Time to share the burden:toward Institution-Focused Intervention; An agenda of substance:grassroots efforts to reduce alcohol and tobaco problems; Making more pie: local initiatives that increase resources and institutional accountability; Plotting a course: lessons from the front lines; taking policy:media and the message; Looking ahead: reflections and recommendations.

This brief text identifies the issues, resources, actors, and institutions involved in public policy making and traces the dynamics of the policymaking process, including the triggering of issue awareness, the emergence of an issue on the public agenda, the formation of a policy commitment, and the implementation process that translates policy into practice. Throughout the text, which has been revised and updated, Gerston brings his analysis to life with abundant examples from the most recent and emblematic cases of public policy making. At the same time, with well-chosen references, he places policy analysis in the context of political science and deftly orients readers to the classics of public policy studies. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading.

Many tools are on offer to politicians and other policy-makers when they seek to change policy outcomes. Often they choose to concentrate on one set of tools, but fail to see the costs as well as the benefits – and may not consider the available evidence regarding their effectiveness. This innovative new textbook clearly sets out the main tools of government, and provides an analysis of their efficacy when applied to public problems. Each chapter examines the relative benefits and costs of using a key tool that is available to improve policy outcomes, drawing on a diverse literature, a large number of empirical studies and a range of contexts. Areas covered include: governments and policy outcomes law and regulation public spending and taxation bureaucracy and public management institutions information, persuasion and deliberation networks and governance. Offering a clear and comprehensive evaluation, and highlighting the set of powerful tools commonly available, this text encourages students to consider the most effective combination in order to manage key issues successfully. Including a useful glossary of key terms, this book will be of great interest to all students of public policy, administration and management.

As organizations strive to remain ahead of the competition, there will inevitably and often come the need for change. All successful organizations regularly use change to improve processes and increase performance. While these times of change can be a great opportunity for an organization, it also can be a time of stress and angst for all involved. Not all organizations are in a position to make these changes effectively and efficiently, and for many their efforts often fall short of the intended goals. Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change was written to help organizations prepare for and successfully implement change. The price of a failed change effort can be steep, both monetarily and in a loss of credibility. Making Change Work will first provide tools to measure your organization's readiness to change, helping make sure that the efforts will not be doomed to fail from the beginning. The book then provides many tools to apply sequentially and logically in order to gain acceptance of the change throughout the organization. In helping your organization make change successfully, Making Change Work addresses buy-in, acceptance, motivation, anticipation, fear, uncertainty, and all the other messy human considerations that cause change to fail in the real world.

"Based on a proven, workplace-tested process developed by the author for major companies, Making Change Happen One Person at a Time also equips you to appraise the readiness of your whole organization or department to support the change effort.

This unique book combines both academic and practitioner perspectives to provide critical consideration of contemporary policy-making and highlight examples of good practice at all levels of government. In Professional Policy Making for the Twenty-First Century the Cabinet Office's Strategic Policy Making Team identified nine 'competencies' as the key features of 'modern policy making': forward-looking; outward-looking; innovative, flexible and creative; evidence-based; inclusive; joined-up; open to review; open to evaluation; and capable of learning lessons. Using these to structure the book, nine central chapters - each written by a pair of co-authors, one primarily an academic, and the other primarily a policy maker or practitioner - examine the competencies in turn. Accompanying case studies provide lessons or pointers to good practice, together with guidance on how to access further information. Set in the context of New Labour's emphasis on 'modernisation', and reflecting the growing emphasis on policy making as a skill, the book will appeal to a range of audiences, including undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses that draw upon approaches to public administration and public policy, and social researchers, policy officers and others involved in the development and analysis of policy making at all tiers of government.