"Deciding Factors in British Politics" looks at the questions at the heart of politics and asks how British governments decide on the answers. The book provides students with a wide variety of case studies from the mid-1950s to the present, illustrating different aspects of political life. Among them are the nuclear power programme and government AIDS policy. This detailed material on the practical results of institutional behaviour is combined with a comprehensive and approachable review of the key theoretical perspectives on decision-making, encouraging readers to think analytically about the processes of policy making, and to test their analyses against the known details of actual decisions. Theories which relate particularly to British politics are discussed, but the book reaches wider, to work from the US and from international relations. In the final chapter, the theoretical and practical elements of the book are synthesyzed to provide a more detailed critique of how politics works. This book should be of interest to students of British politics, government and public administration.