Policy Making In Britain

This textbook introduces students to the public policy-making process in Britain today. Assuming no prior knowledge, it provides a full review of the key actors, institutions and processes.

Introducing you to the public policy making process in Britain today, this book adopts an empirical approach to the study of policy making by relating theory to actual developments in Britain since the 1980s. It covers: Ideas, Problem Definition, Issues and Agenda-Setting Key Individuals Key Institutions Parliament and Public Policy Implementation The shift from Government to Governance (including marketization, and devolution) The increasing role of the private and voluntary sectors in policy delivery Internationalisation and Europeanization of policies and policy making Evaluation, audits and the New Public Management Each chapter is enriched by recent real-life case studies and boxes illustrating key arguments, concepts and empirical developments. Taking into account the 2010 election and beyond, the book addresses current issues, developments and debates. The result is a contemporary and engaging text that will be required reading for all students of British politics, public policy and public administration.

This book revisits and re-defines the policy style concept and explores the long-standing debate in British political science concerning how best to characterise the British policy style. The book highlights several trends that suggest that the British policy style has shifted towards the impositional end of the policy style spectrum, bringing it more in line with the traditional Westminster model of governing. However, these changes also reflect a more frenetic policy style which might increase the number of policy blunders and failures in British Government unless means are found to access and manage the specialist expertise that interest groups possess.

Public health policies had a profound impact on urban life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, yet relatively few people took an active interest in the formulation of these policies. In this book Marjaana Niemi examines the impact of different political aims and pressures on 'scientific' health policies through the analysis of public health programmes in two case studies, one in Birmingham and the other in Gothenburg. By examining early twentieth-century campaigns concerned with infant welfare and the prevention of tuberculosis, the book provides illuminating insights into the relationship between public health and the regulation of urban life. Not only does the book analyse the processes whereby different political aims became embedded in these 'apolitical' health campaigns, but it also highlights the important part that the campaigns played in urban politics and governance. The political aims which public health campaigns advanced are explored by comparing health policies in Britain and Sweden, where officials were part of one public health community, enjoying close links, attending the same conferences and contributing to the same journals. The problems they dealt with were often similar and in both countries health authorities claimed scientific grounds for their programmes. Yet the policies they pursued were often strikingly different. Through examination of two different national approaches, the book does justice to the full complexity of the policy-making process and illuminates the wide range of factors that affected municipal policies.

What have been the defining characteristics, trends and changes of Britain′s post-war public policy? Developments in British Public Policy provides a comprehensive review of all the key public policy sectors in contemporary British Politics today. Each chapter is written by a leading authority on each policy sector, and includes definitions of key terms, examples and case studies, questions for discussion, and suggestions for further reading. It will be essential reading for all students of contemporary British public policy and will serve as an ideal companion to Policy-Making in Britain: An Introduction.

This textbook introduces students to the public policy-making process in Britain today. Assuming no prior knowledge, it provides a full review of the key actors, institutions and processes.

The issue of alcohol has never been far from British politics. Initially, governments needed to control its sale for public order reasons and because it was a major source of revenue. Then in Victorian times a powerful temperance movement arose which sought to prohibit or severely curb the 'Demon Drink'. This in turn aroused the hostility of the 'Trade' and the issue became one of fierce electoral politics. After 1890 drink was interpreted more as a social reform question and then in the First World War, after a major moral panic, far-reaching measures of direct state control were imposed in the interests of national efficiency. Later in the Twentieth century alcohol use came to be seen as an aspect of leisure and town planning and, more recently, as a health issue. Drawing upon a wide range of primary sources, John Greenaway uses the complex politics of the issue to shed light upon the changing political system and to test various theories of the policymaking process. Both historians and political scientists will be interested in this study.