Chapter One

Understanding Public Policy

Introduction
Concepts of 'Public' and 'Policy'
'Public policy' as a term is frequently used in our daily life and in the academic literature
where we often make references to the national health policy, the new education policy, wage
policy, agricultural policy, Ethiopian an or French foreign policy, and so on. It is an area
which had to do with those spheres which are so labeled as 'public'. The concept of public
policy presupposes that there is a domain of life which is not private or purely individual, but
held in common. The point for discussion of public policy is to understand what we mean by
the idea of 'public policy'.

The Idea of Public

It is important and essential to understand the idea of 'public' for a discussion of public
policy. We often use such terms as 'public interest', 'public sector', 'public opinion', 'public
health', and so on. The starting point is that 'Public Policy' has to do with those spheres which
are so labeled as 'public', as opposed to spheres involving 'private'. Public dimension is
generally referred to 'public ownership' or control for 'public purpose'. The word public
comprises all the dimensions of human activity regarded as requiring governmental
intervention or social regulation. However, there has always been a conflict between what is
'public' and what is 'private'.

The public sector has the following key differences from the private sector; the public sector
1) faces more complex and ambiguous tasks;
2) has more problems in implementing its decisions;
3) employs more people with a wider range of motivations;
4) is more concerned with securing opportunities or capacities;
5) is more concerned with compensating for market failure;
6) engages in activities with greater symbolic significance;
7) is held to stricter standards of commitment and legality;
8) has a greater opportunity to respond to issues of fairness;
9) must operate or appear to operate in the public interest; and
10) must maintain minimal level of public support above that required in private industry.
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The Idea of Policy
Like the idea of 'public', the notion of 'policy' is also not precisely defined. Policy denotes,
among other things, 'guidance for action'. It may take the form of:
1) Authoritative decision
2) Principle or a rule
3) Purposive course of action
4) System of governance
5) Manifestation of considered judgment
6) Expression of political rationality
7) Declaration of common goals.

In a Machiavellian sense, policy is the base of power. While bureaucracy derives its
legitimacy from its claims to 'State', the politicians claim that their authority rest on the
approval of their policies by the electorates.

The meaning of the word 'policy' is changing like other concepts of social science.
Unfortunately, the policy itself is something which takes different forms. David Easton
defines policy as the 'outputs' of the political system, and public policy as the authoritative
allocation of values for the whole society.

Anderson suggests that policy be regarded as purposive course of action followed by an actor
or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern. According to Sir Geoffrey
Vickers, policies are decisions giving direction, coherence and continuity to the courses of
action for which the decision-making body is responsible.
Friedrich regards policy as … a proposed course of action of a person, group, or government
within a given environment providing obstacles and opportunities which the policy was
proposed to utilize and overcome in an effort to reach a goal or realize an objective or a
purpose.

For Parsons a policy is an attempt to define and structure a rational basis for action or
inaction. In modern terminology, a policy is broadly defined as a course of action or plan, a
set of political purposes.

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It may well be enough to define 'policy' as a purposive course of action taken or adopted by
those in power in pursuit of certain goals or objectives. It should be added here that public
policies are the policies adopted and implemented by government bodies and officials. They
are formulated by what Easton calls the “authorities” in a political system, namely, elders,
paramount chiefs, executives, legislators, judges, administrators, councilors, monarchs, and
the like. According to him, these are the persons who engage in the daily affairs of a political
system, are recognized by most members of the system as having responsibility for these
matters and take actions that are accepted as binding most of the time by most of the
members so long as they act within the limits of their roles.

Dye also comments that public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do.
Similarly, Lineberry says that it is what governments do and fail to do-to and for their
citizens. In these definitions, main inference is that there is divergence between what
governments decide to do and what they actually do.

Nature of Public Policy

Policies may take various forms such as legislation, executive orders, or other official acts.
They typically contain a set of intentions or goals, a mix of instruments or means for
accomplishing the intentions, a designation of governmental or non-governmental entities
charged with the responsibility of carrying out the intentions, and an allocation of resources
for the requisite tasks.

For understanding public policy, it is important to analyze its nature. A policy may be general
or specific, broad or narrow, simple or complex, public or private, written or unwritten,
explicit or implicit, discretionary or detailed.

