Editing Public policy (section)

==Controversies==
The [[Austrian School|Austrian]] and [[Chicago school of economics]] criticise public policymakers for not "understanding basic economics". In particular, a member of the Chicago school of economics, [[Thomas Sowell]] writes "Under popularly elected government, the political incentives are to do what is popular, even if the consequences are worse than the consequences of doing nothing, or doing something that is less popular".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sowell|first=Thomas|title=Basic Economics|publisher=Basic Books|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=416}}</ref> Therefore, since "Economics studies the consequences of decisions that are made about the use of land, labour, capital and other resources that go into producing the volume of output which determines a country's [[standard of living]]";<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sowell|first=Thomas|title=Basic Economics|publisher=Basic Books|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=4}}</ref> this means that artificially tampering with the allocation of scarce resources such as implementing certain public policies such as price controls will cause inefficiency in the economy and decline in the standard of living within society.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hazlitt|first=Henry|title=Economics in one lesson|publisher=|year=1988|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Rothbard|first=Murray|title=America's Great Depression|publisher=|year=1963|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Mises|first=Ludwig Von|title=Socialism|publisher=|year=1936|isbn=|location=|pages=99–113}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Mises|first=Ludwig Von|title=Human Action|publisher=|year=1949|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref>

One of the biggest controversies of public policy is that policy making is often influenced by lobbyists such as big corporations in order to sway policies in their favour. The [[National Rifle Association of America]] (NRA) is an organisation that lobbies United States lawmakers to oppose stricter gun laws.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2020-09-03|title=How the NRA, a powerful influence on American politics, found itself under attack|work=CBC ([[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]])|url=https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/how-the-nra-a-powerful-influence-on-american-politics-found-itself-under-attack-1.5711235|access-date=2022-01-18|archive-date=2022-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125174834/https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/how-the-nra-a-powerful-influence-on-american-politics-found-itself-under-attack-1.5711235|url-status=live}}</ref>

International policy frameworks such as the [[United Nations]] have a complete inability to enforce legally binding agreements on nations. The [[Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples|Declaration on granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=About {{!}} The United Nations and Decolonization |url=https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/about#:~:text=In%201960,%20the%20General%20Assembly,as%20the%20Declaration%20on%20Decolonization. |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=www.un.org}}</ref> was implemented in 1960 with the goal of decolonising the areas colonised by the colonial powers of the 20th century, however colonial territories continue to exists despite the [[United Nations General Assembly|General Assemblies]] attempts to force countries to return land.

Another controversy surrounding public policy is that much like anyone, policymakers can sometimes hold bias and end up looking for facts that can prove their preconceptions to be true.<ref>Tom Sasse, 2018, 'Government must tackle bias in decision making', Institute for Government</ref> In a study of politicians in Denmark, which was published in the British Journal of Political Science, it was established that they interpreted data between two groups in a case study more successfully when there was no labeling based on class or status as opposed to when they were labeled according to their class or status; their preconceptions affected how they viewed data.<ref>Baekgaard, M., Christensen, J., Dahlmann, C., Mathiasen, A., & Petersen, N. (2019). The Role of Evidence in Politics: Motivated Reasoning and Persuasion among Politicians. British Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 1117-1140. doi:10.1017/S0007123417000084</ref>