Concept

Policy

Overview

Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making. Policies used in subjective decision-making usually assist senior management with decisions that must be based on the relative merits of a number of factors, and as a result, are often hard to test objectively, e.g. work–life balance policy. Moreover, governments and other institutions have policies in the form of laws, regulations, procedures, administrative actions, incentives and voluntary practices. Frequently, resource allocations mirror policy decisions.

Policies intended to assist in objective decision-making are usually operational in nature and can be objectively tested, e.g. a password policy.

The term may apply to government, public sector organizations and groups, businesses and individuals. Presidential executive orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy. Policy differs from rules or law. While the law can compel or prohibit behaviors (e.g. a law requiring the payment of taxes on income), policy merely guides actions toward those that are most likely to achieve the desired outcome.

Policy or policy study may also refer to the process of making important organizational decisions, including the identification of different alternatives such as programs or spending priorities, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have. Policies can be understood as political, managerial, financial, and administrative mechanisms arranged to reach explicit goals. In public corporate finance, a critical accounting policy is a policy for a firm or company or an industry that is considered to have a notably high subjective element, and that has a material impact on the financial statements.

It has been argued that policies ought to be evidence-based. An individual or organization is justified in claiming that a specific policy is evidence-based if, and only if, three conditions are met. First, the individual or organization possesses comparative evidence about the effects of the specific policy in comparison to the effects of at least one alternative policy. Second, the specific policy is supported by this evidence according to at least one of the individual's or organization's preferences in the given policy area. Third, the individual or organization can provide a sound account for this support by explaining the evidence and preferences that lay the foundation for the claim.

Policies are dynamic; they are not just static lists of goals or laws. Policy blueprints have to be implemented, often with unexpected results. Social policies are what happens 'on the ground' when they are implemented, as well as what happens at the decision making or legislative stage.

When the term policy is used, it may also refer to:

Official government policy (legislation or guidelines that govern how laws should be put into operation)

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Policy is discussed.

What Kautsky calls contradictions in policy are, in reality, the _active manoeuvring_ of the proletariat in the spongy, undivided, peasant mass. The sailing ship has to manoeuvre before the wind; yet no one will see contradictions in the manoeuvres which finally bring the ship to harbor.
Leon Trotsky, Dictatorship vs. Democracy
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
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It is nationalist movements that are supported by money and agitators from Moscow. The method of quasi-independent states under Bolshevik protection is well understood. It is obvious that this policy affords opportunities for imperialism, under the cover of propaganda, and there is no doubt that some among the Bolsheviks are fascinated by its imperialist aspect. The importance officially attached to the Eastern…
Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
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But it is only their knowledge, not their nature, that distinguishes them from their more ignorant compatriots. To take the most obvious example, German policy, in recent years before the war, was not averse from war, and not friendly to England. It is worth while to try to understand the state of mind from which this policy sprang. The men who direct German policy are, to begin with, patriotic to an extent which is…
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
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It should be noted that the policy of the open door as affirmed by the great powers--and as frequently violated by them--even if it be henceforth observed in good faith, does not adequately protect us from this danger. The open door policy is not primarily a policy about China herself but rather about the policies of foreign powers toward one another with respect to China. It demands equality of economic opportunity…
John Dewey, China, Japan and the U.S.A.
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It bred and formed the men who were capable of achieving such great actions, and of laying the foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world; of which the policy is capable of forming, or has ever actually, and in fact, formed such men. The colonies owe to the policy of Europe the education and great views of their active and enterprizing founders; and some of the greatest and most…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Transhumanism.

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