The Political Economy of Bureaucracy applies Public Choice theory and a complex systems view of government institutions to analyze policy implementation as an economic process. It addresses the common and vexing question of why managing federal agencies for results is so difficult by challenging traditional assumptions of institutional design and policy analysis. Using creative methods that focus on relationships that constrain the choices of executives and managers in a political hierarchy, the author reveals control and coordination as goals that are imperfectly achieved and often conflicting with one another. Despite decades of intense study, serious reform efforts and impressive technological advances, the U.S. government remains a typical bureaucracy that fails to meet citizens’ expectations. Clearly, policy analysis is missing something. The problem may rest with "machine" models of government. Rules, especially those governing expenditures, are assumed to be feasible and effective. Analysis of the federal government as a complex system of relationships between semi-autonomous agents helps explain the disconnect between policy and results. The solution is to roll back micro-management of ends and means; policymakers should focus on objectives and facilitate implementation by selectively relaxing constraints that prevent experimentation needed to determine the most effective methods. This book devotes unusual attention to the interaction between executive and legislative branches of government and between political appointees and career civil servants. Most studies of government policy take existing institutional structure for granted. Different conclusions emerge from this analysis by virtue of the systems view that accepts status quo hierarchies but questions the effectiveness of the rules that govern policy implementation. This book will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers focussing on Economic Theory, Public Choice, Institutional Economics and Political Science, as well as to those working in the public sector interested in Public Administration, Public Policy, and Organizational Behavior.

Product Description: "Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law is a terrific introductory book for law students and a valuable analytic resource for professors, whether veterans or newcomers to the field. Stearns and Zywicki break down the subject into freestanding components, allowing the reader to think about courts, legislatures, voters, and agencies in ways unimagined by anyone unfamiliar with the basic tools of public choice...read more

Product Description: Beyond Red State and Blue State: Electoral Gaps in the 21st Century American Electorate explores the many demographic gaps that exist within the American electorate.  This book is designed to explore the most important voting gaps in American politics today...read more

Product Description: Intellectual property rights have undergone a significant expansion over the last half century, particularly since the Copyright Act of 1976. In The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Law, William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner (AEI Press; July 1, 2004) attempt to explain this expansion of intellectual property rights, and how it could have coincided with the deregulation movement...read more

Product Description: This book provides a much-needed introduction to public choice thought and public policy by three acknowledged leaders in the field.

This is the first comprehensive analysis of how the collective nature of Supreme Court decision making affects the transformation of the justices' preferences into constitutional doctrine. Analyzing the Supreme Court from the perspective of social choice theory, Maxwell L. Stearns offers new insights into Supreme Court decision making that have profound implications for understanding the outcomes in a number of cases and the resulting doctrinal development within constitutional law which traditional analyses have proven ill-equipped to explain.The book models several important process-based Supreme Court rules, including outcome voting, the narrowest-grounds rule, stare decisis, and justiciability, with a particular emphasis on standing. These doctrines have each had a significant impact upon the evolution of modern constitutional law, including but not limited to the following areas: affirmative action, school desegregation, racial gerrymandering, obscenity, and abortion. Each model is presented in nontechnical language with several concrete illustrations drawn from recent Supreme Court case law.The book offers a new understanding of two apparently paradoxical situations: first, cases in which there are separate majorities on specific issues in the case that suggest, logically, that there should be a majority for the dissenting result; and second, cases in which discrete minorities--as opposed to the apparent majority--control the identification and resolution of dispositive case issues. In addition, the book sheds new light on why the Court employs stare decisis, even though the doctrine grounds the evolution of legal doctrine on the order in which cases are presented and decided, and on how the modern standing doctrine ameliorates the incentives for interest groups to time the litigation of cases in a way that will exert a disproportionate influence over the direction of constitutional doctrine.This book will appeal to scholars of the Supreme Court or judicial decision-making. It should also be of interest to students of social choice and of law and economics who have not previously considered the Supreme Court or constitutional law as fertile ground for their disciplines.Maxwell L. Stearns is Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law. (view table of contents)

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Product Description: Democracy, rights and freedoms – we treat these words as sacred, but our society has changed, and the value of these concepts may be changing as well. This analysis of the logic of actions, freedoms, powers and rights examines the arrival of a new American – the «Kidult»...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This volume contains a selection of articles by Niskanen, written over the last 30 years. These represent his contributions to the disciplines of policy analysis and public choice and are supported by essays on proprietary studies and papers written for an academic audience. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Most models of political decision-making maintain that individual preferences remain relatively constant. Why, then, are there often sudden abrupt changes in public opinion on political issues? Or total reversals by politicians on specific issues? Bryan D...read more