The Blackwell Companion to Globalization

Chapter 22

Globalization and Public Policy

TIM BLACKMAN

Public policy is what governments do with the authority they have; their commitment of resources to what they see as public problems or challenges (Colebatch 1998; Dearlove 1973). The scope is enormous, from defence and foreign policy, to social policies for healthcare, education or tackling crime, to policies for science and technology, and the regulation of a range of activities from advertising to scientific experimentation. Globalization is creating a new environment for these concerns and activities; one in which interconnectedness is of fundamental importance, both as a source of opportunity and as a source of risk.

For there to be a policy there needs to be a problem, but how something gets to be recognized as a problem depends on societal values, dominant ideologies and ideas and political interests (Dorey 2005). Whether globalization is a problem is hotly contested, just as any solution depends on what sort of problem globalization may be. Public policy makes sense of globalization in a particular way, framing the action that follows, whether through regulation, fiscal measures, investment and spending decisions or trade agreements. If there is a thread that can be traced through the policy process of a government as it engages with an issue like globalization it is coherence around values. Policy decisions mobilize some values and exclude others, validate some actions and invalidate others, and include some interests ...