Public Policy

The term public policy refers to a series of actions (or nonaction) taken by a legislature or government to solve a particular societal problem. [Page 1782]Generally, policies are public actors’ statements of what they intend to do or not to do and may consist of laws, decisions, regulations, or orders. Policies can thus be perceived as the main output of political systems. Public policies touch upon every area of life from the cradle to the grave as they enable and constrain individual decisions implicitly or explicitly: Whether or not one can take a bus to work is determined by transport policies, the number of children one might want to have may be influenced by welfare policies and child benefits, whether or not homosexual couples can ...