The Policy State2017

Policy is government's ready response to changing times, the key to its successful adaptation. It tackles problems as they arise, from foreign relations and economic affairs to race relations and family affairs. Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek take a closer look at this well-known reality of modern governance. In The Policy State they point out that policy is not the only way in which America was governed historically, and they describe the transformation that occurred as policy took over more and more of the work of government, emerging as the raison d'être of the state's operation. Rather than analyze individual policies to document this change, Orren and Skowronek examine policy's effect on legal rights and the formal structure of policy-making authority. Rights and structure are the...