The Four Stages Of Policymaking Essay

This assignment requires that I develop and thoroughly analyze a public policy in order to advocate for one that improves the health of the public and/or the nursing profession globally (local, state, national or international). To do this, I must reflect on several aspects of being a policy maker within the nursing profession. I was instructed to consider the following:

At the beginning of this article, the author brings up the fields of policy studies, how to understand the policy making and how they

This paper is a review of chapter’s one (1), two (2) and three (3) in Thomas A. Birklands (2016) fourth edition regarding policy process. The reading attempts to define and show what is meant by policy process, how government, politics and the public are intertwined, problems that are associated with the policy process and how we address the problems. Current day events as well as past history are applied to the practice of policy process which assists in defining the process and highlighting its connection and importance. Thomas A. Birklands refers to the Clinton administration, the Obama administration and the George W. Bush administration, the DARE Program, World War II, and the Vietnam War, in the chapters and leads us down a path discussing

Patient access to affordable health care is an ongoing issue in the United States. The first portion of the policy process involves three different stages, the formulation stage, legislative stage, and the implementation stage. Three main stages exist in the process to transform a topic into a policy (Morone, J. A., Litman, T. J., & Robins, L.S., 2008). Coupled with the implementation stage is an evaluation of all the stages to determine effectiveness and gather information for use in future public health care policy making. In the formulation stage, the ideas, concepts, and information steam from this process of policy making. The

The first step in creating this a new policy is the idea on how to address the current problem. During this first step, brainstorming is often encouraged during the formulation process so that there is more than one potential solution to the problem (Lohrey, 2014). Another consideration for policy formulation is determining if the policy will need to involve local, state, and/or federal government involvement to be put on their agenda. There are many ways to approach any given problem, and during policy formation, relevant individuals (such as stakeholders and researchers) and groups will determine the different ideas to approach the proposed policy.

This is when the public has the chance to get involved in the policy making process.

In this paper we will discuss the final stages of how a topic becomes a policy. The paper will discuss formulation, implementation, and the legislation stage. These stages must be done in this order to ensure the policy is being formed the correct way and not scattered around. This paper will also consist of the evaluation stage, analysis stage, and revision stage and describe the purpose and methodologies process for evaluating and revising a public policy.

Congress has responded to the public outcry for action in the face of unacceptable suicide rates and has passed multiple pieces of legislation aimed at correcting the problem. The 2007 Joshua Omvig Bill directed the VA to develop “data systems to increase understanding of suicide among Veterans and inform both the VA and other suicide prevention programs” (Veterans Affairs, 2012, p. 7). In 2015, President Obama signed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act into Law, requiring the VA to “make it easier for veterans to find mental health resources, do more to recruit and retain professionals” and to increase “accountability for the government programs serving them” (Baker, 2015, para. 2). This recent legislation tends to be

The rational models of policy process are compromising a mechanical process in policy making. Theoretically, the models are helping managers of public sector to manage policy issues by using rigid components of procedure that likely use in laboratory. It means the administrators in public sector will follow some sequences, such as gathering important values that related with policy issue, examining the possible outcomes of policy issue by rating those important values that already established, and then he or she will try to make a decision on what is the best policy. The steps are continuing repeatedly in the same condition. The particular characteristics of the models are having valid data, reliable information and managers

Understanding the background and history of the Agenda Setting Theory is imperative to this analysis. Dr. Max McComb and Dr. Donald Shaw developed the Agenda Setting Theory in a study conducted during the 1968 presidential election (McCombs & Shaw, 1972, p. 178). This study describes how if an audience is exposed to the same media, they will place importance on the same issues. This theory strictly presents information and sets the terms of public discourse. At the time, this was a trailblazing new idea.

Throughout times, democracy has emerged as the best political way to rule a country. Within democratic systems, citizens have to vote for people who will represent them in the decision-making system. The question that John Kingdon wanted to understand in his writing of How Do Issues Get on Public Agendas? is how the legislative process and the public policies are made. John Kingdon well illustrates the processes by which an issue becomes policy issue, named the Cohen-March-Olsen, and the coming together of three processes. In the Cohen-March-Olsen, Kingdon proposed three stream: problem-recognition, policy stream of proposals and political stream.

Another concept that has been more clarified in these last few chapters is agenda-setting theory which is defined as “the focus on how the mass media can influence the public by the way stories are presented in the news (p.389).” From my groups of friends, I have always had the idea that the media shows us what we want to believe. For example, more recently the news has been focusing on police brutality against certain races and age groups. Yet when a police officer or group of policemen save a person’s life or does something honorable it is not recognized through the media, because it is part of their job to do those things. My best friend is a police officer for the San Francisco police department, and he shares many stories that are never shown on the media. Such as when a dangerous drug dealer is convicted, there isn’t a headline of “Drug

Agenda-setting is one of the most important factors in shaping public opinion. Agenda-setting can be defined as the ability of the media to direct public attentions toward the issues they believe are important to the public. But whose choice is it that determines which issues are more important over others? The news media can set an agenda-setting by focus attention on selected issues on which the public will form opinions from (McCombs). The media can paint a memory in your head by repeatedly repeating the issues on different media sources as Internet, network televisions, newspapers, etc. Since these sources are the cheapest and easiest to access, the information can be view by vast number of audiences. As quoted in a 1922 classic called “Public Opinion” by Walter Lippmann,

My difficult questions surround the doing and the reading of the policy process. There are three areas that I would like further explore: the role of citizen participation in the policy process, importance of critical and postmodern perspectives in understanding public policy, and the role of government.

The 2000 Presidential Elections are upon us and who do we turn to for information regarding the candidates? What issues will be the hot topics for the election race? For that matter, what will be the hot topics in the media for next week? Just as this paper must be structured, organized, and center around a main idea, so must all information presented to an audience. Information can only be easily processed if it contains some kind of structure. This includes the information that is provided by the media. The media have to structure their ideas and stories on a daily, weekly, and even monthly basis. This process is known as agenda setting. Television, radio, and print medias all use agenda