Ontology: Add policies and (political) measures

[l-emele]

Description of the issue

Add classes to describe policies and (political) measures. These are important when describing scenarios.

Ideas of solution

If you already have ideas for the solution describe them here

Workflow checklist

• [ ] I discussed the issue with someone else than me before working on a solution
• [ ] I already read the latest version of the workflow for this repository
• [ ] The goal of this ontology is clear to me

I am aware that

• [ ] every entry in the ontology should have a definition
• [ ] classes should arise from concepts rather than from words

[han-f]

I start with this along the lines of definitions we had in one of our studies (https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/instrumentierung-energieverbrauchsreduktion). This will of course need some further work to comply with our standards. And the exa ple given is just hypothetical.
Any help in fleshing this out further is welcome @jannahastings for example.

A "policy instrument" is an activity that is intended to promote the adoption of measures.
(e.g. an XYZ tax/law/information campagin promotes the reduction of unnecessary electrical appliances )

A "measure" is an activity that has a direct impact on a specific variable in question.
(e.g. variable in question = energy consumption -> measure: removal of an unnecessary electrical appliance -> reduces energy consumption).

[jannahastings]

I think for _policy instrument_ we might want to say something about _whose_ activity it is (e.g. governments?) -- We don't call e.g. teenage activism a policy instrument, yet it is nevertheless activity that is intended to promote the adoption of measures.

"Measure" is not a good label as it has many possible meanings (e.g. in the context of _measurement_). Would you consider the label "intervention" instead?

[han-f]

That is a good point @jannahastings.
How about:
Policy instrument: is an activity by the government that is intended to promote the adoption of an ###

And instead of measure I am not sure, intervention sounds OK, but it may be used in other contexts, too. These also come to my mind: _change_ or _modification_ or _transformation_ or _shift_

[l-emele]

FYI, we already have _transformation_ in the OEO with the definition: _A transformation is a process that transforms one or more inputs into at least one output._

What about _transformative measure_?

[Vera-IER]

For the description of scenarios the term "political goal" or "climate goal" would be quite important. For example a 90 % greenhouse gas reduction goal is a typical input parameter for modelling. I think this isn't a political instrument or measure. Then the policy instrument could be defined as: _A policy instrument is a activity by the government that intends to realize the political goal._

I would already be happy with the terms political goal and policiy instrument to describe scenario assumptions.

[l-emele]

For targets/goals we already have the long-standing issue #28.

[Vera-IER]

I just saw in the OEO that we have the classes economic scenario, climate scenario, emission scenario and energy scenario. So I think if we have these classes, we don't actually need a class like "political goal". For example a greenhouse gas reduction target can also be described with the emission scenario.

[l-emele]

At least in my understanding a political target/goal is something completely different than a scenario:

• A target is something like a statement of the government like: _We want to have 100% renewable energies by 2050._ or _We want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 95% by 2050 compared to 1990._
• A scenario might assess whether and/or how such a political goal is feasible.

[han-f]

I agree with @l-emele

[Vera-IER]

I also agree that a political goal is something different than a scenario, when you think of their definitions. As a modeller I need to translate political goals into scenario assumptions - so if I would need to describe my model inputs with the OEO I could do it with both terms. But maybe its important for some different kind of application to also have the term political goal.

[l-emele]

So we have a common understanding that policies and measure are something different than scenarios, great!

Any suggestions for definitons of:

• policy?
• political measure?
• political goal (alternative term: political target)?

[stap-m]

In FIBO there is policy. Also legal construct, objective, goal

[l-emele]

In FIBO there is policy. Also legal construct, objective, goal

Could you please copy & paste the definitions from FIBO here?

[stap-m]

FIBO:policy: _system of principles, rules and guidelines, adopted by an organization to guide decision making with respect to particular situations and implemented via procedures or protocols to achieve stated goals_

The idea was to classify it as specifically dependent continuant with organisation being the bearer.

[sfluegel05]

The fibo-policy can be found here: https://spec.edmcouncil.org/fibo/ontology/FND/Law/LegalCapacity/Policy

In oeo-dev-meeting 8.2, we also came to the conclusion that political measures should be a subclass of policy

[Vera-IER]

But there is no def of politcal measure in FIBO. They have definitions of goal and objective, which could be helpful:
goal: _a desired result that a person, organization or system envisions or plans, or to which it commits, in order to achieve a desired state_ (https://spec.edmcouncil.org/fibo/ontology/FND/GoalsAndObjectives/Goals/Goal)
objective: _short-term, quantitative, measurable result that a person, organization, or system seeks to attain in order to achieve its long-term goals_ (https://spec.edmcouncil.org/fibo/ontology/FND/GoalsAndObjectives/Objectives/Objective)

[akleinau]

a possible parent class for goal and objective could be result: A role of an entity to be the desired outcome of a process

[jannahastings]

a possible parent class for goal and objective could be result:

Sounds good to me

[sfluegel05]

From dev-meeting 8.3:
For policy, we have the definition from wikipedia: _A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes._
and the definition from fibo: _system of principles, rules and guidelines, adopted by an organization to guide decision making with respect to particular situations and implemented via procedures or protocols to achieve stated goals_
parent class of policy should be specifically dependent continuant

Related terms are political measure and policy instrument (see this comment). In the meeting we had different views on how these three terms are defined and related to each other.

This topic needs further discussion and expertise, especially in regard to the use of the terms in an EU-context and the EMP-E (05.10).

[sfluegel05]

Also from dev-meeting 8.3:
result doesn't really fit as a parent class of goal and objective, because a result comes at the end of a process while goals or objectives are formulated at the start of a process.
Thoughts on goal / objective:
• Without objectives, it is impossible to come near your goals.
• You cannot have objectives without setting goals.
Characteristics:
• Goals are subjective, vague and cannot be measured.
• Objectives are specific, objective, achievable, and measurable
https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-goal-and-vs-objective/

Another related term is target, which is legally binding.

[Vera-IER]

In the meeting, we had the same view on policy instrument, which is in line with the definition from above:

Policy instrument: is an activity by the government that is intended to promote the adoption of an ###

We had different views what a political measure is. If we take this definition:

A "measure" is an activity that has a direct impact on a specific variable in question.
(e.g. variable in question = energy consumption -> measure: removal of an unnecessary electrical appliance -> reduces energy consumption).

I think that the label political measure does not fit, because the activity is executed by some kind of agent, not by the government. We could label it for example transformative measure instead.

[han-f]

We had different views what a political measure is. If we take this definition:

A "measure" is an activity that has a direct impact on a specific variable in question.
(e.g. variable in question = energy consumption -> measure: removal of an unnecessary electrical appliance -> reduces energy consumption).

I think that the label political measure does not fit, because the activity is executed by some kind of agent, not by the government. We could label it for example transformative measure instead.

That is a good point @Vera-IER , many thanks. Could we maybe even get rid of a prefix and simply call it measure?

[sfluegel05]

We originally started adding prefixes because of this comment by @jannahastings:

"Measure" is not a good label as it has many possible meanings (e.g. in the context of _measurement_). Would you consider the label "intervention" instead?

So we should probably stick to transformative measure (or something similar).

But before discussing the labels we should be clear about the concepts we need. So far we have:

• transformative measure: _an activity that has a direct impact on a specific variable in question._ (parent class: policy)
• policy:
  
  
  
  • definition from wikipedia: _A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes._
  
  
  • definition from fibo: _system of principles, rules and guidelines, adopted by an organization to guide decision making with respect to particular situations and implemented via procedures or protocols to achieve stated goals_
  
  
  • parent class: specifically dependent continuant (with an organization as its bearer)
  
  

• policy instrument: _an activity by the government that is intended to promote the adoption of a measure_

We also discussed concepts like goal and objective in this issue, but I would suggest to continue that in #28 so we don't discuss everything twice.

