This rigorous but very accessible guide to the main concepts and techniques of policy analysis is intended for students and in-service professionals who want to become more efficient and effective in their work. The book equips readers with a structured and disciplined step-by-step approach to decision making, defining issues and applying the powerful techniques of policy analysis - always in the context of uncertainty and limited discretion. Each chapter concludes with notes and a list of supplementary sources for further reading.

The Policy Analyst's Handbook: Rational Problem Solving in a Political World

Education & Teaching

Irwin, Lewis G.

Schools & Teaching

Routledge

This rigorous but very accessible guide to the main concepts and techniques of policy analysis is intended for students and in-service professionals who want to become more efficient and effective in their work. The book equips readers with a structured and disciplined step-by-step approach to decision making, defining issues and applying the powerful techniques of policy analysis - always in the context of uncertainty and limited discretion. Each chapter concludes with notes and a list of supplementary sources for further reading.

A Chill in the House: Actor Perspectives on Change and Continuity in the Pursuit of Legislative Success

Examines the growth of obstacles to legislative success since the 1960s in the U.S. House of Representatives. How do laws come into being in today’s Congress? Is public policy made the same way now as it was in the past? In seeking to convert an idea into law, would contemporary legislative actors identify key participants, chamber procedures, strategies, or legislative products differently than their counterparts in the 1960s? Through a comparison of the events that led to the passage of six laws from the 1960s and the 1990s, this book answers these and related questions. Irwin argues that the interpersonal “glue” that held 1960s-era legislators together has been weakened, diminishing the strength of a resource once available to aid would-be legislative champions. This is evidenced by the House being a much less civil and congenial institution today than it was in the 1960s. Consensus building, too, has given way to a war of attrition, leading to a marked increase in contextual impediments to the realization of legislative success. This does not mean, however, that the underlying ingredients of legislative success have changed, only that, in sum, there is a distinct “chill” in the House as members pursue their business.

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

State Univ of New York Pr

Remarkably ambitious in its audacity and scope, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) irregular warfare and “nation-building” mission in Afghanistan has struggled to meet its nonmilitary objectives by most tangible measures. Put directly, the alliance and its partners have fallen short of achieving the results needed to create a stable, secure, democratic, and self-sustaining Afghan nation, a particularly daunting proposition given Afghanistan’s history and culture, the region’s contemporary circumstances, and the fact that no such country has existed there before. Furthermore, given the central nature of U.S. contributions to this NATO mission, these shortfalls also serve as an indicator of a serious American problem as well. Specifically, inconsistencies and a lack of coherence in U.S. Government strategic planning processes and products, as well as fundamental flaws in U.S. Government structures and systems for coordinating and integrating the efforts of its various agencies, are largely responsible for this adverse and dangerous situation. As a rationally ordered expression of the ways and means to be applied in the protection of vital national security interests, strategy is supposed to represent a careful analysis and prioritization of the particular interests at stake. In turn, these interests are linked to feasible methods and the resources that are available for their protection, all placed within the context of competing global security demands and a serious consideration of risk. In the case of Afghanistan, however, U.S. Government strategic guidance has been disjointed-- or inconsistent and lacking coherence--while interagency efforts have been “disunified,” with agency outputs too often fragmented, inadequate, or internally at odds with one another. As a result, U.S. strategic supervision of the Afghan operation has been muddled and shifting at best, even as our government’s interagency processes and available agency capabilities have fallen far short of what is needed to carry out the complex and broad requirements of irregular warfare and “nation-building.” Given the breadth, length, and expense of the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan, these strategic and operational shortfalls also carry with them potentially dire consequences for U.S. national security interests around the globe, considering potential first- and second-order effects and other associated risks. U.S. Government disjointed ways, coupled with a corresponding disunity of means, represent the proximate cause of our struggles in Afghanistan, and these deficiencies must be addressed if this mission and other similar future endeavors are to succeed.

Disjointed Ways, Disunified Means: Learning from America's Struggle to Build an Afghan Nation

History

Military

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Disjointed Wars, Disunified Means: Learning From America's Struggle to Build an Afghan Nation

Strategic Studes Institute

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