The Comparative Public Policy Reader

Most books on comparative public policy either deal with specific policy areas such as health housing or taxation comparing the policy process empirically for a set of countries with common features or derive policy parameters on the basis of the nature of the state as capitalist social democratic or pluralist deductively or try to relate a particulars policy or policy cluster as dependent variable with various social economic and political factors as independent variables through quantitative techniques this book is perhaps the first one to discuss all the three modes of comparing with examples it has two more distinctions it deals with policy as policy and the policy process as universal with only differences of degree regardless of geographical areas or sectors of state activity thus policy making in the Third World discussed and compared integrally with the First World and science policy and foreign is policy which are analysed in isolation are explore an discussed as just plain policy. The book thus achieves a wide and high level of comprehensiveness an is the single best introduction to the study of public policy for honors and graduate students in the social sciences. (jacket) 580 pp.…