This Handbook provides a comprehensive global survey of the policy process. Written by an outstanding line up of distinguished scholars and practitioners, the Handbook covers all aspects of the policy process including:
Theory - from rational choice to the new institutionalism
Frameworks - network theory, advocacy coalition and development models
Key stages in the process - Formulation, implementation and evaluation
Agenda setting and decision making
The roles of key actors and institutions
This is an invaluable resource for all scholars, graduate students and practitioners in public policy and policy analysis.
"Traditional policy analysis approaches are characterized by a focus on system
modeling and choosing among policy alternatives. While successful in many cases,
this approach has been increasingly criticized for being technocratic and
ignoring the behavioral and political dimensions of most policy processes. In
recent decades, increased awareness of the multi-actor, multiple perspective,
and poly-centric character of many policy processes has led to the development
of a variety of different perspectives on the styles and roles of policy
analysis, and to new analytical tools and approaches - for example,
argumentative approaches, participative policy analysis, and negotiation
support. As a result, the field has become multi-faceted and somewhat
fragmented.
Public Policy Analysis: New Developments acknowledges the variety of
approaches and provides a synthesis of the traditional and new approaches to
policy analysis. It provides an overview and typology of different types of
policy analytic activities, characterizing them according to differences in
character and leading values, and linking them to a variety of theoretical
notions on policymaking. Thereby, it provides assistance to both end users and
analysts in choosing an appropriate approach given a specific policy situation.
By broadening the traditional approach and methods to include the analysis
of actors and actor networks related to the policy issue at hand, it deepens the
state of the art in certain areas. While the main focus of the book is on the
cognitive dimensions of policy analysis, it also links the policy analysis
process to the policymaking process, showing how to identify and involve all
relevant stakeholders in the process, and how to create favorable conditions for
use of the results of policy analytic efforts by the policy actors."
A detailed case study of commuting and social networks in San Jose, which suggests that sentiment analysis has the potential to help cities and local transportation authorities define their priorities, planning, investments and assess the impact of infrastructure investments.
HDI Forum III: The Health Datapalooza promises to bring together a diverse group of data experts, technology developers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, health care system leaders, CIOs, CTOs, and community advocates to support innovative applications of health and health care data.
The Health Data Initiative (HDI), originally launched in 2010 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as the Community Health Data Initiative, is a public-private collaboration that encourages innovators to utilize health data to develop applications to raise awareness of health and health system performance and spark community action to improve health.
The Forum will feature keynote addresses, an Apps Expo, demonstrations of new, cutting-edge apps, and thought-provoking panel discussions. There will also be plenty of time for networking and one-on-one interaction.
It is a great opportunity to be in on the vanguard of data applications to improve health and health care. This year's event promises to be one you do not want to miss!
Eli Pariser explores how ideas move in the networked economy. As the board president of MoveOn.org, he pioneered many practices of online organizing. Now, Pariser is focused on the social and political impact of the personalized web, examining the role that filters - both cognitive and software-based - have in shaping what information spreads, which he refers to as the Filter Bubble .
The purpose of the project is to create and convene an interdisciplinary network of thinkers and doers that could help with making the transition from closed-and-centralized to open-and-collaborative institutions of governance.
The White House Recently asked citizens to post suggestions on how to improve regulations.gov, data.gov, and the Federal web strategy. This is part two of a multi-part series on how to and more importantly, why we should consider changing the way these, (potentially) game-changing efforts could be improved. Here, we present some comments for regulations.gov and some suggestions on how changes could help improve the federal rulemaking process.