Politics: The Basics, 4th Edition

sense) or to be rational decision makers. Moreover, all of them are subject to pressure from influential lobbyists or interests. ...

By ‘psychological limitations’ it is meant that organisations are com- posed of individuals with limited knowledge and skills an ...

Incremental decision making Allison (1987) suggests a second ‘organisational process model’ of decision making which stresses th ...

the rules of the game. Just as in physics a resultant is the outcome of physical forces operating in different directions on a m ...

our limited knowledge of the social effects of policy making, but as desirable in a democracy in which relationships between gro ...

picked out for attention (Bachrach and Baratz, 1970, again) and may be approached in different ways during the process of decisi ...

branches of a central ministry on the basis of relatively clear and unambiguous rules enforced through a single bureaucracy, suf ...

language has emphasised the symbolic function of many policy declarations. A fine-sounding policy may have its origins in a poli ...

(i) unambiguous signal of required behaviour must reach local imple- menter and be understood; (ii) either (a) they must want to ...

Multi-level governance Two major factors have helped extend and complicate the chain of relationships involved in policy impleme ...

emphasise that public policies are increasingly implemented in a pragmatic way through a network of organisations which must the ...

Additionally, many posts which were formerly in the Civil Service or part of a nationalised industry are now in the private sect ...

BOX 8.7 THE 3 ‘E’S: EFFICIENCY; ECONOMY; EFFECTIVENESS The three concepts can thus be seen as occupying a hierarchical relations ...

indicators’ seems unexceptionable. The attempt to define performance indicators has, however, become more controversial and cent ...

developing good community relations may be neglected. Such statis- tics may also be subject to manipulation – in our example cri ...

From a socialist point of view, such statistics suggest that policies attempting equity between individuals in the UK (and simil ...

literature exists on this (which concentrates, however, on the tax element of the equation). Summarising this brutally, the over ...

implement policy. But this can be shaped by ‘micro’-level policy decisions made by individual politicians (in weak party systems ...

A number of different explanations for a growing sense of civic disillusionment or alienation have been put forward. One view is ...

worth reviewing your personal relationships and professional activi- ties and plans to see if they are in accord with political ...