Public policy values

Should public funding be given to research involving human embryos? What is the 'best' way to deal with HIV AIDS? Should the wearing of Islamic headscarves be banned? How should choices be made between 'the environment' and 'growth'? More and more policy issues involve questions that are explicitly values-based, yet public policy analysis tends to skirt around the problem of values. Public Policy Values addresses this reluctance, by viewing public policies through the lens of the values-choices they embody. As such, the book emphasizes the values-based dimension of all policy. Public Policy Values devotes specific chapters to major values which drive public policy across developed nations including fairness, efficiency, and economic growth, as well as instrumental values, such as the degree of 'toughness' to be employed in dealing with social problems. Public management values are also discussed. Within each chapter, the author shows how the particular value is conceptualized, its relationship to political values, its intersection with particular parts of the policy process, and the value 'pair' that it is most often in conflict with. The book concludes with a number of insights into the use of values-based analysis to cross the divide between analysis of, and analysis for, policy.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.