Chapter 3 describes public administration explains that the role of public administration occurs at two levels: policy execution and policy formation.  Execution means expanding some individuals’ opportunities by extending governmental services and protections or perhaps imposing a regulation.  Formation, on the other hand, is administration’s role in helping to “form” a policy before it is enacted and then again interpreting policy (as experts) once it has been enacted. Unless you are already (or have been) a government actor, it is possible that you have not seen real-life examples of this activity.  Do not despair!  There are many examples available to the public

1. The new Congress.gov is the authoritative source of congressional activities.  As new public administrators, you should become familiar with it!  For this exercise, you will explore through the general search bar at the top of the screen.  Enter a word or phrase that is of interest to you or perhaps a specific bill number if you happen to recall one from watching C-SPAN over the weekend (e.g., Zika).

Your search is likely to return a number of results (perhaps hundreds for some searches).  Select at least three of the results and explore the associated records.  In a few sentences, describe what you have found.  Does anything surprise you?  What, if anything, does this have to do with public administration?

2.  After a bill becomes a law, public administrators are often required to promulgate associated “rules” that significantly expand on the details of the law.  Legislators cannot possibly include every detail in a statute so they may rely on public administrators’ expertise to flesh out the details in official documents called rules, which are published in the Federal Register.  The overall rulemaking process is quite complicated, so for now, we will focus on reviewing a sample just enough to become familiar. 

First, point your browser to http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys.  You should find yourself at the Government Printing Office’s Federal Digital System.  Like Congress.gov, you will find anything here from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to the 9/11 Commission Report to the Post JFK Assassination Audio Tape Recordings.  For now, let’s focus on the CFR!  On the right-hand side of the page, select the first available option on the right-hand side: Code of Federal Regulations.  Choose any year in the dropdown.  This should return a long, sequential menu that is organized by subject area.  Just to get you started, choose 2016 and then select “Title 9 – Animals and Animal Products.”  The menu should expand so that you can select Chapter II, Part 201 called “Regulations Under the Packers and Stockyards Act.”  Open the associated PDF. 

There you have it!  You’ve successfully navigated to one part (part 201) of Chapter II, Title 9 of the Code of Federal Regulations.  If you navigate to the second page of the file and look under “Authority,” you will see that the authority of this particular rule is derived from 7 U.S.C. 181-229c.  Essentially this document represents one form of policy formation in which public administrators engage each and every day.  For this exercise, skim through each section and note the major sections.  What strikes you as interesting? What are the major sections that you see?

3.  Following the same steps as you did in question 2, pick two additional rules from the CFR.  You may pick items that are similar or different—the choice is yours.  In a brief paragraph, compare and contrast your selected documents.  Be sure to touch on how the documents are structurally and/or substantively different.  Include examples where you believe that the public administrator is demonstrating both policy execution and policy formation.