Suchergebnisse

THE ORIGINAL RATIONALE FOR AMERICAN FOUNDATIONS WAS THAT THEY WOULD DIRECTLY AMELIORATE SOCIAL MISERIES OR IMPROVE SOCIAL FUNCTIONING. LATER FOUNDATIONS CONDUCTED RESEARCH WHICH THE GOVERNMENT COULD DIRECTLY AMELIORATE. TODAY A NEW RATIONALE IS NEEDED AND FOUNDATIONS SHOULD PUSH THEIR ANAYSIS TO A DEEPER LEVEL THAN GOVERNMENT OF BUSINESS HAS EITHER THE TIME OR THE INCENTIVE TO DO

"Of all the questions that might be asked about political life, it would be difficult to find one of greater interest than the ancient query: who rules over whom? It appeals powerfully to our curiosity. We want to know who ""runs"" things--who makes policy decisions in New York, Washington, London, or the town in which we live. Is it a single powerful individual, an economic elite, a series of elites, the citizens, political bosses, or some variant of these possibilities?The major purpose of this volume is to find an answer to this question for a small American city, and to extend the answer through relevant theory to American cities in general. But much more precisely, answers are sought for these interrelated questions: What are the relationships between the rulers and the ruled? How are the rulers related to each other? Are the rulers the same for all policies or do they differ from one area of policy to another? How do leaders arise, and in what way are they different from other people?The issues discussed in this volume are familiar to many towns. They range from controversies about the building of a new water system to housing and zoning codes, from charity appeals to low-income housing, from nominations and elections to industrial development and off-street parking. Wildavsky draws parallels to other community studies and formulates general propositions in support of his thesis that American communities are pluralist. And ultimately, Wildavsky is optimistic that small towns foster citizen participation, giving the population more of a chance to direct its own future. Aaron Wildavsky was, until his death in 1993, professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and, while working on the present study, taught at Oberlin College. Transaction has posthumously published Wildavsky's complete essays and papers in five volumes. Nelson W. Polsby is Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, wh"--Provided by publisher.

"One of the foremost experts in public policy here attempts not only to describe what public policy is, but given societal changes in the last two decades, to account for its present status. To learn from the past in order to establish public policy as a discipline in its own right, Wildavsky traces its motifs from their beginnings in the 1960s to the 1980s. Starting from the premise that there has been growing polarization of political elites, he shows how public policy as a field has had to face increased politicization. For Wildavsky, the field of public policy needs to incorporate more awareness of the human aspects of policy making: he emphasizes the political choices to be made in a competitive environment and the social relations that sustain them. When the first specialist schools devoted solely to public policy came into existence in the 1960s, the programs of the Great Society were their main impetus. With the disillusionment and failure of the Great Society, the identity of public policy became transformed. New theoretical issues had to be addressed. In this volume, Wildavsky provides a foundation for the theory no less than the practice of policy-making. Aaron Wildavsky is professor of political science, University of California, Berkeley. He founded the School of Public Policy there, and is presently its Director. He was formerly Director of the Russell Sage Foundation. He was the President if the American Political Science Association for the years 1986-1987"--Provided by publisher.

"Aaron Wildavsky's greatest concern, as expressed in his writings, is how people manage to live together. This concern may at first appear to have little to do with the study of budgeting, but for Wildavsky budgeting made living together possible. Indeed, as he argues in Budgeting and Governing, now available in paperback, if you cannot budget, you cannot govern."--Provided by publisher.

Argues that applying results of animal research to humans is dangerously misleading; US.

The regulation of human exposure to chemicals, including exposure to trace elements, is based largely on the results of animal cancer studies. However, the efficacy of animal cancer tests for predicting human cancer has not been rigorously tested. The methodology of animal cancer studies & modern procedures for determining chemical toxicity levels are discussed. It is concluded that the validity & predictive value of animal cancer studies is widely overstated, & that epidemiology is the most accurate method of predicting rates of cancer in humans from different levels of exposure to chemicals. In addition, it is suggested that the categories of carcinogen & noncarcinogen are flawed; many chemicals may be carcinogenic at very high doses but not carcinogenic at low doses. Doses of potentially harmful chemicals should be termed toxic or carcinogenic, rather than labeling the chemicals themselves toxic. Implications for reform of current methods of risk assessment are explored. 1 Table, 46 References. J. Ferrari

Rational choice theories could be improved, their scope broadened, and their explanations made more powerful by asking not only `How do people go about getting what they know they want?' but also `Why do people want what they want in the first place?'. The advantages of combining a theory of goal direction, which is the operational base of rational choice, and a theory of preference formation are manifold: a monistic conception of cause as self-interest is replaced by a pluralistic conception of culture allowing for a variety of motives for action; master objectives, which play out over a sequence of moves, supersede immediate objectives that cover only the next act; concentration on how institutional rules influence incentives, though valuable in and of itself, gives way to a parallel consideration of how individuals shape institutions; and the overwhelming concentration on material self-interest, which discomforts so many social scientists who might otherwise be well disposed to rational choice explanations, opens up into a diversity of selves who construct a variety of interests in the service of different ways of life (or cultures).