Government policy encompasses laws, enactments, regulations, courses of action, and funding priorities promulgated by a government entity. It also includes the political structures, personnel, and processes that produce social outcomes from policy outputs. In practice, policymaking consists of an interdependent system of policies, each with their own overlapping effects, that cannot be predicted by looking at any one of the individual elements.

Consequently, a key challenge is understanding how public policy can fail, particularly in its long-term impact on societal trends and political behavior. Positive policy changes that reflect societal demands may strengthen trust in democratic institutions and encourage civic engagement, while a lack of responsiveness to societal problems may foster disillusionment with the political system and lead to more robust social movements demanding change.

While a broad spectrum of stakeholders contributes to the development of federal policies, most of these initiatives involve a central government entity and the agencies that work with elected officials to translate legislation into policy. The complexity of the policymaking process requires navigating various political parties, national interests, and stakeholder perspectives to find solutions that address national concerns and produce the best outcomes.

Policymakers face a multitude of challenges when formulating policies that are responsive to the needs of a society, such as balancing competing interests, prioritizing issues, and creating new programs. The systems nature of these policies means that they are often complex and unpredictable, resulting in “pathologies” like the Hayekian impossibility of acquiring, processing, and interpreting all available information to make informed decisions (Hayek, 1945). Moreover, the non-ergodic character of public policy implies that it is difficult to know what outcomes to expect from policy interventions.