Doctoral Reading Lists for Public Policy & Administration:

PhD in Public Policy Reading List

• Allison, Graham T. 1971. The Essence of Decision. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Burstein, Paul. 1991. “Policy Domains: Organization, Culture, and Policy Outcomes.” In W. Richard Scott and Judith Blake (eds.), Annual Review of Sociology. Volume 17. Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, Inc.
• Jasanoff, Sheila. 1990. The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Latin, Howard. 1988. “Good Science, Bad Regulation, and Toxic Risk Assessment.” Yale Journal on Regulation 5:89–148.
• Lindblom, Charles. 1957. “The Science of Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review. 19:79–88.
• Madsen, Peter, and Jay M. Shafritz (eds.) 1992. Essentials of Government Ethics. New York: Meridian/Penguin.
• Meltsner, Arnold J. 1976. Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Meltsner, Arnold. 1972. “Political Feasibility and Policy Analysis.” Public Administration Review 32:859–867.
• Quade, Edward S. 1989. Analysis for Public Decisions. Third Edition. New York: North–Holland.
• Rhodes, Stephen E. 1985. The Economist’s View of the World: Government, Markets, and Public Policy. New York: Cambridge University.
• Riker, William. 1988. “The Place of Political Science in Public Choice.” Public Choice 57:247–259.
• Schelling, Thomas. 1981. “Economic Reasoning and the Ethics of Policy.” The Public Interest 63:37–61.
• Tong, Rosemarie. 1986. “The Role of the Expert in a Democratic Society.” Pp. 39–61 in Ethics in Policy Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice–Hall.
• Webber, David. 1980. “Analyzing Political Feasibility: Political Scientists’ Unique Contribution to Policy Analysis.” Policy Studies Journal 14:545–553.
• Weiss, Carol H. 1980. Social Science Research and Decision–making. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Weiss, Carol H. 1991. Organizations for Policy Analysis: Helping Government Think. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.
• Wildavsky, Aaron. 1987. Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis. Second Edition. Transaction Books.

A. Agenda Setting (Including Problem Definition)

• Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. 1991. “Agenda Dynamics and Policy Subsystems.” Journal of Politics 53:1044–1074.
• Dery, David. 1984. “What is a Problem, so that it May be Usefully Defined?” and “Social Problems as Opportunities for Improvement.” Pp. 21–36 in Problem Definition in Policy Analysis. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
• Edelman, Murray. 1988. Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Kemp, Kathleen A. 1984. “Accidents, Scandals, and Political Support for Regulatory Agencies.” Journal of Politics 46:401–427.
• Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Reinarman, Craig. 1988. “The Social Construction of an Alcohol Problem: The Case of Mothers’ Against Drunk Drivers and Social in the 1980s.” Theory and Society 17:91–120.
• Schneider, Anne, and Helen Ingram. 1993. “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.” American Political Science Review 87:334–347.
• Stallings, Robert A. 1990. “Media Discourse and the Social Construction of Risk.” Social Problems 37:80–95.

B. Formulation (Within Political and Institutional Settings)

• Baron, David P. 1991. “Majoritarian Incentives, Pork Barrel Programs, and Procedural Controls.” American Journal of Political Science 35:57–90.
• Becker, Gary. 1983. “A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 98:371–400.
• Bernstein, Marver H. 1955. Regulating Business by Independent Commission. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Cone, Kenneth R. and David Dranove. 1986. “Why Did States Enact Hospital Rate-Setting Laws.” Journal of Law and Economics 29:287–302.
• Dahl, Robert. 1962. Who Governs? New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
• Dahl, Robert. 1982. Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
• Denzau, Arthur T., and Michael C. Munger. 1986. “Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented.” American Political Science Review 80:
• Downs, Anthony. 1958. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
• Domhoff, G. William. 1983. Who Rules America Now?: A View for the ’80s. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Domhoff, G. William. 1990. The Power Elite and the State: How Policy is Made in America. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter
• Downs, George W., and Patrick D. Larkey. 1986. “Business Versus Government: An Invidious Comparison?” in The Search for Government Efficiency. New York: Random House.
• Dye, Thomas. 1966. Politics, Economics and the Public. Chicago: Rand McNally.
• Ferejohn, John, Morris Fiorina, and Richard D. McKelvey. 1987. “Sophisticated Voting and Agenda Independence in Distributive Politics Settings.” American Journal of Political Science 31:169–193.
• Glazer, Nathan. 1975. “Toward an Imperial Judiciary.” The Public Interest 41:104–123.
• Graddy, Elizabeth. 1991. “Interest Groups or the Public Interest—Why Do We Regulate Health Occupations?” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 16:25–49.
• Grindle, Merilee S., and John W. Thomas. 1989. “Policy Makers, Policy Choices, and Policy Outcomes: The Political Economy of Reform in Developing Countries.” Policy Sciences 22:213–248.
• Kau, James B., and Paul H. Rubin. 1979. “Self–Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting.” Journal of Law and Economics 22:365–384.
• Jenkins-Smith, Hank C., Gilbert K. St.Clair, and Brian Woods. 1991. “Explaining Change in Policy Subsystems: Analysis of Coalition Stability and Defection over Time.” American Journal of Political Science 35:851–880.
• Kalt, Joseph, and Mark Zupan. 1984. “Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics.” American Economic Review 74:279–300.
• Kramer, Gerald H. 1972. “Sophisticated Voting Over Multidimensional Choice Spaces.” Journal of Mathematical Sociology 2:165–180.
• Kurland, Philip B. 1985. “Public Policy, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court.” Northern Kentucky Law Review 12:181–200.
• Manley, John F. 1983. “Neo-Pluralism: A Class Analysis of Pluralism I and Pluralism II.” American Political Science Review 77:368–383.
• Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956.
• Olson, Mancur, Jr. 1971. The Logic of Collective Action. Second Edition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Polsby, Nelson. 1980. Community Power and Political Theory. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963.
• Riker, William H. 1962. The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Romer, Thomas, and Howard Rosenthal. 1979. “Bureaucrats vs. Voters: On the Political Economy of Resource Allocation in a Direct Democracy.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 563–587.
• Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Walker, Jack L., Jr. 1991. Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions, and Social Movements. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Wright, Gerald C. Jr., Robert S. Erickson, and John P. McIver. 1987. “Public Opinion and Policy Liberalism in the American States.” American Journal of Political Science 31:980–1001.

