Posts Tagged Public Policies
Terrorism, interest-group politics, and public policy: curtailing criminal modes of political speech.
Terrorist incidents have occurred in the United States and around the world for centuries. Tax revolters, anarchists, war protesters, and other critics of government policy have often used violence to send messages to the policymakers controlling the issues of interest. The attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, have been widely interpreted as a comment on U.S. policy toward the Islamic world, especially U.S. policy in the Middle East. Indeed, terrorist attacks might be defined as violence for the purpose of sending a political message with the aim of influencing policy or at least of voicing disapproval. In this sense, terrorism is one possible method of “political dialogue.”
Even when political analysts do not share the goals of terrorist groups, they may defend the use of violence as a method of sending messages because of the political nature of the message sent. After all, political messages and popular protests receive special protection in all liberal democracies, and civil disobedience has often generated improvements in government policies. The conjunction of the “political message” explanation of terrorist actions and a “free speech” justification of those actions clearly resonates with some proponents of popular resistance, but it is nonetheless a bit puzzling for most proponents of free speech. Those who advocate the former explanation might argue that the United States brought the recent attacks on itself by various foreign-policy mistakes made over the years. Most proponents of free speech will reject this conclusion as a justification for terrorism, but they have not yet found a clear line of argument with which to respond to it.
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The Problem of Public Policy and Bills on Obesity
The American Diabetes Association has been pushing efforts to combat diabetes through their comprehensive Diabetes Prevention Program. The DPP was conducted over several medical centers, involving participants who volunteered to have their eating and activity habits monitored and to follow dietary and exercise recommendations. Among the astounding findings of the said program is the correlation between the causes and prevention of diabetes with that of obesity. Even so, health programs such as the DPP could not account and counter the entire problem with weight-gain alone. People of power have to do something because they can.
Regrettably, public policy and bills on obesity have not been eagerly pushed through enough against one of the gravest threats to long-term health. Legislators are only as eager to listen on the chitchat-debates rather than to act (immediately) on the required public policy and bills on obesity.
Particular groups and districts though are positively assertive. Some state-lawmakers are forwarding bills requiring fast food and chain restaurants to post nutrition information such as caloric, fat and sugar content on menus to standardize public awareness on obesity. Other states are considering public policies restricting the sale of soda, candy, and other junk-foods in schools under jurisdiction, while others are appointing commissions for research or imposing physical education standards in schools. Others still propose public policy and bills on obesity imposing tax not only on fatty-foods, but also on sedentary models like movie-tickets, video-games and DVD-rentals, to be used as fund for nutrition and exercise programs. Read the rest of this entry »
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Public Administration Vs Private Administration
Most authors differentiate public administration and private administration by educational institutions (public schools vs. private schools). Although it’s a good example to provide a comprehensive analysis between the two sectors, I found it not the quintessence for a comparative analysis. Historically, in our country, public schools have a much higher quality education than private schools, and studying economics and public administration, it is not just the nature of bureaucracies, nor the scope of public administration that the case today was reversed. While some authors identified over a dozen factors that differentiates public to private administration, Denhardt only speaks of the three fundamental differences between the two. In this paper, I would elaborate Denhardt’s three points since, together with economist Boadway’s Difference between Public and Private Sector, I found these as the most undisputable and concrete comparisons.
The most apparent difference between the two sectors is their organizing principles or goal. (Denhardt) While private administration has a definite mission, which is the pursuit of profit or stability or growth of revenues, public administration, on the other hand, has ambiguous purposes. Furthermore, the dilemma in ambiguity of purposes is exacerbated by too many unnecessary and inoperable agencies, with purposes that overlap and bloated bureaucracies. One might say that the goal of public administration is to enact public policies, but the overlapping and the main ambiguity of most of these policies, and the vagueness of the enactment of these policies make public administration’s purpose to be more ambiguous. Nevertheless, the fact that public institutions are not profit driven, should not lead us to believe that public sector employees and managers are not concerned about financial matters. As is the case with private companies, public sector units and organizations fight for funding and influence.
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