What are the major constraints in public policy formulation?

Some of the constraints to policy making includes:

(1) Political Culture: One of the constraints upon policymaking has to do with the political culture. As Anderson noted, before a problem can be a public problem, it has to be perceived as a public problem. In other words, even though the definition of public problem would allow policy to be made in many areas, our sense of the proper functions of government (part of our political culture) would drastically reduce that number.

Political culture is simply what people believe they should do for their government and what their government should do for them. These widely-held beliefs place limits on what government can do by restricting the areas in which it is appropriate for the government to make policy. This is closely tied to the concept of legitimacy. A policy which is viewed as not being legitimate, will be difficult to enforce.

Yet, political culture is not static, but changes slowly over time. Social changes and “public mood” changes are closely tied to political culture, because as our values change, this will change our perception of our relationship to government and its relationship to us.

(2) Constitutional Limitations: The founding fathers, having just cut the ties with the British national government, designed the American national government with “constraint” in mind. These institutional constraints shape the public policymaking process in many ways.

The two distinctive features of American government are the separation of powers and federalism. The separation of powers prevents public policy from being implemented without some level of consensus on the issues. And, because we have a weak party system, the separations between Congress and the President are difficult to overcome without bargaining. This works to the benefit of interest groups who have more access points for public policy action – if they do not get a favourable response from Congress, they can go to the President or the courts.

The existence of federalism allows interest groups the same luxury. If they do not get a favourable response at the federal level, they can go to the state or local level. Yet, federalism also has other implications for policymaking. Policies must be shaped keeping in mind that state and local governments tend to be unresponsive to the national government. Federalism also gives policies a form of inertia: they are hard to get implemented because there are so many government levels to work through, and once the policy is implemented, it is hard to stop because there are so many other governments involved.

(3) Institutional Considerations: Outside of the checks and balances that the national institutions have over each other, there are other considerations which shape the way each are involved in public policymaking.

The keyword for Congress is “decentralization.” This decentralization forces compromise in order to build all of the majorities needed to pass legislation. All of this compromise means that most passed laws will be vague (since specifics could not be agreed on), and that what is ultimately passed is not what was originally desired.

The institutional constraints upon the president’s ability to make public policy include the Constitution, statutes, and court decisions. Yet he is also bound by commitments made by prior presidents or commitments made during campaigns.

It was noted in the Anderson book that a nation’s level of economic development will strongly influence what the government can do, because it will determine the economic resources available. And, though it has been expected of the President to present a proposed budget to Congress, this does not mean that he is the one holding all the gold. According to Anderson, about three-fourths of national expenditures are “uncontrollable.”

All of these observations mean that the President is not going to be able to make drastic changes in public policies. Since he receives little party loyalty from legislators, he will have to compromise away most of his controversial stands in order to build a majority in Congress. 

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