. 2022 Jun 30;37(9):1086–1097. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czac051

Table 1.

Policy analysis categories and subcategories

Category	Description	Sub-category	Objectives
Context ⁽^a⁾	Systemic factors: social, economic, political, cultural, and other environmental conditions	Macrocontext^c	Describe political, economic and social aspects, focused on society as a whole.
		Microcontext^c	Describe political, economic and social aspects related to the sector under analysis.
Policy Process/Cycle⁽^a^{) (}^b⁾	Way in which policies are initiated, developed or formulated, negotiated, communicated, implemented and evaluated	Entry into the political agenda Policy formulation Decision making process Implementation	Understand who influences the entry of a problem on the agenda; how the formulation and decision process for implementing a given policy took place; how such policy was implemented; what factors influenced its content.
Content ⁽^a⁾	Policy objectives, operational policies, legislation, regulations, guidelines, etc.		Describe the details of the policy under analysis.
Actors ⁽^a⁾	Influential individuals, groups and organizations. Different actors can participate at each point in the policy cycle.	State Non-state (civil society)	Identify the actors involved, whether individual or collective, their influences, supports or restrictions.

From: ^aWalt and Gilson (Walt and Gilson, 1994); ^bHowlet, Ramesh and Pearl (Howlett et al., 2009); ^cAraújo Júnior; Maciel Filho (de Araujo and Filho, 2001).