The policy movement as a policy problem

The policy movement is unified by a common interest in the improvement of policy decisions through scientific inquiry. The movement is differentiated, however, because this common interest is highly ambiguous and subject to interpretation from different perspectives. This paper applies a policy sciences perspective to the movement's disappointments over the last few decades, and in particular, the failure to realize earlier aspirations for rational, objective analysis on the more important and controversial policy issues. The paper offers a definition and diagnosis of the underlying problem, and suggests what can be done about it as a matter of individual and collective choice.     

The interaction of monetary policy and wages

This paper focuses on the interaction of monetary policy and wage formation in economies with strong labor unions. Government and unions are viewed as endogenous utility maximizers and the macroeconomic consequences of their strategic interaction are explored with the aid of some elements of simple game theory. Specifically, it is shown (a) how labor unions adjust wages to prices so as to maximize their utility following changes in monetary policy; (b) how the effectiveness of monetary policy is circumscribed without necessarily being nullified by the utility-maximizing reactions of unions; and (c) how the interplay of government and unions can create a persistent tendency towards inflation and unemployment simultaneously.     

The Greater Yellowstone policy debate: What is the policy problem?

Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding mountainous region comprise the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), a 19 million acre area that is one of the few relatively intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states. Conservationists believe that continuation of present land management practices in the region will disrupt the ecological integrity of the GYE. Many authors have identified and described these threats, but as yet there has been no sustained effort to make sense of these threats in the context of the ongoing dynamic policy debate. We develop the foundation for such understanding by examining the implicit problem definitions that have emerged from this debate. They fall into three general categories: 1) a scientific definition, 2) an economic definition, and 3) a bureaucratic definition. This process produces an exploratory definition of the policy problem, which suggests a strategy for better understanding and policy design. We propose several intervention points at which substantive, one-the-ground improvements in the management of the GYE are possible.     

The rhetorics of policy analysis

This paper claims that policy analysis is inherently rhetorical, that it cannot be fully understood apart from the audiences to which it is directed and the styles in which it is communicated. Defining rhetoric as persuasive discourse within and between interpretive communities, I argue that policy analysts are embedded in a complex rhetorical situation created by the interaction of three primary audiences (scientists, politicians, and lay advocates), each of which has its own normal discourse and agreed-upon conventions of persuasion, and that failure to persuade any one of these audiences will cause analysts to appear incompetent, impractical or illegitimate. To support and illustrate this claim I reconstruct the theoretical literature about policy analysis in rhetorical terms, then review events that occurred at Love Canal, New York, in the late 1970s. I conclude by suggesting that policy analysts need to actively mediate the policy discourse between scientists, politicians, and advocates.     

The methodology of normative policy analysis

Policy analyses frequently clash. Their disagreements stem from many sources, including models, empirical estimates, and values such as who should have standing and how different criteria should be weighted. We provide a simple taxonomy of disagreement, identifying distinct categories within both the positive and values domains of normative policy analysis. Using disagreements in climate policy to illustrate, we demonstrate how illuminating the structure of disagreement helps to clarify the way forward. We conclude by suggesting a structure for policy analysis that can facilitate assessment, comparison, and debate by laying bare the most likely sources of disagreement. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The narrative structure of policy analysis

This paper holds that the prior development of clear external criteria or principles is not always a useful avenue to the resolution of policy dilemmas, and that external criteria are sometimes as likely to emerge from proposed resolutions to policy issues as they are to govern those resolutions. In the absence of external criteria, stories meeting certain characteristics (truth, richness, consistency, congruency, and unity) can integrate necessary considerations, explain the development of current dilemmas, and point the way to resolutions. Not all policy analyses need to be in the narrative form-some analyses appropriately make tenseless arguments for particular principles. However, these principles invariably allow for many possible actions, and only a narrative can explain which particular course of action is desirable and why.     

