Handbook of public policy analysis: theory, politics, and methods

Penulis: Frank Fischer, Gerald J. Miller, Mara S. Sidney

Tahun: 2007

Penerbit: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL, USA.

Muka Surat: 642

The study of public policy, including the methods of policy analysis, has been among the most rapidly developing fields in the social science 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. Moroever, in Europe a growing number of scholars, especially young scholar, have begun to identify with policy analysis. Indeed, many of them have made important contributions to the development of the field.

The book is divided into ten parts with 40 chapters. Part one is “Historical Perspectives”. Part two is “Policy Process”. Part three is “Policy Politics, Advocacy, and Expertise”. Part four is “ Policy Decision Making: Rationality, Networks, and Learning”. Part five is “Deliberative Policy Analysis: Argumentation, Rhetoric, and Narratives”. Part six is “Comparative, Cultural, and Ethical Perspectives”. Part seven is “Quantitatively Oriented Policy Methods”. Part eight is “Quanlitative Policy Analysis: Interpretation, Meaning, and Content”. Part nine is “Policy Decisions Techniques”, and part ten is “ Country Prespectives”.

The book’s ten sections and forty chapters provide a broad, comprehensive perspective on the field of public policy analysis. The book covers the historical development of policy analysis, its role in the policy process, the empirical methods that have defined the endeavor, the theory that has been generated by these methods, and the normative and ethical issues that surround its practice. The chapters discuss the theoritical debates that have defined the field in more recent years, including the work of postpositivist, and social constructionist scholars.  In this respect, the guiding theme throughout the book is the interplay between empirical and normative analysis, a crucial issue running through the contemporary debates of the field.