Since its debut, Policy Paradox has been widely acclaimed as the most accessible policy text available. Unlike most texts, which treat policy analysis and policy making as different enterprises, Policy Paradox demonstrates that “you can’t take politics out of analysis”. Through a uniquely rich and comprehensive model, this revised edition continues to show how real-world policy grows out of differing ideals, even definitions, of basic societal goals like security, equality, and liberty.
The book also demonstrates how these ideals often conflict in policy implementation. In this revised edition, Stone has added a full-length case study as an appendix, taking up the issue of affirmative action. Clear, provocative, and engaging, Policy Paradox conveys the richness of public policy making and analysis.
The introduction opens the book strongly, with Stone noting policy paradoxes, where the economic rational model does not prevail and explain how things work. She argues (page 13) that “each type of policy instrument [e.g., inducements, rules, rights, for example] is a kind of sports arena, each with its peculiar ground rules, within which political conflicts are continued”. The first chapter continues the theme, by speaking of the market (economics) and the polis (politics), with a nice table summarizing key points on page 33). She concludes that (page 34) “Problems in the polis are never solved’ in the way that economic needs are met in the market model”. Two different realms, and what works in the market may or may not work in the polis.
The book proceeds in three major sections: Part II focuses on broad goals (e.g., equity, efficiency, security, liberty); Part III examines problems (with chapters labeled as follows: symbols, numbers, causes, interests, decisions); Part IV focuses on solutions (or tools or instruments, such as inducements, rules, facts).
In the end, the book examines nicely the tensions between economic rational analysis of policy ideas and the messier but inescapable political process as it addresses policy issues. The reader will be provoked to think about important issues upon encountering Stone’s perspective. A very useful work on the bigger picture of policy analysis.
Related Books:
- Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism – By George A. Akerlof
- The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century – By George Friedman
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln – By Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Necessary as Blood : Deborah Crombie
- A Journey: My Political Life – Tony Blair
- East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History : Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Anne Walthall, James Palais
