The policy scientists have created theories and models to help them understand and explain the policy making process. Following the widely accepted conceptual scheme of Thomas Dye, Policy Models can be conveniently classified into the following seven types: 5
1. Group Theoretic Model
According to group theory, interaction and struggle among different societal groups is the central facet of political life. Group is a collectivity of individuals distinguished by some common attribute or shared relationship. Groups are categorized in many different ways. A formal or organized group, such as political party or interest group, has recognized goals and structures, affecting group interaction
2. Elite Theoretic Model
Briefly stated, as per this model, public policy is the product of elites, reflecting their values and serving their- ends. Essentially. what the model postulates is that the society is divided into the few who have power and the many who do not have it. Policy, in this social set-up, is not determined by the people or the masses.
3. Incremental Model
The incremental model is associated with the names of Charles Lindblom and David Braybrook. It draws attention to several real-life constraints on public administration like time, cost, information, and politics. As Lindblom points out, the prescribed functions and constraints of the public administrators “restrict their attention to, relatively few values and relatively few alternative policies”. Policy making from this viewpoint, is conceived realistically as marginal and uncoordinated adjustment in situations of conflicting demands and interests and in the fear of unforeseen consequences that an likely to flow out of actual division.
4. Institutional Model
Public policies are formulated and executed through institutions. Institution is an established pattern of human behaviour consisting of structured interaction within a framework of relevant values. The institutions not only constitute a crucial and significant juncture for policy making but also determine the formulation or adoption of policies, its possible content and directions, and the exact as well as the probable trends and contours that a body of similar or related policies acquire.
5. Rational Model
This model is far more sophisticated than the earlier ones. It is an efficiency maximization model which postulates calculation of policy efficiency (hence rationality) on the basis of all social, economic and political values achieved and/or sacrificed by the adjudication of public policy. e.g. Simon’s Bounded Rationality Model
6. Game Theoretic Model
Gaming is a body of thought which deals with rational decision strategies in situations of conflict and competition, where each participant or player seeks to maximise gains and minimise losses. In it the strategy and decisions of one actor depends on the strategy or decisions of the others in the competitive situations.
7. Systems Theoretic Model
Scientific politics can develop only if the materials of politics are treated in terms of systems of actions. According to Abraham kaplan, from his book, American Ethics and Public Policy, “a system of action is a set of variables so related, in contradictions to its environment, that desirable behavioral regularities characterize the internal relationships of the set of individual variables to combinations of external variables”. The utility of systems theory in terms of public policy formulation and analysis cannot be minimized because it helps us to know the process.
Rational approach : Simon’s Bounded Rationality Model
The concept of bounded rational decision making, irrespective of an individual level of intelligence, have to work fewer than three unavoidable constraints:
•Only limited, often unreliable information is available regarding possible alternatives and their consequences
•Human mind has only limited capacity to evaluate and process the information that is available
•Only a limited amount of time is available to make a decision
Therefore, in reality the individuals who propose rational choices are bound to make satisficing rather than maximizing or optimizing choices in complex situation.
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