Policy paradox
by Deborah Stone · first published 2012
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2009–2020first – last mentioned
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Policy making is a political struggle over values and ideas. By exposing the paradoxes that underlie even seemingly straightforward policy decisions, Policy Paradox shows students that politics cannot be cleansed from the process in favor of "rationality." Author Deborah Stone has fully revised and updated this popular text, which now includes many paradoxes that have arisen since September 11. Examples throughout the book have been updated, and the prose has been streamlined to make a great read even better.
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…policy is tremendously complex, and difficult to do well. Before boiling down large, complex government programs to simple dysfunction and corruption, I recommend a read-through of Deborah Stone's book Policy Paradox. It gives you some idea of what real policymakers are up against in the real world. The city managers are optimizing for the preferences of a million people in a city with geographic restrictions and…
on “San Francisco’s political leadership has squandered a fortune (2019)” ↗…affecting someone else. If it does, then there is the possibility that we should make it illegal. Of course, this can become more nuanced. At the risk of getting (slightly) off topic, Deborah Stone's book Policy Paradox (http://www.amazon.com/Policy-Paradox-Political-Decision-Revi...) has an interesting discussion.
on “Thousands call for Turing apology” ↗Read "Policy Paradox" by Deborah Stone. She gives a great example, where she describes bringing in a cake to class for her students to share - all would no doubt agree that the distribution of cake should be 'fair'...but…
on “Why Do People Who Need Help from the Government Hate It So Much?” ↗See the book: "Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making" by Deborah Stone for an exploration of this issue of resource arbitration and politics. One simple example she uses is how do you divide up birthday cake? Equal…
on “No politics please, we're hackers, too busy to improve the world” ↗