Assignment Task: What are the eight key elements of policy frameworks (listed below)? Please share in your discussion several ways in which these elements are highly rational and systematic and therefore somewhat incompatible with the political process through which policies are actually adopted. Please be sure to be detailed in your answers and use examples.
- They systematically analyze a social policy or program
- They reflect the understanding that social policy is context sensitive and that competing priorities are inherent in all policy options.
- They employ rational methods of inquiry and analysis. The data used is derived from scientific inquiry and legitimate sources, and it is objectively interpreted and analyzed.
- They take into account the unintended consequences of a particular policy or program. This could be aided by constructing multiple policy models or scenarios.
- They should employ models that examine the potential impact of a policy (or a series of policies) on other social policies, social problems, and the public good.
- The analytic method is explicit and all succeeding policy analyses should approximate the same conclusion.
- Policy analysis is based on the commitment to derive the largest possible social and economic benefit at the least possible social and economic cost. A good social policy is one that benefits at least one person (as perceiving his or her own self-interest) while at the same time hurting no one (a variation of the Pareto Optimality). Although rarely achieved in the real world of finite resources, policy analysts should nevertheless strive toward that optimality.
- Policy analysts should consider alternative social policies or alternative uses of present or future resources allocated to a given policy.