Public Policy Types and Political Systems
Public Policy Types and Analysis
Public policies have been classified into four types, depending on their content and purpose:
- Regulatory policies: Laws or regulations that establish rules of behavior.
- Distributive policies: Ensure equal access for all to resources.
- Redistributive policies: Confer advantages and benefits to certain persons, usually in regard to their income, or lack thereof, and can be implemented through fiscal instruments or channeled through public assistance programs.
- Constituent policies: Generally meet the needs of government and bureaucracy and protect national security.
Public Policy Process
A public policy process encompasses all activities that are developed from the public screening of a problem, or demand, until the completion of government action. These activities are neatly set out in the different phases of public policy development:
- Problem identification, in which the government agenda is central.
- Study and formulation of solutions (design), which is needed to define the agents that will produce, the nature of the problem, and how that perception reached political authority.
- Decision-making, which is based entirely on the field of action of political authority.
- Launch of the program, through management and tools available to the administration.
- Evaluation of the action, which analyzes the results of policy attention to the impact that has occurred in trying to solve public problems or placate them.
Public Policy Analysis
Public policy analysis will provide the last element of the flow of interactions that occur within the political system and in relation to the social system. The determination of the relevance of political factors, socio-economic and institutional content, and styles of public policies, and the possibility of specifying how, when, to what extent, and why the contents of the policy are shaped by structures and political processes, will contribute to a better understanding of the organizational forms of political life.
The Political System of Great Britain
Constitutional Political Education
2.1. The Modern State
The history of Great Britain has a remarkable continuity, and its development is linked to its Constitution. It is necessary to go back to the Westminster coronation of William the Conqueror (1066). During his reign, and due to the outbreak of various transgressions, he decided to rob the Anglo-Saxon nobility of their possessions and set up the Domesday Book, a land registry that recorded all territorial possessions and specified the annual income they produced.
In 1154, Henry II took the throne. During his reign, the conquest of Ireland began (1171), and a system of political organization was configured, highlighting the Magnum Concilium and the Curia Regis (King’s Court). The Magnum Concilium, or Grand Council (forerunner of the House of Lords), was an assembly of the main characters of the kingdom. It met three or four times a year and assisted the King in the administration of justice. The Curia Regis would be separated, giving rise to the Privy Council and Exchequer (finance minister), and, moreover, the Cabinet and the superior courts.
Along with the old court of the King, in 1178, a judiciary composed of five permanent courts with codified procedural and evidentiary rules was established, originating from this period a common law or common law.
In 1199, John Lackland (John I) was crowned. His policy managed to unite the nobility and revolt against him, forcing him to grant the Magna Carta in 1215. This was a feudal document relating to customs and the rights of subjects, agreed upon between the privileged classes and the King, in which he acknowledged the old ways and a range of rights. Two stand out:
- a) The sovereign is obliged to respect the old laws and guarantees, in writing, the privileges of the barons (feudal right of resistance), and to secure the right to freedom and personal safety.
- b) The King, before imposing taxes, must consult the Curia Regis.