C. Policy Implementation (Organizational and Political Dimensions)

• Alchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. 1972. “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization.” American Economic Review 62:777–95.
• Aldrich, Howard E., and Peter V. Marsden. 1988. “Environments and Organizations.” Pp. 361–392 in Neil J. Smelser (ed.), Handbook of Sociology. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.
• Bardach, Eugene. 1977. The Implementation Game. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17:1-25.
• Commons, John R. 1934. Institutional Economics. New York: Macmillan.
• DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48:147–60.
• Dranove, David, and William D. White. 1987. “Agency and the Organization of Health Care Delivery.” Inquiry 24:405–415.
• Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. 1989. “Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review.” Academy of Management Review 14:57–74.
• Elmore, Richard. 1978. “Organizational Models of Social Program Implementation.” Public Policy 26:185–228.
• Elmore, Richard. 1980. “Backward Mapping: Implementation Research and Policy Decisions.” Political Science Quarterly 94:601–616.
• Goggin, Malcolm L., Ann Bowman, James P. Lester, and Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr. 1990. Implementation Theory and Practice: Toward a Third Generation. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown.
• Hannan, Michael T., and John Freeman. 1989. Organizational Ecology. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
• Hekathorn, Douglas D., and Steven M. Maser. 1987. “Bargaining and the Sources of Transaction Costs: The Case of Government Regulation.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3:69–98.
• Hill, Jeffrey S., and James E. Brazier. 1991. “Constraining Administrative Decisions: A Critical Examination of the Structure and Process Hypothesis.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organizations 7:373–400.
• Ingram, Helen. 1977. “Policy Implementation through Bargaining: The Case of Federal Grants in Aid.” Public Policy 25:499–526.
• Jensen, Michael C., and William Meckling. 1976. “Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure.” Journal of Financial Economics 3:305–60.
• Knoke, David. 1990. Organizing for Collective Action: The Political Economies of Associations. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.
• Landau, Martin. 1973. “On the Concept of a Self–Correcting Organization.” Public Administration Review Nov/Dec:533–542.
• Laumann, Edward O., and David Knoke. 1986. The Organizational State: Social Choice in National Policy Domains. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Levin, Martin, and Barbara Ferman. 1986. “The Political Hand: Policy Implementation and Youth Employment Programs.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 5:311–325.
• Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street–Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service. New York: Russell Sage.
• Lynxwiler, John, Neal Shover, and Donald A. Clelland. 1983. “The Organization and Impact of Inspector Discretion in a Regulatory Bureaucracy.” Social Problems 30:425–436.
• McCubbins, Matthew D., Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast. 1987. “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3:243–277.
• March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen. 1984. “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life.” American Political Science Review 78:734–49.
• Mazmanian, Daniel, and Paul Sabatier. 1983. Implementation and Public Policy. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman.
• Meyer, John W., and Brian Rowan. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83:340–63.
• Moe, Terry. 1984. “The New Economics of Organizations.” American Journal of Political Science 28:739–777.
• Nakamura, Robert T., and Frank Smallwood. 1980. The Politics of Policy Implementation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Ouchi, William. 1980. “Markets, Bureaucracy and Clans.” Administrative Science Quarterly 25:129–141.
• Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald Salancik. 1978. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper and Row.
• Pressman, Jeffrey, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1984. Implementation. Third Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Scholz, John T. 1991. “Cooperative Regulatory Enforcement and the Politics of Administrative Effectiveness.” American Political Science Review 85:115–136.
• Scholz, John T., Jim Twombly, and Barbara Headrick. 1991. “Street–Level Political Controls over Federal Bureaucracy.” American Political Science Review 85:829–850.
• Scott, W. Richard. 1992. Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems. Third Edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice–Hall.
• Simon, Herbert A. 1991. “Organizations and Markets.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5:25–44.
• Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society. Three Volumes. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Weingast, Barry R., and Mark J. Moran. 1983. “Bureaucracy and Discretionary Congressional Control: Regulatory Policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission.” Journal of Political Economy 91:765–800.
• Williamson, Oliver E. 1981. “The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 87:548–577.
• Wilson, James Q. 1989. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. New York: Basic Books.
• Wolf, Charles Jr. 1979. “A Theory of Nonmarket Failure: Framework for Implementation Analysis.” Journal of Law and Economics 22:107–139.
• Wood, B. Dan, and Richard W. Waterman. 1991. “The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy.” American Political Science Review 85(September), 801–828.

