A concise, accessible introduction to the public policy process that can be read on may levels. The author's direct writing style and extensive use of examples will appeal to students as well as practitioners.

The book offers an extensive overview of the best current thinking on the policy process, with an emphasis on accessibility and synthesis rather than novelty or abstraction. An extensive glossary of terms, keyed to the chapters in which each term is most thoroughly discussed; an annotated bibliography; and an introduction to web-based research, with a guide to the most important and reliable public policy research sites, are among the book's many useful features.