The Concept Of Public Policy Vaishali Bahubalendra BASICS OF LAW Thu, Sep 03, 2020, at ,01:05 PM History Public Policy, as a subject or a field of enquiry, has a long past, though the contemporary public policy and policy analysis have a particularly American and twentieth-century flavour. The field of public policy whose intellectual seeds were sown in the 1940s has been a remarkable impact on academic and government institutions over the years. Public policy, as an academic pursuit, emerged at the beginning of 1950s, and since then, it has been acquiring new dimensions and is struggling hard to achieve the status of discipline in the comity of Social Sciences.[1] Introduction In our daily life, we frequently come across the term Public Policy as we come across different policies like National Health Policy, various education policies, various agricultural policies and various kinds of Fiscal policies etc. Therefore the area of public policy is to interact with the sphere which is labelled as public. The concept of public policy pre-supposes that there is a particular domain of human life which is not private and purely individual in nature. Public It is crucial to understand the concept of the public in order to understand the concept of Public policy. We often come across lots of terms like public opinion, public sector, public interest, public health and so on. The starting point of Public policy is that the concept of Public policy has to do with those spheres which are labelled as "Public”, as opposed to spheres involving "Private". The word public comprises all the dimensions of human activity regarded as requiring governmental intervention or social regulation etc Besides public administration emerged as an instrument of the state for securing public interest rather than a private interest .whereas for the political economist, the only market could balance public and private interest, the new liberalism is based on the belief that public administration is the more rational means of promoting the public interest. [2] Policy Generally whenever we come across the term 'policy' we understand this term as a principle, apart from that, the term policy denotes, among other things, "guidance for action". It may take the form of: Authoritative decision principle or a rule the purposive course of action system of governance the manifestation of considered judgment expression of political rationality declaration of common goals. However, Hogwood and Gunn specified ten uses of the term 'policy' as; A label for the field of activity, Expression of the desired state of affairs Specific proposals Decision of government Formal authorization A programme Output Outcome A theory or model A process The concept of policy is changing like other concepts of social science. Unfortunately, the policy itself is something which takes different forms. David Easton defines policy as the outputs “of the political system[3], and public policy as "The authoritative allocation of values for the whole society”.[4] The magnitude of this change in the forms can be recognized from other definition advanced by scholars in this field. Friedrich regards public policy as: .....a proposed course of action of a person, group, or government within a given environment providing obstacles and opportunity which the policy was proposed to utilize and overcome in an effort to reach a goal or realize and objective or a purpose.[5] However, so far as the concept of public policy is concerned, here the meaning of the policy is to be understood as "PLAN OF ACTION." Concept of Public Policy Public policy guides to the steps taken by the administrative executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues, in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. National constitutional laws and regulations are the foundation stone of public policy. Further substrates include both judicial interpretations and regulations which are generally authorized by legislation.[6] For the public policy to be considered as strong and becomes acceptable when it solves problems efficiently and effectively, serves justice, supports governmental institutions and policies, and encourages active citizenship. According to David Easton, these are the persons "engage in daily affairs of a political system ", are " recognized by most members of the system as having responsibility for these matters " and take action that is "accepted as binding most of the time by most of the members so long as they act within the limits of their roles ."[7] Dye also comments that "Public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do "[8] Similarly, Line berry says that "It is what government do and fail to do - to and for their citizens".[9] [1] Book on Public Policy(Art and Craft of Policy Analysis) by R.K Sapru Second Edition [2] Book on Public Policy(Art and Craft of Policy Analysis) by R.K Sapru Second Edition [3] David Easton , "An approach to the analysis of political system " , World Politics , vol.9 , No.1,April 1957 , p-384 [4] David Easton , The Political Systems ( New York : Knopf , 1953) , page 129 [5] Carl J.Friedrich , Man and His Government ( New york : McGRaw - Hill ,1963 ) , p- 79 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy , 8.29 am , 10.10.2017 [7] David Easton , A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New york:Wiley , 1965) , p.212 [8] Thomas Dye , op.cit., page 1 [9] Robert L.Lineberry , American Public Policy :what government does and what difference it makes (New York : Harper & Row , 1977) , p.2