Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy

Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy
Author: Arnold J. Meltsner
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2024-06-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0520415000

Who advises our policy makers in Washington? What brings these advisors to the federal bureaucracy and keeps them there? And how do their clients and the bureaucratic context influence the choices they make in selecting, defining, and working on problems of public policy? In the late 1960s, professional policy advisors—called policy analysts—began to emerge in the Washington bureaucracy. Their job: to provide information and advice about the consequences of choosing different policies. Arnold J. Meltsner examines the various roles they asumed and the ways in which their priorities and methods were affected by the people they advised and the bureaucratic environment. Drawing on interviews with analysts and using his own experience as a government consultant, Meltsner shows how political and organizational considerations extended the boundaries of the advisor's role in a way that went far beyond the analyst's own notions of what policy analysis was. As the profession began to take shape, there were few standards of external organizations to set expectations for the analyst's work. As advisors on the inside, many policy analysts became adept at writing speeches and memos and making political calculations. In short, they took on the folkways of the bureaucrat. This detailed and vivid account of the experiences of analysts in a government agency is written not only for students of the subject but for all those interested in the general processes of our government. By providing a picture of the roles and behavior of the policy analyst, Meltsner points out the predicaments facing those who try to improve the effectiveness of analytical expertise within the government. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning

Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning
Author: Carl Patton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2015-08-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317350006

Updated in its 3rd edition, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning presents quickly applied methods for analyzing and resolving planning and policy issues at state, regional, and urban levels. Divided into two parts, Methods which presents quick methods in nine chapters and is organized around the steps in the policy analysis process, and Cases which presents seven policy cases, ranging in degree of complexity, the text provides readers with the resources they need for effective policy planning and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically combined to address policy dilemmas and urban planning problems. Readers and analysts utilizing this text gain comprehensive skills and background needed to impact public policy.

Policy Bureaucracy

Policy Bureaucracy
Author: Edward C Page
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2005-08-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019928041X

Policy making is not only about the cut and thrust of politics. It is also a bureaucratic activity. Long before laws are drafted, policy commitments made, or groups consulted on government proposals, officials will have been working away to shape the policy into a form in which it can be presented to ministers and the outside world. Policy bureaucracies - parts of government organizations with specific responsibility for maintaining and developing policy - have to be mobilizedbefore most significant policy initiatives are launched.This book describes the range of work policy officials do. The 140 civil servants interviewed for this study included officials who helped originate policies which were subsequently taken over as manifesto commitments by the Labour Party; officials who helped devise the formula by which billions of pounds are allocated to local government in grants; and also officials who recommended to the Secretary of State that a controversial publisher be allowed to take over a national newspaper. Thebackground and career paths of middle-ranking officials show them to be a diverse group who do not tend to develop long-term subject specialisms. The instructions to which these officials work - whether coming from ministers or senior officials - are often very broad and leave much to personalinterpretation.Policy Bureaucracy goes on to examine how ministers and senior officials affect the work of middle ranking officials and the cues policy bureaucrats use to develop policy. The analytical approach adopted in the book is derived from Alvin Gouldner's Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy and his elaboration of Max Weber's notion that hierarchy and expertise place a fundamental tension at the heart of modern bureaucracies. In the UK this tension is handled by combining 'invited authority'with 'improvised expertise'. The book also explores other models of handling this tension in political systems in Europe and the USA.

The Politics of Policy Analysis

The Politics of Policy Analysis
Author: Paul Cairney
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2021-02-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030661229

This book focuses on two key ways to improve the literature surrounding policy analysis. Firstly, it explores the implications of new developments in policy process research, on the role of psychology in communication and the multi-centric nature of policymaking. This is particularly important since policy analysts engage with policymakers who operate in an environment over which they have limited understanding and even less control. Secondly, it incorporates insights from studies of power, co-production, feminism, and decolonisation, to redraw the boundaries of policy-relevant knowledge. These insights help raise new questions and change expectations about the role and impact of policy analysis.

Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance
Author: Ali Farazmand
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 13623
Release: 2023-04-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030662527

This global encyclopedic work serves as a comprehensive collection of global scholarship regarding the vast fields of public administration, public policy, governance, and management. Written and edited by leading international scholars and practitioners, this exhaustive resource covers all areas of the above fields and their numerous subfields of study. In keeping with the multidisciplinary spirit of these fields and subfields, the entries make use of various theoretical, empirical, analytical, practical, and methodological bases of knowledge. Expanded and updated, the second edition includes over a thousand of new entries representing the most current research in public administration, public policy, governance, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, and management covering such important sub-areas as: 1. organization theory, behavior, change and development; 2. administrative theory and practice; 3. Bureaucracy; 4. public budgeting and financial management; 5. public economy and public management 6. public personnel administration and labor-management relations; 7. crisis and emergency management; 8. institutional theory and public administration; 9. law and regulations; 10. ethics and accountability; 11. public governance and private governance; 12. Nonprofit management and nongovernmental organizations; 13. Social, health, and environmental policy areas; 14. pandemic and crisis management; 15. administrative and governance reforms; 16. comparative public administration and governance; 17. globalization and international issues; 18. performance management; 19. geographical areas of the world with country-focused entries like Japan, China, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, North America; and 20. a lot more. Relevant to professionals, experts, scholars, general readers, researchers, policy makers and manger, and students worldwide, this work will serve as the most viable global reference source for those looking for an introduction and advance knowledge to the field.

Reinventing Rationality

Reinventing Rationality
Author: Thomas O. McGarity
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 405
Release: 1991-05-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521402565

In this book, Professor McGarity reveals the complex and problematic relationship between the 'regulatory reform' movements initiated in the early l970s and the United States' federal bureaucracy. Examining both the theory and application of 'regulatory reform' under the Reagan administration, the author succeeds in offering both a relevant analysis and critique of 'regulatory reform' and its implementation through bureaucratic channels. Using several case studies from the early Reagan years, this book describes the clash of regulatory cultures resulting from the President's attempt to incorporate 'regulatory analysis' into the bureaucratic decision-making process. Yet while McGarity recognizes the limitations of regulatory analysis, he concludes with suggestions for enhancing its effectiveness. This book could be used not only as a textbook for political science and government courses but also for graduate applications in public policy and public administration.

The Science of Public Policy: Policy analysis II

The Science of Public Policy: Policy analysis II
Author: Tadao Miyakawa
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 584
Release: 2000-05-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780415195980

This set offers a comprehensive collection of papers on this significant discipline. Published in two parts with new introductions to the individual volumes by the editor, this is an invaluable tool for any researcher in this area.

Analysis and Public Policy

Analysis and Public Policy
Author: Stuart Shapiro
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2016-02-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1784714763

How do we incorporate analytical thinking into public policy decisions? Stuart Shapiro confronts this issue in Analysis and Public Policy by looking at various types of analysis, and discussing how they are used in regulatory policy-making in the US. By looking at the successes and failures of incorporating cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, and environmental impact assessment, he draws broader lessons on its use, focusing on the interactions between analysis and political factors, legal structures and bureaucratic organizations as possible areas for reform. Utilizing empirical and qualitative research, Shapiro analyzes four different forms of analysis: cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, and impact analysis. After interviewing nearly fifty individuals who have served in high levels of government, and who have made countless regulatory policy decisions in their careers, Shapiro argues that advocates must become less ambitious and should craft requirements for simpler and clearer analysis. Such analysis, particularly if informed by public participation, can do a great deal to improve government decisions. As this book details the relationship between analysis and institutional factors such as politics, bureaucracy, and law, it is appropriate for a variety of readers, such as scholars of policy, students, scholars of regulation, and congressional and state legislative staff looking to create new analytical requirements.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy
Author: Gordon Tullock
Publisher: Selected Works of Gordon Tullo
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Gordon Tullock is among a small group of living legends in the field of political economics. This volume provides an entree to the mind of an original thinker. Professor Rowley provides deliberately sparse contextual introduction to each volume, opting to allow the very able and eloquent Tullock to speak for himself.