Prolegomena to policy sciences

Establishment of policy sciences as a new supradiscipline involves a scientific revolution, requiring fargoing innovations in basic paradigms. Particularly essential are: (1) Integration between various disciplines, and especially of social sciences with analytical decision approaches; (2) bridging of the pure vs. applied dichotomy; (3) acceptance of tacit knowledge as a scientific resource; (4) changes in interface between science and values; (5) broad time perspectives; (6) focus on metapolicies; (7) commitment to policymaking improvement; and (8) concern with extrarational and irrational processes, such as creativity.Unique subjects of policy sciences, opened up by these paradigms, include, among others: (a) Policy analysis, which involves critical changes in systems analysis so as to permit application to complex policy issues; (b) policy strategies, involving determination of postures and main guidelines for specific policies, such as on degrees of incrementalism vs. innovation and on attitudes to risks; and (c) policymaking system redesign, including evaluation and improvement of the policymaking system, e.g., through changes in one-person-centered high-level decisionmaking, development of politicians, and institutionalization of social experimentation.Development of policy sciences requires many innovations in research, teaching, and professional activities. It constitutes a main effort to reconstruct the role of intellectualism and rationality in human affairs and, therefore, justifies intense efforts.Parts of this article are based on papers delivered at the 136th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Boston, 26–31 December 1969) and at the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (New York, 2–6 September 1969).     

The policy sciences as science

The preceding evaluation of the policy sciences by Schneider, Stevens, and Tornatzky is based on a rather narrow conception of science that emphasizes quantitative and rigorous methods. It overlooks the limitations of such methods, as revealed by the results of applications, and certain adjustments to these limitations. The latter include the adoption of more modest but realizable aspirations and the synthesis of diverse methods-qualitative as well as quantitative, exploratory as well as confirmatory. It also overlooks differences and trends in epistemological preconceptions that underlie the conduct of research and the interpretation of research results. This article reviews the relevant literature in the hope that it might eventually contribute to more enlightened evaluations of the emerging discipline.     

A milestone in the policy sciences

Conclusion What stands in the way of inquiry to help communities clarify and secure theircommon interests? The problem is not the theories and procedures available,as many scholars presume. The framework presented in Jurisprudence for aFree Society is quite adequate even if it is provisional. The problem is professionalism(Torgerson, 1985), or more precisely, the decline of professionalismas it was understood in the Law, Science, and Policy seminar over severaldecades. As McDougal recalls in the Preface:A profession, we insisted, is best regarded as a group with both a specialskill and a sense of responsibility for the consequences upon the communityof the exercise of that skill. The special skill of the lawyer is in the managementof authority and control in the making of decisions, and the genuineprofessional must seek to synthesize all relevant knowledge and pro-cedures toward decisions that serve common interests' (p. xxiii; emphasisadded).The decline of professionalism is all around us. It reflects and reinforces thesame specializing and fragmenting factors that call into question the sustainabilityof late modem or post-modern society. The question for this generationof policy scientists is whether the policy sciences, subject to the samepressures as other skill groups, can maintain the professional standards exemplifiedby Lasswell and McDougal and stay the course they have set in Jurisprudencefor a Free Society.     

A doctoral program in the policy sciences

The complex nature of policy problems requires innovative approaches to problem analysis and a new social science interdiscipline focused on policy processes. The Policy Science Program at SUNY Buffalo is designed to advance this field and to train hybrid Ph.D.'s as research-scientists/practitioners. These new policy science professionals will augment policymaking organizations as policy analysts, evaluation researchers, knowledge brokers, research feedback disseminators, process monitors, and consultants. Their training must include research methodology, analytic approaches, orienting conceptual schemes from systems theory, social sciences, and specific problem domains, and operating skills. The curriculum includes both academic and field-training aspects.Though the program is oriented toward the applied sciences, it is an attempt to mold a version of the new combination of revised social science paradigms and analytic approaches identified by Dror as the Policy Sciences.     

What future for the policy sciences?

The term “policy sciences” refers both to a distinctive tradition within the policy movement and to the broader policy movement itself. While the generic use of this term is sure to persist, the community of policy scientists trained in the tradition founded by Harold Lasswell and Myres S. McDougal faces challenges to its sustainability as a distinctive tradition of the policy movement. To motivate open discussion and debate, this essay follows the logic of a problem-oriented analysis, and also includes personal reflections and anecdote, with the following objectives: It suggests that the policy sciences tradition faces challenges to its sustainability because of the simple arithmetic of generational turnover in university faculty. It explores six factors internal and external to the policy sciences community militating against sustainability. The essay then critiques three different roles the policy scientist might play in contemporary academia, and concludes with a discussion of alternatives that might enhance the sustainability of the policy sciences tradition, should sustainability indeed be a desired outcome.     

Trends in policy sciences research: determinants and developments

Abstract. The policy sciences have been evolving as a discipline over the past thirty years, but the development has been less than clear, its directions somewhat uncertain. Still, the founding characteristics, as set forth by its early proponents, have remained relevant and relatively constant. The policy sciences have been defined by their multidisciplinary perspective, their problem-oriented, contextual approach, and their treatment of normative standards. This paper reviews the development of the policy sciences in light of these three hallmarks and observes how each has experienced great variations. Finally, the paper suggests six emerging conditions which could have a significant effect on the future development and practice of the policy sciences.     

Democracy and the policy sciences: A progress report

Editorial

Democracy and the policy sciences: A progress report