The world of policy represents the confluence of a number of intellectual strands in which the clinician brings science together with intuition, and uses his or her experience to interpret the evidence and make recommendations for treatment. This important volume brings together leading scholars to explore the "how" of thinking about policy - the questions, values, judgments and experience the analyst brings to bear.

At all levels of government and at every stage of the policy process, analytical studies have remained distant from the power centers where decisions are made. This updated and expanded text has two purposes: to contribute to a more realistic understanding of policy analysis by examining the normative assumptions that are involved in its use; and to explore the essential elements of the policy process with which analysts must work to make their efforts count.

Policymaking is of its very nature a people-centered business-a good reason why highly effective policy analysts display not only superb technical expertise but excellent people skills as well. Those "people skills" include the ability to manage professional relationships, to learn from others about policy issues, to give presentations, to work in teams, to resolve conflict, to write for multiple audiences, and to engage in professional networking. Training programs for policy analysts often focus on technical skills. By working to enhance their people skills, policy analysts can increase their ability to produce technical work that changes minds. Fortunately, this unique book fills the gaps in such programs by covering the "people side" of policy analysis. Beyond explaining why people skills matter, this book provides practical, easy-to-follow advice on how policy analysts can develop and use their people skills. Each chapter provides a Skill Building Checklist, discussion ideas, and suggestions for further reading. People Skills is essential reading for anyone engaged in public policymaking and public affairs as well as all policy analysts. Completely changing how we think about what it means to be an effective policy analyst, People Skills for Policy Analysts provides straightforward advice for students of policy analysis and public management as well as practitioners just starting their professional lives.

“A compelling case for transforming how research methods are taught to undergraduate students of political science.” —London School of Economics Review of Books Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Most of the standard books on research methods fail to highlight the most important concepts and questions. Instead, they brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis, slighting other valuable methods. This approach prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and meaningfully with a wide variety of research. With wit and practical wisdom, Christopher Howard draws on more than a decade of experience teaching research methods to transform a typically dreary subject and teach budding political scientists the critical skills they need to read published research more effectively and produce better research of their own. The first part of the book is devoted to asking three fundamental questions in political science: What happened? Why? Who cares? In the second section, Howard demonstrates how to answer these questions by choosing an appropriate research design, selecting cases, and working with numbers and written documents as evidence. Drawing on examples from American and comparative politics, international relations, and public policy, Thinking Like a Political Scientist highlights the most common challenges that political scientists routinely face, and each chapter concludes with exercises so that students can practice dealing with those challenges.

The world of policy represents the confluence of a number of intellectual strands in which the clinician brings science together with intuition, and uses his or her experience to interpret the evidence and make recommendations for treatment. This important volume brings together leading scholars to explore the "how" of thinking about policy - the questions, values, judgments and experience the analyst brings to bear.

The World of the Policy Analyst offers a detailed study of the policy analyst's role in the policymaking process. By stressing the need of the analyst to recognize the political, social, and ideological forces that operate in the policy process while retaining analytical integrity, the authors bring a "real world" awareness to the understanding of the environment in which analysts must function. This edition covers recent efforts to integrate values and analysis, explores the implications of increasing fragmentation in the political system and the growing influence of think tanks at the national and state levels, and identifies the challenges posed by rapid scientific and technological change.

This rigorous but very accessible guide to the main concepts and techniques of policy analysis is intended for students and in-service professionals who want to become more efficient and effective in their work. The book equips readers with a structured and disciplined step-by-step approach to decision making, defining issues and applying the powerful techniques of policy analysis - always in the context of uncertainty and limited discretion. Each chapter concludes with notes and a list of supplementary sources for further reading.