Policy Process, Models of

The term model has multiple meanings. This being so in general, in political science the varying use of the term reflects the diversity of stances on philosophical and methodological issues in this discipline. In its most narrow definition, the term [Page 1940]model stands for a mathematical formula. More broadly conceived, the term involves some kind of metaphor used to picture a phenomenon in social reality. In the study of government, both sorts of definitions occur, in several variants. All share the aim of offering a cognitive representation of real-world phenomena.

The stages model of the policy process structures analytically the range of activities involved in the collective endeavors to turn public intentions into public achievements. In both the theory and the practice of modern government, this model—as it is called—has been widely adopted. Because of its prevalence, the stages model of the policy process is the point of departure in this entry. The outline of the latter can be summarized as follows. First, questions are explored about which variants of the stages model can be distinguished and what kind of functions these fulfill. Next, the methodological status of the stages model as a representation of the policy process is addressed. In a more narrow definition, it turns out to be a metatheoretical heuristic. It is an analytical framework, rather than a causal model. However, other ways of studying the policy process can be identified. Under the heading of governance research, analytical frameworks are available that can serve as metatheoretical alternatives to the stages model. What the frameworks addressed in the governance section have in common is that they enable the systematic study of government in action. Two of them stem from the field called policy studies, policy science, or the policy sciences, itself. In particular, the multiple stages and multiple governance frameworks have been developed as a critique to the stages model. The other two frameworks come from institutionally different parts of the study of government, particularly public management (nested games and the logic of governance) and institutional rational choice (institutional analysis and development). These alternative frameworks allow the decomposition of the policy process into different elements rather than in stages and in a greater variety rather than as just sets of activities. In fact, the four metatheoretical frameworks provide other ways of structuring the multiplicity of aspects in the analysis of the practice of modern government. The conclusion then is that such an analysis has evolved beyond the stages model of the policy process.