Public politics

The public policies are the projects/activities that a State designs and manages, through a government and a public administration, in order to satisfy the needs of a society. They can also be understood such as actions, regulatory measures, laws, and spending priorities on an issue, enacted by a government entity.

The evolution of the term is linked to the specific needs of our social, cultural, political, economic, psychological and institutional environment. In other words, in the XX century, decision-making was exclusive to the government, which possessed the power to create, structure and modify the cycle of public policy. In the XXI century, the participation of a multiplicity of actors is essential in decision-making to form a Governance in any territory, since it creates consensus and gives legitimacy to public affairs that are undertaken in any society.

Definitions and theoretical approaches

The concept, according to various academics, can be understood as the following:

• Dye (1992) defines public policy as “all that governments decide to do or not to do”.
• Aguilar Villanueva (1996), for his part, points out that a public policy is “in sum: a) the design of an intentional collective action, b) the course that effectively takes action as a result of the many decisions and interactions that it entails and, consequently, c) the actual facts that collective action produces”.
• Méndez Martínez, José Luis (1993) mentions that a public policy is a package of related actions that, according to a strategy, involves a certain sequence and resources, in order to meet certain objectives set by the State based on a diagnosis and aimed at solving a problem and/or providing a public good. In this regard, it would have at least six basic elements: 1) the problem, 2) the diagnosis, 3) the solution, 4) the strategy, 5) the resources and 6) the execution. This author differentiates a public policy from other concepts, such as a decision or public proposal.
• Oszlak and O'Donnell (1981) contend that “...the state (or public) policies in our definition we conceive it as a set of actions or omissions that manifest a certain modality of State intervention in relation to a question that concise the attention, interest or mobilization of other actors in civil society.”
• Frohock (1979) considers that a public policy is a social practice and not a singular or isolated event caused by the need to reconcile conflicting demands or establish collective action incentives among those who share goals, but find it irrational to cooperate with others.
• Kraft and Furlong (2006) raise A public policy is a course of action or governmental inaction, in response to public problems: "Public policies reflect not only the most important values of a society, but also the conflict between values. Policies show which of the many different values, the highest priority is given in a given decision".
• Denhi Rosas Zárate (2014) defines public policy as that rational logic, crystallized in a political-administrative and social manifestation, result of an attempt to define and structure a basis for acting or not acting, by the government with other actors (entrepreneurs, civil society, private associations, women, young people, older adults, people with disabilities, indigenous people, migrants, etc.), which are interrelated at a specific time and place.

Theoretical approaches

These definitions, according to Alford and Friedland, tend to be derived from the main theoretical currents for the analysis of public policies. These currents are the pluralist, the leadership and the classist. The comparison between them in the table reveals their main features, but there are other features as well which are listed below:

• Pluralist: This approach is not always possible to use; it requires broad political stability and citizen participation.
• Leadership: focuses on organizations, including the State and its internal institutions, but also external organizations to the State. It is assumed that the elites influence the interactions of the organizations.
• Classist: focuses on the relationship between capitalism, the state and democracy; therefore, it is particularly useful when capitalism limits the effectiveness of democracy or the rationality and autonomy of the state bureaucracy.

Background to public policies

In 1951, The Policy Sciences, "Las Ciencias de la Política", a work by Harold Lasswell appears through "The Orientation towards Policies", founding text. In this text, Lasswell established the multidisciplinary, practical, normative and comparative orientations, among others, as defining characteristics of the field of policy studies. After the post-war period, the international scene was devastating; Geographical areas such as Japan, Eastern and Central Europe were destroyed. The role of the United States was to provide goods and services to these regions, which consolidated its world hierarchy as a political and economic power. The United States had a very deep interest in retaining power: "The persistent national security crisis we are experiencing forces us to use efficiently the workforce, facilities, and other resources of the American people," so planning was became paramount. Priorities were ranked, human and material resources for research were organized, the policy process itself was evaluated, the elaboration processes were reviewed; that is, the way to make rational decisions in political affairs.

In view of this new trend, an orientation towards policies was developed based on inserting all the established specializations. The objective was to broaden the focus of study towards political work, incorporating researchers, consultants, political advisers and final decision-makers; create a "policy orientation" that sought to encourage reflection on new trends and help clarify the possibilities of how to govern effectively and efficiently. The scientific policy approach, in addition to focusing on knowledge of the policy-making process, worked on the re-elaboration and evaluation of knowledge from any source, which seemed to carry a significant weight in the major policy issues of the time.

