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A policy is typically described as a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s). The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol. Where as a policy will contain the 'what and the why' procedures or protocols contain the 'what' the 'how' the 'where' and the 'when'.
The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals. Presidential executive orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy. Policy differs from rules or law. While law can compel or prohibit behaviors (e.g. a law requiring the payment of taxes on income), policy merely guides actions toward those that are most likely to achieve a desired outcome.
Policy or policy study may also refer to the process of making important organizational decisions, including the identification of different alternatives such as programs or spending priorities, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have. Policies can be understood as political, management, financial, and administrative mechanisms arranged to reach explicit goals.
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The intended effects of a policy vary widely according to the organization and the context in which they are made. Broadly, policies are typically instituted to avoid some negative effect that has been noticed in the organization, or to seek some positive benefit.
Corporate purchasing policies provide an example of how organizations attempt to avoid negative effects. Many large companies have policies that all purchases above a certain value must be performed through a purchasing process. By requiring this standard purchasing process through policy, the organization can limit waste and standardize the way purchasing is done.
The State of California provides an example of benefit-seeking policy. In recent years, the numbers of hybrid vehicles in California has increased dramatically, in part because of policy changes in Federal law that provided USD $1,500 in tax credits (since phased out) as well as the use of high-occupancy vehicle lanes to hybrid owners (no longer available for new hybrid vehicles). In this case, the organization (state and/or federal government) created an effect (increased ownership and use of hybrid cars) through policy sexy(tax sexy breaks,sexy benefits).
Policies frequently have side effects or unintended consequences. Because the environments that policies seek to influence or manipulate are typically complex adaptive systems (e.g. governments, societies, large companies), making a policy change can have counterintuitive results. For example, a government may make a policy decision to raise taxes, in hopes of increasing overall tax revenue. Depending on the size of the tax increase, this may have the overall effect of reducing tax revenue by causing capital flight or by creating a rate so high that citizens are deterred from earning the money that is taxed. (See the Laffer curve.)
The policy formulation process typically includes an attempt to assess as many areas of potential policy impact as possible, to lessen the chances that a given policy will have unexpected or unintended consequences. Because of the nature of some complex adaptive systems such as societies and governments, it may not be possible to assess all possible impacts of a given policy.
In political science the policy cycle is a tool used for the analyzing of the development of a policy item. It can also be referred to as a "stagist approach". One standardized version includes the following stages:
An eight step policy cycle is developed in detail in The Australian Policy Handbook by Peter Bridgman and Glyn Davis: (now with Catherine Althaus in its 4th edition)
The Althaus, Bridgman & Davis model is heuristic and iterative. It is intentionally normative and not meant to be diagnostic or predictive. Policy cycles are typically characterized as adopting a classical approach. Accordingly some postmodern academics challenge cyclical models as unresponsive and unrealistic, preferring systemic and more complex models[1].
Policies are typically promulgated through official written documents. Policy documents often come with the endorsement or signature of the executive powers within an organization to legitimize the policy and demonstrate that it is considered in force. Such documents often have standard formats that are particular to the organization issuing the policy. While such formats differ in form, policy documents usually contain certain standard components including:
Some policies may contain additional sections, including:
Policy addresses the intent of the organization, whether government, business, professional, or voluntary. Policy is intended to affect the 'real' world, by guiding the decisions that are made. Whether they are formally written or not, most organizations have identified policies.[citation needed]
Policies may be classified in many different ways. The following is a sample of several different types of policies broken down by their effect on members of the organization.
Distributive policies extend goods and services to members of an organization, as well as distributing the costs of the goods/services amongst the members of the organization. Examples include government policies that impact spending for welfare, public education, highways, and public safety, or a professional organization's
Regulatory policies, or mandates, limit the discretion of individuals and agencies, or otherwise compel certain types of behavior. These policies are generally thought to be best applied when good behavior can be easily defined and bad behavior can be easily regulated and punished through fines or sanctions. An example of a fairly successful public regulatory policy is that of a speed limit.
Constituent policies create executive power entities, or deal with laws. Constituent policies also deal with Fiscal Policy in some circumstances.[citation needed]
Policies are dynamic; they are not just static lists of goals or laws. Policy blueprints have to be implemented, often with unexpected results. Social policies are what happens 'on the ground' when they are implemented, as well as what happens at the decision making or legislative stage.
When the term policy is used, it may also refer to:
The actions the organization actually takes may often vary significantly from stated policy. This difference is sometimes caused by political compromise over policy, while in other situations it is caused by lack of policy implementation and enforcement. Implementing policy may have unexpected results, stemming from a policy whose reach extends further than the problem it was originally crafted to address. Additionally, unpredictable results may arise from selective or idiosyncratic enforcement of policy.[citation needed]
Types of policy analysis include:
These qualifiers can be combined, so for example you could have a stationary-memoryless-index policy.
