Ordinary People in Public Policy: A Behavioural Analysis

By Richard Rose

Book Overview

Most books about government start with the view from the top. This one presents the "underall" view of ordinary people, who are more interested in what government does for them than in who governs. Ordinary People in Public Policy offers a wide-ranging exploration of what people receive and expect from their governments. The book′s starting point is that the majority of people spend considerably more time talking to family and friends or acting as consumers than as voters marking ballots. Yet nearly every family in a mixed economy depends --to some extent--on the private benefits of public policy for education, health, and social security benefits. The growth of government has thus created new links between public institutions and the everyday concerns of citizens. Using a variety of innovative techniques, the author shows how people secure welfare by combining outputs of the big bureaucracies of state and market with what they produce in the home. He shows that in democratic societies the freely given consent of citizens is more important than the cash value of taxes and benefits; that most ordinary people are proud of their country and are satisfied with their everyday lives--but they do not depend on government or the market for happiness. Ordinary People in Public Policy is about understanding the lives of "little" people in an era of big government. It is thus a sequel to the author′s Understanding Big Government. It combines two analytic traditions often kept apart--the study of political behavior and the study of public policy--to give students an innovative overview. "I found Professor Richard Rose′s book to be one of the most thoughtful, original and penetrating books in the field of political economics (or socioeconomics) I have ever read. I recommend it strongly to all my colleagues interested in this field." --Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University "A fascinating new approach to the study of politics. For anybody interested in the serious study of political behaviour in this country, this book is essential reading." --Conservative Newsline "Will deeply interest political scientists and readers with general training. It is clear and contains both information founded on rich documentation and substantial analysis." --International Review of Administrative Sciences (translated from the French) "The failure of numbers of people to participate in regular tasks of citizenship such as filling out census forms or balloting signals that the compliance and participation of oridinary people should not be taken for granted. Richard Rose has done a real service in writing about the political motivations and behavior of ordinary people in public policy. Social scientists need to understand much better than they do the relationship between government action and the lives and well-being of people at large." --Helen M. Ingram, University of Arizona, Tuscon "At a time when the value of many government programs to the middle class is widely debated in the United States and in Great Britain, this book offers a thought-provoking overview of issues that merit further research and discussion. Rose presents a stimulating examination of a number of facets of modern citizenship. The book would be appropriate for an upper-level public policy course intended to expose U.S. politics students to a bottom-up perspective on politics with some non-U.S. examples." --American Political Science Review "The best part of this book is the use of attitudinal survey data to throw light on many obscure aspects of the relationship between the individual and the state. For this reason alone this text should be on the reading lists of public policy analysis courses at undergraduate and graduate levels." --West European Politics

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080398135X
• ISBN13: 9780803981355
• Release Date: November 1989
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
• Length: 208 Pages