This attempt to establish an explanation and response to reality, interdisciplinary studies would be the apex of this enterprise for humanistic purposes. She was strongly influenced by the views of Merriam, Lasswell's teacher, who wrote: “Intelligent planning implies systematic attention to the growth of the advantages of civilization, to the mode and range of their distribution, and to the principles of justice and liberty. In its practical application, this requires that the government guarantee, as one of the guarantees, job security, minimum standards of health, education and social security, and equal access to opportunities to develop the creative powers of the human personality.

Policy Cycle

Interdisciplinarity and field of action

As an object of study and action, public policies are a field of interdisciplinary approach. There political science, public administration, law, economics, sociology, communication, social work, engineering and psychology, among other disciplines, dialogue to analyze, design, plan, evaluate and implement government actions.

In a Rule of Law, public policies refer to various subjects or sectors: education, social development, health, public safety, infrastructure, communications, energy, agriculture, etc.

The main areas of public policy analysis are:

• Benefits and impact on society.
• Social development.
• The economy, infrastructure and expansion of the general channels of communication, telecommunications, social development, health and public security, among others.
• Annual, five-year development plans, etc.
• The annual budgets of the states and the autonomous and municipal administrations.
• Public administration or bureaucratic system and their planning.
• International treaties and declarations of principles of individual or regional groupings: United Nations, Latin America, European Union, etc., with emphasis on social cohesion and governance for integral or total development.

It is essential to start from the needs of the social groups themselves, to whom these public policies are going to be directed, in order to carry out the implementation of real, viable and sustainable projects, for which the work of economists is needed, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, lawyers, and more.

Currently, defining the parameters of what is feasible for the government becomes complex and its role is fundamental, given the international and national changes that are setting behavior patterns; above all, if we consider that the State has to work on:

• Organize society as a public life, nation and country.
• Ensuring social life, being the necessary centre for private and public life to be responsive.
• Ensuring society stability, as well as for civil institutions, so that they can move better.
• Avoid exacerbated antagonism of the opposites and safeguard their sociability relations.
• Through the State, society has the institutional order, which is integrated by rules, authorities, means of government and administration, consensuses and social actors.

Evaluation

Policy evaluation can be understood as the process of observation, measurement, analysis and interpretation, oriented to the knowledge of the functioning of a certain public intervention, in order to reach an assessment of its social usefulness. This public intervention is seen reflected in decisions that the respective authorities reflect in plans, programs and projects that, at the time of putting into operation, use political, legal, economic and social means, including cultural ones, to comply with the objectives that motivate the start-up of said public policy.

Therefore, evaluation is a specific activity with its own identity, differentiated from others such as internal control, financial auditing, performance auditing or budgetary control, but with which it maintains a close relationship of complementarity. The ultimate goal of policy evaluation is to obtain information to make decisions.

Evaluation designs are usually classified into three main groups:

1. Experimental designs, with random allocation of individuals to the intervention group or the control group (equal groups).
2. Quasi experimental designs, which include community testing, pretest-postest designs with non-equivalent control group and multiple time series.
3. Non-experimental designs, including temporary series and pretest-postest designs without control group.

It is important not to forget that talking about the evaluation of a public policy is much broader, here only some elements have been raised that allow establishing certain criteria to start an evaluation process, its enrichment will occur to the extent that other scholars incorporate their experiences and knowledge on the subject.

Perspectives and models in program evaluation

The evaluation of public policies and their programs or social interventions, as currently understood, began in the 40s and 50s of the last century in the United States. Focused on evaluation through objectives in the field of education, Ralph Tyler is undoubtedly the most relevant representative of these beginnings.

According to this perspective, a program or intervention should have specific operational objectives; these measure the achievement/effect of the intervention, circumscribing the evaluation to conclusively verifying whether the objectives are met or not and to what degree. The evaluation procedure followed consisted simply of the pre-program measurement followed by a post-program measurement of the operational objectives, deducing their achievement (or not) and issuing the corresponding positive or negative value judgment.

In the mid-1960s, D. Campbell and J. Stanley introduced a new evaluative perspective centered on the experimental method, stating that there are no differences between evaluation and the scientific method. In the following years, the number of evaluations carried out from this perspective multiplied and acquired traits of a dominant paradigm, although without totally displacing the evaluation through objectives.

