Providing feedback to the policy cycle
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2020-08-24
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en
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Abstract
For a long time, the policy cycle has been used as the model to provide insight into the public policy process, but at the same time it has been unable to provide a valid representation of the public policy process due to oversimplification of reality. There has yet to emerge a model that does provide insight into the full policy process and embraces its complexity. This study aims to fill this theoretical void by using system dynamics to model the recent applications of public policy process theories. A systematic review of contemporary literature was converged into a single model that displays how feedback, strange attractors, emergence and initial movers cause the public policy process to be a complex system. The model shows that the public policy process is a continuous process of decision-makers feeling pressured to address certain issues and attempting to resolve them. This process is dependent on the capacity of a decision-maker to address issues and enforce policies, support from policy actors for either maintaining the status quo or adopt new policies, and the fit of an idea within current rules and norms. The model contains 25 feedback loops as a first sign of complexity. There is a crucial role for policy evaluations, events and conflict stability to disrupt the equilibrium, i.e. the status quo, and reveal new issues. Because of the omnipresence of feedbacks, the policy process is highly dependent on its own history and is able to drive its own behaviour.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen