Public Policy and Private Interest ─ Ideas, Self-Interest and Ethics in Public Policy

This textbook explains the complexities of the policy-making process in a refreshingly clear way for students who are new to this subject. It explains:

• How policy originates, is refined, legitimised, implemented, evaluated and terminated in the forms of theoretical models of the policy process
• Which actors and institutions are most influential in determining the nature of policy
• The values that shape the policy agenda such as ideology, institutional self-interest and resource capabilities
• The outcome of policies, and why they succeed or fail
• The main policy theories including the very latest insights from network theory and post-modernism
• How national policy is influenced by globalization

The text is fully illustrated throughout with a broad range of national and international case studies on subjects such as the banking crisis, the creation of unitary authorities and global environmental policy and regulation.

Combining both a clear summary of debates and theories in public policy and a new and original approach to the subject, this book is essential reading for students of public policy and policy analysis.

Dr J.A Chandler is professor of local governance in the Faculty of Organisation and Management at Sheffield Hallam University. He has published extensively in the field of public policy and administration with a particular emphasis on local governance. Books include:-

Public Policy towards Local Government, 1988, London, Croom Helm.

Local Government Today, editions of 1991, 1996, 2002, 2009, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

Local Government in Liberal Democracies, (ed.) London, Routledge, 1993. (also translated into Slovak edition)

Comparative Public Administration, (ed.) London, Routledge, 2000. (also translated into Greek edition)

Explaining Local Government: Local Government in Britain 1800-2005, 2007, Manchester, Manchester University Press