Domestic Policy Making
Wallace et al. (2015) define domestic policy as all the activities revolving around the government laws, actions and planning which affect the issues of internal importance. Such matters, which are of national relevance include crime, environment, poverty and economy. Therefore, domestic policymaking involves making decisions. which directly affect the named issues within the jurisdiction of the government. Based on the text, the president plays a significant role in the policy making process. “By the end of Roosevelt era, the president’s role as a domestic policy maker was firmly established,” (Edwards & Wayne, 2013, p. 413). Although this was not the primary intention of the founder of the founders for executive, the new policy requires the president to set the policy agent which regulate the legislative debate involved in the domestic policy-making. It has been the leaders’ ambition to change the policy environment. As such, the presidents of the United States have frequently tried to reverse the involvement of the federal government in the domestic sector hence trying to pass such power to the United States rather than the office of the president.
One of the requirements for the enacting of domestic policy is the clearance from the president. Based on this requirement, the Exercising Central Clearance aims to review the president’s budget and decide whether the domestic proposal is in line with the program of the president. For the domestic policy to be accepted, the proposal should fit in the allocated financial budget and not oppose the plans of the office. The process of domestic policymaking is covered in five steps, which include agenda building, policy forming, policy adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation (Birkland, 2014). These processes are sequential and rely upon each other thus for the policy to be accepted; it must have passed all the stages.
The office of legislative affairs is involved in the approval of the policy where it informs the Congress members on the legislation position hence determining the progress of the system. OBM, the office of value management, is involved in deciding whether the president should approve the domestic policy or not. The pros and cons associated with the system determine whether OBM advises the president to approve the policy or disapprove it. (Edwards & Wayne, 2013).
Once the legislation is approved, it is the role of the reviewing agency regulation to establish rules, which guide the implementation of the policy. Executive agencies and departments are involved in the policy implementation. Internal politics making is affected by personal styles and policy goals (Wallace et al., 2015). As such, stylistic differences, which may be caused by the policy makers looking outside the government for ideas and support ,may arise hence affecting the policy.
The external forces affect policy making too through the institutional and political environment. Such forces make the policy making process to be more sensitive to the external interests hence making the president have a pressure that subjects him or her to live as per the policy expectations. Edwards and Wayne (2013) emphasize that the president is not expected to be deeply involved in the process of policymaking. Only the guidance of the president is required in the policymaking. This allows the maintenance of a sustainable national perspective, which ensures that the president’s operations are maintained as a national agenda.
References
Birkland, T. A. (2014). An introduction to the policy process: Theories, concepts and models of public policy making. New York: Routledge.
Edwards III, G. C., & Wayne, S. J. (2013). Presidential Leadership: Politics and policy making. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Wallace, H., Pollack, M. A., & Young, A. R. (Eds.). (2015). Policy-making in the European Union. New York: Oxford University Press, USA.
