American Public Policy

Provide a definition of “bottom-up” policymaking, OR “top-down” policymaking, and provide a real life example of it in action.

DEFINITION OF “BOTTOM-UP POLICY MAKING

In the political science, political leaders have to make a reputation through effective policies and policy-making process. According to a political agenda, bottom-up policy-making indicates the delegation of political leader who seek elections, as all decisions are made by several groups, individuals, or candidates for election. The bottom-up policy-making process integrates with the agenda-setting from the bottom and rises along with rationale.  People or groups under the political leadership intend to identify different problems, which can be occurred due to natural disasters, economic downturns and other uncertainties to attract stakeholders deliberately. The agenda-setting comes from this group, and accordingly, political leaders collaborate to make effective policy. In the United States of America, the public depicts the attention regarding issues, and the media reports it accordingly. The opinion polls usually set the agenda of policy at the end (Walt).

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE

Being a United States Citizen, Political leaders, along with the collaborations of media partners, run a campaign to identify the issues in Iraq and set agenda. We had to point out some issues, mentioned by representatives. I used my cell phone to vote for education in Iraq, as lack of education is a reason of increasing terrorism in the whole country. Interestingly, I was part of this bottom-up policy-making process, as I identified the problem and participated in making the education in Iraq as a prominent issue. Many people also voted for educations, which made this problem the main agenda for political leaders. It was a remarkable bottom-up policymaking process (Wenr).

Being a part of the bottom-up approach was effective to make a pertinent policy for different issues. The big advantage was the considerations of general perception, which facilitated the policymaking. If everyone participates and identifies some issues, the chances for the protest against the policy would be low.

Work Cited

Walt, Stephen M. “The Secret to America’s Foreign-Policy Success (and Failure).” Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy, 27 July 2015. Web. 16 January 2018. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/the-secret-to-americas-foreign-policy-success-and-failure-iran-syria-obama/.

Wenr. “Education in Iraq.” WENR. WENR, 17 October 2017. Web. 16 January 2018. https://wenr.wes.org/2017/10/education-in-iraq.