This collective monograph is an in-depth study of public policy concepts, how they are usually researched, and the processes involved in their formulation and implementation. Its creation became necessary due to the numerous "gaps" identified in knowledge about public policies and the need to build a more realistic and comprehensive scientific concept for the process of their formation and implementation. The first part of the monograph develops a new, expanded, and enriched conceptual framework for the study of public policies, which incorporates important and insufficiently researched components of policy understanding. These include, for example, the ways in which social risks are identified and neutralized by rational actors—the ruling elites—on the basis of their group rationality. The second part of the monograph presents studies of policies in various areas. Based on the expanded conceptual framework and its individual elements, policies in the areas of employment and the labor market, disability, poverty, and social exclusion are analyzed. Issues related to the digitization of public administration, the influence of lobby groups on the pension system, the role of the state and the non-governmental sector in the provision of social services, and the influence of the media are discussed. Challenges to policies related to innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, culture, refugee integration, and local policies are examined. The third part discusses possible ways to stimulate the development of a good society and social progress. The monograph is the result of joint work by scholars from the Public Policy and Social Change Section of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and other analysts, and is intended for a wide range of readers: scholars, researchers, politicians, practitioners, and people interested in the problems of public policy and social development.