Understanding, Informing and Appraising Public Policy in Americaintegrates theory and practice in the study of public policy as it helps students understand how and why policymakers make the choices that they do. The two-pronged approach utilizing the normative study of relationship of self#45;interest to the public interest and empirical theory to identify policymakers'behavior identifies the standards of judgment that citizens and policymakers use to define problems and evaluate alternative solutions, and how America's political culture influences how we think about these matters. Throughout the texts the students also looks at how the design of out policy-making institutions shape the politics of policy making in the United States.