Anthropologists have long engaged in research that implicitly deals with public policy, for issues that pertain directly to policy lie at the heart of anthropology. These issues include institutions and power, interpretation and meaning, ideology, rhethoric and discourse, the politics of culture, ethnicity and identity, and interactions between the global and the local. Yet anthropology as a discipline has not given policy – a social, cultural and political construct – the explicit attention that it deserves. This deficit should be redressed. This paper argues that an anthropology of public policy can make crucial contributions both to the discipline of anthropology and to the debates and field of public policy.
