Policy Section Members Vote for the Most Important Works in Public Policy
Brian Shoup
Last year, the editor of Policy Currents developed a web-based survey of Policy Section members that examined several areas relating to the study and teaching of public policy. In the past three issues of the newsletter we have reported on the structure of the policy field, pedagogical approaches to the teaching of policy, and the types of teaching and research skills departments look for when hiring new faculty. In this final survey report, we provide the results for the top policy-related books and articles for the past ten years and all time.
|
Top Policy Pieces of the Last Ten
Years |
||
|
Author |
Title |
Votes |
|
Baumgartner,
F. and B. Jones |
Agendas and Instability in American Politics |
32 |
|
Kingdon,
J. |
Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies |
15 |
|
Ostrom,
E. |
Governing
the Commons |
11 |
|
Stone, D. |
Policy
Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making |
11 |
|
Schneider,
A. and H. Ingram |
Policy
Design for Democracy |
9 |
|
Sabatier,
P. and H. Jenkins-Smith |
Policy
Change and Learning |
8 |
Section members were asked to select their top five policy-related books or articles written in the past ten years. As expected, there was a wide range of choices put forward by voters. Votes were spread among 64 different books and articles. That said, several pieces received sizeable numbers of votes in the survey. Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones’ Agendas and Instability in American Politics (1993) was selected by 32 of the 116 respondents, receiving by far the most votes. The next biggest vote earner is John Kingdon for Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (1995) with 15 votes. Two books, Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons (1990) and Deborah Stone’s Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (1997) received 11 votes apiece to tie for the third position. The next highest vote earners are Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram who received 9 votes for Policy Design for Democracy (1997). Schneider and Ingram also received several votes for their 1993 article in the American Political Science Review, “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.” Paul Sabatier and Hank Jenkins-Smith round out the list of top pieces of the past ten years with their book, Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach (1993), which received 8 votes.
|
Top Policy Pieces of all Time |
||
|
Author |
Title |
Votes |
|
Kingdon,
J. |
Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies |
22 |
|
Pressman,
J. and A. Wildavsky |
Implementation |
19 |
|
Lindblom,
C. |
The
Science of Muddling Through |
13 |
|
Lowi, T. |
The
End of Liberalism |
8 |
|
Olson, M. |
The
Logic of Collective Action |
8 |
|
Lowi, T. |
“American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and
Political Theory” |
7 |
|
Wildavsky,
A. |
Politics
of the Budgetary Process |
7 |
Section members were also asked to select the top policy-related books and articles of all time. Again, there was wide variance in the selections, but several pieces stand out in terms of the number of votes received. The largest vote earner was John Kingdon’s Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies with 22 votes. Implementation by Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky (1984) received 19 votes to come in second place. Wildavsky also received votes for two of his other major pieces; Politics of the Budgetary Process (1974) earned 7 votes and Speaking Truth to Power (1979) earned 4 votes. The third highest vote earner was Charles Lindblom, who received 13 votes for his article “The Science of Muddling Through.” Lindblom also received 6 votes for The Policy-Making Process (1968; 1980). Theodore Lowi also received votes for two important works. He received 8 votes for The End of Liberalism (1969; 1979) and 7 votes for “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory” (1964). Two other works garnered sufficient votes to warrant mention. Mancur Olson earned 8 votes for The Logic of Collective Action (1965) and E.E. Schattschneider received 6 votes for The Semi-Sovereign People (1960).
Again, over 50 books and articles were mentioned by section members in both categories. Each of the pieces clearly represents high quality research and scholarship, but the books and articles mentioned in this report were clearly at the forefront of respondents’ minds when filling out the web survey.
Some notes on the data gathering process. The survey instrument was designed by Brian Shoup, Ph.D. student in Political Science at Indiana University, under the supervision of Ken Bickers. Shoup received assistance on software programming from James Russell, the technology director for the IU Political Science department. The survey instrument was web-based.
Respondents were sent an email with a URL that when clicked took them to a form looking much like a traditional paper-based mail survey instrument. When the “submit” button was clicked, responses to the survey were automatically compiled in a table that takes the form of a spreadsheet. Using this method, it is impossible to track who has (or has not) submitted a response. No data entry in the conventional sense is required. The original email was sent in early October 2000 to 731 individuals, of which 28 were bounced back as undeliverable. A reminder was sent by email one week later. For the purposes of this report of survey results, the number of responses totaled 134 replies, constituting approximately 18% of the section members that had working email addresses as of last October.
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