File Information
Book Name: Handbook of Public Policy Analysis – Theory, Politics, and Methods
Authors: Frank Fischer Gerald J. Miller & Mara S. Sidney
Edition: 1st Edition
Language: English
File Size: 4.40 MB
Pages: 670
Media Source: Google Drive
The study of public policy, including the methods of policy analysis, has been among the most rapidly developing fields in the social sciences over the past several decades. Policy analysis emerged to both better understand the policymaking process and to supply policy decision-makers with reliable policy-relevant knowledge about pressing economic and social problems. Dunn (1981, 35) defines policy analysis as “an applied social science discipline which uses multiple methods of inquiry and arguments to produce and transform policy-relevant information that may be utilized in political settings to resolve policy problems.”
By and large, the development of public policy analysis first appeared as an American phenomenon. Subsequently, though, the specialization has been adopted in Canada and a growing number of European countries, the Netherlands and Britain being particularly important examples. Moreover, in Europe a growing number of scholars, especially young scholars, have begun to identify with policy analysis. Indeed, many of them have made important contributions to the development of the field.
Although policy advice-giving is as old as government itself, the increasing complexity of modern society dramatically intensifies the decision-makers’ need for information. Policy decisions combine sophisticated technical knowledge with complex social and political realities, but defining public policy itself has confronted various problems. Some scholars have simply understood policy to be whatever governments choose to do or not to do. Others have spelled out definitions that focus on the specific characteristics of public policy. Lowi and Ginsburg (1996, 607), for example, define public policy as “an officially expressed intention backed by a sanction, which can be a reward or a punishment.” As a course of action (or inaction), a public policy can take the form of “a law, a rule, a statute, an edict, a regulation or an order.”
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