Government and Policy- GVPT 280 (Comparative Politics & Government)

Government and Policy

The presence of the government is pervasive in the lives of people in the society . People pay taxes they have to adhere to regulations set by the government and follow the rules from ones such as simple as traffic lights and complicated ones such as the registration of land and other properties . In a sense , the government controls a lot of the processes in the society and it acts as a regulator of almost all kinds of social political and economic activities . There are instances , however , that the control

exercised by the government becomes too much

Too much government ' occurs when the government undertakes to centralize the exercise of power and it intervenes in a lot of areas and activities in the society . In developing countries , governments intervene a lot in the economic affairs of the country in the interest of promoting their national products and industries (Mishkin 4 . This power , however , can easily be used by the political elite to achieve economic or political gain at the expense of fair play and just economic practices

Too much government may also be manifested in the political sphere Unstable countries , particularly in underdeveloped countries usually have this kind of government . In these societies , the government tends to suppress some of the freedoms of the citizens such as the right to assemble or the right to free speech . In societies where the government exercises tremendous power , especially in the presence of a dictatorship , the initiative of the citizens and the private sector to participate in the political process may be severely limited (Ramos III

In comparison to developed countries , where they have allowed the private sector to develop and their freedoms guaranteed , the result is a more vibrant and dynamic citizenry that participates in all aspect of the society 's life (Ramos II . In developed countries , therefore citizens participate more because the government allows the exercise of their freedoms

Developing Societies and the Policy Process

The formulation of policy is a process . It is not merely a one-shot program but rather it is a process participated by a number of political actors such as interest groups and organizations in the society , the law or policy-makers and the citizens concerned (Birkland 10

After the deliberation period , the lobbying and the different methods of seeking to influence public policy , the policy itself is generated . The policy output can be described in four ways - distribution , extraction regulation and symbolic (Almond , et . al . 132 . In developed countries where governmental and social institutions are stable , these outputs are delivered with no major problems . In underdeveloped and developed countries , however , these policy outputs are not easily displayed . There are several reasons that may explain such discrepancy . One of these is the lack of institutionalization in underdeveloped countries . Because the government tends to be centralized and most major decisions tend to be passed on to the government leaders (Converse Kapstein , 16

In policies that involve distributions of public goods , in underdeveloped countries , there is the presence...