From the viewpoint of public policies, activities of government can be put broadly into two
categories, such as activities based on:
o definite or specific policies;
o general, vague and inconsistent policies.

However, in practice, a government rarely has a set of guiding principles for all its activities.
Important public policies are often made more explicit, particularly where the issue of a law,
a regulation, or a plan and the like is involved. The Supreme Court of a country may, through
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its decisions, give new interpretations to some of the articles of the Constitution which may
amount to a new policy.

Furthermore, policies are often too vague or too general and are not always consistent with
each other. In a turbulent environment, government departments often have to take
immediate action without reference to any specific policy. Also, sometimes for political
expediency, or for other reasons, a government may announce a definite policy without any
intention of carrying it out. Therefore, it is possible to have an action without a policy, or to
have a policy without an action. Public policies, because of their governmental nature, are
mostly adopted formally by the government authorities, that is, those with the power to give
them a legal authority. There are, however, public policies embodied only in a set of practices
and precedents. The unwritten Constitution of the United Kingdom is a well-known example
of this form of a public policy.

A public policy may cover a major portion of its activities, such as a development policy.
Socio-economic development, economic growth, social justice, equality, or similar broad
principles of guidance for action may be adopted as a developmental policy or national goal.
Therefore a single policy may be found in a number of written documents. A public policy
may also be narrow covering a specific activity, such as family planning restrained to a
section of the people, or it may spread to a wider range applied to all people in a country. For
example, a government may adopt a policy that no factory should employ a child below the
age of 18.

Public policy is a field which is generally defined by policy areas (such as health, education,
environment, housing, economic, social and transport), and it is largely in this setting that
interdisciplinary and intergovernmental interactions take place. Besides, each level of
government - the Central, the State and the local - may have its specific or general policies.
Then, there are the 'mega-policies.' They are the general guidelines to be followed by all
specific policies. 'Mega-policies' act as a kind of a master policy, distinct from concrete
discrete policies, and involve the establishment of overall goals to serve as guidelines for
large sets of concrete policies. The broad policies which are an expression of national goals
mentioned earlier (such as economic growth, social justice and the like) are examples of
mega-policies.

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While examining the nature of public policies, an important question is whether a policy
should contain a definite goal or an objective. By goal or objective we mean the end towards
which any action is directed. Since a policy is a guidance for action, it is essential for the
public policy to have a goal, an objective or a purpose.

All mega-policies, in particular, are purposeful and goal-oriented. But it is conceivable that a
government can have a policy without any clear objective or purpose. It can also adopt a
policy without specifying what the purpose or goal is, even if it does have one. Even though
the goal or objective of a policy is explicitly stated, the policy by itself may be so vague or so
general that it may become susceptible to various interpretations. This is so in mega-policies
like economic growth or social justice which can be interpreted in many ways.

One of the most serious problems concerning goals and objectives is that, while examining
the policies of a government together as a whole, the multidimensional nature of goals and
objectives, as well as the existence of many inconsistencies and even contra-dictions,
becomes obvious. This is especially true in a democratic form of government with many
pressure groups and political parties. A government may deliberately adopt vague,
inconsistent, or even contradictory policies in order to satisfy all pressure groups and political
parties.

Again, a public policy may be either positive or negative in form. In its positive form it may
involve some form of overt government action to deal with a particular problem. On the other
hand, in its negative form, it may involve a decision by public servants not to take action on
some matter on which a governmental order is sought for. Public policies sometimes have a
legally coercive quality that citizens accept as legitimate, for example, taxes must be paid
unless one wants to run the risk of fines or imprisonment. This legally coercive nature of
public policies makes public organizations distinct from private organizations.

Public Policy and Related Concepts

The nature of public policy as guidance for actions can be better or more fully understood if it
is compared with other related concepts.

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Policies and decisions
Distinct from the policy which is generally defined as a purposive course of action, is a
decision defined as an exercise of judgment in any particular situation. Policy-making does
involve decision, but a decision does not necessarily constitute a policy. Decision-making
often involves an identification of a problem, a careful analysis of possible alternatives, and
selection of one of the alternatives for action. Generally decisions are taken by the
administrators in their day-to-day work within the existing policy framework. The policy
decisions eventually taken thus provide a sense of direction to the course of an administrative
action. In this context Anderson says: “Policy decisions are decisions made by public
officials that authorize or give direction and content to public policy actions". These may
include decisions to issue executive orders promulgate administrative rules, or make
important judicial interpretations of laws.

