With the right information, we can develop public policies that work better. All too often, public policy textbooks offer a basic grounding in the policy process without the benefit of integrating the use of policy analysis. Michael E. Kraft and Scott R. Furlong take a different tack. Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives, Seventh Edition helps students understand how and why policy analysis is used to assess policy alternatives. The text encourages them to not only question the assumptions of policy analyst, but also recognize how these strategies are used in the support of political arguments. The authors introduce and fully integrate an evaluative approach to policy to encourage critical and creative thinking on issues ranging from health care to climate change. From a concise review of institutions, policy actors, and major theoretical models to a discussion of the nature of policy analysis and its practice, Kraft and Furlong show students how to employ evaluative criteria in six substantive policy areas. Students come away with the analytic tools they need to understand that the motivations of policy actors--both within and outside of government--influence a complex yet comprehensible policy agenda.

Authoritative and trusted, Environmental Policy once again brings together top scholars to evaluate the changes and continuities in American environmental policy since the late 1960s and their implications for the twenty-first century. Students will learn to decipher the underlying trends, institutional constraints, and policy dilemmas that shape today's environmental politics. The Eleventh Edition examines how policy has changed within federal institutions and state and local governments, as well as how environmental governance affects private sector policies and practices. There are five new chapters in this edition that examine the public's opinion on the environment, courts, energy policy, natural resource agencies and policies, and the political economy of green growth. The book has been updated to reflect the Trump administration's four years of policy changes and students will walk away with a measured, yet hopeful evaluation of the future challenges that policymakers will confront as the American environmental movement continues to affect the political process.

Environmental Policy brings together top scholars to evaluate the changes and continuities in American environmental policy since the late 1960s and help students think critically about their implications for current policy. 

The author introduces a revolutionary concept of the Kingdom of God which is intended to initiate a conversation among committed followers of Jesus Christ. Followers who are convinced there is something more than the placebo, which promises "pie in the sky in the great by-and-by.

The author introduces a revolutionary concept of the Kingdom of God which is intended to initiate a conversation among committed followers of Jesus Christ. Followers who are convinced there is something more than the placebo, which promises "pie in the sky in the great by-and-by.

Concepts and their role in the evolution of modern environmental policy, with case studies of eleven influential concepts ranging from "environment" to "sustainable consumption." Concepts are thought categories through which we apprehend the world; they enable, but also constrain, reasoning and debate and serve as building blocks for more elaborate arguments. This book traces the links between conceptual innovation in the environmental sphere and the evolution of environmental policy and discourse. It offers both a broad framework for examining the emergence, evolution, and effects of policy concepts and a detailed analysis of eleven influential environmental concepts. In recent decades, conceptual evolution has been particularly notable in environmental governance, as new problems have emerged and as environmental issues have increasingly intersected with other areas. "Biodiversity," for example, was unheard of until the late 1980s; "negative carbon emissions" only came into being over the last few years. After a review of concepts and their use in environmental argument, chapters chart the trajectories of a range of environmental concepts: environment, sustainable development, biodiversity, environmental assessment, critical loads, adaptive management, green economy, environmental risk, environmental security, environmental justice, and sustainable consumption. The book provides a valuable resource for scholars and policy makers and also offers a novel introduction to the environmental policy field through the evolution of its conceptual categories. Contributors Richard N. L. Andrews, Karin Backstrand, Karen Baehler, Daniel J. Fiorino, Yrjoe Haila, Michael E. Kraft, Oluf Langhelle, Judith A. Layzer, James Meadowcroft, Alexis Schulman, Johannes Stripple, Philip J. Vergragt

A new edition with new and updated case studies and analysis that demonstrate the trend in U.S. environmental policy toward sustainability at local and regional levels. This analysis of U.S. environmental policy offers a conceptual framework that serves as a valuable roadmap to the array of laws, programs, and approaches developed over the last four decades. Combining case studies and theoretical discussion, the book views environmental policy in the context of three epochs: the rise of command-and-control federal regulation in the 1970s, the period of efficiency-based reform efforts that followed, and the more recent trend toward sustainable development and integrated approaches at local and regional levels. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the new approaches and places these experiments within the larger framework of an emerging trend toward community sustainability. Toward Sustainable Communities assesses environmental policy successes and failures at the subnational, regional, and state levels and offers eight case studies of policy arenas in which transformations have been occurring-from air and water pollution control and state and local climate change policy to open space preservation, urban growth, and regional ecosystem management. It discusses the various meanings of sustainability and whether the concept can serve as a foundation for a new era of environmental policy. The second edition has been substantially updated, with five new chapters (including the chapter on climate change) and all other chapters revised and shortened. It is suitable as a primary or secondary text for environmental policy courses and as a resource for scholars and policymakers. Contributors Elisa Barbour, Michele M. Betsill, Daniel J. Fiorino, Marc Gaden, Lamont C. Hempel, Michael E. Kraft, William D. Leach, Mark Lubell, Daniel A. Mazmanian, Nicole Nakagawa, Kent E. Portney, Daniel Press, Paul A. Sabatier, Barry G. Rabe, Michael B. Teitz