the place of policy analysis in political science

7/29/2019 The Place of Policy Analysis in Political Science

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The Workshop

The Place of Policy Analysis

in Political Science: Five Perspectives

EDITOR'S NOTE: In view of the increasing professional interest in policy

analysis, I asked the five authors whose essays follow to address the

question: "What is policy analysis, and how does the analysis of policy

contribute to theories of politics?" Their responses to this question

comprise a short symposium on the subject.

Beyond Markets and Lawyers: Davis B. Bobrow, University of Maryland

There seems Little point in constructing a quintessential definition of

policy analysis. Few benefit from establishing a new orthodoxy, guild, disci-

pline, or field within political science. Now that we are emerging from the

fallacy that "theory" and "behavior" make sense in separate compartments,

we have nothing to gain from a new straight jacket which puts "policy" in a

separate compartment from the rest of political science. This does not mean

that we have to put ourselves in the trivial position of treating policy analysis

as any political science work with the word "policy" in the title or any

activity by people who dub themselves "policy analysts."

Any distinctive contribution the analysis of policy can make to the study

of politics, either as a science or as an applied skill (engineering),1 is based on

its emphasis on several elements of professional social scientific postures and

styles of works. One can reasonably note these elements and their implica-

tions for technical advance in political science, and still recognize that

analyses of public policy problems will almost inherently fall short of some of

the canons of scientific endeavor.2

First, the principle criterion for the allocation of professional energy is to

increase the probability of desirable collective outcomes and lessen that of

undesirable ones. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is not the cardinal value,

1 For a clarification of what I mean by engineering, see my "The Relevance Potentialof Different Products," in Raymond Tanter and Richard H. Ullman (eds.) Theory and

Policy in International Relations, Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 204-228.2 Marries F. Reynolds, "Policy Science: A Conceptual and Methodological Analysis,"Policy Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 1975), pp. 1-18.

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, XXI, 2, May 1977 4 1 5


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416 The Workshop

nor are topics for research and analysis of any special merit because they are

fashionable within a social science discipline. The professional may conceive

of the collective outcomes involved rather narrowly, e.g., along the line of

efficiency in a cost-effective ness sense, or more broadly in such terms as

peace, social justice, and human welfare. In any event, there is a consciouslinkage between preferred collective consequences and the choice of projects.

Second, the professional does not believe that the world can usefully be

thought of as simple, neatly compartmentalized, or static. Instead, there are

strong convictions about the need to handle complex systems of relation-

ships, to deal with externalities as an inherent part of any analysiSj and to

consider problems of changing contexts and adaptation over time. The

relationship between analysis and policy problems resembles preventive medi-

cine in that it is a continuing activity, and resembles architecture in that itinvolves a strong sense of context. In contrast to many lawyers, there is little

acceptance of the notion that policy problems come in neat case "boxes" to

be handled conclusively through the exercise of professional judgment and

decision by some legitimate authority largely in accord with publicly known

rules. And in contrast with many economists and operations researchers, the

professional rejects mechanical extrapolation from simplifying models whose

conditions are obviously not met in reality. In the early consideration of a

problem, stimulation from simple formal conceptions surely is acceptable (asis stimulation from humanistic fiction as well), but prescriptions based on

rigid application of these formalisms are seen to be at best useless and at

worst irresponsible. For example, the professional has little tolerance for

prescriptions which assume that the never-found conditions for market per-

fection will be met in practice, or with prescriptions deduced from game

theoretic analyses which assume that political participants have information

about their utilities which surpasses that possessed by anyone of our ac-

quaintance. The professional will be particularly skeptical of diagnoses and

designs which treat the participants in public policy as if they were all playing

the same game or evaluating consequences only in terms of a common utility

schedule. Analytic distinctions unrelated to concrete distinctions should not

play a crucial role in the results of public policy research and analysis.3

Third, the professional pursues with great vigor techniques useful for

prediction, causal comprehension, and manipulability estimates. Predictions

are the basis for the perception of collective needs, but they can do little

more than trigger a search procedure in the absence of a rich understanding of

3On the analytic versus concrete distinction, see Marion J. Levy, Jr. The Structure of

Society, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.


