The Routledge Handbook of Policy Styles: (Routledge International Handbooks)

This Handbook provides a systematic overview of the study of policy styles provided by leading experts in the field. The book unites theoretical bases and advancements in practice, ranging from the fundamentals of policy styles to its place in greater policy studies, and responds to new questions regarding policy style dynamics across a range of government levels and activities, including contemporary trends affecting styles such as the use of digital tools and big data in government. It is a comprehensive reference for students and scholars of public policy. Key features: consolidates and advances the contemporary body of knowledge on policy styles and defines its distinctiveness within broader policy studies; provides a detailed picture of national policy styles in a wide range of countries as well as insights concerning sectoral and other kinds of styles within countries, including executive styles and styles of policy advice; systematically explores questions dealing with how policy styles impact policy goals, and the realization of policies, including how styles affect instruments choices and impact; provides a guide to future comparative research pathways and cross-sectoral dialogue on the concept and practice of policy styles. The Routledge Handbook Policy Styles is essential reading and an authoritative reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners of public policy, public administration, public management as well as for comparative politics and government, public organizations and individual policy areas such as health policy, welfare policy, industrial policy, environmental policy, among others.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: Studying Policy Styles at the National Level and Beyond Section 1: Institutional Styles Part 1: National Policy Styles: Concepts and Cases 2. National Policy Styles in Theory and Practice 3. Adversarial Legalism and the American Style of Policymaking 4. Experimentalism as a Policy Style: The Case of China 5. From the ‘Rationalist Consensus’ to ‘Exclusive Incrementalism’: The ‘New’ German Policy Style 6. Authoritarism as a Policy Style Part 2: Sectoral Policy Styles: Concepts and Cases 7. The Concept of a Sectoral Policy Style 8. Three Worlds of Social Policy Styles: Lasting Legacies or a Thing of the Past? 9. Policy Styles in Healthcare: Understanding Variations in Health Systems 10. Operationalising and Explaining Environmental Policy Styles 11. Finance and Monetary Policy Styles Part 3: Administrative and Governance Styles 12. The Concept of Administrative Styles 13. The Styles of Civil Service Systems 14. Empirically Assessing Administrative Styles as Bureaucratic Routines 15. Convergence in Administrative Implementation Styles in the European Union? 16. Governance Styles: Re-thinking Governance and Public Policy Section 2: Process Styles Part 4: Agenda-Setting Styles 17. Media-driven Agenda-setting Styles 18. Interest Groups and Agenda Setting Styles 19. The Politics of Parliamentary Agenda-Setting Styles Part 5: Formulation, Advisory and Design Styles 20. Policy Formulation Styles: Policy Design and Non-Design 21. Policy Over- and Underreaction as Policy Style 22. Styles of Policy Advice: A Typology for Comparing the Standard Operating Procedures for the Provision of Policy Advice Part 6: Executive and Leadership Decision-Making Styles 23. Executive Policy Styles 24. Leaders’ and Managers’ Decision-making Styles 25. Varieties of Executive Styles Part 7: Implementation Styles 26. Instruments and Implementation Styles 27. Regulatory Styles and Their Implications 28. Implementation Style Dynamics: Changing Patterns of Instrument Choice over Time? Part 8: Evaluation Styles 29. When Policy Learning meets Policy Styles 30. Participatory vs Expert Evaluation Styles 31. Policy Evaluation Styles 32. Conclusion: Institutional and Process Dimensions of Policy Styles: Key Insights

About the Author :
Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Jale Tosun is Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Germany.

Review :
"Howlett and Tosun have brought together a leading collection of internationally renowned scholars to produce the definitive compendium on comparative policy styles. The volume provides a rich series of case studies and contrasting approaches to the way governments around the world identify policy options, articulate policy pathways and enact public policy to address vexed and complex policy problems." Darryl S.L. Jarvis, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. "The concept of policy styles is an important approach to understanding public policies, especially from a comparative perspective. The concept has been used primarily to understand differences among countries, but this book extends the use of the concept to policy domains and to the policy process. This Handbook makes a major contribution to understanding how and why policies differ across countries and across policy areas." B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh, USA.