Policy Creation and Evaluation has two purposes. The first goal is to describe and explain one of the most important domestic policy decisions in the post-WW II era, the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, otherwise known as either the Welfare Reform law, which created the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program and ended sixty years of policy history in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Three decision-making models assist us in understanding the creation of TANF through different lens ... More

Policy Creation and Evaluation has two purposes. The first goal is to describe and explain one of the most important domestic policy decisions in the post-WW II era, the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, otherwise known as either the Welfare Reform law, which created the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program and ended sixty years of policy history in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Three decision-making models assist us in understanding the creation of TANF through different lenses. These are the historical model, the politics and power model, and the rational model. All are used to address the question, “Why did the Welfare Reform law emerge the way it did?” The second goal of this book is to show how programs such as TANF are evaluated and the methods that can be used. Individual chapters explore the use of primarily quantitative, primarily qualitative, and mixed methods evaluation techniques. The use of evaluation to assist in future policy efforts is also explored. The key element of this book is the linkage of policy creation modelling with policy evaluation efforts. Although readers will learn a great deal about the details of the TANF legislation creation and evaluation, they will primarily finish with a greater understanding of the policy creation and evaluation processes and will have a solid grasp of these two stages of policy-making.