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The Place of Policy Analysis 417

the processes which produce particular collective outcomes. And prescrip-

tions call for the technical capacity to estimate how different interventions

will alter predictions as they work through the causal process. If one views

these technical capabilities as impossible in principle, then research and

analysis on policy problems is at best a form of citizenship and at worst aform of play for intellectuals. However, the professional is a relativist in these

matters. While constantly seeking better tools, collective problems can use-

fully be subjected to research and analysis even in a state of great technical

weakness. The tests for proceeding involve, first, the possibility of better

predictions, causal explanations, and manipulability estimates, and second,

the feasibility of presenting clear statements of uncertainties and confidence

limits. Policy problems do not wait for technical perfectionbut they do

demand technical candor.Fourth, the professional's concern with context manifests itself in the

treatment of time and the identification of primary and secondary partici-

pants in the policy problem. He deals with time in quite specific terms

because of the relationship of any policy problem to certain "political

calendars"be they fixed election dates, programmed international treaty

negotiations, a budget cycle, or the life expectancy of an aging head of state.

Timing is important in politics, and the temporal aspects of causal processes

and intervention impacts need to be treated in a coherent and explicitmanner. The analytic techniques used must accommodate to the time

features given by context, or the analysis must include some rationale for

relaxing these constraints. There is little reason to assume that the time

features are relatively uniform across issue areas or even across past, present,

and future within an issue area. Similar needs to adapt to the situation of the

particular problem apply to identifying the pertinent parties, and at an early

stage in policy research and analysis the professional must find out who they

are as given by the social situation or at least as possible within the time

horizon of the analysis. With changes in political and social organization, the

set of parties changes, and the professional does not have the luxury of

deciding which parties to deal with on the basis of the technical tractability

of their observable behavior, e.g., they engage in public record voting.

Participant rosters and time frameworks focus analysis initially, and the

choice of technique depends on these attributes of policy context.

Fifth, the professional assumes that a pervasive and crucial part of the

research and analysis task is to clarify distributional consequenceswho wins

and who loses. Any particular policy alternative, including organizational

alternatives, is linked with differing probabilities to distributions of money,

or power, or deference, or stress. The emphasis on distributional conse-


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quences clearly adds richness to collective outcomes and aids explanatory

work on the processes and sensitivity to treatments of the political activity

from which they flow.

Sixthj the professional assumes that most policy problems involve conflicts

about what are high stakes at least for some of the participants. Accordingly,

he or she performs research and analysis fully expecting: (a) tough scrutiny to

discredit the conclusions reached; (b) adaptive actions by those adversely

affected to foil the policy options which emerge by blocking their choice or

their impact; and (c) attempts to exploit the analysis beyond its intellectual

merits as a tactical instrument in political conflict. By anticipating such a

harsh fate, the professional develops and presents research and analysis in

ways which protect the continuing validity of the conclusions and hinder

unwarranted use of them.

The professional posture and workstyle can be summarized in one phrase:

explicating hard choices. Political life abounds with devices and tacit agree-

ments to slide over hard choices between valued outcomes, between resources

for one program and another, between ideals about how the policy process

ought to be conducted and about the results it ought to produce. Even when

such choices are made, their implications are usually masked. And even when

their expected implications are displayed, their actual consequences as im-

plemented may well be obscure. To a disconcertingly similar extent, life inresearch and analysis communities abounds with a plentitude of masks which

obscure hard choices between different technical principles, the implications

of those chosen, and the extent to which their conclusions and approaches

look disappointing in retrospect. For both cultures, there is a premium on the

reduction of anxiety and the downplaying of limits to information and

wisdom. And there is a curious tendency in both policy and analysis cultures

to give little explicit attention to the intense internal politics of each. These

habits and tendencies are common to all of us. Hopefully the professionalorientations discussed above can in limited ways help to lessen their costs for

public policy and the study of politics.

Thought of in these terms, it is not surprising to see that much in the

orientation stressed above is not new. In times of collective dissatisfaction it

is perhaps normal for American political scientists to turn more towards

policy. The "newness" of the orientation above is not a very interesting issue.

What is important to note is the positive role it can play with regard to the

development of political science theory and methodology and the importantrole it gives to the student of politics in the analysis of policy.

With respect to theory and methodology, it helps us formulate what we

want "theories of. . ." by focusing on collective outcomes and their attain-


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merit. We have then ground for a theory-building agenda other than that of a

problem's tractability to an available deductive apparatus. The orientation

encourages focused theoretical attack on particular limiting assumptions in

contrast with precise refinements within the boundaries of existing assump-

tions. Further, the concern with process and dynamics over time encouragestheoretical efforts which go beyond comparative statics and black-box treat-

ments of political phenomena which eliminate from their purview purposeful

human action. With regard to methodology, the orientation demands tech-

niques which improve our ability to recognize uncertainty, to work with

scant data from biased sources, and to clarify the variance of possible

outcomes. This demand may provide a useful balance to frequently heard

calls for methods which relegate uncertainty to a back burner, exploit rich

data from objective sources, and produce point estimates of central tenden-cies.

