ABSTRACT
The discussion of the comparative capacities of legislative and executive institutions to produce good public policy leads to different conclusions depending upon which standards are used to assess the quality of public policy. Judgments about what constitutes good or bad public policy may be made on the basis of regional or socioeconomic criteria that will vary within as well as between nations. To the extent that public policy is made by elites acting beyond the control of mass publics, the policies are less democratic and therefore less acceptable by these standards. Contextual criteria generate standards for evaluating the goals of public policy. The extent to which a political system can achieve public policy that can be judged as good according to managerial or democratic criteria is influenced by the role of the legislature relative to that of the executive in the policy-making process. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
