For use as a principal assignment for intermediate-level courses in public policy, public administration, government regulation of the economy, public health, and administrative law and as a supplemental text for introductory courses in American Government.
The book is designed to help students understand the central role of the bureaucracy in policy-making. It examines formal rulemaking procedures as well as the informal and political aspects of decisionmaking. The book considers policymaking as a system including the president, Congress, the courts, private sector actors, state governments, and the Federal bureaucracy. And, the volume considers questions raised by the extensive role of bureaucracies in policymaking in a democracy
The authors wrote this text to show that bureaucratic decision making is frequently exciting, an important element of political strategy, and potentially momentous in its results. Not only do many people not realize the scope of the policy making activities of the federal bureaucracy, they do not understand the procedures employed in making that policy and thus have little opportunity to participate meaningfully in bureaucratic policy making. The authors aim to help students of government understand the importance of this area and make them more effective participants in these processes. Upon completing this volume, readers will have not only a solid grasp of bureaucratic policy making but also of the political maneuvering that underlies any issue whose outcome will produce winners and losers.
There is very little in American government texts about the role of bureaucracy in policymaking. Public policy in practice rarely fits the structural, formalistic explanations often offered of the making of policy. Policymaking dynamically crisscrosses levels and branches of government, public and private sectors, and domestic and international boundaries, thus confounding traditional approaches to the teaching of American government. Smoking and Politics engagingly captures these dynamics as they play out over time.
The new 6th edition is a part of the Paul S. Hernnson (Editor) series Real Politics in America. Recognizing the centrality and complexity of modern bureaucracy and public policymaking, Smoking and Politics helps readers understand how most policy is made in modern governments. An excellent example of scholarship focused on an important issue in public policy.
