In this updated second edition, internationally renowned scholar B. Guy Peters provides a succinct introduction to public policy and illustrates the design approach to policy problems. Peters demonstrates how decision-makers can make more effective choices and why a design approach to public intervention can improve policy formulation.

Making effective public policies is a difficult task, but considering policymaking as a problem of design analogous to architecture or engineering can assist in that process. This book outlines three vital components of policy design: understanding the causes behind the problem being addressed; identifying means of intervention, including selection and implementation of policy instruments; and evaluation and development of good policy understanding.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. In this Advanced Introduction, Christopher Pollitt starts a penetrating account of the theories, methods and possible trajectories of the study of public management, also examining the academic community itself, and its relationship to the world of practice. There is no more authoritative – or lively – text of such scope and focus. This is a stimulating analysis by a leading international scholar. It includes: · a global overview · a critical and authoritative analysis of the current state of the field · the location of academic research firmly in the real world context of austerity, climate and demographic change, and technological transformation · an examination of the relationship between academic study and the practice of public management · a look inside the ‘ivory tower’, at the forces changing the way the subject is studied and practised This truly unique work will be of particular interest to graduate students, advanced scholars, lecturers and trainers in public administration, public management, government, public policy, political science and development administration. Middle level and senior practitioners in public administration and public management will also find this an invaluable and sophisticated introduction.

Jon Pierre and Guy Peters expertly guide the reader through governance – one of the most widely used terms in political science – and its differing interpretations, with comprehensive discussion of the key issues covering global as well as local level governance. A detailed look into what constitutes ‘good governance’, whether produced by a government or by more informal means, is also explored.

Using public choice economic methods, this Advanced Introduction presents a focused narrative about political decision-making based on the work that has defined the discipline. Each chapter ends with a Notes section to discuss the research on which the chapter is based, with an emphasis on the pioneering work that has shaped the development of public choice. Randall G. Holcombe emphasizes the theoretical foundations of public choice, with the idea that it offers a context within which empirical research can be understood. This book successfully explores the political decision-making process for readers and ensures that they understand how preferences of citizens are aggregated to produce public policies.

This book, now in its second edition, provides a comprehensive and up to date survey of the field of International Political Economy. Although the subject’s roots go far back, the modern field has developed along sharply divergent paths followed by different clusters of scholars. Today there are multiple versions of IPE, each with its own distinct personality. This book illuminates the full array of analytical styles and traditions to be found across the globe in this rich field of study.

A Modern Guide to Public Policy explores the many approaches and methodologies in the study of policy making that have appeared over recent decades, ranging from the examination of micro level of human behaviour to the impact of global political systems on policies and policy-making. This expertly curated and accessible Elgar Modern Guide is a valuable resource for both graduate and undergraduate students and for practitioners seeking an introduction to public policy and public management and a concise guide to research in the discipline.

New institutional economics (NIE) is a powerful tool for understanding real world phenomena. This Advanced Introduction explores NIE’s answers to fundamental questions about the organization, growth and development of economies, such as why are some countries rich and others poor? Why are activities organized as firms or markets or through alternative organizational solutions? When are shared resources overexploited?

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Advanced Introduction to Social Policy offers a concise overview of the field that takes newer realities into account, without rejecting the insights found in the traditional social policy canon. Daniel Béland and Rianne Mahon draw on both classic and contemporary theories to illuminate the broad processes that are putting pressure on existing social policy arrangements and raising new research questions. These processes provide the canvass against which the authors assess the social policy implications of changing gender relations, the increasing salience of ethnic diversity, and the growing importance of the Global South as a site of social policy innovation.

Many questions arise of an economic nature that are only partially addressed by standard economic analysis. These lacunae give rise to particular lines of critique in economics, including a wide-ranging and increasingly cogent feminist approach to reenvisioning economics. This book provides a comprehensive description of this intriguing new area of feminist economics. It includes discussion of what constitutes feminist economics and how feminist economics is different from other approaches. The intellectual origins of the area are explicated, and the current state of the subfield outlined. Specific topics covered include conflict over terminology, pedagogy, and content in the field of economics, measurement of the unmeasured economy, the role of caring labor in the economy, heteronormativity in economics, feminist approaches to economic development, multiple approaches to empiricism, modeling of intrahousehold relationships, consideration of the role of property rights in reifying gender roles, differential effects of international trade and finance by gender, and feminist approaches to public finance and social welfare.