Public Policy Analysis

 

Reading List

 

Compiled by:

 

Professors

Richard Kearney, Carmen Cirincione, and Robert Kravchuk, 1995

 

Roger Parks, 2000

 

 

Listed below are a variety of volumes related to the field of Public Policy Analysis.  The list is limited to published books – there are of course many additional books, articles, book chapters, and reports that are relevant.  Parks has imposed a rough classification on many of the books, but his classification is by no means definitive.

 

Students preparing for a field in Public Policy in the Jt. Ph.D. Program or Policy Analysis in the Public Affairs program should become familiar with many of these books.  Students should consult with their committee members to determine which are of most relevance to their interests, and what books, articles, etc. to add to this list in their preparation.

 

A reasonable starting point into this literature is the textbook:

 

Weimer, David L. and Aidan R. Vining (1999) Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Third edition.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

 

 

Foundations

 

Dahl, Robert A., and Charles E. Lindblom (1953). Politics, Economics and Welfare: Planning and Politico-Economic Systems Resolved into Basic Social Processes.

 

Deutsch, Karl W. (1966). The Nerves of Government. New York: The Free Press.

 

Dewey, John.  1927 (1954 re-edition).  The Public and Its Problems.  Ohio University Press.

 

Friedman, Milton (1953). Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

           

Friedman, Milton (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed.  University of Chicago Press, 1970.

 

Lakatos, Imre, and Alan Musgrave, eds. (1970). Criticism and the Growth of  Knowledge.            New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

Lasswell, Harold Dwight,  (1971)  A pre-view of policy sciences.  New York, American Elsevier Pub. Co.

 

Polanyi, Karl (1944). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.

 

Popper, Karl R. (1962). Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Know-      ledge. New York: Basic Books. [Harper & Row paperback edition, 1965.]

 

Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1950). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 3rd edition. New York: Harper & Row.

 

Smith, Adam.  An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.  Chicago : Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1990.

 

Stinchcombe. Arthur L.  Constructing Social Theories. University of Chicago Press. 1968.

 

Suppe, Frederick, ed.  The Structure of Scientific Theories, 2nd ed.  University of Illinois Press, 1977

Tocqueville, Alexis de.  Democracy in America.  New York:  Westvaco, 1999.

 

Classics

 

Allison, Graham. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Little, Brown and Company, 1971.

           

Axelrod, Robert (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.

                       

Braybrooke, David, and Charles E. Lindblom (1963). A Strategy of Decision: Policy Evaluation as a Social Process. New York: The Free Press.

           

Easton, David (1965). A Systems Analysis of Political Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Hirschman, Albert. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press).

 

Lindblom, Charles E. (1977). Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems. New York: basic Books.

 

Moynihan, Daniel P. (1969). Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding; Community Action in the War on Poverty. New York: The Free Press.

 

Nelson, Richard R. (1977). The Moon and the Ghetto: An Essay on Public Policy Analysis. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

           

North, Douglas. 1990.  Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance.  New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

Okun, Arthur M. (1975). Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.

 

Pressman, Jeffrey L., and Aaron Wildavsky (1973). Implementation. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

 

Rivlin, Alice M. (1971). Systematic Thinking for Social Action. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.

 

Schultze, Charles L. (1977). The Public Use of Private Interest. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.

 

Wildavsky, Aaron (1987). Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, 2d ed. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

 

Policy Analysis Textbooks

 

Bobrow, Davis B. and Dryzek, John S.  (1987) Policy Analysis by Design.  Pittsburgh, PA:  University of Pittsburgh Press

 

Brewer, Garry D. and Peter deLeon, (1983) The Foundation of Policy Analysis. Homewood, IL:  The Dorsey Press

 

Carley, Michael (1980) Rational Techniques in Policy Analysis.  London:  Heinemann Educational Books

 

Dunn, William. Public Policy Analysis, 2nd Ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice-Hall, 1994.

 

Friedman, Lee. Microeconomic Policy Analysis. McGraw-Hill, 1984.

 

Heineman, Robert A., Bluhm, Peterson, and Kearney. (1997)  The World of the Policy Analyst: Rationality, Values, & Politics. 2nd edition.  Chatham House Publishers, Inc. Chatham, New Jersey.

