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Mixed Scanning PDF

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Sita Sivalingam
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Mixed-Scanning: A "Third" Approach to Decision-Making Amitai Evioni Public Administration Review, Vol. 27, No. 5 (Dec., 1967), 385-392. Stable URL: btp//links jstor.org/sici?sict=0033-3352% 281967 12%2927%3A5%3C38S%3AMA%22ATD%3E2,0,CO%3B2-N Public Administration Review is currently published by American Society for Public Administration, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstororg/about/terms.hml. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/www.jstor-org/journals/aspa.heml, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals, For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org. upswww jstor.org/ ‘Thu Ape 14 15:10:27 2005 385 Mixed-Scanning: A “Third” Approach To Decision-Making By AMITAI ETZIONI Columbia University vague commitments of a normative and political nature are translated into specific ‘commitments to one or more specific courses of action. Since decision-making includes an element of choice, it is the most deliberate and voluntaristic aspect of social conduct. As such, it raises the question: To what extent can social actors decide what their course will be, and to what extent are they compelled to follow a course set by forces beyond their con- trol? Three conceptions of decision-making are considered here with assumptions that give varying weights to the conscious choice of the decision-makers Rationalistic models tend to posit a high degree of control over the decision-making situation on the part of the decision-maker. ‘The incrementalist approach presents an al- ternative model, referred to as the art of “mud- dling through,” which assumes much less com- mand over the environment. Finally, the ar- le outlines a third approach to social de- cisionmaking which, in combining elements of both earlier approaches, is neither as utopi- an in its assumptions as the first model nor as conservative as the second. For reasons which will become evident, this third approach is referred to as mixed-scanning, I ‘He concert of social decision-making, Editors Note: In working on this article, Professor Etzioni benefited from a Social Science Research Coun- ail fellowship for 1967-1968. A much more. detaled ‘iscussion of sodetal decision-making it included in chapters Hand 12 of the author The Active Society: ‘A Theory of Societal and Political Process, t0. be published by ‘The Free Press early in 1968 > A rationalistic approach to. decision-making equites greater resources than decision-makers ‘command. The incremental strategy, which takes into account the limited capacity of actors, fosters decisions which negleet base societal innovations. Mixed-sanning 1 tationaliem by limiting the details required in fundamental decisions and helps to overcome the conservative slant of incrementaism by exploring Tongerrun alternatives, (Ineremental decisions tend to imply fundamental ones, anyway) ‘The mi scanning model makes this dualism expl combining (a) high-order, fundamental policy- making procenes which set basic directions and (b) inetemental ones which prepare for fundamen- fal decisions and work them out after they have heen reached. Mixed-scanning has two further advantages over. Incrementalism: Tt provides a Strategy for evaluation and it does not indude hidden structural assumptions. The flexibility of the different scanning levels makes mixed-scanning useful strategy for decision-making in environ: rents of varying stability and by actors with vary ing contro! and consensus building capacities, The Rationalistic Approach Rationalistic models are widely held con- ceptions about how decisions are and ought to be made. An actor becomes aware of a prob- Jem, posits a goal, carefully weighs alternative ‘means, and chooses among them according to his estimates of their respective merit, with reference to the state of affairs he prefers. In- crementalists' criticism of this approach focuses on the disparity between the requirements of the model and the capacities of decision-mak- ers Social decision-making centers, it is * See David Braybrooke and Charles E. Lindblom, A Strategy of Decision (New York: Free Press, 1963), pp. 4850 and pp. 111-143; Charles E. Lindblom, The In. Lelligence of Democracy (New York: Free Pres, 1965), Dp. 187-138. See also Jerome S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and George’A. Austin, A Study of Thinking (New York: John Wiley, 1956) chapters 45, Puntic Avaanisrearion Review / DeceMmner 1967 386 pointed out, frequently do not have a specific, agreed upon set of values that could provide the criteria for evaluating alternatives. Values, rather, are fluid and are affected by, as well as affect, the decisions made. Moreover, in ac- tual practice, the rationalistic assumption that values and facts, means and ends, can be clear- ly distinguished seems inapplicable: «=» Public controversy... has surrounded the pro- poral to construct a branch of