A. Policy Instruments and Market and Non-Market Failures

• Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.” American Economic Review 53:941–73.
• Bailey, Elizabeth E., and William J. Baumol. 1984. “Deregulation and the Theory of Contestable Markets.” Yale Journal on Regulation 1:111–37.
• Barr, Nicholas. 1989. “Social Insurance as an Efficiency Device.” Journal of Public Policy 9:59–82.
• Boardman, Anthony E., and Aidan R. Vining. 1989. “Ownership and Performance in Competitive Environments: A Comparison of the Performance of Private, Mixed, and State–owned Enterprises.” Journal of Law and Economics 32:1–33.
• Cordes, Joseph J. and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1985. “When Government Programs Create Inequities: A Guide to Compensation Policies.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 4:178–95.
• Church, Thomas W., and Milton Heumann. 1989. “The Underexamined Assumptions of the Invisible Hand: Monetary Incentives as Policy Instruments.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 8:641–657.
• Ellickson, Robert C. 1973. “Alternatives to Zoning: Covenants, Nuisance Rules, and Fines as Land Use Controls.” University of Chicago Law Review 40:681–781.
• Elkin, Stephen L., and Brian J. Cook. 1985. “The Public Life of Economic Incentives.” Policy Studies Journal 13:797–813.
• Fisher, Anthony C., John V. Krutilla, and Charles J. Cicchetti. 1972. “The Economics of Environmental Preservation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis.” American Economic Review 62:605–619.
• Goldberg, Victor. 1976. “Regulation and Administered Contracts.” Bell Journal of Economics 7:426–48.
• Hansmann, Henry B. 1980. “The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise.” Yale Law Journal 89:835–898.
• Landes, William M. and Richard A. Posner. 1985. “A Positive Economic Analysis of Products Liability.” Journal of Legal Studies 14:535–567.
• Linder, Stephen H., and B. Guy Peters. 1989. “Instruments of Government: Perceptions and Contexts.” Journal of Public Policy 9:35–58.
• Peltzman, Sam. 1976. “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation.” Journal of Law and Economics 19:211–240.
• Salamon, Lester (ed.). 1989. Beyond Privatization: The Tools of Government Action. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press.
• Sappington, David E.M., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1987. “Privatization, Information, and Incentives.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 6:567–582.
• Tobin, James. 1970. “On Limiting the Domain of Inequality.” Journal of Law and Economics 13:263–277.
• Vickers, John, and George Yarrow. 1991. “Economic Perspectives on Privatization.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5:111–132.
• Vining, Aidan R., and David L. Weimer. 1990. “Government Supply and Government Production Failure: A Framework Based on Contestability.” Journal of Public Policy 10:1–22.
• Weimer, David, and Aidan Vining. 1991. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Second Edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice–Hall.
• Wolf, Charles Jr. 1988. Markets or Governments: Choosing Between Imperfect Alternatives. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

B. Microeconomic Models

• Friedman, Lee S. 1984. Microeconomic Policy Analysis. New York: McGraw Hill.

C. Benefit–Cost Analysis

• Gramlich, Edward M. 1990. A Guide to Cost Benefit Analysis. Second Edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice–Hall.
• Kelman, Steven. 1992. “Cost–Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique.” Pp. 153–164 in John Martin Gillroy and Maurice Wade (eds.), The Moral Dimensions of Public Policy Choice: Beyond the Market Paradigm. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

D. Evaluation Research (Including Research Design)

• Ferber, Robert, and Werner Z. Hirsch. 1982. Social Experimentation and Economic Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Langbein, Laura Irwin. 1980. Discovering Whether Programs Work: A Guide to Statistical Methods for Program Evaluation. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1980.
• O’Sullivan, Elizabethann, and Gary R. Rassel. 1995. Research Methods for Public Administrators. Second Edition. New York: Longman.
• Weiss, Carol H. 1972. Evaluation Research: Methods for Assessing Program Effectiveness. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice–Hall.