"Doin' politics": linking policy and politics in nursing.

Policies affecting nursing are set within the larger environment of the health policy sector. That sector is characterized by increasing size, complexity, and goal displacement. All three characteristics have served to expand the resource base for this sector despite fiscal constraints on such growth. The environment of policy making shapes both the substance of policy change and the strategies for political adoption. Without understanding the dynamics of the policy environment, efforts by nursing leaders to enhance their growing political sophistication and to articulate nursing interests with maximum effectiveness will be compromised.