ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the anatomy of policy and policy making in central government, focusing on its stages, together with some theories relating to the process, before concluding with a look at two case studies where outcome failed to match expectations. Accordingly, the chapter focuses on the complex area of policy studies, an area that has attracted attention because it deals with political outcomes and draws together so many elements embodying so much of the political universe: process, influence, power and pressure as well as the impact of personality. Policy studies was essentially born in the USA, so the chapter focuses on American examples and policy environments, but more generally it draws on public policy in Western liberal democracies as a whole. Policy can be defined as a set of ideas and proposals for action culminating in a government decision; to study policy, therefore, is to study how decisions are made.
