and consistent course of action devised in response to a perceived problem of a constituency, formulated by a specific political process, and adopted, implemented, and enforced by a public agency.
Goals,policies and programmes are different and should not be used as synonyms of each other or interchangeably. Policies are devised to achieve certain goals by the government,for example the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan is a govt. programme to achieve the Policy of Free and compulsory education to all children between 6-14 in India that was established through the Right to education act 2009 which is a part of meta policy of Education For All by UNESCO. Another example is the policy of poverty alleviation for which several programmes have been designed like the Integrated Rural Development Programme,MGNREGA,etc. Poverty alleviation also comes under a bigger goal of overall socio-economic growth of the country. Each of these programmes have their own goals to achieve which then all taken collectively achieve the unified goal of the original policy. There can be a number of programmes established for achievement of a single policy goal. And there are a number of policies...