 

MacRae, Duncan and James A. Wilde (1979) Policy Analysis for Public Decisions.  North Scituate, Massachusetts:  Duxbury Press

 

Ostrom, Elinor. Ed. (1982) Strategies of Political Inquiry.  Beverly Hills, CA:  SAGE.

 

Paris, David D. and Reynolds, James F. The Logic of Policy Inquiry.Longman, 1983.

 

Rhoads, Steven E. (1985). The Economist's View of the World: Government, Markets, & Public Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

Sabatier, Paul A. (1999) Theories of the Policy Process.  Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

 

Stokey, Edith, and Richard Zeckhauser (1978). A Primer for Policy Analysis. New York: W.W. Norton.

 

Wade, L. L., and R. L. Curry, Jr. (1970). A Logic of Public Policy. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing, Inc.

 

Weimer, David L. and Aidan R. Vining (1999) Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Third edition.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

 

 

 

Decision Analysis

 

Baird, Bruce. Managerial Decisions Under Uncertainty: An Introduction to the Analysis of Decision Making.  John Wiley & Sons, 1989.

 

Clemen, Robert. Making Hard Decisions: An Introduction to Decision Analysis. Duxbury Press, 1991.

 

Hogarth, R. and Reder, M.  Rational Choice: The Contrast between Economics and Psychology.  The University of Chicago Press, 1986.

 

Janis, I. and Mann, L.  Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment. The Free Press, 1977.

           

Kahneman, D.; Slovic, Paul; and Tversky, A. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge University Press, 1982.

 

Keeney, R. and Raiffa, H. Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeoffs. John Wiley & Sons, 1976.

 

Nisbet, Richard, and Lee Ross (1980)  Human Inference:  Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgement.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice-Hall.

 

Raiffa, Howard. Decision Analysis: Introductory Lectures on Choices under Uncertainty.  Random House, 1968.

 

von Winterfeldt, D. and Edwards, W.  Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research. Cambridge University Press, 1986.

 

Cybernetic Approaches

 

Ashby, William Ross. (1960) Design for a brain; the origin of adaptive behavior.  2nd edition.  New York: Wiley.

 

Cyert, Richard M., and James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, 2nd edition.  Blackwell Publishing, 1992.

 

Simon, Herbert A. (1981). The Sciences of the Artificial, 2d. edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Steinbruner, John D. (1974). The Cybernetic Theory of Decision. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

 

Policy Processes

 

Kelman, Steven (1987). Making Public Policy: A Hopeful View of American Government. New York; Basic Books.

                       

Kingdon, John W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.

 

Social Choice/Public Choice

 

Arrow, Kenneth J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

Buchanan, James M., and Gordon Tullock (1962). The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

 

MacKay, Alfred F. (1980). Arrow's Theorem: The Paradox of Social Choice. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

Mueller, Dennis C. (1989). Public Choice II. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

Olson, Mancur (1965). The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

 

Ostrom, Elinor (1990)  Governing the Commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.

 

Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James Walker (1994)  Rules, Games, & Common-Pool Resources.  Ann Arbor, MI:  University of Michigan Press.

 

Riker, William H. (1982) Liberalism Against Populism:  A confrontation between the theory of democracy and the theory of social choice.  Prospect Heights, IL:  Waveland Press.

 

Schelling, Thomas C. (1978)  Micromotives and Macro Behavior.  New York:  W.W. Norton.

 

Sen, Amartya (1970)  Collective choice and social welfare.  San Francisco: Holden-Day.

 

Wagner, Richard E. (1989). To Promote the General Welfare: Market Processes vs. Political Transfers. San Francisco, California: Pacific Research Institute.

 

Wolf, Charles, Jr. (1990). Markets or Governments: Choosing Between Imperfect Alternatives. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

 

Social Science Methods Textbooks

 

Babbie, Earl (2000) The Practice of Social Research. 9th Edition. Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc.

 

Blalock, Herbert (1986) Conceptualization and Measurement in the Social Sciences. Sage Publications.

 

Frankfort-Nachmias, Chava, and David Nachmias. Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 6th edition. New York: Worth Publishing, 1999.

 

Ghiselli, Edwin E., John P. Campbell, and Sheldon Zedeck. Measurement Theory for the Behavioral Sciences. Freeman and Company, 1981.

