American Government

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Steven Kelman takes, as he says in the subtitle of his book "Making Public Policy", "A Hopeful View of American Government." It discusses how he notes how Americans have long been torn by conflicting attitudes toward their government, with pride on the one hand and cynicism because of government failures on the other. It analyzes how Kelman's belief is that the pride is the most justified and how he believes that the American government will generally do the right thing and even over time so problem areas do not remain. It looks at how he analyzes his ideas in terms of policy making as a political process, focusing on the federal government but including the state and local manifestations of the same processes.

From the Paper:

"Kelman calls politics a framework for analysis, and any given policy can be analyzed in terms of the politics of the formation and implementation of that policy, just as politics serves as the framework against which all policy is formulated. Politics takes place in terms of and through institutions, but its is the participants who actually decide what policy to support, exercise power in the process, develop strategies to make their intentions come to pass, and in the end, combine the different pieces into political choice. While Kelman comes to certain broad conclusions, he also rightly notes, every political encounter is different."

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