Classifying government

In political science, it has long been a goal to create a typology or taxonomy of polities, as typologies of political systems are not obvious.^[7] It is especially important in the political science fields of comparative politics and international relations.

On the surface, identifying a form of government appears to be easy, as all governments have an official form. The United States is a federal republic, while the former Soviet Union was a socialist republic. However self-identification is not objective, and as Kopstein and Lichbach argue, defining regimes can be tricky.^[8] For example, elections are a defining characteristic of a democracy,^{[ citation needed ]} but in practice elections in the former Soviet Union were not "free and fair" and took place in a single party state. Thus in many practical classifications it would not be considered democratic.

Another complication is that a large number of political systems originate as socio-economic movements and are then carried into governments by specific parties naming themselves after those movements; all with competing political-ideologies. Experience with those movements in power, and the strong ties they may have to particular forms of government, can cause them to be considered as forms of government in themselves.

Further complications is general non-consensus or deliberate "distortion or bias" of reasonable technical definitions to political ideologies and associated forms of governing, due to the nature of politics in the modern era. For example: The meaning of "conservatism" in the United States has little in common with the way the word's definition is used elsewhere. As Ribuffo (2011) notes, "what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism.^[9] Since the 1950s conservatism in the United States has been chiefly associated with the Republican Party. However, during the era of segregation many Southern Democrats were conservatives, and they played a key role in the Conservative Coalition that controlled Congress from 1937 to 1963."^[10]

Every country in the world is ruled by a system of governance that combines at least 2 (or more) of the following attributes (for example, the United States is not a true capitalist society, since the government actually provides social services for its citizens). Additionally, one person's opinion of the type of government may differ from another's (for example, some may argue that the United States is a plutocracy rather than a democracy since they may believe it is ruled by the wealthy).^[11] There are always shades of gray in any government. Even the most liberal democracies limit rival political activity to one extent or another, and even the most tyrannical dictatorships must organize a broad base of support, so it is very difficult "pigeonholing" every government into narrow categories

18. How do you understand the policy?

A policy is a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent, and is implemented as a procedure^[1] or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by the Board of or senior governance body within an organization whereas procedures or protocols would be developed and adopted by senior executive officers. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making. Policies to assist in subjective decision making would usually assist senior management with decisions that must consider the relative merits of a number of factors before making decisions and as a result are often hard to objectively test e.g. work-life balance policy. In contrast policies to assist in objective decision making are usually operational in nature and can be objectively tested e.g. password policy.^{[ citation needed ]}

The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals. Presidential executive orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy. Policy differs from rules or law. While law can compel or prohibit behaviors (e.g. a law requiring the payment of taxes on income), policy merely guides actions toward those that are most likely to achieve a desired outcome.^{[ citation needed ]}

Policy or policy study may also refer to the process of making important organizational decisions, including the identification of different alternatives such as programs or spending priorities, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have. Policies can be understood as political, management, financial, and administrative mechanisms arranged to reach explicit goals. In public corporate finance, a critical accounting policy is a policy for a firm/company or an industry which is considered to have a notably high subjective element, and that has a material impact on the financial statements.

Impact

[edit]Intended effects

The intended effects of a policy vary widely according to the organization and the context in which they are made. Broadly, policies are typically instituted to avoid some negative effect that has been noticed in the organization, or to seek some positive benefit.^{[ citation needed ]}

Corporate purchasing policies provide an example of how organizations attempt to avoid negative effects. Many large companies have policies that all purchases above a certain value must be performed through a purchasing process. By requiring this standard purchasing process through policy, the organization can limit waste and standardize the way purchasing is done.^{[ citation needed ]}

The State of California provides an example of benefit-seeking policy. In recent years, the numbers of hybrid cars in California has increased dramatically, in part because of policy changes in Federal law that provided USD $1,500 in tax credits (since phased out) as well as the use of high-occupancy vehicle lanes to hybrid owners (no longer available for new hybrid vehicles). In this case, the organization (state and/or federal government) created an effect (increased ownership and use of hybrid vehicles) through policy (tax breaks, highway lanes).^{[ citation needed ]}

[edit]Unintended effects

Policies frequently have side effects or unintended consequences. Because the environments that policies seek to influence or manipulate are typically complex adaptive systems (e.x. governments, societies, large companies), making a policy change can have counterintuitive results. For example, a government may make a policy decision to raise taxes, in hopes of increasing overall tax revenue. Depending on the size of the tax increase, this may have the overall effect of reducing tax revenue by causing capital flight or by creating a rate so high that citizens are deterred from earning the money that is taxed. (See the Laffer curve.)^{[ citation needed ]}

The policy formulation process typically includes an attempt to assess as many areas of potential policy impact as possible, to lessen the chances that a given policy will have unexpected or unintended consequences. Because of the nature of some complex adaptive systems such as societies and governments, it may not be possible to assess all possible impacts of a given policy.^{[ citation needed ]}

[edit]Policy cycle

In political science, the policy cycle is a tool used for the analyzing of the development of a policy item. It can also be referred to as a "stagist approach", "stages heuristic" or "stages approach".^[2] It is a fiction rather than the actual reality of how policy is created, but has been influential in how people look at policy in general ^[3]. It was developed as a theory from Harold Lasswell's work.

