Why study policy?

Anyone interested in politics needs to understand how political decisions are made. Behind what we hear described as ‘policy’ on the nightly news and what we read about in the newspaper is a complex process involving a range of players with competing interests, facing an array of pressures. These players may be inside or outside of government, and inside or outside of the bureaucracy. They may come from industry, the not for profit non-government sector, unions, professional bodies or from academia. Understanding the way these players interact, what drives and informs them, how they think, and what they do, helps us all to understand and interpret the policies that these complex relationships eventually produce: policies that have implications for each of us in our daily lives. Policy determines where roads are built, how many nurses work in a hospital, what fees you pay at university, how much tax we pay, the price of child care and so on and so on. Policy goes beyond measures of efficiency, effectiveness and political feasibility, with demonstrable effects on citizenship, justice, discourse and democracy (Ingram & Schneider 2006: 169). Almost every aspect of our lives is touched by policy. If we understand how policy is made we have greater capacity to participate in that process, to have our voices heard and to influence decisions.