Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach

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.

Joseph Stewart, Jr. has held teaching or research positions at the University of New Mexico, University of Texas at Dallas, West Virginia University, University of New Orleans, Rice University, and Wichita State University. His research interest spans civil rights policies; racial and ethnic politics; public policy; and educational policy. His work has appeared in a variety of political science, education, public policy, public administration, public law, and interdisciplinary journals. Three of his books � RACE, CLASS, AND EDUCATION (with Ken Meier and Robert England, 1989), THE POLITICS OF HISPANIC EDUCATION (with Ken Meier, 1991), and CAN WE ALL GET ALONG? RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN AMERICAN POLITICS (with Paula McClain, 4th ed., 2006) � have received Myers Awards as "Outstanding Books on the Subject of Human Rights in the United States". Stewart serves on the editorial board of the University Press of Virginia's "Race, Ethnicity and Politics" series and is co-editor of Rowman & Littlefield's "Spectrum" series. Stewart was president of the Southwestern Political Science Association and Southwestern Social Science Association, and currently is vice-president elect of the Southern Political Science Association.

David M. Hedge is a professor of political science at the University of Florida, where he also serves as the academic program director at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service. His research and teaching interests include state politics and policy, bureaucratic politics, and legislative behavior. He has published extensively on regulatory politics, intergovernmental relations, and state legislative politics. Hedge is the author or coauthor of State and Local Government in a Changing Society (with Richard Bingham, McGraw-Hill, 1991) and Governance and the Changing American States (Westview Press, 1998). He serves as the secretary/treasurer of the American Political Science Association's Organized Section on Public Policy and sits on the editorial boards of the Policy Studies Journal. His current research includes an examination of the impact of social capital on welfare policy and a study of member state compliance with European Union environmental standards.