The six supposed stages of ‘the policy cycle’

1. Agenda-setting – identification and definition of problems and advocacy of action,
2. Policy formulation – specification of goals and choice of means for achieving them,
3. Policy legitimation – mobilization of support and enactment,
4. Policy implementation – mobilization of resources and application to goal achievement,
5. Policy evaluation – measurement of results and redefinition of goals or agenda, and
6. Policy revision or termination.

Vig, Norman J. and Michael E. Kraft (1984) “Environmental Policy from the Seventies to the Eighties,” in Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft (eds) Environmental Policy in the 1980s: Reagan’s New Agenda, Washington D.C.: CQ Press. p. 546

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023. View all posts by Milan