Thread 1 :
The development that I was intrigued by was “the availability of big and open linked data (BOLD)” (Jansen, Wimmer & Deljoo, 2015). Big data has been the cause for the making of great decisions for organizations and this concept has extended to governments and other entities. So how does BOLD help in the making of great policy decisions. An example of a policy would be a government providing free healthcare for its citizens. However, this cannot be done based on sentiment or politics (Athey, 2017).
Using BOLD the government can carry out an analysis of the nations that actually have universal healthcare for its citizens. The impact of such a policy can be studied in real-time because there are many governments in the world that do this. From BOLD and real-time analytics the government would actually have a scientific basis for its policies regarding healthcare. This will lead to better decisions being made on behalf of the citizens, rather than the current method which involves a lot of politics and citizens unwilling to spend on their own health because of high costs (Höchtl, Parycek & Schöllhammer, 2016).
For this reason big and open linked data needs to be at the center of most policy decisions. Whether the policy is at an organizational or at the government level. There is a need for policy decisions to be backed with data and for leaders to be able to interact with this data and using what-if analysis they can predict the impact of all the policy actions they can take.
References
Janssen, M., Wimmer, M. A., & Deljoo, A. (Eds.). (2015). Policy practice and digital science: Integrating complex systems, social simulation and public administration in policy research (Vol. 10). Springer.
Höchtl, J., Parycek, P., & Schöllhammer, R. (2016). Big data in the policy cycle: Policy decision making in the digital era. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 26(1-2), 147-169.
Athey, S. (2017). Beyond prediction: Using big data for policy problems. Science, 355(6324), 483-485.
Thread 2 :
There are so many problems that needs to be addressed in the society such as Immigration, Pollution, Health, Safety etc. The problem that I have chosen to implement the policy is water pollution which is a huge issue because plastic is ubiquitous from ponds, seas, rivers to oceans which is making very difficult for the survival of marine life as well as humans who are said to be consuming anywhere from 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles a year and with the added estimates of the inhaled micro plastics this number goes up to 74,000 (Gibbens, 2019). We are also seeing so many cases of the marine life like whales, sharks and dolphins etc. choking to death with the indigestion of the plastic that they consume. It is our responsibility as humans to control the environment by avoiding the use of plastics especially single use plastics so that we can live a healthy life as water is an essential element and let the marine life live.
The development that I chose to implement the policy of avoiding the single use plastics to counter water pollution is Ubiquitous user engagement. This development is ideal for the problem that I chose as it is for the entire population and not for a particular group of people and this development involves both the simulation approach as well as the involvement of the public who obviously will play a major part in the successful execution of this policy. For the successful implementation of the policy, We need to stick to the intended benefits as the execution costs might go higher if we aim to achieve more. As the execution is changing continually it is important that the evaluation is done to ensure that the costs and the benefits are estimated before and after the policy implementation (Janssen, 2015).
As, our policy is to avoid the use of single use plastics the need for use of the paper bags will go higher and people will find it difficult to adopt to the policy as we are so used to the plastic bags especially in countries like India and China where there is huge population and coastal borders as largest quantities of the plastics are dumped into the ocean (Jambeck, 2015). This involves a lot of evaluation in terms of the cost and educating people the effects of the plastic and help them to avoid the usage of the single use plastics. I think this development is very capable of influencing the policy to solve this problem as this involves number of techniques like data gathering, simulation, analysis and co-operation of the people. Finally, This development will also help us to estimate the impact as to what will happen when this policy is implemented.
Janssen, M., Wimmer, M., (Eds.). (2015). Introduction to Policy-Making in the Digital Age (Ch 1). New York, NY: Springer
Jambeck, J.R., (Ed.). (2015). Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean (PP 768-771). Science
Gibbens, S. (2019, June 5). You eat thousands of bits of plastic every year.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/you-eat-thousands-of-bits-of-plastic-every-year/
Thread 3:
Factors Influencing Policy Making
Normally, the policy process is influenced by various factors. Such factors include knowledge and innovation, political, social, economic context, legal framework, specific events, institutional influences, and external influences. Usually, societal problems require policies to attain normalcy. The chosen societal issue in this paper is safety. A clear and insightful documentation is given on how various factors influence the policy making for safety as a societal issue.
To begin with, knowledge and innovation have a huge influence as far as the development of safety policy is concerned. Specifically, knowledge and innovation catalyze new debates as well as create awareness of better opportunities. Safety is subject to technological advancements. Secondly, political and societal context have a huge influence on safety policy making. These contexts define priorities as far as openness and international influences are concerned (Clement, 2018). The safety policies that will be developed are highly dependent on the resources that policy makers have access to. Additionally, legal frameworks have a huge impact on safety policies. Some laws are exclusively meant for chemical health safety and risks. These will have a huge influence as far as the creation of safety policies is concerned because they will act as a pointer of the chief safety issues. Most importantly, it is critical to keep in mind that specific events have a huge influence in the creation of safety policies. Certain happenings create the need for ground rules as far as the safety of a community is concerned. For instance, traumatic events create a dire need for political response which in turn has a huge influence on the policy making process. Lastly, it institutional influences greatly impact safety policy making processes. The structure of institutions like Non-governmental organizations, learning places and religious organizations has a huge influence in the development of safety policies.
References
Clement, D. M. (2018). Factors Influencing Georgia Legislators’ Decision-Making on Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 19(3-4), 91-99. doi:10.1177/1527154418817036
Fooks, L. (2018). Making Policy Care: A guide to influencing on unpaid care. doi:10.21201/2017.2180
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