Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach
Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach

Author: Joseph Stewart, Jr.

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13:

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PUBLIC POLICY: AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH, 3e, examines how the substance and process of public policy and our understanding of that have evolved in America. After providing the reader with an analytic, historic and contextual framework for viewing public policy in the U.S., the authors offer a comprehensive look at the various elements of the governing process including agenda setting and problem definition, policy formation, implementation, program evaluation, and policy change and termination. In doing that the authors pay particular attention to the range of theories that have been offered to explain how, why, and with what effects governments act. The authors then look at three critical policy areas environment, education, and welfare to furher illustrate how governing proceeds in the U.S. Thoroughout the text the authors draw extensively on actual policy examples including recent efforts to reform education and welfare and the war in Iraq. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Public Policy
Public Policy

Author: James P. Lester

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Company

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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A unique historical perspective emphasizes the evolution of public policy analysis while discussing how policy is currently formulated.

Human Nature and Public Policy
Human Nature and Public Policy

Author: A. Somit

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2003-07-03

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1403982090

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Arguing for an evolutionary perspective, this book directly challenges the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) on which public policy has often been based. The SSSM maintains that human behavior is solely the product of culture and learning. In sharp contrast, the Evolutionary Model (EM) holds that our behavior flows from the interaction between learning and culture, on the one hand, and biological factors-especially our evolutionary legacy-on the other. These different approaches to human behavior understandably lead to divergent conceptions of sound domestic and foreign policy. The SSSM views human behavior as essentially plastic and thus readily changed by governmental action. Disagreeing, the Evolutionary Model sees that malleability as seriously limited by our species' evolved propensity for aggression, status seeking, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and hierarchical social structures.

The Dynamics of Public Policy
The Dynamics of Public Policy

Author: Adrian Kay

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1847203000

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. . . this is a first rate book. It draws on a wide range of reading philosophy, economics and politics and teases out a number of important ideas. . . for academics and postgraduates it surely will be essential reading and I think has pushed the study of public policy forward. Michael Connolly, Political Studies Review In The Dynamics of Public Policy, Adrian Kay sets out the crucial methodological, theoretical and empirical implications of two important trends in the social sciences: a frequently expressed ambition for analysis of movies not stills and the regular observation that policy, politics and governance is becoming more complex. Beginning with a discussion of the centrality of temporality, change and history to the social sciences, he develops the provocative claim that existing models of the policy process are of limited value in understanding and explaining policy dynamics. Instead, the author argues that it is only through structured narratives that we can really understand and explain complex policy histories. He sets out a methodology for structuring policy narratives and illustrates the claims of the book through four detailed case studies: health policy and pharmaceutical regulation in the UK; and agricultural policy and budget policy in the EU. Adrian Kay s book will appeal to academics in the fields of policy analysis, public administration and public sector management as well as political science and political theory.

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change
An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

Author: Richard R. Nelson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1985-10-15

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9780674041431

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This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

Analysing Public Policy
Analysing Public Policy

Author: Peter John

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780826454249

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An accessible review of the main approaches in the study of public policy, this text argues that most writers who seek to explain how policy varies and changes use one of the five frameworks: institutional, group/network, socio-economic, rational choice and ideas-based. It describes these methods in detail, offers constructive criticisms and explores their claims in the light of American, British and French examples

Analysing Public Policy
Analysing Public Policy

Author: Peter John

Publisher: Burns & Oates

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 9781855675872

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This book is an accessible review of the main approaches in the study of public policy. The author argues that most writers who seek to explain how policy varies and changes use one of five frameworks: institutional, group/network, socio-economic, rational choice and ideas-based. The book sets out each one, offers constructive criticisms and explores their claims in the light of American, British and French examples. Peter John argues that no one approach offers a comprehensive explanation of public policy, so a combination is needed. After reviewing some recent attempts at synthesis, he advocates an evolutionary approach which is best able to account for the importance of ideas and interests in the policy process. Readers will find that this book contains both a clear summary of debates in public policy and a new and original approach to the subject. They will also find that no other similar work covers so much ground in such a concise and cogent manner. 'Peter John provides a clear account of, and balanced judgement about, the several attempts to explain policy change and variation while developing his preferred 'synthetic' approach. Students of public policy will be duly grateful, colleagues will enjoy the argument.' R.A.W. Rhodes, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 'Peter John offers a truly fresh presentation and critique of the public policy literature that will be essential to students and professionals on both sides of the Atlantic. But John does more than critique: he points the field toward a new synthesis based on evolutionary theory.' Bryan Jones, Department of Political Science, University of Washington

Evolutionary Governance Theory
Evolutionary Governance Theory

Author: Kristof van Assche

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-07-26

Total Pages: 95

ISBN-13: 3319009842

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​This short books offers the reader a remarkable new perspective on the way markets, laws and societies evolve together. It can be of use to anyone interested in development, market and public sector reform, public administration, politics & law. Based on a wide variety of case studies on three continents and a variety of conceptual sources, the authors develop a theory that clarifies the nature and functioning of dependencies that mark governance evolutions. This in turn delineates in an entirely new manner the spaces open for policy experiment. As such, it offers a new mapping of the middle ground between libertarianism and social engineering. Theoretically, the approach draws on a wide array of sources: institutional & development economics, systems theories, post-structuralism, actor- network theories, planning theory and legal studies.