THE ANALYSIS OF POLICY - UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS OF POLICY DEVELOPMENT

A Key question in addiction studies is why do governments not readily adopt policies that research shows to be effective in reducing harm? I n this paper, it is argued that policy development can best be underst ood as a political activity, which is not necessarily scientific. A de scriptive model of policy analysis is illustrated by case examples fro m alcohol and tobacco policy arenas. By understanding policy developme nt as a process, it is suggested that policy advocates can match their strategies to the stages of the process, and thus raise the probabili ty that the advocated policy will be adopted.