Policy Theory and Policy Evaluation: Concepts, Knowledge, Causes, and Norms

An innovative contribution to the literature of political science, this five-part volume explores the four basic theoretical issues in public policy analysis: conceptual theory, theory of knowing, casual theory, and normative analysis. A fifth section addresses future aspects of policy theory. The editors' introduction, which includes specific definitions of relevant terms used throughout the text, provides the reader with a thorough grounding in the subject. An in-depth discussion of the five key elements of policy evaluation that adhere to the editor's basic definition of the subject and an examination of the fine-tuned distinctions among other concepts often used to mean the same thing as public policy analysis provide the reader with more precise understandings. Key characteristics of good policy analysis relating to validity, importance, originality, and feasibility are scrutinized along with other criteria; sources of the elements of policy analysis--goals, policies, and relations--are identified and studied. The five key methodological problems in decision making are explained and the role of decision-aiding software in resource allocation and in dealing with various constraints is considered.

Ten chapters written by fourteen experts in the field expand upon various aspects of the four basic issues in such areas as relativity and quantum logic, the argumentation process, policy design, and normative and behavioral theory. This exhaustive study will be required reading for those who identify goals and formulate public policy and for those who assess the outcomes of these goals.