Policy Making in Britain

Peter Dorey’s book is a must-read for those interested in the intricacies of policy making in Britain, but it will be of most interest to political scientists and constitutional lawyers. Dorey’s objective is to offer an account of policy making that depicts a process far more complex than has traditionally been understood. It is an oversimplification to think of the policy-making process as only having a beginning, middle and end. This view fails to account for more fundamental questions about how policies are initiated, implemented and developed or how issues emerge and are processed.
Dorey seeks to tackle the challenge of offering a more comprehensive account of policy making in nine chapters. Chapter 1 considers how problems are identified and policies developed to tackle them. Chapter 2 examines the role of political parties, think tanks and pressure groups in influencing public policy. The core executive is the subject of chapters 3 and 4. These examine the policy roles and political relationships between individuals who collectively comprise the core executive (and how those relationships impact upon policy making) as well as the relationships between institutions within the core executive. Chapter 5 examines how Parliament fulfils its policy role. The concept of governance is explored and detailed in chapter 6. The impact of Europeanisation and globalisation as well as the phenomenon of policy transfer on policy making are the subject of chapter 7. Chapter 8 details the implementation of policy while chapter 9 considers the role of policy evaluation.