Identify the entities in all three branches and at every level that address domestic and international policy issues, and explain how individuals and organizations help determine public policy

Learning goal: Explain how a variety of entities within the three branches of government, at all levels (federal, state and local), address public policy issues that arise in domestic and international affairs, and explain the role individuals and organizations play within federal, state and local governments in helping to determine public policy, both domestic and foreign.

Public policy and its two arenas. Public policy is what government decides to do, or not to do, about a problem. Domestic policy concerns problems within the country: education, health, transportation, crime, the environment, taxes. Foreign policy concerns relations with other nations and international affairs: trade, diplomacy, defense, immigration, aid, treaties. The line blurs. A tariff is foreign policy that changes prices in an Ohio grocery store; an outbreak abroad becomes a domestic public-health issue within days.

Entities within the three branches, at the federal level. Legislative: Congress works through committees, and the committee structure mirrors the policy areas. The House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee handle diplomacy; the Armed Services committees handle defense; the Appropriations committees fund everything. The Senate gives advice and consent to treaties by a two-thirds vote of senators present and confirms ambassadors. Congress alone may declare war and regulate commerce with foreign nations (Article I, section 8). Executive: the President is commander in chief and, with the Senate's consent, makes treaties and appoints ambassadors (Article II). Executive departments carry out policy: the Department of State (diplomacy), Defense, the Treasury, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Education, and others. Independent agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications Commission regulate specific fields. The National Security Council, created by the National Security Act of 1947, coordinates foreign and defense policy for the President. Judicial: federal courts decide cases that shape policy on both fronts, from school desegregation to the limits of executive power abroad, and they interpret treaties and federal statutes.

At the state level. Legislative: the Ohio General Assembly writes the state budget, which funds schools, Medicaid, prisons and roads, and its committees hold hearings on bills. Executive: the governor proposes the budget, signs or vetoes bills and directs state agencies such as the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Transportation. States also engage internationally in limited ways: governors lead trade missions to attract investment, and state agencies promote exports; but under Article I, section 10 a state may not enter a treaty, and it may make an agreement with a foreign power only with Congress's consent. Judicial: the Ohio Supreme Court interprets the state constitution, as in its school-funding decisions.

At the local level. Legislative: city councils, village councils, boards of county commissioners, township trustees and school boards enact ordinances, resolutions, budgets and levies. Executive: mayors, city managers, county health departments, police and fire departments carry them out. Judicial: municipal and county courts and courts of common pleas decide local cases; in Ohio these are state courts that sit in and serve a county or city, not courts created by the local government, so the local level does not have a separate judicial branch of its own. Local governments also touch international affairs: a port authority competes for foreign trade, a sister-city program links a community with one abroad, and a local police department cooperates or declines to cooperate with federal immigration requests within the law.

How individuals and organizations help determine policy. The second standard says individuals and organizations play a role "within" governments at all levels, which means through the openings those governments provide. Individuals vote for the officials who make policy, testify at hearings, submit comments on proposed federal rules, write to members of Congress, serve on appointed boards and commissions, serve as members of the military or foreign service, and, at the local level, speak at council meetings and vote on levies and charter amendments. Organizations include interest groups (labor unions, business associations, advocacy organizations), think tanks that publish policy research, nongovernmental organizations that deliver aid abroad and advise governments, corporations that lobby on trade and regulation, and political parties that write platforms. In foreign policy their roles include lobbying Congress on trade agreements and sanctions, testifying on treaties, advising agencies, and running exchange programs; diaspora communities often press for particular policies toward their countries of origin.

Conditions and limits. Influence is not equal. Organizations with money, staff and expertise have more access, which is why disclosure laws require lobbyists to register and report. Foreign policy is also more concentrated in the executive than domestic policy, so there are fewer formal openings for the public. Individuals gain influence mainly by organizing, by using the formal openings (comments, hearings, elections) and by bringing credible evidence.

A fully worked model. Suppose, hypothetically, a trade dispute leads the federal government to consider a tariff on imported steel. Trace entities and participants. Federal executive: the Department of Commerce investigates under a statute delegating that authority, and the President decides. Federal legislative: committees hold hearings; members from steel-producing and steel-using districts disagree. Federal judicial: importers challenge the tariff in the Court of International Trade. State: Ohio's governor, whose state has both steel producers and manufacturers that buy steel, meets with both. Local: a county commission in a manufacturing county passes a resolution. Individuals: workers testify; a small manufacturer submits a comment on cost increases. Organizations: a steelworkers' union lobbies for the tariff and an association of steel-using manufacturers lobbies against it; a think tank publishes an estimate of costs. The worked point is that one foreign-policy decision involves all three branches, at least three levels, and many private participants.

The misconception. Students often believe foreign policy is made only by the President and that local governments have nothing to do with international affairs. Congress funds, declares war and approves treaties; courts rule on disputes; and states and localities act on trade, ports and investment within the limits of Article I, section 10.

Worked example 1 — classifying entities: Place each entity by branch and level: (a) Senate Foreign Relations Committee: legislative, federal; (b) Ohio Department of Health: executive, state; (c) county board of elections: executive, local, administering federal, state and local elections; (d) Court of International Trade: judicial, federal; (e) Columbus City Council: legislative, local. The step students skip is recognizing that one issue may involve several of them.

Worked example 2 — domestic or foreign? A state proposes a program to attract a foreign-owned automaker's plant with tax credits. Domestic: the tax credits are state fiscal policy decided by the General Assembly. Foreign: the investor is foreign and the governor negotiated abroad. Constitutional limit: the state may not make a treaty, and any compact with a foreign government needs Congress's consent under Article I, section 10; a contract with a private company is not such a compact. So the program is mainly domestic policy with an international dimension.

Worked example 3 — an individual's route into policy: A nurse wants federal policy to change on drug shortages. Routes: comment on a proposed agency rule; ask her U.S. representative's office to request a hearing; join her professional association, which testifies and lobbies; write an op-ed using data from the agency's own shortage list. Evaluate: the comment and the association are the routes built into the process; the op-ed shapes public opinion that legislators watch. Using all three multiplies influence.

Policy map: Choose one current domestic issue and one foreign-policy issue. For each, build a grid with rows for federal, state and local levels and columns for legislative, executive and judicial entities; name every entity that has acted on the issue, with a source. Below the grid, list at least three individuals or organizations that have tried to influence it and the means each used.

Independent performance: Write a 600-word briefing for a new city council member explaining who else shapes policy on one of your issues. Success criteria: you name at least five entities across at least two levels and all three branches; you distinguish domestic and international dimensions; you cite the constitutional basis for at least two roles (for example, treaty consent or the Article I, section 10 limits on states); you describe how at least two individuals or organizations influenced the policy and by what means; and you identify one inequality of influence.