Public Policymaking in India

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Policy Processes

Nature of Policy Processes

A policy process is a series of thoughts and actions that produce a policy decision. The first step in the policy process is agenda setting, that is to say, the decision to take up a policy problem for resolution. If at this stage there is a fairly good idea of the policy alternatives, the scope and pace of the policy-making may also be decided. The scope of the policy may be far-reaching or modest; the pace of change may be fast or incremental taking a few small steps at a time. The choice of scope and pace is determined by two factors: (a) what is considered to be the best policy in terms of conventional policy analysis; and (b) what is considered the best possible policy in the given circumstances, ...