Policies and goals

To say that policy-making involves a choice of objectives and goals, is to say that it deals
with values. Policies are distinct from goals and can be distinguished from the latter as means
from ends. By goals or objectives, one means the ends towards which actions are directed. It
is reasonable to expect that policies indicate the directions towards which action is sought.
They involve a deliberate choice of actions designed to attain those goals and objectives. The
actions can take the form of directives to do or refrain from certain actions. Public policies
are ultimately means and ends which have a relationship to each other. Further, policies as
well as objectives are chosen under the influence of values. Decision-makers often act on the
basis of their beliefs or perceptions of the public interest concerning what is a proper or
morally correct public policy. Studies of the Supreme Court show that the judges are
influenced by policy values in deciding cases. Thus, it can be asserted that goals and
objectives depend on the values of the policy-makers.

Many students of policy sciences apply science or reason (making use of the rationality
model) for the determination of policy objectives and goals. They try to solve problems
mainly by using such objective methods as operations research or cost-benefit analysis so as
to limit policy objectives. Such an approach, based on a rationality model, may not, however,
serve the social purpose.

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Policy-making and planning
Policy-making in a democratic country not only involves deciding on a programme structure,
but also the ends and means of a plan or a programme. It also involves issues related to
administration including the plan of implementation of policies. Policy-making must be
distinguished from planning. Broadly speaking, a plan is a programme of action for attaining
definite goals or objectives. In this sense, plan is a policy statement, and planning implies
policy-making. Often, the goals or policies of a government plan are not stipulated in the plan
documents: rather, they may be stated only in very general or vague terms, or may be found
to be internally inconsistent or contradictory. A national development plan, broadly speaking,
is a collection of targets or individual projects which, when put together, may not constitute
an integrated scheme.

Allocation of resources for investments and showing targets in different sectors of the
economy are considered to be at the core of planning. However, it has been aptly stated that a
plan needs a proper policy framework. Targets cannot be achieved just because investments
are provided for; they have to be drawn within the framework of policies. Successful policies
make for successful plans and administration.

Policy inputs, policy outputs and policy outcomes

A lot of confusion arises about the distinction between policy inputs, policy outputs and
policy outcomes. Policy inputs are the demands made on the political systems by individuals
and groups for action or inaction about some perceived problems. Such demands may include
a general insistence that government should do something to a proposal for some specific
action on some specific matter.

In the political system model, outputs are regarded either as effects on the environment, or as
'feedback' to the political supporters of the system. Easton says that outputs are said to
constitute a body or specific inducements for the members of a political system to support it,
either by threats of sanctions, rewards for support given, or by socialization into the political
norms of the society. In other words, policy outputs are the actual decisions of the
implementers. They are what a government does, as distinguished from what it says it is
going to do. Examples of policy outputs relate to such matters as the education institutions
built, taxes collected, compensations paid, or curbs on trade eliminated. Outcomes are the
real results whether intended or unintended by a policy.
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Policy outputs are, however, different from policy outcomes. The concept of outcomes lays
stress on what actually happens to the target groups intended to be affected by the policy. If
the intended changes on the target groups do not occur, then it is an indication that something
is wrong. Although one can measure welfare policy outputs - the amount collected by way of
taxation, the number of persons benefitted and the amount of benefits paid, etc. - it is difficult
to measure the actual impact of these actions. Such an impact assessment is undertaken to
estimate whether or not governmental interventions produce their intended effects.

Typologies of Policy Issues

An important characteristic of policy-making is that different kinds of policies tend to be
associated with different kinds of political relationships and processes. Lowi has persuasively
argued that there are three primary types of policies - distributive, redistributive and
regulatory - and that each type of policy is associated with a particular political process. All
public policies, according to Lowi, are coercive because they seek to alter individual and
societal conduct.