[han-f]

Oh yes, I recall, and transformative measure and its definition seems fine with me.

[Vera-IER]

For the definition of policy, I think the definition of wikipedia is more general than the one from fibo. The fibo definition refers only to organization, so I would take the definition of wikipedia:

_A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes._

[Vera-IER]

From the dev meeting:
We agreed on the policy definition:
_A policy is a specifically dependent continuant that is a deliberate system of principles, rules and guidelines, adopted by an organization to guide decision making with respect to particular situations and implemented to achieve stated goals._

We almost agreed to the definition of policy instrument. The suggestion is:
_A policy instrument is a specifically dependent continuant that is an activity by the government that is intended to promote the adoption of a measure._
But we want to replace the word activity (maybe with principle, rule or guideline). @han-f what do you think?

We agreed on the defintion of transformative measure:
_A transformative measure is a process that is an activity that has a direct impact on a specific variable in question._
Ideas for relations to other terms:

• policy instrument guides measure
• measure can be result of policy instrument

Ideas for examples of usage from the energy sector

• oil heating systems are replaced by heat pumps in the residential sector
• coal power plants are replaced by wind and solar energy plants in the electricity sector

[han-f]

Reads good.
Maybe we could replace _activity_ by _action_ to show how general this is? If action seems inappropriate, I would think _principle_ could work. _Rule_ feels too specific to me: e.g. a speed limit may be a rule, but would rule also easily go down for a subsidy someone receives? Yes - there are likely rules in place on eligibility for the subsidy, but the subsidy itself I would rather see as an action (previously activity) from the government to trigger the adoption of a specific measure (e.g. invest in insulation).

How about: _A policy instrument is a specifically dependent continuant that is an action by the government that is intended to promote the adoption of a (transformative) measure_?

[l-emele]

After scanning through this issue, I think we have an agreement on the following definitions:

• _A policy is a specifically dependent continuant that is a deliberate system of principles, rules and guidelines, adopted by an organization to guide decision making with respect to particular situations and implemented to achieve stated goals._
• _A policy instrument is a specifically dependent continuant that is an action by the government that is intended to promote the adoption of a (transformative) measure?_
• _A transformative measure is a process that is an activity that has a direct impact on a specific variable in question._

To move the topic forward I suggest that we implement the classes with the definitions now and keep the issue open to work on the relations.

[chrwm]

@l-emele do you want to continue the discussion here, regarding the relations, or at the next oeo-dev meeting?
If the latter, I would kindly ask one of you to prepare the discussion for the next meeting.

[l-emele]

No, the idea was to implement the classes without further discussions. I would not discuss the relations at the next meeting, I think we have more important topics than these relations.

[sfluegel05]

Regarding relations, we have to connect four classes: organisation, policy, policy instrument and transformative measure

• For the organisation-policy relation, we can use the definition of policy as being _adopted by an organization_ as a starting point. This seems to me like a has-bearer-relation, where the specifically dependent continuant (policy) existentially depends on the independent continuant (organisation). Unfortunately, we only have a bearer of relation, so we have to define the inverse has bearer as the inverse of bearer of ourselves. Then we can say policy has bearer some organisation.

• policy-policy instrument looks like a has part-relation to me, so policy has part some policy instrument.

• For policy instrument-transformative measure we have these ideas:

  • policy instrument guides measure
  • measure can be result of policy instrument

• Since the measure _can_ be result of a policy instrument, but doesn't have to, I would only use the first direction. This should be a participates in-relation, but since participates in is rather generic, I would suggest to define a new subproperty. It should capture the concept of "A continuant is causing the process to happen / guides it / promotes it". Potential labels are _guides_, _promotes_, _causes_, etc.

Side note: we should replace _organization_ with _organisation_ in the definition of policy, since we decided to use British English.