Under this orientation, the study of politics may not take command of

policy analysis. But it surely plays a much larger role than the recently

familiar ones of designing implementation procedures and staffs or providing

canned data bases and data manipulation software to public agencies. By

placing policies in the context of ongoing and changing political calendars,

rosters of participants, distributions of valued monetary and nonmonetary

goods, and political conflicts about fundamental values and mundane per-quisites, we call for students of politics to shape policy analysis strategies and

applications.

From these perspectives, policy analysis and political science badly need

each other.

The Interventionist Synthesis: Heinz Eulau, Stanford University

The new public policy is the old public administration in a refurbishedwardrobe. "It may be," a friendly critic of the field points out(Schick, 1975,

p. 167), "that the principal differences between public administration and

public policy relate to style and freshness.... The policy approach shares

public administration's positive thinking about government.... It retains the

old promise that research and science can produce governmental rationality.

It comes with none of the encumbrances of public administration." Does it

really?

As in the old public administration, it seems to me, there is in the new

public policy the same simplistic quest for the technological fix, the same

whimsical choice of topical issues, the same self-deception about possible

influence on governmental decision making, the same emphasis on an in-


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nocuous reformist theory, the same untrustworthy trust in the "case" as a

source of insight and, above all, the same anti-intellectual attitude toward

basic or theoretical research. At the hard end of things, one writer is merely

more candid than others when he writes that "policy research which is not

oriented toward human purposes is inadequate. The internal standards of adiscipline are inadequate guidelines for making research choices and en-

courage perpetuation of fraudulent academic claims on scarce re-

sources. . .. Policy research which has no policy implications is simply a drain

on public resources which the academic community can ill afford" (Johnson,

1975, pp. 177-8). What is worthwhile to investigate is not a function of

theoretical considerations that make for the long-term building of a re-

spectable and respected political science; it is dictated by ideological and

financial considerations congenial to the political interests.At the soft end, there is a good deal of plain fakery about the new public

policy: almost anything goes by prefixing the noun "policy" (as if it were a

concrete property of the thing identified). If once one spoke of "political

decision," one now speaks of "policy decision;" if once one analyzed "issue

voting," one now analyzes "policy voting;" if once one thought of "social

problems," one now thinks of "policy problems;" if once one studied

"budget outlays," one now studies, "policy outputs;" and so on ad nauseam,

After a decade of writing about "public policy" nobody seems to know whatthe new dispensation is all about. This symposium is symptomatic.

Alas, the easy substitution of "policy" for "political" is a clue. What is

attempted as a differentiation in reality is only a differentiation in language.

There is no such differentiation in French where politique (politics) is

politique (policy), or in German where Politik (politics) is Politik (policy).

The use of a single term in these languages suggests that there is no politics

apart from policy and no policy apart from politics. The differentiation that

can be made is analytic and does not refer to something concrete. It does notfollow, however, as some would argue, that there is a different kind of

political process with every kind of policy. This fragmentalist view is un-

tenable because it ignores the various levels of abstraction on which scientific

investigations may be conducted. There are generic processes of politics or

policy-making that are discoverable quite independently of particular sub-

stantive issues.

If there is a difference between the new public policy and the old public

administration, it is that the former is more hysterical than the latter.Doomsday is written over much that goes as the new policy analysis. But the

prophetic impulse is no substitute for intellectual clarity. While the old public


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administration was an intellectual wasteland suffering from undue constric-

tion of scope, theory, and method, the new public policy is an intellectual

jungle swallowing up with unbounded voracity almost anything, but which it

cannot give disciplinedby which I mean theoretically enlightenedatten-

tion.It was partly against the specious scientism and naive reformism of the old

public administration (and political science generally) that the pragmatic,

interventionist political science of the behavioral persuasionwhat Harold D.

