Peter D. Linquiti - Rebooting Policy Analysis: Strengthening the Foundation, Expanding the Scope

• Peter Linquiti
• The George Washington University

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This book is meant for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the fields of public policy, public administration, and other subjects related to public affairs. In particular, the book is suitable for courses in policy analysis, design, and delivery.

The fundamental premise of the book is that although the classical models of policy analysisthe linear progression from problem to solution and the iterative cycle of design, implement, evaluate, redesignprovide a solid foundation for policy analysis, they are not enough. These models, as typically taught:

• Are often out of sync with real-world policy discourse, overemphasizing microeconomics and statistics at the expense of political, institutional, legal, and sustainability considerations;
• Rarely offer methods for rigorously analyzing matters of equity, justice, fairness, and liberty;
• Are too optimistic about the ability of policy analysis to deliver an optimal policy choice that will solve a problem;
• Have little to say about how powerful stakeholders manipulate policy analysis to serve their narrow interests;
• Underemphasize the constrained environments in which policy analysis is often done and contain scant guidance on dealing with time, resource, and information constraints;
• Pay insufficient attention to the application of inclusive user-centric design principles in the development of public policy;
• Encourage a reductionist, rather than holistic, view of the systems in which policy problems arise and into which policy interventions are introduced; and