Public Policy and Private Interest: Ideas, Self-Interest and Ethics in Public Policy

Public Policy and Private Interest explains the complexities of the policy making process in a refreshingly clear way for students who are new to this subject. The key topics it explains are:

How policy originates, is refined, legitimised, implemented, evaluated and terminated in the forms of theoretical models of the policy process;

Which actors and institutions are most influential in determining the nature of policy;

The values that shape the policy agenda such as ideology, institutional self-interest and resource capabilities;

The outcome of policies, and why they succeed or fail;

The main policy theories including the very latest insights from network theory and post-modernism;

How national policy is influenced by globalization.

The text is fully illustrated throughout with a broad range of national and international case studies on subjects such as the banking crisis, the creation of unitary authorities and global environmental policy and regulation.

Combining both a clear summary of debates and theories in public policy and a new and original approach to the subject, this book is essential reading for students of public policy and policy analysis.