The study of public policy, including the methods of policy analysis, has been among the most rapidly developing fi elds in the social sciences over the past several decades. Policy analysis emerged to both better understand the policymaking process and to suppy policy decision makers with reliable policy-relevant knowledge about pressing economic and social problems. Dunn (1981, 35) defi nes policy analysis as “an applied social science discipline which uses multiple methods of inquiry and arguments to produce and transform policy-relevant information that may be utilized in political settings to resolve policy problems.” By and large, the development of public policy analysis fi rst appeared as an.
