Policy analysis is a relatively new area of social scientificinquiry, owing its origins to developments in the US in the early1960s. Its main rationale is systematic, evidence-based,transparent, efficient, and implementable policy-making. Thiscomponent of policy-making is deemed key in democratic structuresallowing for accountable public policies. From the US, policyanalysis has spread to other countries, notably in Europe in the1980s and 1990s and in Asia in the 1990s and 2000s. It has taken,respectively one to two more decades for programmes of public policyto be established in these regions preparing cadres for policyanalysis as a profession. However, this movement has beenaccompanied by variations in the kinds of analysis undertaken asUS-inspired analytical and evaluative techniques have been adaptedto local traditions and circumstances, and new techniques shaped inthese settings.

In the late 1990s this led to the development of the field ofcomparative policy analysis, pioneered by Iris Geva-May, whoinitiated and founded the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis,and whose mission has been advanced with the support of editorialboard members such as Laurence E. Lynn Jr., first co-editor, PeterdeLeon, Duncan McRae, David Weimer, Beryl Radin, Frans van Nispen,Yukio Adachi, Claudia Scott, Allan Maslove and others in the US andelsewhere. While current studies have underlined differences andsimilarities in national approaches to policy analysis, thedifferent national regimes which have developed over the past two tothree decades have not been thoroughly explored and systematicallyevaluated in their entirety, examining both sub-national andnonexecutive governmental organisations as well as thenon-governmental sector; nor have these prior studies allowed foreither a longitudinal or a latitudinal comparison of similar policyanalysis perceptions, applications, and themes across countries andtime periods.

The International Library for Policy Analysis (ILPA) series fillsthis gap in the literature and empirics of the subject. It featuresedited volumes created by experts in each country, which inventoryand analyse their respective policy analysis systems. To a certainextent the series replicates the template of Policy Analysis in Canada edited by Dobuzinskis,Howlett and Laycock (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,2007).