For his part, Edward Schuman identifies evaluation with applied research on the effectiveness of a social intervention, therefore following a scientific model. However, it does not stick only to the analysis of the achievement of objectives, but also adds as objectives of the evaluation: to analyze the reasons for success and failure in the achievement of the objectives of the programs/services, to highlight the basic philosophy of the successful intervention, and redefine the means necessary to achieve the objectives. In addition, although the study of effects is a priority in any evaluation, according to Schuman, for its correct analysis it is necessary to collect information on: the processes of the program; the target population (characteristics and volume); situational determinants of the development of the intervention, and its differential effects.

Another interesting contribution of Schuman is to propose three possible types of evaluation: final evaluation of results (the typical evaluation through objectives), previous evaluation (focused on the delimitation of needs, goals and objectives and implementation of the social intervention), and evaluation during the process (identify the most useful activities or procedures). Finally, Schuman's model specifies up to five assessment criteria that actually give rise to five areas of evaluation, namely: 1) criterion or evaluation of the effort involved in the social intervention (quality and quantity of intervention activities); 2) evaluation of the product or result; 3) evaluation of sufficiency; 4) evaluation of efficiency; and 5) evaluation of the process, that is, the analysis of what leads to the results.

In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the experimental perspective entered into crisis essentially for one reason: carrying out authentic social experiments is very difficult, in many cases impossible, and always requires a great economic effort and takes a long time. so its results are often neither useful nor usable.

Scriven proposes a model free of objectives, which places emphasis on the real and total consequences produced by social intervention, taking as evaluation criteria the needs of users/consumers. Scriven thus breaks with previous approaches, considering all the effects caused by the program as the object of evaluation and not only those that were initially foreseen in its definition, adding the perspective of the user, of the client.

Another notable proposal is that of R. Stake, called responsive evaluation, due to its emphasis on accommodating the needs of "customers"; that is, the model has as its first consideration the use of the results of the evaluation of those who commission it. He proposes both descriptive procedures and the issuance of judgments/values, insisting that although the evaluation is not complete until the corresponding value judgments are issued, the descriptive part is already an evaluation or, in any case, it is a step prior to the corresponding assessment or prosecution of a program.

Crombach presents the UTO model and proposes an evaluation based on a proactive and flexible planning of the evaluation activities. Together with other authors such as Stake, Schuman, etc. They represent the approach known as pluralistic evaluation or naturalistic evaluation, which is based on the recognition of the plurality of value systems that coexist within society. Although their methodological approaches differ in some respects, they all view evaluation as applied research that can provide objective and unbiased conclusions about the achievement of program objectives and useful inputs for redefining the means and resources necessary for their achievement. In short, it promotes the active participation of the agents involved in a program, giving less importance to the quantitative evaluation of results than to the qualitative evaluation of the management and execution processes.

For Stufflebeam, evaluation is a process that provides useful information for decision-making. This information refers to: 1) What needs exist and to what extent the proposed objectives reflect the felt needs; 2) Description of the intervention program, of the alternative proposals contemplated and conceptual analysis of the adequacy of the chosen proposal to the objectives; 3) Degree of completion of the proposed intervention plan and description of its modifications; and 4) Observed results/consequences of the intervention and degree to which needs have been met. To get this information, Stufflebeam proposes the CIPP model, which is simply the enumeration of four different types of evaluation: context evaluation (C); input evaluation (I); process evaluation ℗; and evaluation of the product ℗.

With the incorporation of these latest models, the objectives of the evaluation are expanded, so that it is much more systematic and global. It is not only a question of assessing whether the objectives are achieved (evaluation of results or of the product), but also of identifying the needs, if these are fully included in the programmes/services, how the programmes/services are implemented, how these programs work /services etc These new models start the path towards a comprehensive and systematic evaluation.

Evidence Summaries

Systematic reviews are long, technical documents that can be difficult for policymakers to use when making decisions. For this reason, evidence summaries are produced, which are short documents that describe the main findings of systematic reviews. It has been proposed to explore whether evidence summaries help policymakers to use the evidence obtained from systematic reviews, as well as to identify better ways of presenting summaries in order to increase their use.

A review of six randomized controlled studies was conducted, involving people from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Two of the studies found that there was little or no difference in the way the summaries were used by policymakers. Also, in terms of usability, participants rated the entry format better than the full systematic review, and felt that all evidence summary formats were easier to understand than the full systematic reviews. However, there is still little evidence about the best way to present the evidence to policymakers.