How religion has help shape public policy

Public policy

The most illuminating definition of public policy has been given fifty years ago by the American political scientist David Easton, public policyconsists of a network of decisions and actions that allocates values. In democratic societies, the shifts of values ??made by the institutions are generally legitimated by the need to find solutions to problems of common interest: the growth of the rate of inflation, waste disposal, noise of discos. And the network of decisions and actions tend to be very broad and articulated. Studying public policy is to understand which problems, values, decisions and actions are in play when, for example, the economy minister, representatives of the social partners and the national bank facing a period of negative performance of public accounts. Or when mayors, construction companies, voluntary associations and civil protection try to contain landslides in a mountainous area. What usually happens in these cases? And what tools could improve the quality of results? (Rolstad p.572-594)

Adopting this perspective obliges us to connect in a cross events generally considered within separate domains: the 'legislative process for a proposal to reduce landslide risk, but also the interview on this subject to a scientist environmentalist during a television show large audience; construction techniques in mountain areas, but also the claims of those who must verify habitability of buildings; corporate interests who profit from local, but also the mode that decreed the success or revocation of a mountain village.

An approach of this type leads the researcher to go beyond disciplinary boundaries between science continually legal, political, economic, sociological, managerial. But the list goes on, including urban planning, social psychology, medicine and so on. In fact, the element structure analysis of a public policy is the problem that has set in motion, whatever its source and whatever the resources mobilized to try to resolve or at least contain the discomfort: tools repressive, or incentives, advertising campaigns or creation of new equipment; calls over the Internet or negotiations between the parties involved (Genesee p.10-18).

Religion and pubic policy

Religion and heritage inevitably sway our household and foreign public policies but how, how much and with what result? How does religion sway our nationwide voting patterns? What is the befitting function for religion in politics? How can faith-based associations aid in providing communal services to the deprived and disenfranchised? How is religious fundamentalism affecting the Middle East calm negotiations? These are but a couple of of the contentious inquiries that the Baker Institute Religion and Public Policy Program has tried to answer. Building upon previous study, engaging myriad varied outlooks in rigorous and open argument, the program aspires to discover how religion and heritage components interact with public policy matters, including learning, socioeconomics, government, research, confrontation tenacity and globalization (Garcia & Wiese p.149-169).

How to assert the rights of political science on a subject such as religion, including its place in the process of decision making and implementation of public policies? This is the issue of this study day which will address a ...