Lasswell calls "policy science"had been directed. "The basic emphasis of

the policy approach," Lasswell (1951, p. 8) wrote in an early formulation "is

upon the fundamental problems of man in society, rather than on the topical

issues of the moment." His was a long-range program of intervention in the

political process. With a few exceptions (Easton, 1950; Eulau, 1958; Horwitz,1962; Barton, 1969; Merelman, 1976), this aspect of behavioral political

science has eluded critical attention.1

Although scientific interventionism was

implicit in the political science of Charles E. Merriam (see Karl, 1974), it was

explicitly articulated by Lasswell as early as 1930: "The problem of politics is

less to solve conflicts than to prevent them; less to serve as a safety valve for

social protest than to apply social energy to the abolition of recurrent sources

of strain in society." This redefinition of politics, Lasswell continued, "may

be called the idea of preventive politics." Once so defined, the role of the

political scientist is eminently clear: "Our problem is to be ruled by the truth

about the conditions of harmonious human relations, and the discovery of

the truth is an object of specialized research; it is no monopoly of people as

people, or of the ruler as ruler." Just as the medical practitioner intervenes in

the interest of the individual person, so the political scientistthe term

"policy scientist" is of later vintageintervenes in the interest of the human

collectivity. This intervention leads the political scientist into the "field,"

into contact with the people not just to find out what they want but what

they need, for "people are poor judges of their own interest" (Lasswell, 1930,p. 197).

Space limitations do not permit me to present the interventionist argu-

ment in detail. Suffice it to say that by 1950 Lasswell had pretty much

developed the general view of what he sometimes calls "policy science,"

sometimes "policy approach." The choice of the term "policy science" has

1For other aspects of Lasswell's multifaceted view of the enterprise, see Lipsky,

1955; Eulau, 1968; Greenstein, 1968; Rogow, 1969. Lasswell's own writings arenumerous. For those most germane to the argument concerning intervention, seeespecially Lasswell, 1963; Rubenstein and Lasswell, 1966.


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always struck me as unfortunate because it conceals the breadth and depth of

the intellectual synthesis proposed by Lasswell. Given its indebtedness to the

experimental pragmatism of James, Dewey, and Mead, one might better call it

"policy pragmatics." Scientific intervention proper-the discovery of condi-

tions, causes, and consequences-is only one among several intellectual taskswhich also include the clarification of goals, the identification of trends, the

creation of constructs of the future, and the making of decisions concerning

alternatives that promise optimal achievement of societal preferences. The

battery of these five tasks is remarkable because, the term "policy science"

notwithstanding, no scientific claims are made exceptfor the one task clearly

designated as scientific.

The Lasswellian synthesis removes the ambiguity attached to scientific

investigation in the political or policy context. In that context, scientificinquiry is a form of intervention but not of advocacy. The distinction

between intervention and advocacy is critical. The function of advocacy is

performed by two other intellectual tasks in the synthesisgoal-setting and

decision making. Similarly, the problem of historicity is handled by trend-

thinking and the provision of developmental constructs. As an intervener in

the political or policy process, the political or behavioral scientist is expected

to bring maximal objectivity to bear on his investigations. To achieve this

objectivity his primary commitment is to the canons of science. Althoughscientific investigation is not unrelated to the four other intellectual tasks of

the synthesis, it can proceed relatively unencumbered by considerations

derived from the philosophy of science. Lasswell would probably agree with a

remark by Clifford Geertz (1973, p. 5), the anthropologist, that "if you want

to understand what a science is, you should look in the first instance not at

its theories or its findings, and certainly not at what its apologists say about

it; you should look at what the practitioners of it do." Yet, the synthetic

perspective locates the scientific component in the total context of the

interventionist program and does not treat it as if it had to carry all alone the

whole burden of political or policy analysis. By recognizing that scientific

investigation follows rules and warranties of its own, the synthetic view of

policy pragmatics frees the behavioral scientist from concern with problems

not amenable to scientific investigation but simultaneously sensitizes him to

the relevant context and nonscientific strategies.

The requirements of an interventionist program of policy analysis are thus

manifold. In what I call the "consultative commonwealth "-a developmentalconstruct-skill specialists in the five intellectual tasks of policy pragmatics

are guided by "professional norms and modes of conduct [that] are acknowl-

edged components of individual and collective choice making, at the level of


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both policy and administration" (Eulau, 1973, p. 189). The political scien-

tist's contributions to the entire interventionist program is, therefore, limited.

His particular responsibility is to make available a body of valid and reliable

knowledge from which biases and other sources of error have been removed

as much as possible. This view of policy science or, as I prefer to think of it,policy pragmatics, is very different from some current conceptions of the

political scientist's role in policy analysis.

The Proper Domain of Policy Analysis: Martin Landau,

University of California, Berkeley*

I suppose that the question before usWhat is Policy Analysis?has been

stimulated by the fact that policy analysis is an exceedingly popular enter-prise these days. It is "relevant," is nurtured by government and foundation

alike, and possesses a high technology which makes it all the more appeal-

ingif not glamorous. The rather voluminous literature which has appeared in

recent years is an indication of the popularity of this mode of address. It

certainly is the "in thing" and is deserving of some comment.