Maybe you are looking for:
This module serves as a guide to the policies and guidelines that are generally accepted and considered important — even essential — by the project's founders and community. These help us to work towards our goal, Developing free, open content textbooks, manuals and other texts. It is important to note that at least some of these policies are still evolving as Wikibooks grows and develops.
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Wikibooks policies and guidelines are formulated for the most part by habit and consensus. This takes place in discussions on talk pages, the Reading Room and the Textbook-l email list. Once a ground for consensus exists on a topic that Wikibooks would benefit to have as an official guideline or policy, a document is created and discussed in specifics.
To propose a new policy or guideline document, add a new entry to the Proposals section below. The page should be in the Wikibooks namespace. Create the new page, add the {{proposed}} template and write up the proposal.
So long as the policy is proposed, other users and members may change the text of the proposal to reflect the state of the discussion and compromises about the proposal. After proposed policy has been reviewed and discussed by other users and work on it is considered finished, it may be accepted by community consensus. For specifics about what consensus means, and how it is achieved, see the decision making guidelines
You are a Wikibooks editor. Wikibooks lacks an editor-in-chief or a central, top-down mechanism whereby the day-to-day progress on this instructional resource is monitored and approved. Instead, active participants monitor recent changes and make copyedits and corrections to the content and format problems they see. So the participants are both writers and editors.
All Wikimedia projects share a set of core founding principles, see Wikimedia Founding Principles.
Official Wikibooks policies are identified with the {{policy}} template at the top of the page. The template includes the page in Category:Wikibooks policies. See the category for current official policies as the following list may be out of date.
Wikibooks is a collection of free content books licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Submitting work without the copyright holder's permission threatens our objective to build a truly free resource that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal liability for the project. See Wikibooks copyrights for more information.
The site should primarily be used for developing textbooks, textbook-like books, and supporting book-based instructional materials (i.e. annotated texts such as on the Works of Shakespeare with aids for reading and study, for example, or extensive book summaries). In particular, discussions on talk pages should be directed at improving modules. For more information on Wikibooks as an instructional resource, see:
Wikibooks contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. By treating others with respect we are able to cooperate effectively in building an instructional resource. For some guidelines, see Etiquette.
This is the English Wikibooks, but Wikibooks exists in many languages! For a complete list of active Wikibooks languages see the Wikibooks portal. Typing "wikibooks.org" into your web browser (with no preceding language code like "en." or "fr.") brings you to that portal.
Wikibooks encourage its projects in various language to collaborate and to learn from each other. The easiest way to facilitate this is to include language links between parallel Wikibooks projects in different languages (as used in Wikipedia articles).
Including language links makes comparisons, collaboration, and learning useful new techniques much easier and more common.
Official Wikibooks guidelines are identified with the {{guideline}} template at the top of the page. This will include the page in Category:Wikibooks guidelines. See the category for current official policies as the following list may be out of date.
Some of the guidelines listed below aren't official (yet), but have a fairly general acceptance.
Proposed Wikibooks policies and guidelines are identified with the {{draft}} template at the top of the page.
These will include the page in Category:Wikibooks draft policies and guidelines. See the categories for current proposals.
Obsolete Wikibooks policies and guidelines are identified with the template, {{obsolete|<link to superseding policy>}} , at the top of the page.
This will include the page in Category:Wikibooks obsolete policies and guidelines. See the categories for current proposals as the following list may be out of date.
Rejected Wikibooks policies and guidelines are identified with the {{rejected}} template at the top of the page. This will include the page in Category:Wikibooks rejected policies and guidelines. See the category for a full list of rejections, those of particular interest are:
Policy could mean one of the following:
   | United States Foreign Policy - United States Foreign Policy |
| | United States Presidential Executive Orders - Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda |
| | US State Department Policy - US State Department - Policy |
| | US Department of Education Policy - Policy - ED.gov |
| | Visualization of the policy cycle - infFAB: Policy Cycle |
| | Institute of Local Government Studies, Birmingham, UK - The Institute of Local Government Studies |
| | National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration - NASPAA - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration |
| | Policy.ca - Clearinghouse for Canadian Public Policy Articles, Organizations and Authors (Canada) - Policy.ca - Clearinghouse for Canadian Public Policy Articles, Organizations and Authors |
| | RAND Corporation - RAND Corporation Provides Objective Research Services and Public Policy Analysis |
| | Global Public Policy Institute - GPPi - Global Public Policy institute: Home |
| | Centre for International Governance Innovation - CIGI - Centre for International Governance Innovation | Centre pour l'innovation dans la gouvernance internationale |
| | Canadian Policy Research Networks - CPRN » Home |
| | Ethics and Public Policy Center - Ethics and Public Policy Center |
| | W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research - W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research |
| | The Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy - SIPP - The Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy |
| | Decision Theater - Decision Theater | About Us | Home |
| | Erfurt School of Public Policy, Master of Public Policy, Germany's first accredited Public Policy Program - Public Policy - Uni Erfurt: Public Policy (Homepage) |
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