Implementation and Public Policy includes a thorough explication of the implementation process. The framework delineates five distinct stages beginning with formulation through revision and reformulation. Five separate cases of implementation are examined: clean air, school desegregation, new towns, compensatory education, and coastal zone management. Useful at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels, this book carved an important niche in the field of implementation studies when first published in 1983 by Scott Foresman Publishers. The extensive "Postscript" written for the UPA edition, takes note of new approaches and changing emphases in this field since 1983.

In 1997, the book won the Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award of the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. This award is reserved for books that are published in the last ten to twenty years that continue to influence the study of public policy.