If 'prevention is better than cure', why isn't policy more preventive? Policymakers only have the ability to pay attention to, and influence, a tiny proportion of their responsibilities, and they engage in a policymaking environment of which they have limited understanding and even less control. This simple insight helps explain the gap between stated policymaker expectations and actual policy outcomes. Why Isn't Government Policy more Preventive? uses these insights to produce new empirical studies of 'wicked' problems with practical lessons. The authors find that the UK and Scottish governments both use a simple idiom - prevention is better than cure - to sell a package of profound changes to policy and policymaking. Taken at face value, this focus on 'prevention' policy seems like an idea 'whose time has come'. Yet, 'prevention' is too ambiguous until governments give it meaning. No government has found a way to turn this vague aim into a set of detailed, consistent, and defendable policies. This book examines what happens when governments make commitments without knowing how to deliver them. It compares their policymaking contexts, roles and responsibilities, policy styles, language, commitments, and outcomes in several cross-cutting policy areas (including health, families, justice, and employability) to make sense of their experiences. The book uses multiple insights from policy theory to help research and analyse the results. The results help policymakers reflect on how to avoid a cycle of optimism and despair when trying to solve problems that their predecessors did not.

Why Isn't Government Policy More Preventive?

Politics & Social Sciences

Cairney, Paul

St Denny, Emily

Politics & Government

Oxford University Press

This book is a new introduction to theories of public policy. The author provides an accessible assessment of a wide range of theories and models from policy cycles, policy transfer, rational choice and socio-economic explanations to multi-level governance, advocacy coalitions and punctuated equilibrium and of their value to policy analysis.

Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues (Textbooks in Policy Studies)

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

Scottish Politics

Fully revised, the new edition of this popular textbook provides an authoritative introduction to all aspects of contemporary Scottish politics and gives a full analysis of the SNP's first majority government.

McGarvey, Neil

Red Globe Press

This provocative Element is on the 'state of the art' of theories that highlight policymaking complexity. It explains complexity in a way that is simple enough to understand and use. The primary audience is policy scholars seeking a single authoritative guide to studies of 'multi-centric policymaking'. It synthesises this literature to build a research agenda on the following questions: 1. How can we best explain the ways in which many policymaking 'centres' interact to produce policy? 2. How should we research multi-centric policymaking? 3. How can we hold policymakers to account in a multi-centric system? 4. How can people engage effectively to influence policy in a multi-centric system? However, by focusing on simple exposition and limiting jargon, Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, Matthew Wood also speak to a far wider audience of practitioners, students, and new researchers seeking a straightforward introduction to policy theory and its practical lessons.

Making Policy in a Complex World (Elements in Public Policy)

Business & Money

Heikkila, Tanya

Wood, Matthew

Economics

Cambridge University Press

The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making

The Politics of Evidence Based Policymakingidentifies how to work with policymakers to maximize the use of scientific evidence. Policymakers cannot consider all evidence relevant to policy problems. They use two shortcuts: ‘rational’ ways to gather enough evidence, and ‘irrational’ decision-making, drawing on emotions, beliefs, and habits. Most scientific studies focus on the former. They identify uncertainty when policymakers have incomplete evidence, and try to solve it by improving the supply of information. They do not respond to ambiguity, or the potential for policymakers to understand problems in very different ways. A good strategy requires advocates to be persuasive: forming coalitions with like-minded actors, and accompanying evidence with simple stories to exploit the emotional or ideological biases of policymakers.

Palgrave Pivot

The fully revised second edition of this textbook offers a comprehensive introduction to theories of public policy and policymaking. The policy process is complex: it contains hundreds of people and organisations from various levels and types of government, from agencies, quasi- and non-governmental organisations, interest groups and the private and voluntary sectors. This book sets out the major concepts and theories that are vital for making sense of the complexity of public policy, and explores how to combine their insights when seeking to explain the policy process. While a wide range of topics are covered – from multi-level governance and punctuated equilibrium theory to ‘Multiple Streams’ analysis and feminist institutionalism – this engaging text draws out the common themes among the variety of studies considered and tackles three key questions: what is the story of each theory (or multiple theories); what does policy theory tell us about issues like ‘evidence based policymaking’; and how ‘universal’ are policy theories designed in the Global North? This book is the perfect companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying public policy, whether focussed on theory, analysis or the policy process, and it is essential reading for all those on MPP or MPM programmes.

Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues (Textbooks in Policy Studies, 2)

Bloomsbury Academic

Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues (Textbooks in Policy Studies, 5)

Springer

The Politics of Evidence Based Policymaking identifies how to work with policymakers to maximize the use of scientific evidence. Policymakers cannot consider all evidence relevant to policy problems. They use two shortcuts: ‘rational’ ways to gather enough evidence, and ‘irrational’ decision-making, drawing on emotions, beliefs, and habits. Most scientific studies focus on the former. They identify uncertainty when policymakers have incomplete evidence, and try to solve it by improving the supply of information. They do not respond to ambiguity, or the potential for policymakers to understand problems in very different ways. A good strategy requires advocates to be persuasive: forming coalitions with like-minded actors, and accompanying evidence with simple stories to exploit the emotional or ideological biases of policymakers.

Politics and Policy Making in the UK

Over the past decade, the UK has experienced major policy and policy making change. This text examines this shifting political and policy landscape while also highlighting the features of UK politics that have endured. Written by Paul Cairney and Sean Kippin, leading voices in UK public policy and politics, the book combines a focus on policy making theories and concepts with the exploration of key themes and events in UK politics, including: * developing social policy in a post-pandemic world; * governing post-Brexit; and* the centrality of environmental policy. The book equips students with a robust and up-to-date understanding of UK public policy and enables them to locate this within a broader theoretical framework.

Kippin, Sean

Bristol University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cairney, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cairney, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cairney, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Why Isn't Government Policy More Preventive?

Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues (Textbooks in Policy Studies)

Scottish Politics

Scottish Politics

Making Policy in a Complex World (Elements in Public Policy)

The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making

Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues (Textbooks in Policy Studies, 2)

Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues (Textbooks in Policy Studies, 5)

The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making

Politics and Policy Making in the UK