I

Any reading of the literature on "policy" makes it abundantly dear that it

is not a well-defined concept. Nor is there evident that kind of extensional

definition which points to discrete behaviors easily recognized by those who

work the area. The concept, as Max Born might say, is not decidable: were we

to invite those colleagues heavily invested in policy analysis to define the

term, the distribution of responses would be such as to indicate that there is

no standard rule of usage which would help us identify an instance of policy.

The lack of such a rule allows for a wide range of use within which policyanalysis is seen as a subset of the concept political, as co-extensive with this

concept, as extending to other dimensions (inter-disciplinary), or as a means

of mounting an integrated attack on social problems. Alternatively, there are

those who treat policy as a matter of valueas a statement of fundamental

principle; those who restrict the term to strategy, design, or program; and

those for whom the term comprehends values, goals, and means. Debates on

policy per se frequently seem to be matters of issue, but more often than not

they are semantic differences. If this is a correct reading of the literature,

*I wish to thank the Center For Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences forsupplying me with so splendid an opportunity to work.


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then policy itself denotes a "fuzzy set," and its analysis is more scientific in

its trappings than in its substance.

There are those who proclaim policy analysis to be a new specialization, a

new field: in political science, a new subfield. This stands as a curiosity. The

goal of policy analysis is the solution of practical problems. Because of this

objective, it cannot recognize the limits of any field established for purposes

of analysis. By its nature, it must follow its problems wherever they go. It

cannot ignore anything that may be relevant to a solution. To the policy

analyst, then, the entire attention span and the whole of the operational

domain of political science would only be the beginning. For public policy,

vast and complicated as it has become, reaches into every substantive area of

life. And to be faithful to his objective, the policy analyst would soon have to

engulf all of social science and a hell of a lot of hard technology to boot. With

so extensive a domain of inquiry, the enterprise is bound to be disordered.

In the post-World War II period the then new public administration took

as its domain of inquiry the entire range of governmental policy. This was

rationalized as a corrective to an "iniquitous" policy-ad ministration dichoto-

my which was seen as the foundation of a then developing theoretical scienceof administrative behavior. The latter was deemed to be abstract, distant from

the real troubles of mankind, andin some cases-simply whoring after the

natural sciences. The slogan of this campaign, not at all unfamiliar to us

today, was "the purer the science, the less it is relevant." Debate, as might be

expected, was acrimonious, and centered on the complementary concepts of

discipline and field. Alas, what would now have to be called the old public

policy simply could not sustain itself as a distinctive field. Unable to maintain

any appreciable degree of disciplined and systematic effort, it soon fell preyto that type of introspective analysis which signals an identity crisis. Articles,

many written by the faithful and appearing with increasing frequency, la-

mented the lack of a controlled focus, the absence of theoretical power, a

research that was random and scattered, and a scope of inquiry so broad as to

defy classificationin short, the intellectual disorder of the enterprise.

Today's public policy cannot be any more successful. No field of inquiry,

no specialization, can be built upon an unrestricted and indefinite domain.

And in the case of public policy analysis, the odds are even less: for policyanalysts cannot be autonomous in the selection of problems to study; many

of the problems they are called upon to deal with are, as Aivin Weinberg puts

it, "trans-scientific;" and they are necessarily and legitimately subject to


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political and social constraints that would be deemed outrageous interven-

tions in any academic discipline or theoretical science.

If we are to make sense of policy analysis, it would be well to conceive of

it as applied social science. And it would be even better to remember that it is

the findings of a theoretical science that ace to be applied.

As regards policy itself, the general ambiguity of this concept does not

obscure one cardinal propecty that all of its variable uses have in commona

policy proposal is attended by risk or uncertainty. That is, all policies belong

to the class of unverified propositions. Policies are hypotheses.

A policy proposes an intervention to alter some existing circumstance ormode of conduct. If well formulated, it will contain a description of the

desired state condition and the set of means which promise to realize that

condition (i.e., to attain its goals). It should be clear, thus, that policy

proposals engage the future tense: they fall into that tense. The object of any

policy proposal is to control and direct future courses of actionwhich is the

only action that is subject to control. Accordingly, they are assertions of fact

of the if-then form, and the one thing we know about them is that their

truth value has not been determined. All policies, therefore, carry with themsome probability of error and cannot be accepted as correct a priori. I should

note that whether a policy proposal is engineered, or the outcome of a

bargain, or the result of conflict, or the product of historical forces, or

whateverits epistemological status is not altered. It remains hypothetical.

