Types of Policies
There is great variety in the kinds of policies pursued by government entities. These can be distinguished on the basis of their essential rationales, their impacts on society, and the respective roles played by administrative agencies in each. Major policy types include distributive, redistributive, regulatory, self-regulatory, and its logical corollary, privatization.
Distributive policies deliver large-scale services or benefits to certain individuals or groups in the population. Examples are loans and loan guarantees provided by the national government to cover private-sector losses. Redistributive policies involve deliberate efforts by the government to shift the allocation of wealth, income, property, or rights among broad classes or groups within the population. These efforts are often the source of intense controversy in the political arena that could significantly impact the execution as well as its initial adoption.
Regulatory policies promote restrictions on the freedom to act of those subject to the regulations. The most prominent of such policies pertain to business activities—for example, advertising practices, toy safety, pollution control, natural-gas pricing practices, and product liability. Self-regulatory policies, or constituent policies, represent a variation on regulation in that policy changes are often sought by those being regulated as a means of protecting or promoting their own economic interests. The leading example is licensing of professions and occupations, such as banking, law, medicine, real estate, cosmetology, and taxi driving.
Normally a legislative body enacts a licensing law, providing for enforcement by a board dominated by members selected from the licensed group. Other bureaucracies, and most other interests, typically take little interest in this kind of policy. Bureaucratic agencies play somewhat different roles in each type of policy and even within a given policy category, as is the case in redistributive policy. Subsystems exert considerable influence in the formation and implementation of distributive policies, although in a highly individualized manner.
Depending on the kind of policy at issue, bureaus and their allies may be more or less involved. The degree of involvement hinges primarily on the extent to which formal responsibilities are assigned to a given agency.