Policy and Change in Thatcher's Britain presents an integrated analysis of the changing policy impacts of the Thatcher decade using various different aspects of critical social theory. The study first parallels the directions taken by successive Thatcher governments with the paths taken by critical social theorists in the 1980s. This analysis shows not only that critical social theory can inform the interpretation of Thatcherism, but also that Thatcherism made such demands on social theory as to force changes in the theoretical agenda. More detail follows in an explanation and analysis of the employment of policy-making and planning by the state apparatus. The stress here is on the necessity of looking beyond the immediate policy arena in search of how and why policy changes occur. Further essays illuminate the effects of policy changes in particular systematic or spatial areas. The concluding section comments more generally on economic and social change under Thatcher, both stressing the unevenness of development with respective emphasis on both spatial and gender divisions of labour.