One standardized version includes the following stages:

1. Agenda setting (Problem identification)

2. Policy Formulation

3. Adoption

4. Implementation

5. Evaluation

An eight step policy cycle is developed in detail in The Australian Policy Handbook by Peter Bridgman and Glyn Davis: (now with Catherine Althaus in its 4th and 5th editions)

1. Issue identification

2. Policy analysis

3. Policy instrument development

4. Consultation (which permeates the entire process)

5. Coordination

6. Decision

7. Implementation

8. Evaluation

The Althaus, Bridgman & Davis model is heuristic and iterative. It is intentionally normative and not meant to be diagnostic or predictive. Policy cycles are typically characterized as adopting a classical approach. Accordingly some postmodern academics challenge cyclical models as unresponsive and unrealistic, preferring systemic and more complex models.^[4] They consider a broader range of actors involved in the policy space that includes civil society organisations, the media, intellectuals, think tanks or policy research institutes, corporations, lobbyists, etc.

[edit]Content

Policies are typically promulgated through official written documents. Policy documents often come with the endorsement or signature of the executive powers within an organization to legitimize the policy and demonstrate that it is considered in force. Such documents often have standard formats that are particular to the organization issuing the policy. While such formats differ in form, policy documents usually contain certain standard components including^{[ citation needed ]}:

· A purpose statement, outlining why the organization is issuing the policy, and what its desired effect or outcome of the policy should be.

· An applicability and scope statement, describing who the policy affects and which actions are impacted by the policy. The applicability and scope may expressly exclude certain people, organizations, or actions from the policy requirements. Applicability and scope is used to focus the policy on only the desired targets, and avoid unintended consequences where possible.

· An effective date which indicates when the policy comes into force. Retroactive policies are rare, but can be found.

· A responsibilities section, indicating which parties and organizations are responsible for carrying out individual policy statements. Many policies may require the establishment of some ongoing function or action. For example, a purchasing policy might specify that a purchasing office be created to process purchase requests, and that this office would be responsible for ongoing actions. Responsibilities often include identification of any relevant oversight and/or governance structures.

· Policy statements indicating the specific regulations, requirements, or modifications to organizational behavior that the policy is creating. Policy statements are extremely diverse depending on the organization and intent, and may take almost any form.

Some policies may contain additional sections, including:

· Background, indicating any reasons, history, and intent that led to the creation of the policy, which may be listed as motivating factors. This information is often quite valuable when policies must be evaluated or used in ambiguous situations, just as the intent of a law can be useful to a court when deciding a case that involves that law.

· Definitions, providing clear and unambiguous definitions for terms and concepts found in the policy document.^{[ citation needed ]}

[edit]Typologies

Policy addresses the intent of the organization, whether government, business, professional, or voluntary. Policy is intended to affect the 'real' world, by guiding the decisions that are made. Whether they are formally written or not, most organizations have identified policies.^{[ citation needed ]}

Policies may be classified in many different ways. The following is a sample of several different types of policies broken down by their effect on members of the organization.

[edit]Distributive policies

Distributive policies extend goods and services to members of an organization, as well as distributing the costs of the goods/services amongst the members of the organization. Examples include government policies that impact spending for welfare, public education, highways, and public safety, or a professional organization's benefits plan.

[edit]Regulatory policies

Regulatory policies, or mandates, limit the discretion of individuals and agencies, or otherwise compel certain types of behavior. These policies are generally thought to be best applied when good behavior can be easily defined and bad behavior can be easily regulated and punished through fines or sanctions. An example of a fairly successful public regulatory policy is that of a speed limit.

[edit]Constituent policies

Constituent policies create executive power entities, or deal with laws. Constituent policies also deal with Fiscal Policy in some circumstances.^{[ citation needed ]}

[edit]Miscellaneous policies

Policies are dynamic; they are not just static lists of goals or laws. Policy blueprints have to be implemented, often with unexpected results. Social policies are what happens 'on the ground' when they are implemented, as well as what happens at the decision making or legislative stage.

When the term policy is used, it may also refer to:

· Official government policy (legislation or guidelines that govern how laws should be put into operation)

· Broad ideas and goals in political manifestos and pamphlets

· A company or organization's policy on a particular topic. For example, the equal opportunity policy of a company shows that the company aims to treat all its staff equally.

The actions the organization actually takes may often vary significantly from stated policy. This difference is sometimes caused by political compromise over policy, while in other situations it is caused by lack of policy implementation and enforcement. Implementing policy may have unexpected results, stemming from a policy whose reach extends further than the problem it was originally crafted to address. Additionally, unpredictable results may arise from selective or idiosyncratic enforcement of policy.^{[ citation needed ]}

Types of policy analysis include:

· Causal (resp. non-causal)

· Deterministic (resp. stochastic, randomized and sometimes non-deterministic)

· Index

· Memoryless (e.g. non-stationary)

· Opportunistic (resp. non-opportunistic)

· Stationary (resp. non-stationary)

These qualifiers can be combined, so for example you could have a stationary-memoryless-index policy.

[edit]Types

· Company Policy

· Communications and Information Policy

· Human resource policies

· Privacy policy

· Public policy

· Defense policy

· Domestic policy

· Economic policy

· Education policy

· Energy policy

· Environmental Policy

· Foreign policy

· Health policy

· Housing policy

· Information policy

· Macroeconomic policy

· Monetary policy

· Population policy

· Public policy in law

· Science policy

· Security policy

· Social policy

· Transportation policy

· Urban policy

· Water policy

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