Policy analysts are accustomed to thinking in terms of tools and instruments. Yet an authoritative examination of the tools which have been developed to formulate new policies is missing. This book is the first of its kind to distinguish the defining characteristics of the main policy...

Policy analysts are accustomed to thinking in terms of tools and instruments. Yet an authoritative examination of the tools which have been developed to formulate new policies is missing. This book is the first of its kind to distinguish the defining characteristics of the main policy...

Procedures for the ex ante assessment of public policies are currently in vogue across the OECD. Their design is typically informed by an instrumentally rational model of problem solving, which assumes that knowledge is collected, evaluated and then translated straightforwardly into 'better...

The ‘ecosystem services approach’ (ESA) to policy making has refocused attention on how knowledge is embedded in policy. Appraisal has long been identified as an important venue for embedding, but suffers from well-known difficulties. This paper examines the extent to which an ESA appears in...

With this paper we explore the potential of committees in parliamentary systems of government to influence environmental public policy making. We draw on delegation theory to argue that parliamentary committees are crucial ex post mechanisms used by the legislature (the principal) to monitor...

Policy appraisal has spread rapidly throughout the OECD and beyond, as has the associated academic literature. In this paper we present the findings of a systematic review of this literature. We assess the extent to which developments in academic research and in everyday appraisal practices have...

Sustainability policy making is hampered by a tendency towards sector-based, short-term and often techno-fix perspectives. This paper describes a novel policy development and assessment framework - Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) - that may help address problems of unsustainability in...

Procedures for the ex ante assessment of public policies are currently in vogue across the OECD. Their design is typically informed by a rational-instrumental model of problem solving, which assumes that knowledge is collected, evaluated, and then translated straightforwardly into ‘better...

Attempts to better integrate policy in pursuit of more sustainable development have been made by many countries through the application of ex ante policy appraisal to sectoral policies. The United Kingdom (UK) is often cited as an international leader in this regard, but this is by no means...