The changing role of social experiments in policy analysis

Since 1968 more than thirty-five social policy experiments have been conducted in the United States. During this period through 1976 these experiments were generally long-term, large-scale tests of major new programs; thereafter, experiments became markedly more modest in scope. Although hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on the earlier programs, the experiments probably had only a negligible impact on policies. This result stemmed from a variety of factors: Social testing actually tends to exert a conservative influence on policymaking; and the time required to complete experiments and interpret results is often incompatible with the needs of policy makers. In addition, test results are often not effectively communicated to Congress, the administration and the public, and even when the results are conveyed, policy makers are frequently skeptical about the soundness of the methodologies employed. If recent experimental programs are to exert more influence on policymaking, program oficials will need to address these dificulties.     

Stakeholder framing,communicative interaction,and policy legitimacy: anti-smoking policy in South Korea

Policy Sciences - Since the emergence of the argumentative turn in critical policy studies, increasing attention has been paid to the crucial role played by language, context, and communicative...     

Comparative policy analysis

Conclusion As editors, we would be remiss to submit that insufficient comparative policy analysis has been done without making explicit suggestions for further research. One critical problem is that the lack of comparable data remains a major hindrance to comparative work. This, in turn leads into the need for a larger inventory of careful cross-national case studies and primary data sources. Although significant advances have been made in data collection and analysis in recent years, these have occurred primarily in areas where quantification is relatively easy, such as economic and demographic statistics. Two related specific avenues for further research are suggested by reflections on the current limits of comparative analysis. First, more conceptual work based in solid methodology is needed if policy studies are to deal with complexities involved in comparative efforts. As part of this, theoretical constructs must be matched with carefully derived data and evidence, both quantitative and qualitative. As Lasswell has noted, the vitality of the comparative method will depend on whether the expansion of the stock of facts accepted as relevant is accompanied by methodological changes that render facts indispensable to the understanding and management of the policy process. Second, more work should be done to explain and expand upon cultural variables. As this task is addressed in more detail, we should be better able to appreciate the effects of cultural factors on the policy process.In conclusion, it seems especially appropriate to reassert the value of comparative analysis now, when the policy sciences appear to be at a critical juncture. From both domestic and international perspectives, the growing appreciation of crossnational policy research and policy impacts underlines the need for comparative analysis. It is clear that the interest in and importance of policy studies have grown in recent years, but the borders of the constituency remain vague. Efforts to delineate and refine the outlines of the field will almost surely increase. We think that this essay and the ones that follow argue strongly for the inclusion of the comparative dimension.We would like to express our appreciation to The Ford Foundation for its initial encouragement and later financial assistance towards producing this special issue, and particularly to the Foundation's Public Policy Committee and its Chairman, Harold Howe II. We would also like to thank The Rand Corporation for administering that grant. All the papers included here were written specially for this issue.

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The policy analysis role of the contemporary university

From society's standpoint, modern science and technology appears Janus-faced: It has given us wealth in one sense, and poverty in another; it has harnessed nature to man's basic needs in ways and to extents undreamed-of only a few decades ago, but it has fostered a continuingly lowered quality of life. In large measure, this outcome results from an economic and social philosophy in the Western world which rationalizes existing institutional structures as spontaneously arising in response to felt needs.But we live in an era of historical discontinuity, so to speak. We must now choose between alternative futures, most elements of which are already subject to man's influences. The policy sciences assume ever larger importance as the need for planned change increases. The unique institution able to provide guidance—the university—is, however, still cursed with rigid academic departmentalization. Problem-oriented approaches are only timorously being devised. This must change. Vigorous new inter- and trans-disciplinary modes must evolve, consonant with general systems concepts, cybernetic science and computer technology. Only then will universities fulfill their urgent mission and provide society with reasoned analyses of optimum policy judgments.     

