Producing Health Policy

"This is an all too rare example of a book about policy making based on direct observation. Interviewing, sitting in on meetings, Jo Maybin explores how civil servants craft policy. It is a complex, untidy process. Personal contacts and experience are all important; anecdotes can trump statistics; know- how about the policy process itself is essential. It is a convincing picture that makes many conventional assumptions look simplistic. Drawing on a formidable battery of theoretical perspectives, without ever clouding the clarity of her analysis, Maybin has made a subtle and sophisticated contribution to our understanding of how government works." - Rudolf Klein, University of Bath, UK "Officials and professionals live under the imperative to act. In this profound and elegantly written book Jo Maybin explores what the implications of this universal but usually overlooked insight are for understanding the role of knowledge in organizations. Using a wealth of empirical data, she argues that the received view of professionals applying formal knowledge acquired in professional curricula is both misguided and misleading. Instead an ongoing flow of knowing - practical, situated, interactive and embodied - that emerges out of organizational practices - structures of meanings, rules, routines, competences, materials, spatial arrangements and affects - is what makes organizations tick. This book abounds with important insights for public administrators, policy analysts and organization scholars." - Hendrik Wagenaar, University of Sheffield, UK "If you're interested in the ways in which knowledge and knowing feature in the policy work of civil servants then you should read this fascinating account of their practices. Jo Maybin reveals the activities that take place behind the closed doors of a government ministry. She highlights the importance of personal encounters as civil servants develop their understanding of policy issues, the various approaches they use in making phenomena knowable, and the know-how needed to 'make policies happen'. The resulting narrative is enlightening, enthralling and enduring in equal measure - enjoy the read." - Sandra Nutley, University of St Andrews, UK "There is no shortage of guidebooks telling us how policy should be developed; Maybin asks how it is developed, and why it is done this way. By watching what policy workers do, reading what they write, and talking to them about their work, she shows us how they make sense of their task. We see clearly how they acquire and use evidence, and how policy emerges from the 'buzzing, blooming confusion' of government. Anyone wanting to understand the policy process - whether as a producer or as a consumer - would learn a lot from this book." - H.K. Colebatch, The University of New South Wales, Australia "Jo Maybin's book sheds valuable light on the realities of policy making within a government department, documenting in a non-judgemental way how civil servants acquire and apply knowledge, broadly defined, to help ministers develop and deliver their goals. Anyone in the research community seeking to engage with government will benefit from reading the descriptions of the practices inside the Department of Health which resonate with experience in many other government departments." - Jill Rutter, Institute for Government, UK

In this book Jo Maybin draws on rare access to the inner-workings of England's Department of Health to explore what kinds of knowledge civil servants use when developing policy, how they use it and why.

In this book Jo Maybin draws on rare access to the inner-workings of England's Department of Health to explore what kinds of knowledge civil servants use when developing policy, how they use it and why. Combining ethnographic data with insights from psychology, socio-linguistics, sociology and philosophy, she demonstrates how civil servants engage in a wide range of knowledge practices in the course of their daily work. These include sharing personal anecdotes, thrashing-out ideas in meetings and creating simplified representations of phenomena, as well as conducting cost-benefit analyses and commissioning academic research. Maybin analyzes the different functions that these various practices serve, from developing personal understandings of issues, to making complex social problems 'thinkable', and meeting the ever-present need to make policies 'happen'. In doing so, she develops an original theory of policy-making as the work of building connections between a policy in development and powerful ideas, people, and instruments, and reveals the 'policy know-how' required by civil servants to be effective in their jobs.