"A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis remains the most accessible and practical guide for those learning the craft of policy analysis. It offers convincing reasoning for and a clear roadmap of the required steps to conduct policy analysis, provides a terrific list of useful resources and helpful hints, and offers very practical illustrations and examples. The newly added section on design problems broadens discourse to include not only knowledge on how to improve analysis of discrete policy choices, but also on how to generate effective strategies to change the design parameters of policy problems. It should be required reading for all students in public affairs type undergraduate major and graduate level programs."

"I have used Bardach’s A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis in several editions over many years to instruct masters in public policy students in the skills and insights required of an effective policy practitioner. I like the book for its conciseness, its concreteness, its practicality and its accessibility. It provides a nice framework and set of concepts that can be developed and applied in case studies to structure an effective policy analysis course. I welcome the new edition, which clarifies and updates the material and adds a helpful new section on policy design, while keeping the structure and down-to-earth writing style of previous editions."

Eugene Bardach has been teaching graduate-level policy analysis workshop classes since 1973 at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, in which time he has coached some five hundred projects. He is a broadly based political scientist with wide-ranging teaching and research interests. His focus is primarily on policy implementation and public management, and most recently on problems of facilitating better interorganizational collaboration in service delivery (e.g., in human services, environmental enforcement, fire prevention, and habitat preservation). He also maintains an interest in problems of homeland defense, as well as regulatory program design and execution, particularly in areas of health, safety, consumer protection, and equal opportunity. Bardach has developed novel teaching methods and materials at Berkeley, has directed and taught in residentially based training programs for higher-level public managers, and has worked for the Office of Policy Analysis at the US Department of the Interior. He is the recipient of the 1998 Donald T. Campbell Award of the Policy Studies Organization for creative contribution to the methodology of policy analysis, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This book is based on his experience teaching students the principles of policy analysis and then helping them to execute their project work.

Eric M. Patashnik is the Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy, a professor of political science, and chair of the Political Science Department at Brown University. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He previously served as director of Brown’s Master of Public Affairs program. Before coming to Brown, Patashnik held faculty positions at the University of Virginia (UVA), UCLA, and Yale University. During his time at UVA, he served as associate dean and acting dean at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Patashnik’s research focuses on the politics of American national policymaking, especially health policy, the welfare state, and the reform process. He is the author or editor of nine books. Patashnik has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public Administration and has also won the Don K. Price Award of the American Political Science Association. Patashnik received his master of public policy and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Earlier in his career, Patashnik was a legislative analyst for the US House Administration Subcommittee on Elections.