Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach - Softcover

"The Lester and Stewart text provides an excellent overview of the policy process giving public administrators a balanced and detailed perspective of their special roles and responsibilities." "The feedback I get from students has always been very positive for this text. It is an approach that public administration students and professionals are often very comfortable with." "Three strengths of the text: Excellent overview of the policy process, including a good discussion of policy learning and change; very good examples of several policy domains, and an excellent introduction to policy science."

PUBLIC POLICY: AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH, 3e, examines how the substance and process of public policy and our understanding of that have evolved in America. After providing the reader with an analytic, historic and contextual framework for viewing public policy in the U.S., the authors offer a comprehensive look at the various elements of the governing process including agenda setting and problem definition, policy formation, implementation, program evaluation, and policy change and termination. In doing that the authors pay particular attention to the range of theories that have been offered to explain how, why, and with what effects governments act. The authors then look at three critical policy areas - environment, education, and welfare - to further illustrate how governing proceeds in the U.S.. Throughout the text the authors draw extensively on actual policy examples including recent efforts to reform education and welfare and the war in Iraq.