The policy process can be defined as the interactions among state and non-state actors that determine public policies: that is, “who gets what, when, how” (Lasswell, 1958). The objective of theories of the policy process is to describe and explain how the motivations and actions of individual and/or collective political actors, as structured by contextual factors, account for public policies in and/or over time.
Policy processes are complex and vary across jurisdictions, policy domains and over time. Analytical frameworks attempt to reduce their complexity by identifying common elements of all policy processes. One approach to do so is to break the policy process down into various stages: for example, agenda-setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation and policy evaluation. Another approach is to define the common components or elements of the policy process: for example, the motivations and goals.
