Summary

Intended for undergraduate-level courses in public policy, this introduction to public policy is designed to provide students with concrete tools for not only understanding public policy in general, but for analyzing specific public policies. It focuses on what policies governments pursue, why governments pursue the policies they do, and what the consequences of these policies are. Contemporary in perspective, it introduces eight analytical models currently used by political scientists to describe and explain political life and then, using these various analytical models - singly and in combination - explores specific public policies in a variety of key domestic policy areas.