Politics and Public Policy: Strategic Actors and Policy Domains

by Donald C. Baumer, Carl E. Van Horn

Overview

Getting beyond the traditional policy cycle discussed in most textbooks, the fully updated fourth edition of Politics and Public Policy offers a more comprehensive and realistic view of policymaking in the United States—one that looks beyond the jockeying between presidents and members of Congress, and explores the influence of corporate leaders, interest groups, bureaucrats, judges, and journalists. The book explores six distinct, yet connected, policy domains:

• Boardroom Politics (decisions by business leaders and professionals);
• Bureaucratic Politics (rule-making and adjudication by administrators);
• Cloakroom Politics (lawmaking by legislators);
• Chief Executive Politics (decision making by presidents, governors, mayors, and their advisers);
• Courtroom Politics (rulings by judges); and
• Living Room Politics (opinions expressed through the mass media, grassroots movements, political activists, and voters).

The authors’ unique framework prepares students to evaluate the strategies of various political actors within each domain.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781483322315
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	07/09/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Donald C. Baumer is professor of Government at Smith College. He is coauthor of The Politics of Unemployment (CQ Press, 1985) with Carl Van Horn, and has published several articles on employment policy and Democratic leadership in the Senate. He recently completed a three-year term as Dean for Academic Development at Smith College.

Carl E. Van Horn is professor of public policy and the director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University′s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. He is the author of No One Left Behind: Economic Change and the American Worker (Twentieth Century Fund, 1996) and the editor of The State of the States (CQ Press, 1989).

Table of Contents

American Politics and Public Policy
Political Culture, the Economy, and Public Policy
Boardroom Politics
Bureaucratic Politics
Cloakroom Politics
Chief Executive Politics
Courtroom Politics
Living Room Politics
Institutional Performance
Assessing American Public Policy