The policy of a government is the course of action it takes to address political problems. Policies are conceived by public or private groups who formulate strategy with regard to a particular issue and carried out by government officials who implement policies as concrete programs and actions.
The goal of policymaking is to achieve specific economic and social objectives, such as fostering economic expansion, lowering inequality, or safeguarding the environment. Government policy can take many forms, including regulations, subsidies, and taxes. It can be reactive, responding to immediate social movements and crises, or proactive, aiming to prevent future issues from arising. The success of policy is often evaluated through its impact on society, economic stability, and overall public satisfaction.
Policymaking is a highly complex process that involves a wide range of stakeholders, from interest groups to non-governmental organizations and diverse constituency groups. Effective policymakers work across differences to engage and collaborate with impacted stakeholders in order to understand the underlying issues that create and drive the need for change.
A policy debate is a strategic argument between two teams on whether or not the federal government should do something about a specific issue. The team in affirmation must come up with a plan for how the federal government should solve the problem, while the team in negation has to convince the judge that the affirmative’s plan is bad. This usually requires advancing a number of critiques, or kritiks, against the plan advanced by the affirmative. For example, if the affirmative is debating education policy they might argue that the federal educational system entrenches a capitalist model of economic growth.