THE POLICY-MAKING PROCESS
* The policy-making process with respect to the environment in our society includes many different groups and individuals who have various degrees of influence in terms of managing the commons (สิ่งร่วมกัน สาธารณะ)
* The term public policy is often used to refer to this policy-making process and may be useful in understanding how the commons is managed in our society and how society decides on environmental policy with respect to corporations (บริษัท)
* The general goals of public policy are determined through a political process in which citizens participate constrained (จำกัด) only by rights of the kind protected by the constitution (รัฐธรรมนูญ)
1. The Nature of Public Policy
- Several definitions for public policy
- Public policy is a specific course (แนวทางปฏิบัติ) of action taken collectively (โดยรวม) by society or by a legitimate (ถูกต้องตามกฏหมาย) representative of society, addressing a specific problem of public concern, that reflects the interests of society or particular segments of society (This definition emphasizes a course of action rather than principles)
2. The Public Policy Process
- The term "public policy process" refers to the various processes by which public policy is formed.
- There is no one single process by which public policy is made in our country
- It is made by means of a complex, subtle (ละเอียด), and not always formal process
- The function (บทบาท หน้าที่) of a political process is to organize individuals, effort (พยายาม) to achieve some kind of collective goal or objective that individuals or private groups find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve by themselves
- The universal motivating (ขับเคลื่อน) principle (หลักการ) in the public policy process is the public interest rather than self-interest
- The public interest can refer to the aggregation, weighing, and balancing of a number of special interests
- The public interest can also refer to a common or universal interest that all or at least most of the members of a society share