I may extend this by suggesting that when a policy proposal is carefully

and fully formulated, it can be taken as a theory. Just as a scientific theory

serves to reduce the surprise value of its empirical domain, so a policy serves

to order its task domain. If it is successful (i.e., correct), it will produce no

surpriseeverything will proceed as plannedwhich, of course, would be a

singular rarity. In science itself, all theories and hypotheses ace regarded as

risky actors; all are deemed to be ecror prone. And that apparatus which we

refec to as scientific methodology has only one function-to pcevent and

eliminate error. This, in my view, is the primary task of policy analysis.

Elsewhere,1

I have dealt with this problem at some lengthand there is no

real point in cehearsing my discussion of the ways in which policies and

programs may be held accountable. It should suffice to say now that the

1 "On the Concept af a Self-Correcting Organization," Public Administration Review33 (1973): 533-552.


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notion of accountability which derives from this conception of policy is

empiricalnot ideological or representational. Our tendency is to treat pol-

icies as matters of value, not as empirical claims. This is especially to be noted

where a policy is rather complex. In fact, the more complex a policy, the

more difficult it is to assess its truth value. In such a circumstance, we tend tomake our judgments on the basis of ideological factorsit is easier to do this

than to suspend judgment, especially when there is a demand for a decision.

But a reliance on ideological factors enables rationalization to displace valida-

tiona form of displacement fully as ubiquitous as goal displacement. Fixed a

priori commitment to a particular policy involves a commitment as to its

correctness, and effectivenessin advance of knowledge. The enemy here, as

in science, is dogma. It is subjective certainty masking objective uncertainty.

It is the failure to understand that every policy contains an objective contentwhich is only one choice out of many. It is that kind of stance, so common

and so understandable, that "imputes to a policy the merit of its motives."

We need, however, to consider the error potential of any policy. In the

first instance, it requires a description of the condition to be acted upon. Any

such description must contain assumptions as to causation and, therefore,

presupposes an explanation. All of which is clearly problematical. Then there

is the proposed solution which of necessity incorporates a presumptively valid

explanation as well as the statement of the goal. Here, I might note, feasibil-ity studies which are limited to the goal are obviously incomplete, since its

attainment may not erase the undesired condition. It may turn out to be

causally irrelevant; it may yield untoward second order effects. And third,

there is the problem of instrumentation, of selecting the appropriate method-

ology. The selection of a course of action is a function of knowledgea

knowledge of causation, and is rather similar to the selection of a therapy.

The diagnosis may be correct, the cure may be recognizable, but the therapy

may be wrong, risky, or a "missing goal." And even if correct, there is thematter of administration, what we now call implementationfor the manner

in which it is executed can vitiate a program when everything else has been

anticipated correctly.

This is the ground for my conception of policy analysis. Policy analysis is

the search for error all along the way. It is not a field in the usual academic

senseunless we wish to say that the study of error is a specialty. I do not. I

would much rather say that its task, as regards any policy, is to probe in the

interest of error prevention and to learn in the interest of error correction.This is what Kenneth Boulding calls the "institutionalization of disappoint-

ment"a system of criticism which permits policies to be tested in such


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manner as to enable a self-correct ing capacity. Those aspects of policy

analysis which partake of this spirit should be preserved and extended: the

rest should be cast aside.

Is Policy Analysis a Case Study? Charles 0. Jones, University of Pittsburgh

I very much like this puzzling question for the clarification it demands and

the issues it raises. Surely no one can see such a question and not react by

asking "What on earth does it mean?" And that leads us to a dialogue on two

important, yet misunderstood, concepts. But certain issues are joined, too. In

particular, the question invites us to consider the connections, if any, be-

tween what we do as scientists and what we do as analysts. These briefremarks are directed primarily toward clarification of concepts so that we

might better understand our roles.

Let's begin with the case study. Surely we can get quick agreement on

what it constitutes. In general, the case study has been described as limited in

time, scope, methods, decision making focus, and comparative base. From

this description, it would appear that The American Voteris a case study and

American Business and Public Policy is not. Yet, of course, the latter is called

a case study, and the former has seldom, to my knowledge, been so labeled.So let's go to another interpretation of case study-that it concentrates on

some aspect on public policy, as distinct from some aspect of political

behavior. By this criterion American Business and Public Policy is a case

study because it deals with trade policy. The American Voteris not because it

deals with voting behavior in some presidential elections.

But wait a minute. Is not political behavior important for public policy?

Do not some political scientists seek to generalize about the policy implica-

tions of voter participation and decision? Conversely, are students of policyissues not interested as well in the political roots of decision making?

