Easton and the systems modelers argue that we can think of the public policy process
as the product of a system that is influenced by and influences the environment in which
it operates. This chapter focuses on this policy-making environment and describes the
social, political, and economic system in which public policy making takes place. The
political process relates to its environment much as a plant or animal does: it is both
influenced by and influences its environment. One must be careful with this analogy,
however; the boundary between the political system and its environment is blurry,
as the system and the environment overlap. The strength of the systems approach is
its value in helping us isolate important things worthy of study. For example, within
this general notion of the policy environment, we can isolate four “environments”that influence policy making: the structural environment, the social environment, the
economic environment, and the political environment.