ABSTRACT
Public policy can be defined simply as an officially expressed intention backed by a sanction. Although synonymous with law, rule, statute, edict, and regulation, public policy is the term of preference today probably because it conveys more of an impression of flexibility and compassion than the other terms. But no citizen, especially a student of political science, should ever forget that policy and police have common origins. Both come from “polis” and “polity,” which refer to the political community itself and to the “monopoly of legal coercion” by which government itself has been defined. Consequently, all public policies must be understood as coercive. They may be motivated by the best and most beneficent of intentions, and they may be implemented with utmost care for justice and mercy. But that makes them no less coercive.