Perhaps it is a matter of research method. Often it seems that the case

study is characterized by "inferior" research methods. It is not truly "scien-

tific." It is not primarily quantitatively-based. Yet, there is no reason to

believe that rigorous scientific methods in problem definition, data collection,

and data analysis cannot be employed for accomplishing any of the goals

stated above.

Another type of judgment which may distinguish the case study from

other types of scholarship would be this: the case study focuses on a single

issue, whereas other studies cut across issues. The advantage of the latter is, of


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course, that of increased generalizability. Yet single issue analysis may in fact

involve in-depth probing of multiple decision points from the definition of a

problem to feedback on policy and evaluation of effects. Multiple issue

analysis, on the other hand, may only focus on one decision pointe.g., voter

understanding at election time. Obviously, the matter of generalizability

depends on what one is trying to do. Clearly it is just as unacceptable to

generalize vertically from a horizontal base of analysis as it is to generalize

horizontally from a vertical base of analysis.

Leaving unresolved for the moment the matter of just what a case study is,

let us turn now to policy analysis. Elsewhere I have identified a number of

interpretations of the term "policy analysis" (Jones, I975a,b). There is no

need to repeat those here. Suffice it to say that the perspectives will differ

depending very much on who is asking what to be done. This is the essence of

the distinction between discipline research and policy research identified by

James Coleman (1972). It is one thing for the scholar to identify an im-

portant policy topic and demand of himself/herself that research be done. It

is quite another matter for the decision maker to identify an important policy

topic to be researched, and ask a scholar to participate in that research. A

further distinction can be made where the decision maker requests research

and analysis from an employee of the organization. Clearly, we have with

these three situations possibly and potentially important differences in moti-

vation, focus, approach, methods, time-table, scope, and results. And thesedifferences may appear even if the central issue is the same in all three

instances.

Further, a distinction may also have to be made among the contributions

of these various types of study and research. It is quite conceivable that the

self-starting researcher may produce a contribution to policy analysis and the

sponsored or directed researcher may not. The maxim, "Gold is where you

find it" is as applicable to the political decision maker as it is to anyone else.

Vet another complication in specified policy analysis is the matter of whatdistinguishes it from other kinds of analysis. Must it only treat substantive

questions? Are policy process questions also significant for policy analysis? Is

policy analysis limited to single-issue questions? Or might it not encompass a

number of issues and decisions? Is policy analysis limited to particular

methods? Time periods? Decision points?

These begin to sound very much like the questions asked of the case study.

And so let's begin again. "Is Policy Analysis a Case Study?" It is now possible

to answer that question with a very definite "maybe." It clearly depends onwhat one means by each of the terms. Well, that does not take us very far.

But the advantage of the exercise is not in finding an answer; rather it's in the


15/19


looking. For in the search for meaning, we discover that both terms confuse

as much as they clarify. They have developed in common usage to describe

quite uncommon sets of activity. What the question leads us to conclude is

that much more interesting and useful classifications must be developed. For

examplej research and analysis could be distinguished by some of the follow-

ing criteria (American Political Science Association, 1973; Jones, 1975a,b):

A. Data Base

1. Aggregate statistics within limited time period

2. Aggregate statistics over time

3. Interviewelites

4. Interviewsystematic sample survey

5. Interviewunsystematic sample

6. Documents

7. Secondary materials

8. Otherobservation, mail questionnaire; indexes

B. Data Analysis

1. Primarily quantitative

2. Primarily nonquantitative

3. Comparative between time periods

4. Comparative between units

a. cities, counties, metropolitan areas

b. states and/or regions

c. interest groups

d. populations

e. political parties

f. countries

g. miscellaneous governmental units

5. Comparative between issues6. Not primarily comparative

C. Explanatory Goal

1. Process

2. Outputs

3. Budgets

4. Characteristics of units

5. Intergovernmental relations

6. Perceptions of decision makers7. Attitudes important for policy

D. Policy Subject

1. Single-issue


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430 The Workshop

2. Cross-sectional

3. No special issue emphasis

E. Intended Contribution

1. General knowledge (process or substance)

2. Decision making (process or substance)

F. Effects of Research

1. Disciplinary

2. Public policy (process or substance)

Once we have begun to distinguish among research efforts by these

criteria, we will be in a much better position to analyze contributions to the

discipline and to political decision making. If in some small way these

remarks contribute to that purpose, they will have accomplished their aim.

The Medical Metaphor: Robert Axelrod, The University of Michigan

Policy science is aimed at improving human welfare, just as medical science

is aimed at improving human health. The concept of "welfare" need not be

precisely defined in order for policy researchers to advance the conduct of

public policy, just as "health" need not be precisely defined in order of

medical researchers to advance the conduct of medical practice.

