Speaking Truth to Power: Art and Craft of Policy Analysis

by Laird,Robbin

• ISBN13: 9780887386978
• ISBN10: 0887386970
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1987-01-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

One of the foremost experts in public policy here attempts not only to describe what public policy is, but given societal changes in the last two decades, to account for its present status. To learn from the past in order to establish public policy as a discipline in its own right, Wildavsky traces its motifs from their beginnings in the 1960s to the 1980s. Starting from the premise that there has been growing polarization of political elites, he shows how public policy as a field has had to face increased politicization. For Wildavsky, the field of public policy needs to incorporate more awareness of the human aspects of policy making: he emphasizes the political choices to be made in a competitive environment and the social relations that sustain them. When the first specialist schools devoted solely to public policy came into existence in the 1960s, the programs of the Great Society were their main impetus. With the disillusionment and failure of the Great Society, the identity of public policy became transformed. New theoretical issues had to be addressed. In this volume, Wildavsky provides a foundation for the theory no less than the practice of policy-making. Aaron Wildavsky is professor of political science, University of California, Berkeley. He founded the School of Public Policy there, and is presently its Director. He was formerly Director of the Russell Sage Foundation. He was the President if the American Political Science Association for the years 1986-1987.

Table of Contents

Preface To The Transaction Edition	xv
Introduction To The Transaction Edition: The Once and Future School of Public Policy	xxiii
Introduction
Analysis as Art	1	(2)
Problems of Implementation	3	(9)
Morality in Policy Analysis	12	(3)
The Art of Policy Analysis	15	(4)
Notes	19	(2)
PART 1 Resources versus Objectives	21	(88)
Policy Analysis Is What Information Systems Are Not	26	(15)
Modern Management Information Systems	27	(8)
Theory	35	(1)
Organization	36	(2)
History	38	(1)
Notes	39	(2)
Strategic Retreat on Objectives: Learning from Failure in American Public Policy	41	(21)
Retreat on Objectives	43	(5)
The Search for Attainable Objectives	48	(5)
Retreat or Rout?	53	(3)
Redefining the Problem	56	(4)
Notes	60	(2)
Policy as Its Own Cause	62	(24)
The Law of Large Solutions in Public Policy	63	(4)
Internalizing External Effects	67	(4)
The Corporate State?	71	(2)
Government as a Federation of Sectors	73	(4)
The World Outside	77	(2)
Change for Its Own Sake	79	(1)
Sectors of Policy as Prohibiters and Proponents of Change	80	(2)
Problems and Solutions	82	(2)
Notes	84	(2)
Coordination without a Coordinator	86	(23)
The Revolution We Are Waiting for Is Already Here	87	(3)
Rules Containing the Consensus	90	(1)
Rules for Resolving Uncertainty about Values	91	(4)
Program Characteristics as Determinants of Cost	95	(6)
Misunderstandings that Always Cost More	101	(2)
Alternative Hypotheses	103	(4)
Notes	107	(2)
PART 2 Social Interaction versus Intellectual Cogitation	109	(96)
Between Planning and Politics: Intellect vs. Interaction as Analysis	114	(28)
Exchange	117	(1)
Motivation	118	(2)
Planning and Politics	120	(4)
Analysis	124	(3)
Rationality	127	(1)
Politics and Planning Are Equally (Ir)rational	128	(1)
The Imperatives	129	(6)
``Retrospection''	135	(4)
Reprise	139	(1)
Notes	140	(2)
A Bias Toward Federalism	142	(13)
The Cooperative-Coercive Model	143	(4)
The Conflict-Consent Model	147	(3)
