Policies take many different forms. A policy might be a law, or a regulation, or the
set of all the laws and regulations that govern a particular issue area or problem. This
would be a sound but incomplete explanation. Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram
provide a more extensive definition of policy: “Policies are revealed through texts,
practices, symbols, and discourses that define and deliver values including goods
and services as well as regulations, income, status, and other positively or negatively
valued attributes.”9 This definition means that policies are not just contained in lawsand regulations; once a law or rule is made, policies continue to be made as the
people who implement policy—that is, those who put policies into effect—make
decisions about who will benefit from policies and who will shoulder burdens as a
result. In studying policy, then, we look at the broader sweep of politics, not simply
the written laws and rules themselves.