What do the Twenty-Dollar Bill Test and the Grandma Bessie Test have in common? Both are excellent, easily implemented strategies for producing high quality policy analysis. In his “gem” of a reference book, Eugene Bardach presents dozens of concrete tips, interesting case studies, and step-by-step strategies for the budding analyst as well as the seasoned professional. Readers learn how to:

• Define policy problems with clarity and accuracy.


• Economize on data collection.


• Gain access to and credibility in the field.


• Think creatively about policy alternatives.


• Apply and weigh evaluative criteria.


• Realistically estimate outcomes.


• Make cogent and persuasiver ecommendations to clients.

This edition’s appendices include a sample document of real world policy analysis, a primer in how to “talk the talk” of policy analysis, and a cheat sheet of strategies for solving a host of policy problems. Used in the Berkeley policy program for more than twenty years, A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis has also become part of many a practitioner’s permanent library.

Preface
Introduction

Part I: The Eightfold Path
Step One: Define the Problem
Step Two: Assemble Some Evidence
Step Three: Construct the Alternatives
Step Four: Select the Criteria
Step Five: Project the Outcomes
Step Six: Confront the Trade-offs
Step Seven: Decide!
Step Eight: Tell Your Story

Part II: Assembling Evidence
Getting Started
Locating Relevant Sources
Gaining Access and Engaging Assistance
Conducting a Policy Research Interview
Using Language to Characterize and Calibrate
Protecting Credibility
Strategic Dilemmas of Policy Research

Part III: “Smart (Best) Practices” Research: Understanding and Making Use of What Look Like Good Ideas from Somewhere Else
Develop Realistic Expectations
Analyze “Smart Practices”
Observe the “Practice”
Describe Generic Vulnerabilities
But Will It Work Here?
Back to the Eightfold Path

Appendix A. Specimen of a Real-World Policy Analysis
Preface and Summary from Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers’ Money?

Appendix B. Things Governments Do
Taxes
Regulation
Subsidies and Grants
Service Provision
Agency Budgets
Information
The Structure of Private Rights
The Framework of Economic Activity
Education and Consultation
Financing and Contracting
Bureaucratic and Political Reforms

Appendix C. Semantic Tips: A Summary
Defining the Problem
Assembling the Evidence
Constructing the Alternatives
Selecting the Criteria
Projecting the Outcomes
Confronting the Trade-offs
Interviewing
Doing Smart Practices Research

References
Index

“This new edition of A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis is a gift to both professors and students. Professor Bardach’s text accomplishes what other texts in the field of policy analysis do not; it provides students and practitioners with usable suggestions about how to conduct policy analytic research. Bardach utilizes many up-to-date examples to demonstrate the varied meanings of important concepts in the field and also provides suggestions as to how these concepts might be used in conducting policy analyses. This book is helpful to students and scholars of public policy regardless of their approach.”

- Renee Johnson, University of Florida

“A concise distillation of broad concepts, good ideas, and best practices, Bardach’s A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis, second edition offers experienced policy practitioners a delicious reprise and graduate and undergraduate students new to the field a solid beginning. U.S. and international students consistently give this perspicacious presentation of policy analysis fundamentals high marks for its clarity and insight.”

- Robert P. Goss, Brigham Young University

Eugene Bardach has been teaching graduate-level policy analysis workshop classes since 1973 at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, in which time he has coached some 400 projects. This book is based on his experience teaching students the principles of policy analysis and then helping them to execute their project work. He is the recipient of the 1998 Donald T. Campbell award of the Policy Studies Organization for creative contribution to the methodology of policy analysis.