Postmodern policy analysis: Discourse and identity in welfare policy

Postmodern inquiry into the discursive construction of identity has the potential to make a distinctive, democratizing contribution to public policy analysis. More so than conventional approaches, a postmodern policy analysis offers the opportunity to interrogate assumptions about identity embedded in the analysis and making of public policy, thereby enabling us to rethink and resist questionable distinctions that privilege some identities at the expense of others. Public policy analysis can benefit from postmodernism's emphasis on how discourse constructs identity. A review of postmodernism and postmodern approaches to interrogating identity is followed by an exercise in postmodern policy analysis. Social welfare policy in contemporary postindustrial America is shown to participate in the construction and maintenance of identity in ways that affect not just the allocation of public benefits, but also economic opportunities outside of the state. Mired in old, invidious distinctions (e.g., independent/dependent, contract/charity, family/promiscuity), welfare policy discourse today helps to recreate the problems of yesterday, particularly as a critical factor in reproducing women's poverty.     

Public transportation policy making in France as an implementation problem

Public transportation policy is analyzed as the output of a complex social system of interdependencies and power relationships linking the central state bodies to various economic and political organizations. The interest groups structure the system by controlling the implementation process. The system works because of cheating—violating the public regulations, but the interest groups need state regulation to protect their privileges.The study of governmental projects is a particularly stimulating form of political analysis. Because it emphasizes both the process and the contents of the activities of public authorities, which is to say the goods and services produced by the State, such a study deals with problems having specific impact on and distinct meaning for individuals. It also allows one to avoid overly abstract speculation on the nature of the State by placing the discussion on a more scientifically fruitful level, that of the effective interactions and exchanges among institutions and groups.Our objective will be to demonstrate the importance of the implementation sequence of public policy, particularly in terms of its effects on the understanding of the definition of alternative solutions. We will concentrate on the way in which an ensemble of systems effects, induced by governmental action conditions both the perception of the problem to which this action is supposedly responding, and the elaboration of decisions to solve the problem. The method employed will be that of suggesting a form of analysis which will discern those fields of force and interaction processes with which decision makers, in this case public authorities, are confronted. The method employed should thus be useful in understanding the process of decision making.     

Global climate change: defining the policy problem

The U.S. appears to be misdefining the policy problem posed by the threat of global climate change, and is therefore not likely to find satisfactory policy solutions.The dominant definitions of the policy problem - alleging certain scientific, economic, and political barriers to effective policy - circumscribe the search for policy solutions. But those solutions meet neither practical criteria of rationality nor the test of practical experience. We seem to be trapped within problem definitions that reflect and reinforce the convergence of powerful interests with elements of the culture.The problem may be a culture that fails to integrate science-based technologies for mastering nature with ethical or political constraints on their use. and therefore jeopardizes its own sustainability. If so, then reasoned action begins with political leadership that challenges selected elements of the dominant culture and directs attention to alternatives - thereby opening up the search for solutions.     

On economic values in policy analysis

Analyses of public policy are rooted in the economic theory of the private sector. How relevant is this approach to the public sector? Specifically, where the organization is generally viewed as a controlled variable it often exhibits the characteristics of an independent variable working to constrain the feasible solution space. An illustration of this phenomenon is discussed, using a state rehabilitation agency as the case in point. Conclusions of an analysis based mainly on maximizing the economic value of return on investment conflicted with the agency professional values of individualized client service. This external/internal value conflict led to the apparent inability of the agency to implement the study conclusions in the near term. The substance of this conflict is seen as the main problem facing many public administrators. Recognition of economic values as but one element of public agency analysis is suggested as an approach superior to sole concentration on maximization of the return on public investment. By taking a broader view, the analyst may be able to encourage more rapid implementation of his recommendations.     

The office of policy analysis in the department of the interior

The history of a particular policy office, located in the U.S. Department of the Interior, is reviewed from the standpoint of a long-time participant-observer. This office played an active part in the formation of federal policies with respect to the leasing of Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas, the leasing of federally owned coal, and the supply and distribution of federally controlled water in the west, but in many other areas the office was less involved. The article examines the factors that affected the level of office involvement and, more generally, the character of office interactions with the various parts of the Interior Department. The problems of sustaining long-term agency support for a policy office and other issues with respect to the practice of policy analysis in government are discussed.