Public Policy and Private Interest explains the complexities of the policy making process in a refreshingly clear way for students who are new to this subject. The key topics it explains are:

• 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.