For undergraduate-level courses in Public Policy. Understanding Public Policy is not only an introduction to the study of public policy, but also an introduction to the models that political scientists use to describe and explain political life. This leading introduction to public policy is designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with concrete tools for not only understanding public policy in general, but for analyzingspecificpublic policies. It focuses onwhatpolicies governments pursue,whygovernments pursue the policies they do, and what theconsequencesof these policies are. Very contemporary in perspective, it introduces eight analytical models currently used by political scientists to describe and explain political life and then, using these various analytical models-singly and in combination-explores specific public policies in a variety of key domestic policy areas.