Premium
PUBLIC POLICY AND POLITICAL CHOICE: A REVIEW ARTICLE
Author(s) -
Smith R. F. I.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8500.1977.tb02505.x
Subject(s) - straddle , sophistication , public policy , positive economics , relevance (law) , politics , field (mathematics) , policy studies , public choice , political science , categorization , policy analysis , process (computing) , work (physics) , sociology , public economics , public relations , public administration , epistemology , economics , social science , law , computer science , mechanical engineering , philosophy , mathematics , finance , pure mathematics , engineering , operating system
In reviewing the literature on policy studies, as in studying policy making itself, what you see depends on where you look. Studies of public policy vary widely in forms, methods and rationale. This paper does not try to categorize and capture the spirit of all aspects of a diverse and burgeoning literature. Its focus is on a number of recent books that straddle broadly the categories of process and administrative studies. The questions addressed in the volumes discussed are about how institutions handle issues in public policy, their relevance to the actual content of policy, and the ways in which individuals and groups within them see and respond to opportunities for choice. Each book is concerned with questions of theory but the books do not, either singly or together, suggest a single compelling theory of institutions and policy processes. Indeed, considering their theoretical sophistication, one may doubt whether such a goal is practicable. The better the work done on policy studies the more open‐ended theoretically the field seems to be.