policy

The importance of the social and legal issues addressed in bioethics is reflected in the large number of national and international bodies established to advise governments on appropriate public policy. At the national level, several countries have set up bioethics councils or commissions,…

…of equality and responsiveness in policy making. It is also believed to increase “social capital”—the resources an individual or a group derives from relationships of mutual acquaintance, recognition, and cooperation.

Comparative studies suggest that government policies favouring overall poverty reduction and wage equity can contribute to overcoming past educational and economic disadvantages. At the same time, there are strong convergent policies internationally that call for a diminished role for the state in the provision of social services such as…

…expertise and authoritative claims to policy-relevant knowledge in a particular issue area. Such professionals may have different backgrounds and may be located in different countries, but they share a set of norms that motivate their common action, a set of beliefs about central problems in their area of expertise, shared…

…of governance raises issues about public policy and democracy. The increased role of non-state actors in the delivery of public services has led to a concern to improve the ability of the state to oversee these other actors. The state has become more interested in various strategies for creating and…

Public policy generally consists of the set of actions—plans, laws, and behaviours—adopted by a government. Concern with the new governance draws attention to the extent to which these actions are often performed now by agents of the state rather than directly by the…

…concerns, attempts to influence public policy in its favour. All interest groups share a desire to affect government policy to benefit themselves or their causes. Their goal could be a policy that exclusively benefits group members or one segment of society (e.g., government subsidies for farmers) or a policy that…

…is the structure of the policy process. As indicated above, in democratic parliamentary systems, where the executive is drawn from the major political party or party coalition in the parliament (e.g., Finland, India, and Ireland), the legislative branch is less important than the prime minister and the cabinet in policy…

The benefits of mass transportation result from the utilization of these services: more utilization produces more benefits. Crowded buses and trains signify a smaller market share for the automobile, with its attendant air pollution, congestion, accidents, and excessive land consumption. Heavy utilization of mass…

Decisions about what services to provide, and how to provide and pay for them, should be based on an understanding of the mission of mass transportation in a particular community. The diversity of missions, geographies, and market characteristics leads to a variety of transit service…

The use of the law to restrict or require actions from people for their own good is known as legal paternalism. Societies may vary in the breadth or manner in which they use the law to restrict the freedom of their constitutive individual or…

administration, the implementation of government policies. Today public administration is often regarded as including also some responsibility for determining the policies and programs of governments. Specifically, it is the planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling of government operations.

…simply the implementation of public policies determined by others. According to this view, administrators should seek maximum efficiency but should be otherwise neutral about values and goals. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, and even more so during World War II, however, it became increasingly evident that many new…

For centuries, a major factor in setting public policy regarding tobacco products was the economic importance of the tobacco industry. Therefore, despite occasional efforts to prohibit the production of tobacco products, the main impetus of tobacco regulation throughout the world was to ensure the…

Concerted actions by the world’s governments are critical in protecting biodiversity. Numerous national governments have conserved portions of their territories under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). A list of 20 biodiversity goals, called the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, was unveiled at the CBD meeting held in…