The roles of the private sector in policy formulation and implementation
The devolution revolution in the united states sought to give each state in the country some autonomy to make policies that affected them. The federalism tradition means that the states are in a position to make policies that are unique to their population and can answer to specific demands for the region. For example, some policies are only unique to Texas, such as those put in place to curb illegal border crossing from Mexico and other Latin countries. Contrastingly, states such as Pennsylvania do not deal with illegal border crossing but with other issues such as traffic jams, which require local attention. In this regard, there is a need to give the states autonomy to implement their own policies to deal with the locals’ issues. Granting state governments the role of policy-making does not mean that the national government is robbed of their role (Francis and Francis 82). There are other crucial policies that can only be made by the national government so that they are uniform for the whole population. For example, policies touching on human rights such as abortion and capital punishment should be uniform across the nation and should not be left for the states. However, it is prudent to accept that most policy-making should occur at the state level.
The covid-19 pandemic has provided pieces of evidence that show the necessity of policy-making at the state level. The covid-19 pandemic affected states differently and at diverse stages. In this regard, if policies were to be made at the national level, then there would have been a need to lockdown every state in the country. However, that would not have been right due to the varying number of covid-19 infections across the nation. For example, the most hit state originally was New York, which was not similar to Vermont, a state in the country. Consequently, enforcing a lockdown policy in Vermont would not have made any sense as compared to New York. Additionally, the lifestyle or the way institutions are run in the states differ from one to the other (Rodríguez 2094). There are some states that would prefer lockdown due to the fact that most of their residents had gotten used to working at home. However, the way of life is not similar across the board because there are some states where most of the employment jobs need people to go to work physically. Policy concerns such as those dealing with pandemics are better handled at the state level because the elected officials interact with the locals and are thus familiar with issues affecting the local people.
On the other hand, policy-making cannot be delegated to the local governments due to some reasons. First, there would be a multiplicity of policies that would lead to conflict with laws at the national and state levels. In most states, there are several sets of local governments, which means that if they are allowed to make policies, then there would be so many policies that would lead to dilution. On the contrary, there are only fifty-two states in the country, which means that the policies would apply to such regions without duplicating or diluting laws (Sidney 105). The idea of formulating and implementing policies is to be effective for specific regions in the country. It is thus essential that policies have significant regions that they represent. Additionally, the importance of state-level policies is that the citizens are able to vote on them regularly, thus tailoring them according to their preferences. If the same were to happen at the national level, then it would be costly because of the sheer number of the United States’ population. There is a sense of citizen participation in policies formulated at the state level because the government gets the citizen input before implementation. The Covid-19 pandemic also proved that there are states where the citizens have accepted the state’s role in the implementation of policies. In almost all states, the governors have issued the stay at home and lockdown orders.
The roles of the private sector in policy formulation and implementation, especially for pandemics, are diverse. First, the private sector can play the role of facilitating public participation during the formulation of policies (Craft and Howlett 79). Several organizations can sponsor forums where the citizens familiarize themselves with upcoming state policies that would affect their lives. Further, the private sector can also petition the state governments to implement policies that are geared towards making the lives of the citizens easier. Various companies can originate such policies in a state as a part of their corporate social responsibility. In dire cases of a pandemic such as Covid-19, the major corporations can also assist in implementing state policies such as the provision of masks and sanitization equipment. In enforcing stay at home orders, the private sector can make it easier for the workers to accomplish their tasks virtually. Moreover, the private sector could also help the state governments in keeping the population employed during tough times. The roles of the private sector are thus complementary to the ones played by the state governments.