Policy-Making Process

There are three stream models of policy-making proposed by Kingdon (1984), which first is political stream, second is problem stream and last is policy stream. These three models in any degree determine the participation of policy community members and the relative power amongst them.
First of all, politician, even though Nevile (2002, p.7) stated in her analytical framework is not a policy community member, has a huge interest to rise up their acceptability from their constituent using the decision-making power they have. Not surprisingly, in democratic country the ruling party will struggle to fulfil its promises to constituent. In the case of the USA recently, Obama’s party (The Democratic Party) trying to push the bill on health insurance for thirty two million citizens, even hardly blocked by many insurance companies represented by the opposition party (The Republican Party). Thus, in the light of this perspective, the policy outcome is very powerfully droved by political interest.
On the other hand, to solve many problems, policy community members such as professional organisations, business associations, universities, voluntary bodies, bureaucrats, specialists/experts (Colebatch 2002, p. 28) that are interlinked through policy network have a central role and finally deciding factor in policy-making process. Commonly, these type of problems and solve opportunity coming from crises or disaster (Grindle & Thomas 1991, pp. 92-93).

The policy community which has interaction with these problems then abstracting and framing the issue become more popular as problem amongst society (into policy cycle) trough many media. Off course, not all issues will become a policy problem, since as Kingdon stated (1984, pp. 122-123), policy will be a ‘primeval soup’ by natural selection, and policy community make some of problems become simpler to understand and finally decided by decision maker in incremental steps.
Moreover, the epistemic community members also have a central role in setting the agenda and framing policy in some specific issues. They have abstraction and analytical ability, accessing data, research expertise and can propose rational comprehensive model (RCM) also predicting the future. They have an ability to attract media attention through articles, official publication on websites, journals and magazines. Furthermore, many policy actors such as international development agency also overlapping act as an epistemic community and policy community in the same time.
This can be clearly seen in media coverage related to global warming issue in the last decade. Many experts have ability on fact finding, measurement, predicting future problems and giving alternative solutions. In this sense, the epistemic community also acting as an entrepreneur policy to rise up their position on decision making and enhance their social capital. As can be seen on media, an expert could also be acting as a politician, bureaucrat or social worker in the same moment. Off course, the driving factors influencing the successful of proposed policy as Kingdon (1984, pp. 138-145) argued are technical feasibility, value acceptability, tolerable cost, public acceptance, political acceptability and also anticipation of future constraint.
The question is then, what actor is the most powerful in decision-making process. From the previous explanation, it can be understood that every policy community member does not have a decisive power in every problem, because every of them has her/his own specific characteristic. Using Colebatch’s (2002, pp. 23-36) vertical and horizontal approach we can predict who has the most power in decision-making process. In vertical approach, the bureaucrats with their authority, expertise basis and order has the more power, otherwise, in horizontal approach, there are many actors included in policy process.
However, in many cases participation and power amongst policy community is not necessarily separated, but overlapped and diffuse, because the relativity of their position on one case. The most powerful actor is the member of policy community who can exploit the issue using rational comprehensive model for their interest and also who has the broadest network to affecting the decision maker (Parson 1995, p. 130). In the light of this view, in many countries the middle class society has a relatively stronger power to affecting the policy-making process. Unsurprisingly, the issue such as tax tariff is a sensitive issue in many countries.
Nevile (2002, pp. 112-117) argued that there are four factors which influence the way policy community members and politicians make a decision, that are interests of key player, institutional arrangements, economic and social forces and also ideology of key actors.
Political entrepreneur has a good ability to framing issue, setting agenda and ultimately propose it become a policy problem. The duty of decision maker which can happen in parliament building, in ‘Westminster’, or even in the justice court (Colebatch 2002, pp. 40-41) to make some elaboration, debate, evaluation, and ultimately the decision making that affecting many people. The duty of senior bureaucrat is to stabilize the role, ‘softening up’ and short up the divergence amongst actors by giving a place for interaction and levelling down the degree of conflict also accommodate different interest to get the policy goals.
Unavoidable, in democratic countries the policy actors should compromise and build up the consensus for decision-making process. In many cases, policy synergy is needed to reach the satisfaction of key actors. In contrary, in authoritarian and undemocratic countries the decision making is decided by the monopolies power holder and tend to top down policy, such as in China (Wan 2008, p. 45).
In the recent actual case from Indonesia, the advancement of information technology parallel with unprecedented democratization make policy-making process in the corrupt system more transparent and accessible by the society. In the dispute criminalisation case of Corruption Eradication Commission leaders by Indonesian National Police for instance, the movement of civil society to combat mafia in judicial system using Facebook, Tweeter and other digital media means has a very central role in opening the case and affecting the final result.
Using digital social networking, millions of people were joining the account that actively acting as a pressure group which was affecting the decision-making process by parliament members, the president and other policy community members. This advancement is very promising to reach more effective decision-making process. In the case, this ‘Policy-Making Process 3.0’ makes the old approach of policy-making process become little bit obsolete, even formally still continuing.
To sum up, in democratic countries there are not the most powerful driving in decision-making process. The dynamic process happen using dialectical approach in many media trough rational comprehensive model to reach the best policy. The most powerful is actor who can propose the most promising-policy using the previous means of institutional structure.

References
Colebatch, H. K. 2002, Policy (2nd edition), Open University Press.
Grindle, M.S. & Thomas, J.W. 1991, “Setting Agendas” in Public choices and policy change: the political economy of reform in developing countries, the John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Kingdon, J.W. 1984, Agendas, alternatives and public policies, Little, Brown & Company, Boston.
___________. 2003, Agendas, alternatives and public policies, 2nd edn, Longman, New York.
Nevile, Ann 2002, “Analytical framework”, in Ann Nevile (ed.), Policy choices in a globalized world, Nova Science, New York.
Parson, W. 1995, Public Policy, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Wan, Ming 2008, The political economy of east Asia: striving for wealth and power, CQ Press, Washington DC.