Policy Analysis: A Practical Introduction

This text for students of politics and public policy, and for learning on the job by new policy analysts, provides a practical introduction grounded in the author’s experience of working in public policy.

In four concise chapters, Part I steps through doing policy analysis in practice: from clear commissioning and project planning, to doing analysis through collective thinking, to telling a compelling policy story, to peer review and quality assurance.

The six chapters in Part II are a resource for reflective practice, introducing theory to address questions policy analysts confront in the course of their work. What is the purpose of politics and public policy? How do I know I am making a difference? How do I tackle working with stakeholders with different, competing, or conflicting interests? How might I navigate conflicting claims relating to identity and culture? And how can I balance responsiveness to current demands with responsibility to future generations?

Every chapter closes with suggestions for group exercises and questions for individual reflection.

David Bromell worked in senior policy advice roles in New Zealand’s central and local government from 2003 to 2020. Following a secondment to the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in 2007, he became a Senior Associate of the Institute and its successor body, the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, and in July 2023 was appointed as an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the School of Government. From 2012 to 2020, he co-designed and taught with Jonathan Boston a post-graduate, post-experience course on political philosophy and public policy. Further opportunities to learn, reflect, and write came from visiting research fellowships at the University of Otago (May 2011), the NRW School of Governance in Duisburg, Germany (May-July 2016), and the Center for Advanced Internet Studies in Bochum, Germany (October 2020-March 2021). His previous Springer publications on public policy are: The art and craft of policy advising (2nd ed., 2022), Regulating free speech in a digital age (2022) and Ethical competencies for public leadership (2019).