The Etymology and Evolution of Policy Analysis

c) Etymologically, the term policy comes to us from Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin languages. The Greek and Sanskrit root polis (city-state) and pur (city) evolved into the Latin politia (state) and later, into the Middle English policie, which referred to the conduct of public affairs or the administration of government.

a) The etymological origins of policy are the same for two other important words: police and politics. This is one of the reasons why many modern languages, for example, German and Russian, have only one word (Politik, politika) to refer to both policy and politics.

b) Policy analysis may be understood as the process of producing knowledge of and in policy processes. In this broad sense, policy analysis is as old as civilization itself, and includes diverse forms of inquiry, from mysticism and the occult to modern science.

e) The advantage of this general formulation is that it permits us to explore the variety of meanings that in past times have been attached to the process of producing policy-relevant knowledge.

d) It is also one of the factors contributing to the present-day ambiguity surrounding the boundaries of such disciplines as political science, public administration, and the policy sciences, each of which is heavily committed to the study of politics and policy.