Critical Policy Analysis

 Critical Policy Analysis
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TITLE: Critical Policy Analysis
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Critical Policy Analysis
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Table of Contents
Critical Policy Analysis for Bristol Development Framework Core Strategy ............................ 4
Bristol’s people, climate, economy and environment ............................................................. 4
Issues and challenges............................................................................................................... 6
Actors, Institutions and Ideas...................................................................................................... 7
Network, Coalition and Storylines............................................................................................ 10
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 12
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Good policies are pillars to the milestone progress of society. Cokery, Lad and Bossuyt (1995)
assert that policy framework plays a critical role in directing the performance of public sector
institutions, households, corporations and other economic institutions. Policies are designed by
government and government agencies to impact economic and social spheres of a society
Corkery, Land and Bossuyt (1995) opine that quality of policy is influenced by a government’s
or government arm’s ability to manage the process of policy making. It is for this reason that
economic, social and political development of a country hinge on quality of policies, which is
influenced by the policy making process. The policy making process is described as an irrational,
messy and challenging. This makes it hard to study, define and put into practice the policy
making process. However, policy making process is studied in what is termed as critical policy
analysis. Yanow (2007) defines critical policy analysis as the study that focuses “on figuring out
what policy-relevant elements carry or convey meaning, what these meanings are, who is making
them, and how they being communicated.”
Critical policy analysis incorporates basic building blocks and integrative concepts. The three
basic building blocks are players in the policy making process and comprise of actors,
institutions and ideas; integrative concepts comprises networks and coalitions and storylines. The
actors convey policy interests and actions to be taken in realising their interests. Institutions play
the role of defining policy regulations, standardising them and merging them together. Ideas are
critical in defining policy problems and conceiving solutions. Integrative concepts are critical as
they guide the interaction of actors, in the case of network and coalitions, and describing
mobilisation of ideas by different actors and how the ideas influence the policy making process,
in the case of storyline. In practice, critical policy analysis takes a systematic approach that
commences by identifying the challenge. Defining the aim and objective of the plan is the step 
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that follows identifying the main challenges. Actors, institutions and ideas are identified and
spelt. Coalitions and networks and storylines are developed to facilitate communication,
networking and working together among actors and institutions. An overall analysis is carried
out to evaluate processes, recommendations, success and failures. In conducting critical policy
analysis, it is important to establish interest and goals of actors; evaluate their storylines; their
involvement, either direct or indirect in policy implementation and the successes and loses of the
process.
Critical Policy Analysis for Bristol Development Framework Core Strategy
The Bristol development framework core strategy is a plan to craft how the city will develop
over the next 15-20 years. It is designed to replace the Bristol Local Plan that came into force in
1997. The core strategy as contained in the Bristol Development Framework spells out three key
things that is: the current strategic issues, social, physical and economic spheres, facing Bristol
City, the strategic vision and objective of the city in 2026 and the delivery strategy to make the
vision and objectives a reality. The delivery strategy is divided into spatial strategy and
development principles. Bristol City Council (2011) illustrates that the spatial strategy spells out
the council’s strategic policies for various parts of the city. It describes the council’s vision of
how different parts of the city will look like in 2026, such as the transport system, jobs, homes,
services and recreation spaces. Development principles are policies designed to ensure proposed
developments and improvements solve strategic problems and issues facing Bristol City.
Bristol’s people, climate, economy and environment
Bristol city, which is the largest city in the S