The Politics of Policymaking

Arjen Boin is Professor of Public Institutions and Governance at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University. Before he moved to Leiden, he was a professor of public governance and crisis management at the Utrecht School of Governance and associate professor at the Public Administration Institute, Louisiana State University. Arjen Boin has published widely on topics of crisis and disaster management, leadership, institutional design and organizational issues. His most recent books include Guardians of Public Value, Understanding the Creeping Crisis and Governing the Pandemic (all three were published in 2021 by Palgrave and can be downloaded for free). His book Managing Hurricane Katrina (Louisiana State University Press, 2019) investigates the lessons that should be learned from this mega-disaster. His other books include The Politics of Crisis Management (Cambridge University Press, winner of APSA's Herbert A. Simon book award), Governing after Crisis (Cambridge UP, 2008), Crisis Management: A Three Volume Set of Essential Readings (Sage, 2008), Designing Resilience (Pittsburgh UP, 2010), MegaCrises (Charles C Thomas, 2012) and The EU as Crisis Manager: Patterns and Prospects (Cambridge UP, 2013). Arjen Boin is the previous editor of Public Administration (Wiley), a premier journal in the field, and serves on the editorial board of the following journals: Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (Wiley), Risks, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy (Wiley), and International Journal of Emergency Management (Inderscience). Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Deputy Head of Department for Research Department of Government I have been member of the Department of Government since 2002. Prior to that appointment, I was Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown and Senior Research Officer at the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR). I am currently Director of CARR.

Chapter 1: The importance of policymaking Chapter 2: The challenges of problem-solving in a complex and dynamic world Chapter 3: Exploring the policymaking world Chapter 4: The fight for attention: Why some problems trigger policymaking (and many others do not) Chapter 5: Crafting sound policy: The political dimension of technical choices Chapter 6: Getting it done: The implementation challenge Chapter 7: How accountability and evaluation shape policymaking Chapter 8: Creating and maintaining legitimacy for public policies Chapter 9: The art of policy adaptation Chapter 10: The moral dimension of policymaking Chapter 11: Governing across borders Chapter 12: The future of policymaking: Cues for policy leadership

Public policy textbooks that provide insight in how public programs are actually crafted, negotiated, implemented, adjusted and terminated are extremely rare, but Boin and Lodge have pulled it off. This earthy and at times gritty gem provides its users with penetrating insights into how the cookies are cut in the real world of policymaking whilst at the same time offering them a helpful introduction to the toolkits that policy craftspeople - analysts and designers - may deploy to make sense of it all. -- Paul 't Hart This lively account takes us from the pinnacles of power to the frontlines of policy delivery and everywhere in-between to illuminate the strange journey of a public policy. The craft of policymaking, we learn, lies in fathoming the journey! -- Christopher Ansell book cheerleading the way for students seeking to make a difference as policymakers but not knowing where to start. It informs and stimulates - the perfect combination - in the face of a world of complex policy/political problems and solutions. -- Allan McConnell This textbook is welcome for its innovative capacity to help students navigating the complexity in policy making and, above all, for showing that Public Policy focuses on real problems and that policy makers can change the world. -- Giliberto Capano Through illustrative examples, Boin and Lodge explore the politics of government policymaking - giving a real insight into how policy is made and unmade, by whom, and for which purposes. Dispensing with complicated models, the reader is presented with a refreshingly optimistic guide to how the most pressing societal problems can be solved with smart policies, and the necessary skills and knowledge to be a good policymaker. -- Tamara Tubakovic This textbook provides an optimistic but also realistic introduction to policy making, including the myth of rationality and the role of politics and institutions. It is an excellent guide for all prospective policy makers in undergraduate and master programmes. -- Christel Koop This book should be an essential part of any public policy course. Written by two leading experts in the field, it covers the big questions of policy making from agenda setting and success, to the moral dimensions of doing policy. -- Ben Worthy This is a terrific book, which I would strongly recommend to undergraduate and postgraduate students of public policy and/or public administration. In particular, the authors do a great job of showing how concrete examples of policymaking relate to academic theories, and vice-versa. -- Peter Eckersley