The Description Of Different Types Of Policies
Policy is relatively stable, purposive course of action or inaction followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern. The policy is the decision which is practiced and drawn by the official governmental bodies. The non-governmental actors can somehow cause effect on inception or progression of policy but only legitimate bodies can make a policy.
Policies are always made to achieve certain goals. They cannot be designed spontaneously without any need. Even the proposed policies have specific goals behind their emergence. They may or may not be fulfilled.
For example the PM laptop scheme policy 2013 was brought up to connect the youth with emerging technology. It was a proposed policy and was started on the basis of some goals to achieve. The aims behind any policy may or may not be stated as they are intended. It can be generally discussed rather than stating exact point of target. This is mostly done to avoid the rise of bone of contention.
Any policy cannot be simply ordered by any single governmental official. It has to be approved or decided by a certain number of authoritative figures. The process involves making the policy in response to any problem and then it is followed by the decision making to implement those policies. For example the government initiated “Build, Own and Operate” for energy generation purposes.
To run this successfully Private Sector Energy Fund, USAID, World Bank, Governments of Italy, France and Nordic Investment Bank was taken into consideration. To control the financial issues Development Finance Corporation was established. The need of policy is felt when any particular group makes the government aware of the problem related to it. There is always an agent to induce the process of policy making. The demand can be about the prevention of child labor, free education in under developed countries or dam building owing to the shortage of water.
The policy decisions made by the government in response to the public demands are the matter of day to day life in political field. For Example, when the PM office was held by Shahid Khaqan 33 Abbasi the Deep Sea Fishing Licensing Policy 2018 and National Food Security Policy was approved. However, Policy statements are the formal words expressed by officials but the statements are mostly vague. Policy is not actually about the intentions of government but it is about the actions performed by government. The implementation is more important than the approval.4Two other important policy terms are outcome and output. Output actually refers to the actions performed by the government with respect to any policy. And the causal effect of that output is the outcome of that policy.
The action of government on any issue is taken as a positive policy but if the government decides to put a deaf ear or in other words do not take any action in response to any issue, it would be considered as negative policy. The public policies are different from private organizations policies as they hold a legitimate authority. And public is obliged to follow the orders or restraining orders related to that policy. The public policies are of different types depending on the area from which the issue is related.
Distributive policies ensure the proper distribution of opportunities, goods, and services among different or specific sections of the society. The main feature of distributive policy is that, only for specific individuals or group. It is just like that; if the people of entire country pay the taxes, the beneficiaries could be a few.
Regulatory Policies impose the sanctions on the behavior of individuals or groups. These policies usually formulated for business affairs. Through these policies the freedom of individuals5declined and authoritative people can control those people who take the illegal benefits of the business like utility companies, vendors, cloth markets and saloons keepers etc. Self-Regulatory policies are when a person or group governs or policies itself without outside assistance or influence. Redistributive policies are exercised by the Government through taxation or expropriation of property; hence more direct measures. Fundamentally distributive and redistributive polices are same unless the resources comes from the outside the system.
Public policies could also be described as either material or symbolic. Material policies give the tangible resources or substantive power to their beneficiaries, or impose real disadvantages on those who are adversely affected. Symbolic policies have the symbolic impact on the people. These have less real impact on the people. They distribute no tangible advantages and disadvantages. Some policies are neither symbolic nor material. The symbolic and material types should instead be viewed as the poles of a continuum.
When we analyzing the effects of policy that time the material and symbolic polices are useful to keep in mind. Policies are labeled as material by legislative language and labeled as symbolic by administrative action. Public policies may also have the collective goods or private goods. Collective refers to as Indivisible and private refers to as divisible. We may say the uniqueness or nature of collective goods if the collective goods provide to one persons they must have provided for all. There is no way to provide it to some people.
Its benefits and drawbacks enjoy the all persons. Examples of the collective goods are national defense, traffic control and scenic beauties. Private goods are may divided into units and charged by the individual users and are available in the market place. Some says that the only collective goods should be the subject of public goods. But some are in the favor of private goods. Generally, the more something is thought to have the qualities of the public goods, the more likely people are to accept its provision by Government.
References:
- Acts of Parliament March 2008 to March 2013The Global Change Impact Studies Centre Act, 2013The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan
- The National Counter Terrorism Authority Act, 2013The Anti-Terrorism (Second Amendment) Act, 2013
- The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013The Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University,The Federal Ombudsmen Institutional Reforms Act, 2013
- The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2013The Islamabad Capital Territory Private Educational Institutions (Registration and Regulation)Act, 2013The Defence Housing Authority Islamabad Act, 2013]
