Examines how state courts change public policy through an analysis of their influence on state education finance reform.

Power, Constraint, and Policy Change analyzes state court influence on state education finance reform. Beginning in the early 1970s litigants began filing suits in state courts to change state education funding in order to prevent disparities in education resources between wealthy and poor communities. These cases represent a fundamental policy debate in American society, pitting the importance of education against the cost and method of funding it. Through education finance, the authors explore how and why courts often end up determining and resolving policy funding debates. Education funding has involved both the federal constitution and state constitutions, as well as legislation and court-mandated remedies, which, ultimately, determine who and how we pay for this critical American value.

The surprising truth behind Barack Obama's decision to continue many of his predecessor's counterterrorism policies. Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed—endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more—are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been met with thousands of barely visible legal and political constraints—enforced by congressional committees, government lawyers, courts, and the media—that have transformed our unprecedentedly powerful presidency into one that is also unprecedentedly accountable. These constraints are the key to understanding why Obama continued the Bush counterterrorism program, and in this light, the events of the last decade should be seen as a victory, not a failure, of American constitutional government. We have actually preserved the framers’ original idea of a balanced constitution, despite the vast increase in presidential power made necessary by this age of permanent emergency.

The ideal introductory textbook to the politics of the policymaking process This textbook uses modern political economy to introduce students of political science, government, economics, and public policy to the politics of the policymaking process. The book's distinct political economy approach has two virtues. By developing general principles for thinking about policymaking, it can be applied across a range of issue areas. It also unifies the policy curriculum, offering coherence to standard methods for teaching economics and statistics, and drawing connections between fields. The book begins by exploring the normative foundations of policymaking—political theory, social choice theory, and the Paretian and utilitarian underpinnings of policy analysis. It then introduces game theoretic models of social dilemmas—externalities, coordination problems, and commitment problems—that create opportunities for policy to improve social welfare. Finally, it shows how the political process creates technological and incentive constraints on government that shape policy outcomes. Throughout, concepts and models are illustrated and reinforced with discussions of empirical evidence and case studies. This textbook is essential for all students of public policy and for anyone interested in the most current methods influencing policymaking today. Comprehensive approach to politics and policy suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students Models unify policy curriculum through methodological coherence Exercises at the end of every chapter Self-contained appendices cover necessary game theory Extensive discussion of cases and applications

This guidebook, and associated tools, is designed to help agricultural policy practitioners improve the effectiveness of their engagement with policy systems in developing countries. It provides practitioners with conceptual tools and practical strategies designed to improve the quality of policy practitioners’ efforts to influence complex agricultural policy systems. It develops a strategic approach to policy engagement termed the P.M.C.A. approach, and provides concrete applications and examples of this approach to help users apply the approach to their own policy domains of interest.

This study explores the formation of the European Union's tax policy and asks why member states did not raise objections to it. The author's analysis is enriched by two further levels of inquiry. Firstly, he examines the 'Europeanization' of domestic tax policy in Italy and the UK, asking how domestic policy has changed and what is meant by 'Europeanization'. Secondly, he puts the European Union tax policy in the wider context of tax globalization. Will the liberalization of capital movement, tax havens and the flexibility of multinationals in managing their taxable incomes wreck the European Union's fragile tax policies?

By probing beneath the obvious and carefully sifting the abundant but poorly understood evidence, Skidmore finds at the root of Carter's failed effort an irresistible pressure to reverse a liberal foreign-policy agenda in order to address the effect at home of well-organized conservative criticism.