Public policy making process

First of all, Duff’s discussion of the barriers to information policy making made me cringe and think of Aaron and the Bureau of Antelope Affairs. Thank you Duff (2004), for reminding us that no one in LIS can agree what “information” means and that this lack of consensus (or some might say spinning of our wheels) causes a multitude of problems, not the least of which is an inability to agree what comes under “information policy.” If we could agree to disagree and just take a working definition, maybe we could get somewhere. Of course, Buckland (1991) tried to do just that, but we (LIS academics) don’t seem eager to embrace his 3-part working definition.

But of course, the inability to agree to the definition of information is only part of the problem. Even if academics could agree, we would have to then get politicians to accept our definition and start organizing/creating information policies. I am not sure I really need to enumerate the further challenges here: the gazillion stakeholder groups, the inherent challenges in the policy making process evident in the aforementioned discussion of the legislative process (see previous post), the changing views from Administration to Administration, Congress to Congress, and throughout American society, yada yada yada.

Chuck asked us to bring definitions of public policy making process. I had found something based on OED definitions of public policy, policy-making, and process, but now I am wondering if this term is simply an oxymoron. Jones (1984) cites a dictionary definition of process as a series of actions aimed at an end. I am not sure I see any of this public policy making as “aimed at an end” so can we really say it is a process? Or is it more of a never-ending Merry-Go-Round with riders jumping on and off?

References

Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 351-360.

Duff, A. F. (2004). The past, present, and future of information policy. Information, Communication & Society, 7(1), 69-87. Retrieved January 8, 2009, from Informa database.

Jones, C. A. (1984). An introduction to the study of public policy, 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

P.S. I am not saying anything about Reyes (2001) since reading that after reading Jones (1984) gave me an intense feeling of déjà vu, and I am always trying to work on that whole “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” thing, although perhaps not always successfully.