ABSTRACT
This chapter presents alternative approaches to the study of public policy that are being developed in fields such as experimental and behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience, as well as recent efforts by Daniel Butler and affiliated scholars working with the "Laboratories of Democracy" project. The "policy sciences" were intended to improve upon the quality of public policy as a way of improving upon the human condition. The chapter discusses several well-established patterns in human decision making that the authors believe have the most relevance for explaining change in the policy process and policy decision making. The list is by no means complete, nor is it exhaustive. The chapter also suggests several new directions for policy theory, especially for human decision-making models that make use of insights from neuroscience, behavioral economics, and evolutionary psychology. And several consistent themes emerging from these fields seem to have clear implications for policy theory.
