This book argues that policy has become an increasingly central concept in the organisation of contemporary societies and that it now impinges on all areas of life so that it is virtually impossible to ignore or escape its influence.

Introduction 1 Policy: A new field of anthropology Part I Policy as language and power 2 Writing development policy and policy analysis plain or clear: On language, genre and power 3 The implications of ‘medical’, ‘gender in development’ and ‘culturalist’ discourses for HIV/AIDS policy in Africa 4 Patients’ bodies and discourses of power Part II Policy as cultural agent 5 Free to make the right choice? Gender equality policy in post-welfare Sweden 6 The cultural politics of populism: Celebrating Canadian national identity 7 Governing Europe: European Union audiovisual policy and the politics of Identity Part III Policy as political technology: Governmentality and subjectivity 8 Reform and resistance: A Norwegian illustration 9 Poverty in a ‘post-welfare’ landscape: Tenant management policies, self governance and the democratization of knowledge in Great Britain 10 Managing Americans: Policy and changes in the meanings of work and the Self. Epilogue 11 Anthropology and policy research: The view from Northern Ireland