The world of policy represents the confluence of a number of intellectual strands in which the clinician brings science together with intuition, and uses his or her experience to interpret the evidence and make recommendations for treatment. This important volume brings together leading scholars to explore the "how" of thinking about policy - the questions, values, judgments and experience the analyst brings to bear.
Policymaking is of its very nature a people-centered business-a good reason why highly effective policy analysts display not only superb technical expertise but excellent people skills as well. Those "people skills" include the ability to manage professional relationships, to learn from others about policy issues, to give presentations, to work in teams, to resolve conflict, to write for multiple audiences, and to engage in professional networking. Training programs for policy analysts often focus on technical skills. By working to enhance their people skills, policy analysts can increase their ability to produce technical work that changes minds. Fortunately, this unique book fills the gaps in such programs by covering the "people side" of policy analysis. Beyond explaining why people skills matter, this book provides practical, easy-to-follow advice on how policy analysts can develop and use their people skills. Each chapter provides a Skill Building Checklist, discussion ideas, and suggestions for further reading. People Skills is essential reading for anyone engaged in public policymaking and public affairs as well as all policy analysts. Completely changing how we think about what it means to be an effective policy analyst, People Skills for Policy Analysts provides straightforward advice for students of policy analysis and public management as well as practitioners just starting their professional lives.
“A compelling case for transforming how research methods are taught to undergraduate students of political science.” —London School of Economics Review of Books Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Most of the standard books on research methods fail to highlight the most important concepts and questions. Instead, they brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis, slighting other valuable methods. This approach prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and meaningfully with a wide variety of research. With wit and practical wisdom, Christopher Howard draws on more than a decade of experience teaching research methods to transform a typically dreary subject and teach budding political scientists the critical skills they need to read published research more effectively and produce better research of their own. The first part of the book is devoted to asking three fundamental questions in political science: What happened? Why? Who cares? In the second section, Howard demonstrates how to answer these questions by choosing an appropriate research design, selecting cases, and working with numbers and written documents as evidence. Drawing on examples from American and comparative politics, international relations, and public policy, Thinking Like a Political Scientist highlights the most common challenges that political scientists routinely face, and each chapter concludes with exercises so that students can practice dealing with those challenges.
The world of policy represents the confluence of a number of intellectual strands in which the clinician brings science together with intuition, and uses his or her experience to interpret the evidence and make recommendations for treatment. This important volume brings together leading scholars to explore the "how" of thinking about policy - the questions, values, judgments and experience the analyst brings to bear.
At all levels of government and at every stage of the policy process, analytical studies have remained distant from the power centers where decisions are made. This updated and expanded text has two purposes: to contribute to a more realistic understanding of policy analysis by examining the normative assumptions that are involved in its use; and to explore the essential elements of the policy process with which analysts must work to make their efforts count.
This Handbook presents the first comprehensive study of policy analytical practices in comparative perspective. It explores emerging developments and innovations in the field and advances knowledge of the nature and quality of policy analysis across different countries and at different levels of government by all relevant actors, both inside and outside government, who contribute to the diagnosis of problems and the search for policy solutions. Handbook chapters examine all aspects of the science, art and craft of policy analysis. They do so both at the often-studied national level, and also at the less well-known level of sub-national and local governments. In addition to studying governments, the Handbook also examines for the first time the practices and policy work of a range of non-governmental actors, including think tanks, interest groups, business actors, labour groups, media, political parties and non-profits. Bringing together a rich collection of cases and a renowned group of scholars, the Handbook constitutes a landmark study in the field.
The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s—and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking—an “economic style of reasoning”—became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals. A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past—but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.
This new volume in the International Library of Policy Analysis series offers a unique look at policy analysis in Israel. Arguing that Israel's status as a developed country that faces major security issues while grappling with frequent demographic changes causes exceptional challenges, the book offers an in-depth exploration of both the history and the current state of policy analysis in the nation. At the same time that the contributors, all well-respected and experienced Israeli scholars, emphasize Israel's distinctive character, they nonetheless show how researchers can draw important lessons from its experience for other countries around the world.
Policy analysis in Canada brings together original contributions from many of the field’s leading scholars. Contributors chronicle the evolution of policy analysis in Canada over the past 50 years and reflect on its application in both governmental and non-governmental settings. As part of the International Library of Policy Analysis series, the book enables cross-national comparison of public policy analysis concepts and practice within national and sub-national governments, media, NGOs and other institutional settings. Informed by the latest scholarship on policy analysis, the volume is a valuable resource for academics and students of policy studies, public management, political science and comparative policy studies.
This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the state of policy analysis in Turkey for an international audience. Noting Turkey’s traditionally strong, highly centralised state, the book documents the evolution of policy analysis in the country, providing an in-depth review of the context, constraints, and dominant modes of policy analysis performed by both state and non-state actors. The book examines the role of committees, experts, international actors, bureaucrats as well as public opinion in shaping policy analysis in the country through their varying ideas, interests and resources. In doing so, it presents the complex decision-making mechanisms that vary significantly among policy-making actors and institutions, documenting the key, yet unexamined, aspects of policy analysis in Turkey. It will be a valuable resource for those studying policy analysis within Turkey and as a comparison with other volumes in the International Library of Policy Analysis Series.
