Joint Approaches to Social Policy: Rationality and Practice - Hardcover

Linda Challis , Susan Fuller , Melanie Henwood , Rudolf Klein , William Plowden , Adrian Webb , Peter Whittingham , Gerald Wistow

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052130900X ISBN 13: 9780521309004

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Synopsis

This book is in essence concerned with the quest for rationality in decision-making, and is founded on the premise that improvements in the machinery of decision-making can actually lead to better decisions. The numerous initiatives of the 1960s and 1970s established specifically to foster greater policy coordination (notably the Central Policy Review Staff or 'Think Tank') had, by the beginning of the 1980s, fallen foul of an altogether changed political climate, in which policy formation was increasingly determined by the pressures of the marketplace, rather than by the pursuit of rationally-determined consensual goals. Paradoxically, however, this process has led, in turn, to renewed interest in the possibilities of interdepartmental policy coordination, at both centre and periphery, and in Joint Approaches to Social Policy the authors seek to provide a clear understanding of what the reality, rather than the rhetoric, of policy coordination actually entails. They endeavour to familiarise policy-makers at all levels with the basic conceptual tools necessary for successful policy coordination.

About this title

Book Description

This book is in essence concerned with the quest for rationality in decision-making, and is founded on the premise that improvements in the machinery of decision-making can actually lead to better decisions. The authors seek to provide a clear understanding of what the reality, rather than the rhetoric, of policy coordination actually entails.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052130900X
• ISBN 13: 9780521309004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 302