Public Policy and Local Governance

Internationalization and demands for more democratic influence at the local level have undermined the traditional methods of policy analysis. This volume constitutes an institutional analysis of the new networks in public governance. Traditional policy analysis takes as its starting point national legislation and then traces the public policy process through the hierarchical chain of agencies which implement directives. Peter Bogason takes a postmodern approach which recognizes increasing fragmentation within institutional organizations, and offers an alternative "bottom-up" approach to the analysis of local governance. He discusses collective action at the local level and describes how it is linked to the public sector through the need for financial, expert and legal resources, and thereby creates a link where "public action" becomes "public policy". The analysis disregards which agencies have formal responsibilities for action and instead focuses on who actually makes public policy, regardless of formal status - public or private, international, central or local.