Definition of Public Policy Change and Termination

One of the main reasons for doing policy evaluation in the first place is to determine the difference between policy goals and objectives and the subsequent impact that a given policy as implemented has achieved, and then to do something about it. There are essentially three options: maintain the status quo if the policy is working as planned; make adjustments to the policy, in other words make changes; or the most drastic, and rare, change of all is to terminate the program or repeal the policy. ìWhen a policy is replaced or modified in some respect or repealed in parts, then policy change has occurred. Policies are rarely maintained exactly as adopted. Change inevitably starts to occur as soon as a policy is implemented because of the intrinsic ambiguity of legislation. Thus, policies are constantly evolving and the policy cycle is an ongoing dynamic process (Theodoulou and Kofinis, 2004, p. 202).î Of course, these options represent apolitical motivations. Once politics is added to policy change or termination dynamic then a whole host of policy actor motivations can once again be seen as attempting to influence the ultimate outcome of policy.

It is important to understand that policy change does not occur in a vacuum. Proposed changes will essentially go through some variation of the preceding six stages of the policy process: problem identification, agenda-setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation, policy evaluation and then once again back to the policy change or termination stage in a nearly never ending cycle.