KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

By having good knowledge and understanding of key elements of public policy,
non-governmental organizations can improve the productivity of their participation in
public decision-making.
Now let us examine the nature of the decision-making process.
The <strong>Policy</strong> Cycle
There are many approaches to decision-making, and they are determined by the
purpose and the subject matter of a public policy. A commonly recognized model is
called the policy cycle (see illustration below) 1 .
The <strong>Policy</strong> Cycle
The policy cycle has both strengths and weaknesses. Its strength lies in the ability
to set the direction for public policy-making; a weakness stems from the cycle’s lack
of flexibility. In other words, the model never describes the set of actions needed in a
particular situation. This means that no one set of instruments can be used to elaborate
different stages of the policy cycle. The model merely gives the direction in which
someone wants to move.
In addition, the nature of the decision-making process is such that each of the six
stages has a bearing on the stages that precede and follow it. For example, the third
stage – decision-making– may call for an elaboration or development of additional
policies under the second stage, formulating the policy. Therefore, simply ending one
stage does not mean that the stage is completed. The weakness of this model is that there
is no single opinion about how long each policy cycle must take. It has no clear criteria
for defining the scope of the problem and its solution.
1
Sources: Anderson (1994); Bardach (1996); Howlet and Ramesch (1996); Ohio University (1998); Open
Society Institute (1999); Pal (2000); Smith (2000).
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