Public Policy Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The steps of project implementation are: initiating the project, clarifying authority, responsibility and relationships, obtaining resources, establishing the control system, and directing and controlling (i, ii, v, iv and iii).

Resources must be obtained before the control system is set up, and directing and controlling follow once these are in place. Orders that put the control system before the resources, or directing before the system, are out of sequence.

Answer: C

Historical is not a model of policy formulation and implementation. The recognised models include the institutional model, which looks at policy as the output of government structures such as legislatures, courts and bureaucracies, and the garbage can model, in which problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities flow together at random, as in organized anarchy.

Organized Anarchy is the name for the setting in which the garbage can model applies, so it is not a separate odd one. The historical approach is a way of studying cases over time, not a policy model with its own account of how policy is made.

Answer: B

Wayne Parsons and C. Wright Mills are not associated with the group model (ii and iii). Arthur Bentley (The Process of Government) and Earl Latham are group theorists, as is David Truman.

Parsons is known for his textbook on public policy, and C. Wright Mills for the elite theory in The Power Elite, which is a rival to group theory. So the pair not linked with it is (ii) and (iii), and codes with Bentley or Latham are wrong.

Answer: D

The statement that is not correct is the last one, which says the Central government shall endeavour to supply electricity to all areas. The duty under the Electricity Act, 2003 is placed on the appropriate Government, meaning the State or Central Government as the case may be, and not on the Centre alone.

The first three statements fit the Rural Electrification Policy, 2006: electricity to all households by 2009, a census village as the unit, and District Committees to review and coordinate electrification in each district.

Answer: C

The Rapid Appraisal Methodology is the approach developed by Ong and Humphris for the impact assessment of public policies, according to the key. It is a quick, low-cost way of gathering evidence on how a policy has worked.

Cost-benefit analysis, performance measurement and the experimental approach are other evaluation methods in the policy literature, but they are not credited to Ong and Humphris.

Answer: C

V.A. Pai Panandikar's formula CROPP stands for Coordination, Resources, Organisation, Personnel and Procedures. It lists the main elements that management reform must cover in public administration.

The options replacing Personnel and Procedures with Public, Policies or Office give an elaboration that is not Panandikar's.

Answer: C

The assertion is true and the reason is false. A policy maker has to weigh a variety of factors in taking a decision, but the claim that policy makers are well versed in the environmental factors of the policy agenda is not true in general, as they often have only partial information.

The options that call (R) correct, or its explanation, and the option that denies (A) are wrong.

Answer: B

Both (A) and (R) are correct, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). Bureaucracy has an important role in policy formulation, and policy formulation needs the advice of impartial or neutral people. The need for neutral advice describes a quality of the advice, but it does not by itself account for the bureaucracy's role.

The option treating (R) as the explanation fails, and the options calling either statement false are wrong.

Answer: D

Lindblom's constraints on rational decision making are those of time, intelligence and politics, so (i), (ii) and (iv).

Decision makers do not have unlimited time or ability, and the political context rules out the clean comparison of all options. 'Power' as a separate constraint is not one he stresses, so options that include (iii) are wrong.

Answer: B

The mixed scanning approach in policy analysis was advocated by Amitai Etzioni, who combined a broad view of the main alternatives with a detailed look at selected ones.

Dror put forward the optimal model, Lindblom the incremental one, and Dye wrote on policy models and policy analysis in general.

Etzioni proposed mixed scanning as a middle path between the rational-comprehensive model and incrementalism, like a weather satellite that surveys broadly and then zooms into areas of concern.