ABSTRACT
This figure serves both as an overview of the process, and, to some extent, the organization for this book. In this model, public problems emerge in a society through various means, including sudden events such as disasters or through the advocacy activities of concerned citizens and interest groups. If the issue gains sufficient attention, it is said to have reached the agenda, a process described in Chapter 6. Given the size and complexity of governance in the United States and the number of governmentsover 80,000, from the federal government to the smallest local water district-there are lots of problems and lots of ideas on many agendas. Once an issue moves up on an agenda, it moves to the development of alternative policy responses-some might call them solutions-to public problems. From there, we move to alternative policy selection; that is, the choice of policy tools we will use to address the problem, whereupon policies are enacted. Enactment means that a law is passed, a regulation is issued, or some other formal decision is reached to take a particular action to solve a
problem. After that decision is reached, the policy is implemented, a process described in Chapter 10. The policy is then evaluated and the results of evaluation provide feedback to the process, where it begins anew.