Size vs. Number or Interaction vs. Cogitation Revisited	150	(3)
Notes	153	(2)
Opportunity Costs and Merit Wants	155	(29)
Two Doctrines	156	(1)
Cost Versus Merit, or Interaction and Cogitation in a New Guise	156	(3)
Cost in Economics	159	(2)
History	161	(2)
Texts in the Private Sector	163	(1)
Four Concepts of Worth	164	(3)
Opportunity Cost and Markets	167	(5)
Cost in the Public Sector	172	(2)
Economics in the Public Sector: Public Goods and Merit Wants	174	(7)
Notes	181	(3)
Economy and Environment/Rationality and Ritual	184	(21)
The Delaware River Basin Project's Failure	184	(7)
Alternatives for Controlling Water Pollution	191	(2)
The Risky Environment	193	(6)
Economics for Environmentalists	199	(3)
Notes	202	(3)
PART 3 Dogma versus Skepticism	205	(76)
Notes	211	(1)
The Self-Evaluating Organization	212	(26)
Evaluation	213	(1)
Obstacles to Evaluation	214	(6)
The Policy-Administration Dichotomy Revisited	220	(4)
Who Will Pay the Costs of Change?	224	(2)
Evaluation, Incorporated	226	(3)
Adjusting to the Environment	229	(2)
Joining Knowledge with Power	231	(3)
Evaluation as Trust	234	(3)
Notes	237	(1)
Skepticism and Dogma in the White House: Jimmy Carter's Theory of Governing	238	(14)
Uniformity	240	(1)
Predictability	240	(1)
Cogitation	241	(1)
Comprehensiveness	242	(1)
Incompatibility	243	(2)
Top-Light and Bottom-Heavy	245	(1)
Belief	246	(1)
``He-the-People''	247	(2)
Notes	249	(3)
Citizens as Analysts	252	(29)
Citizenship as Moral Development	253	(3)
Mr. and Mrs. Model Citizen	256	(1)
A Strategy of Specialization	257	(2)
Citizenship in Daily Life	259	(4)
Distinguishing Big from Little Change	263	(3)
Prod Change	266	(4)
Fact and Value: Convention or Constraint?	270	(4)
Why Analysis Is Conservative	274	(3)
Morality and Policy Analysis	277	(1)
Notes	278	(3)
PART 4 Policy Analysis	281	(126)
Doing Better and Feeling Worse: The Political Pathology of Health Policy	284	(25)
Paradoxes, Principles, Axioms, Identities, and Laws	285	(5)
Why There Is a Crisis	290	(1)
Does Anyone Win?	291	(1)
Curing the Sickness of Health	292	(3)
Alternative Health Policies	295	(1)
Market versus Administrative Mechanisms	296	(5)
Thought and Action	301	(1)
Planning Health-System Agencies	302	(4)
The Future	306	(2)
Notes	308	(1)
Learning from Education: If We're Still Stuck on the Problems, Maybe We're Taking the Wrong Exam	309	(17)
Compensation without Education	309	(5)
Educational Opportunity without Social Equality	314	(2)
The Objective of Having Objectives	316	(4)
Politicization without Politics	320	(3)
Clarification of Objectives as a Social Process	323	(2)
Notes	325	(1)
A Tax by Any Other Name: The Donor-Directed Automatic Percentage-Contribution Bonus, A Budget Alternative for Financing Governmental Support of Charity	326	(26)
Budget Alternatives	327	(2)
Proposals, Criteria, and Consequences	329	(12)
What Difference Does a Government Subsidy Make? A Sensitivity Analysis	341	(2)
How Much of Which Problems Are We Prepared to Live with? An Analysis of Criteria	343	(2)
Political Feasibility	345	(3)
Testing the Percentage-Contribution Bonus	348	(1)
Notes	349	(3)
Distribution of Urban Services	352	(33)
Patterns of Resource Distribution	355	(2)
Three Patterns: The More, The More; Compensation; and Resultants	357	(2)
An Explanation	359	(2)
Adam Smith in Action	361	(4)
Judging Outcomes	365	(5)
Altering Outcomes	370	(13)
Notes	383	(2)
Analysis as Craft	385	(22)
Solutions as Programs	391	(2)
Solutions as Hypotheses	393	(2)
Solutions as Social Artifacts	395	(2)
The Craft of Problem Solving	397	(4)
Speaking Truth to Power	401	(5)
Notes	406	(1)
Appendix	407	(16)
Structure of the School	409	(2)
Faculty	411	(1)
Curriculum	412	(4)
Administration	416	(2)
Afterword	418	(1)
Notes	419	(4)
Index	423