This book attempts to present public policy theories (incrementalism, group theory, elitism and so on) together with a number of concrete applications, in order to demonstrate how different theories highlights different aspects of policy making. It is not so much a matter of which theory is correct, but which theory is useful to analyze a certain issue. All this is of course very fine.
The problem with the book is that the theories are presented so briefly, and the analyses are so shallow, that the student cannot possibly get a good grasp of what is really going on. The basic concept "policy process" is not dealt with until chapter 14 (of 15 chapters)! Only 4 pages are devoted to the fundamental problem of agenda-setting. Further, the book lacks references to most of the exciting current litterature in the field. The interested student will not find many suggestions on how to move on from this book.