 

Katzer, Jeffrey, Kenneth H. Cook, and Wayne W. Crouch. Evaluating Information, Third Edition. New York: McGraw Hill, 1991.

 

King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba (1994)  Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

 

Singleton, Royce A. Jr., and Bruce C. Straits (1999) Approaches to Social Research 3rd edition.  New York:  Oxford University Press.

 

Yin, Robert K (1984). Case Study Research. Beverley Hills, CA:Sage Publications.

 

Evaluation Research Textbooks

 

Campbell, Donald T., and Julian C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Houghton Miffline Company, Boston, 1963.

 

Chelimsky, Eleanor. Program Evaluation: Patterns and Directions, 2nd Edition. American Society for Public Administration, 1989.

 

Cook, Thomas D., and Donald T. Campbell, Quasi-Experimentation: Design & Analysis Issues for Field Settings.  Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1979.

 

Mohr, Lawrence B. Impact Analysis for Program Evaluation.  Sage Publications, 1992.

 

 

Patton, Michael Quinn. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, 2nd Edition. Sage Publications, 1990.

 

Rossi, Peter H., and Howard E. Freeman. (1993) Evalution: A Systematic Approach.  5th edition.  Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

 

Shadish, William R., Jr., Thomas D. Cook, and Laura C. Leviton.  Foundations of Program Evalution: Theories of Practice.  Sage Publications, 1991.

 

Wholey, Joseph S., Harry P. Hatry, and Kathryn E. Newcomer, eds. (1994) Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass.

 

 

Economics Textbooks

 

Boadway, R. W. and Wildasin, D. E. Public Sector Economics, 2nd Edition. Little, Brown, and Company, 1984.

 

Levin, Henry M. Cost-Effectiveness: A Primer. Sage Publications, 1983.

 

Malinvaud, Edmond (1972)  Lectures on microeconomic theory. New York: American Elsevier.

 

Mansfield, Edwin, ed. (1987). Managerial Economics and Operations Research. 5th edition.  New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

 

Mishan, E. J. Cost-Benefit Analysis: New and Expanded Edition. Praeger Publishers, 1976.

 

 

Lots more good stuff

 

Chechile, R.A. and Susan Carlisle  1991 Environmental Decision Making.  A Multidisciplinary Perspective  Van Nostrand Reinhold

 

           

Dror, Yehezkel (1968). Public Policy Reexamined. Chicago: Chandler Publishing Co.

           

           

Edwards, George C., III, and Ira Sharkansky (1978). The Policy Predicament. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co.

 

Elster, Jon (1992)  Local Justice.  New York:  Russell Sage.

           

Fischer, Frank, and John Forester (1987). Confronting Values in Policy Analysis: The Politics of Criteria. Beverly Hills, California: sage Publications.

           

Gawthrop, Louis C. (1984). Public Sector Management, Systems, and Ethics. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

           

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. Penguin Books, 1987.

 

Laszlo, Ervin (1973). Introduction to Systems Philosophy. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

           

Lindblom, Charles E. and David Cohen (1979). Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

Majone, Giandomenico (1989). Evidence, Argument & Persuasion in the Policy Process. New Haven: Yale University Press.

           

Nathan, Richard P. (1988) Social Science in Government.  New York, NY:  Basic Books, Inc.

           

Reich, Robert B., ed. (1988). The Power of Public Ideas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger.

           

Rose, Richard (1993). Lesson-Drawing in Public Policy. Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers.

           

Schön, Donald A., and Martin Rein (1994). Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies. New York: Basic Books.

           

Sen, Amartya (1999)  Development as freedom.  New York:  Knopf.

           

Shubik, Martin. 1982. Game Theory in the Social Sciences: Concepts and Solutions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 

Sowell, Thomas. (1980) Knowledge and Decision.  New York:  Basic Books.

           

Stone, Deborah A. (1988) Policy Paradox and Political Reason.  Glenview, IL; Boston, MA; London:  Scott, Foresman and Company

                       

von Bertalanffy, Ludwig (1968). General System Theory., rev. ed. New York: George Braziller.

           

Wagner, David G.  The Growth of Sociological Theories.  Sage Publications, 1984.