How government can implement more successful policies, more often
From healthcare to workplace and campus conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. Ineffective policies are caused by deep structural factors regardless of which party is in charge, bringing our government into ever-worsening disrepute. Understanding why government fails so often-and how it might become more effective-is a vital responsibility of citizenship.
In this book, lawyer and political scientist Peter Schuck provides a wide range of examples and an enormous body of evidence to explain why so many domestic policies go awry-and how to right the foundering ship of state. An urgent call for reform, Why Government Fails So Often is essential reading for anyone curious about why government is in such a disgraceful state and how it can do better.
Autorentext
Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law Emeritus at Yale University. He is the author or editor of many books, including Agent Orange on Trial, Meditations of a Militant Moderate, Diversity in America, and Understanding America.
Zusammenfassung
How government can implement more successful policies, more oftenFrom healthcare to workplace and campus conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. Ineffective policies are caused by deep structural factors regardless of which party is in charge, bringing our government into ever-worsening disrepute. Understanding why government fails so often-and how it might become more effective-is a vital responsibility of citizenship.In this book, lawyer and political scientist Peter Schuck provides a wide range of examples and an enormous body of evidence to explain why so many domestic policies go awry-and how to right the foundering ship of state. An urgent call for reform, Why Government Fails So Often is essential reading for anyone curious about why government is in such a disgraceful state and how it can do better.
Inhalt
Acknowledgments ix
CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1
PART 1: The Context of Policy Making 37
CHAPTER 2: Success, Failure, and In Between 39
CHAPTER 3: Policy-Making Functions, Processes, Missions, Instruments, and Institutions 64
CHAPTER 4: The Political Culture of Policy Making 91
PART 2: The Structural Sources of Policy Failure 125
CHAPTER 5: Incentives and Collective Irrationality 127
CHAPTER 6: Information, Inflexibility, Incredibility, and Mismanagement 161
CHAPTER 7: Markets 198
CHAPTER 8: Implementation 229
CHAPTER 9: The Limits of Law 277
CHAPTER 10: The Bureaucracy 307
CHAPTER 11: Policy Successes 327
PART 3: Remedies and Reprise 369
CHAPTER 12: Remedies: Lowering Government's Failure Rate 371
CHAPTER 13: Conclusion 408
Notes 413
Index 463