the Cook County Hos: pital on the South Side in or near the Negro ares. Several questions of policy are involved in the mater, Dut the ones which Rave caused one of the few public debates of an issue in the Negro community concern ‘whether, oF to what extent, Building such 3 branch would result in an all-Negro or “Jim Crow” hospital and whether such a hospital is desirable as a means of providing added medical facilities for Negro patients. Involved are both an issue of fact (whether the hos pital would be segregated, intentionally oF uninten onally, as a result of the character of the neighbor hhood in which it would be located) and an issue of tale (whether even an all-Negro hospital would. be preferable to no hospital at all in the area). In realty, however, the factions have aligned themselves in such ‘away and the debate has proceeded in such a manner that the fact issue and the value issue have been collapsed into the single question of whether to Duild or not to build. Thote in favor of the proposal ‘argue thatthe facts do not bear out the charge of “Jim Crowism”—"the proposed site - sidered tobe placed in a segregated clusive ute of one radal or minority group"; oF “no ‘responsible ofcials would try to develop a new hospital to further segregation”; or “establishing a branch hos pital for the -. more adequate care of the Indigent patient load, from the facts thus presented, does not represent Jim Crowisn." At the same time, these pro- ponents argue that whatever the facts, the factual sue {s secondary to the overriding consideration that “there 1 4 here-and-now need for more hospital beds... Integration may be the long-run goal, but in the shore run we need more falliies”"* In addition, information about consequences is, at best, fractional. Decision-makers have neither the assets nor the time to collect the information required for rational choice. ‘While knowledge technology, especially com- puters, does aid in the collection and process- ing of information, it cannot provide for the computation required by the rationalist model. (This holds even for chess playing, let alone “reallife” decisions.) Finally, rather than be- ing confronted with a limited universe of relevant consequences, decision-makers face an * James Q. Wilson, Negro Politics (New York: Free Pres, 1960), p 189 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW ‘open system of variables, a world in which all consequences cannot be surveyed.® A decision- maker, attempting to adhere to the tenets of a rationalistic model, will become frustrated, exhaust his resources without coming to a de- cision, and remain without an effective deci- sion-making model to guide him. Rationalistic models are thus rejected as being at once un- realistic and undesirable The Incrementalist Approach A less demanding model of decision-making hhas been outlined’ in the strategy of “dis. jointed incrementalism” advanced by Charles ¥, Lindblom and others.t Disjointed incre- mentalism seeks to adapt decision-making stra- tegies to the limited cognitive capacities of decision-makers and to reduce the scope and cost of information collection and computa- tion. Lindblom summarized the six primary requirements of the model in this way: * 1. Rather than attempting a comprehensive survey and evaluation of all alternatives, the decision-maker focuses only on those policies which differ incrementally from existing policies. 2 Only a relatively small number of policy alternatives are considered. 3. For each policy alternative, only a re- stricted number of “important” conse- ‘quences are evaluated. 4, The problem confronting the decision- ‘maker is continually redefined: Incremen- talism allows for countless ends-means and means-ends adjustments which, in ef- fect, make the problem more manage- able. |. Thus, there is no one decision or “right” * See renew of A Strategy of Decision by Kenneth J. Anzow in Political Science Quarters, Vol. 79 (1964) 585, ce also Herbert A. Simon, Models of Man {ew York: Wiley 1987), p. 198, and Aaron Wildsvaly, {The Potice of the Buaettary Proce (ston: Lie, Brown and Co, 1960), pp. 17152 “Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of “Muddling “Through.” Publ Administration Review, Vol 19 (4955), pp. 79590; Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lind: blom, Politics, Economics and Welfare (New York: Harper and Brothers 1958); Strategy of Decision, op. indblom, The Intelligence of Democracy, op. et, pp. M4148, MIXED-SCANNING solution but a “never-ending series of at- tacks” on the issues at hand through se- rial analyses and evaluation. 6. As such, incremental decision-making is described as remedial, geared more to the alleviation of present, concrete social im- perfections than to the promotion of fu- ture social goals. Morphological Assumptions of the Incremental Approach Beyond a model and a strategy of decision- making, disjointed incrementalism also posits a structure model; it is presented as the typi- ‘al decision-making process of pluralistic. so-

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