This utilitarian conception of policy science has a number of implications

for the conduct of policy analysis.

1. Policy research is inherently interdisciplinary. It must take advantage of

such fields as economics, psychology, and sociology as well as political

science. This is just as medical science needs to take advantage of knowledge

gained in chemistry and physics as well as biology. But beyond the use of

traditional disciplines, there is now an emerging sense of a common set of

paradigms, questions, and tools beginning to develop for policy science, and

this will probably continue. Conceivably there will even be a shared corecurriculum for policy analysts just as there is now a shared core curriculum

for medical researchers who get the M.D. degree.

2. Policy science includes fundamental as well as applied research. In

medical science, some of the most important work currently being done

involves DNA and the molecular basis of reproduction. It is not clear whether

the applications of this basic research will be in the curing of cancer the

improvement of genetic counseling, the identification of dangerous sub-

stances, or the prevention of inherited diseases. Likewise, fundamental re-search in the social sciences is an important part of policy science. Thus

research into topics such as attitude change can have greater value, even if it is

not clear in advance whether the applications of a specific project will be to


17/19


aid a voter to understand the appeals being directed at the public, or to aid a

President in making a more sophisticated foreign policy decision in time of

crisis. The unremitting insistence on research with a clear and immediate

application is a serious mistake, and the generally undistinguished work for

NSF's Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) is just an example ofthis.

1

3. While policy research need not be applied to be promising, there are

two principles that can be kept in mind concerning the potential value from a

policy point of view of a given theory. One principle is that ceteris paribus a

causal theory is more useful than a correlational description. Thus, as a guide

to action, it is more useful to know that smoking causes cancer than it is to

know only that smokers tend to get more cancer than nonsmokers. The

second principle is that the usefulness of a theory will be increased if itsindependent variables are subject to control, and if its dependent variables are

of social significance. Thus it is more useful to know whether or not violence

on television increases violence on the streets than it is to know whether or

not comets cause sheep to blink. A caution is in order here, since what may

appear to the untrained eye as a mere curiosity can in fact hold the key to the

discovery or verification of an important and fundamental theory. Fossils can

help inspire a theory of evolution, and the low suicide rates of Jews in 19th

century France can provide strong support for a theory of social alienation.

2

4. Policy science can be aimed at improving human welfare and still be

scientific. This is where the analogy with medicine is most revealing. A

researcher can devote his or her life to the amelioration of suffering, and

precisely because of this devotion maintain the highest standards of objec-

tivity in the evaluation of a given experimental drug. Obviously a policy

scientist may have a favorite theory, or a favorite policy, or even a favorite

candidate. But that need not prevent him or her from expanding the range of

our scientifically based knowledge.

3

5. We should be aware of the tendency to conceptualize a field too

narrowly in practice, even if we define it broadly in principle. For example,

most medical doctors tend to think of themselves as treating disease. This

1 See the report of the Simon Committee, "Social and Behavioral Programs in theNational Science Foundation," (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences,1976), pp. 70-79.

2 See Arthur Stinchcambe's discussion of Durkheim in Constructing Social Theories

(N.V.: Harcourt, Brace, 1968), pp. 24-28.3 It is well to heat in mind, however, that personal preferences, intellectual fashions,and economic incentives will affect whether a given topic is studied or ignored. Thesefactors will also affect how much proof is required to attain acceptance of a givenexplanation.


18/19

432 The Workshop

often has the effect of their waiting for the patient to come to them with a

problem, and has the consequent effect of an under emphasis on the potential

of preventive medicine and public health measures. Likewise, too many

policy scientists tend to think in terms of what economists call "consumer

sovereignty," This has the effect of their taking the preferences of individuals

as given, and has the consequent effect of an underemphasis on the potential

of leadership, persuasion, and education.

Of course there are also important differences between policy science and

medical science. The state of the art of policy science is certainly not as

advanced as the state of the art of medical science. But the recent advances in

such policy related fields as econometrics, voting behavior, and experimental

social psychology suggest that progress in the social sciences will proceed at

an accelerating pace. A more profound difference arises from the fact that inmedicine a disagreement about goals is the exception rather than the rule. In

public policy, however, disagreement about goals is intrinsic. Therefore, the

analysis of policy must include not only a scientific study of the conse-

quences of alternative choices, but also a humanistic study of what should be

sought and why.

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1968. The maddening methods of Harold D. Lasswell: Somephilosophical underpinnings. Journal of Politics, 30 (February 1968):

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