![]() | Beyond the Policy Cycle : The Policy Process in Australia It is common (and comforting) to see public policy as the result of careful craft work by expert officials who recognise a problem, identify and evaluate possible responses, and choose the most appropriate strategy the policy cycle'. The reality is more complex and challenging. Many hands are involved in policy-making, not all of them official, they are not all addressing the same problem, they have different ideas about what would be a good answer, and the process is rarely brought to a neat close by a clear decision. The development of policy can resemble firefighting, with players rushing to react to demands for action in areas that are already in crisis, or it can be a less frenetic process of weaving, as they search for an outcome which reflects the concerns of all the stakeholders. Effective participation in the policy process calls for a clear understanding of this complexity and ambiguity. Hal K.Colebatch has taught and researched public policy and administration in Australia, Papua New Guinea, East Africa and Southeast Asia, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Clinical Management Development, University of Durham and a member of the School of Social Science and Policy at the University of New South Wales. He is Vice-Chair of the International Political Science Association's Research Committee on Public Policy and Administration, and his widely-used Policy (Open University Press) has been translated into three languages. |
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