The Assessment Of The Policies

Policy Evaluation– Chapter 4
This chapter deals with the assessment of the policies. Among other standards, this chapter discusses whether these policies have positive or adverse effects on the community or whether their goals are long or short-term. It starts by defining “Policy Evaluation” as studying the effects of public policies. The author explains that these effects comprise the impact of the policies on the target group, incidental groups, on immediate and forthcoming periods as well as direct and indirect expenses of implementing the policies. The authors further clarify that in assessing the impact, people appraise the effects but not the productivity of the government. For instances, the authors assert that to ascertain the amount of money used to implement the policy is not to evaluate its effects. The authors also aver that effects measurement may as well encompass symbolic policy effects such as the perceptions and attitudes the citizens have towards the state actions in implementing the policies. Citizens shall in some instances determine state’s actions using its good intents instead of actual successes. The government may also undertake measures to assess the policies which include visiting the sites to ascertain if the target group is satisfied or getting the required services; requiring reports through filings by the top government official tasked with the implementation of the policy such as cabinet secretaries; conducting hearings and comparing the program with other specialists’ standards.

Additionally, the government may assess the complaints lodged by the people; however, this is challenging since most of the people may not lodge complaints. The government further conducts public surveys to determine public opinion on certain policies and hearing by the Congress which has the Constitutional authority to investigate through testimonies and tabling of reports from the concerned government departments. Whereas the above measures are what the government is doing, the authors assert that those measures do not evaluate the cost vs. benefit of the policies and thus, they propose some steps that the state should perform; comparison should be made before and after the policy is implemented; with countries having or lacking the policy as well as contrast between the control and experimental clusters. Moreover, the authors aver that the policies should first experiment so as to assess their impacts before actual enactment and implementation. However, the state-sponsored researches may be biased to attain a positive outcome, and the outcome may be generalized to the entire country which may not work with particular groups, and the outcomes may be subjected to political interpretations.
The authors explain that state’s assessment programs always fail due to state officers avoiding analysis which shall disclose inconsistencies of the policy with societal goals, many policies are symbolic hence do not actually positively transform citizens’ lives, the state has vested interest in proving that the policy actually transforms lives and the undertaking of these assessments imply use of funds which the state is not ready to sacrifice. In case these assessments reveal negative outcomes, the policy supporters always explain that; the policy results are long-term which cannot be calculated presently, they are diffuse and cannot be gauged by one criterion, they are subtle and cannot be gauged using crude means and that the procedure of assessment was biased. However, even though the policies may lack positive outcomes, they are rarely ended because of concentrated profits and diffused expenses, people have greater interests in the policy such as government officers’ jobs and legislators’ influences and the state rarely conduct an assessment. Furthermore, the authors assert that due to value conflicts politics has taken over policy analysis which stresses on compromises, mutual benefits and trade-offs between the contrary views. The authors end with discussing the shortcomings of public policies explaining that societal problems that policies seek to address have numerous causes and are variedly defined, the political structure is not organized for total logical decision making, and some societal challenges require remedies that are costly. Further, the people’s anticipations often exceed state’s capacities, and remedies for one cluster may be a problem for another group.