Dovers and Hussey argue that better public policy is the key to creating a more sustainable environment and show what this might involve. This is an intensely practical book, intellectually rigorous, and written in a concise and accessible style.
They meld a deep knowledge of traditional public policy with a close understanding of sustainability problems and an appreciation of the complex institutional systems which make up modern civil society. As well as establishing an operational framework for policy analysis and prescription, they provide ways of fulfilling key elements of an effective policy process with chapters on:
- Problem framing
- Policy framing
- Policy implementation
- Policy monitoring and evaluation
- Public participation
- Institutional settings and reform for effective policy.
This edition responds to the increasing urgency and complexity of challenges of environment and sustainability. It is updated to include new perspectives from policy theory and practice, expands the coverage of international dimensions of trade and regulation and incorporates coverage of emerging issues and policy challenges such as climate mitigation and adaptation, urban sustainability, and the nexus between climate change, energy and water.
Preface: Why This Book?
Acknowledgements
PART I: Policy and the Environment
Orientation and Introduction
Thinking about Policy
Environment and Sustainability as Policy and Institutional Problem
Policy Cycles and Models, Environment and Sustainability
PART II: Checklists and Frameworks for Policy Analysis
Problem-framing
Policy-framing
Policy implementation
Policy Monitoring and Evaluation
Participation, Transparency and Accountability
PART III: Prospects for Environment and Sustainability Policy
Coordination, Integration, and Institutional Change
Bibliography
Index
Suzanne Hoverman, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, December 2014
Dovers and Hussey present here a framework for the development of good public environment and sustainability policy, laying out in detail the processes required to demonstrate a credible effort to deliver desirable and effective behaviour change in pursuit of sustainability.
This book advertises itself as a primer for improving policymakers’ grasp of the challenges and opportunities that environment and sustainability pose for policymaking. It will also enlighten scientists with a solid understanding of their field but for whom government policy processes – including communications strategies, public consultation and drivers of large-scale behaviour change – remain a mystery. Especially educational for regulation advocates is the discussion of using a mix of policy instruments for different audiences and stages of the policy process, as necessary to truly change individuals’ and organisations’ motivations and behaviour.
… Information is provided here in a well-structured and concise manner in very accessible prose … For many readers, its merit will be to remind them of what they once knew and should have remembered, while fleshing out a few areas of new knowledge. … it is very useful to provide the full scope of options in areas such as types of public consultation, criteria for policy instruments, available policy instruments and policy coordination. The handbook fulfils its mission as an excellent reference to be consulted as needed.
