Making Policy, Shaping Lives

A lively introduction to the policy making process which examines its impact at a variety of levels This book explores a variety of perspectives on the making of public policy, and how the latter impacts upon groups and individuals on the 'making' and the 'receiving' ends.

Its core aim is to bring policy making alive to students and general readers.

It deals with policy dynamics at national and other levels of governance.

Links are explored between policy and battles over political values, responses to electoral preferences, challenging social and cultural issues, the assumptions of the powerful, and national and international economic and political pressures.

Policy-making is compared across countries, using key case-studies to render the issues vivid.

Different theories of policy-making are also explored, ranging over the role of the public and private sectors in policy making, and recent attempts at restructuring modern welfare states.