Defining Policy Analysis: A Journey that Never Ends

• 1. Introduction; 2. Section One: The Origins of the Policy Analyst Concept and its Early History; 3. The Whiz Kids and their Descendants; 4. Look to California: Aaron Wildavsky and Activity on the West Coast; 5. Section Two: What Helps Explain the Changes in the Definition of Policy Analysis? Five Questions; 6. Question One: The Differences between Analysis and Research; 7. Question Two: The World of Practice vs. the Culture of the Academy; 8. Question Three: Changes in the Environment of Policy Analysis; 9. Question Four: Information, Analytic Techniques and Evidence; 10. Question Five: Values; 11. Conclusion; 12. Section Three: The QUESTIONNAIRE. What does it mean to be a Policy Analyst?

'What is a policy scholar for, what is the mission of schools of governance (and, [Diane Lesley] Stone would add, transnational governance) - bluntly, what are we doing in the world? Radin has a brilliant approach to capture this issue, right from the telling runner title: A Journey that Never Ends. Her volume is also yet another opportunity to appreciate the subtlety of Wildavsky's insights - Radin reflects on some truly memorable quotes and the defining, often enigmatic, moments of Wildavsky's intellectual progression. And there is more: at the end of the book, we find a questionnaire about what it means to be a policy analyst - hence, we can complete and find our own answer. This volume explains cogently and with a warm, passionate, heart-felt style, how policy analysts must learn to cope and possibly enjoy the tension between embracing the values of science, as well as embracing pragmatic values of utility.' Claudio M. Radaelli, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice