This lively book provides an essential introduction to the critical analysis of social problems and the policy process. It argues that policy does not just have an impact of people's lives, but that people can and should have an impact on policy. Rather than assuming that social policies reflect an inevitable response to pre-existing givens, the author adopts a more proactive position to show how a 'problem' is fabricated and how a particular response to a 'problem' is legitimated. He goes on to demonstrate how the struggle over the meaning and desirable response to a range of social issues...