10% off all books and free delivery over £40
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy

View All Editions

The selected edition of this book is not available to buy right now.
Add To Wishlist
Write A Review

About

Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy Synopsis

Zahariadis offers a theory that explains policymaking when "ambiguity" is present - a state in which there are many ways, often irreconcilable, of thinking about an issue. Expanding and extending John Kingdon's influential "multiple streams" model that explains agenda setting, Zahariadis argues that manipulation, the bending of ideas, process, and beliefs to get what you want out of the policy process, is the key to understanding the dynamics of policymaking in conditions of ambiguity. He takes one of the major theories of public policy to the next step in three different ways: he extends it to a different form of government (parliamentary democracies, where Kingdon looked only at what he called the United States' presidential "organized anarchy" form of government); he examines the entire policy formation process, not just agenda setting; and he applies it to foreign as well as domestic policy. This book combines theory with cases to illuminate policymaking in a variety of modern democracies. The cases cover economic policymaking in Britain, France, and Germany, foreign policymaking in Greece, all compared to the U.S. (where the model was first developed), and an innovative computer simulation of the policy process.

About This Edition

ISBN: 9780878401352
Publication date: 29th July 2003
Author: Nikolaos Zahariadis, Chris Allen
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Format: Paperback
Pagination: 208 pages
Series: American Governance and Public Policy series
Genres: Central / national / federal government policies
Comparative politics