Theory and Practice in Policy Analysis
Including Applications in Science and Technology

Practitioners of policy analysis will better understand the tools of their trade, and the broader contexts in which analysis contributes.

M. Granger Morgan (Author)

9781316636206, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 October 2017

604 pages
22.7 x 15 x 3.4 cm, 0.87 kg

Many books instruct readers on how to use the tools of policy analysis. This book is different. Its primary focus is on helping readers to look critically at the strengths, limitations, and the underlying assumptions analysts make when they use standard tools or problem framings. Using examples, many of which involve issues in science and technology, the book exposes readers to some of the critical issues of taste, professional responsibility, ethics, and values that are associated with policy analysis and research. Topics covered include policy problems formulated in terms of utility maximization such as benefit-cost, decision, and multi-attribute analysis, issues in the valuation of intangibles, uncertainty in policy analysis, selected topics in risk analysis and communication, limitations and alternatives to the paradigm of utility maximization, issues in behavioral decision theory, issues related to organizations and multiple agents, and selected topics in policy advice and policy analysis for government.

1. Policy analysis: an overview
Part I. Making Decisions that Maximize Utility: 2. Preferences and the idea of utility
3. Benefit–cost analysis
4. Decision analysis
5. Valuing intangibles and other non-market outcomes
6. Multi-attribute utility theory and multi-criteria decision making with Jared L. Cohon
7. Preferences over time and across space
Part II. Some Widely Used Analysis Tools and Topics: 8. Characterizing, analyzing, and communicating uncertainty
9. Expert elicitation
10. Risk analysis
11. The use of models in policy analysis
Part III. How Individuals and Organizations Actually Make Decisions: 12. Human mental processes for perception, memory, and decision making
13. Risk perception and risk ranking
14. Risk communication
15. Organizational behavior and decision making
Part IV. The Policy Process and S&T Policy (Mainly) in the United States: 16. Analysis and the policy process
17. The period prior to World War II
18. US science and technology policy from World War II to 1960
19. Science and technology advice to government
Appendices
Index.

Subject Areas: Technology: general issues [TB], Science funding & policy [PDK], Business ethics & social responsibility [KJG], Decision theory: general [GPQ]