Distributive Policies
Policies concerned with the distribution of new resources are distributive policies. These
include grants and subsidies that give protection to certain interests against competition.
Legislation regarding implementation of any policy or scheme is likely to be quite specific,
and allows little administrative discretion. The key decisions, as of who has to receive the
benefits and how much he is to receive, are usually made by the legislators, who have a
considerable interest in certain segments of the society. Some examples of distributive
policies are adult education programme, food relief, social insurance, scholarships to students
belonging to weaker sections of the community, and so on.

Redistributive Policies
Redistributive policies are concerned with changing the distribution of existing resources,
and with the rearrangement of policies which are related to bringing about basic social and
economic changes in the economy and society. They include those actions that affect credit
and the supply of money, as well as taxes and social security and transfer payments.
Redistributive policies are generally ideological; they raise basic issues about the proper role
of government in societal and economic matters. They usually capture the attention of elected
officials and are formulated in a more centralized manner than other policies. Some
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redistributive policies are only vaguely defined by law and require considerable
administrative expertise and discretion in implementation; other policies are clearly defined
by law and require only routine methods of management.

Regulatory Policies
Regulatory policies are concerned with regulation and control of activities. They seek to alter
individual behavior directly by imposing standards on regulated industries, and are much
more likely to arouse controversy. Private interests may be significantly constrained or have
compliance costs imposed upon them by regulatory actions. Powerful interest groups are
likely to be organized around regulatory issues, and the interaction of these policy advocates
plays an important role in determining the nature of the policies and the like, which are
engaged in regulatory activities.

Substantive vs. Procedural Policies

Substantive policies involve what government is going to do, such as constructing highways,
paying welfare benefits, acquiring bombers, or prohibiting the retail sale of liquor.
Substantive policies directly allocate advantages and disadvantages, benefits and costs, to
people.

Procedural policies, in contrast, pertain to how something is going to be done or who is

going to take action. So defined, procedural policies include laws providing for the creation
of administrative agencies, determining the matters over which they have jurisdiction,
specifying the processes and techniques that they can use in carrying out their programmes,
and providing for presidential, judicial and other controls over their operations. However,
procedural policies may have important substantive consequences. That is, how something is
done or who takes the action may help determine what is actually done. Frequently, efforts
are made to use procedural issues to delay or prevent adoption of substantive decisions and
policies. For example, an agency’s action may be challenged on the ground that improper
procedures were followed.

Material vs. Symbolic Policy

Public policies may also be described as either material or symbolic, depending upon the kind
of benefits they allocate. Material policies actually either provide tangible resources or
substantive power to their beneficiaries, or impose real disadvantages on those who are
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adversely affected. Legislation requiring employers to pay a prescribed minimum wage,
appropriating money for a public-housing programme, or providing income-support
payments to farmers is material in content and effect.

Symbolic policies, in contrast, have little real material impact on people. They do not deliver
what they appear to deliver; they allocate no tangible advantages and disadvantages. Rather,
they appeal to people’s cherished values, such as: peace, patriotism and social justice. The
material – symbolic typology is especially useful

Policy Analysis
Public Policy Analysis is concerned with what governments do, why they do it, and what
difference it makes. It is also about political science and the ability of this academic
discipline to describe, analyze, and explain public policy.

Public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do. Governments do many

things. They regulate conflict within society; they organize society to carry on conflict with
other societies; they distribute a great variety of symbolic rewards and material services to
members of the society; and they extract money from society, most often in the form of taxes.
Thus, public policies may regulate behavior, organize bureaucracies, distribute benefits, or
extract taxes - or all of these things at once.

Why Study Public Policy?

Political science is the study of politics - the study of "who gets what, when, and how?" It is
more than the study of governmental institutions, that is, federalism, separation of powers,
checks and balances, judicial review, the powers and duties of parliament, the
president/Prime Minister, and the courts. "Traditional" political science focuses primarily on
these institutional arrangements, as well as the philosophical justification of government. And
political science is more than the study of political processes, that is, campaigns and
elections, voting, lobbying, legislating, and adjudicating. Modem "behavioral" political
science focuses primarily on these processes.

Political science is also the study of public policy - the description and explanation of the
causes and consequences of government activity. This focus involves a description of the
content of public policy; an analysis of the impact of social, economic, and political forces on

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the content of public policy; an inquiry into the effect of various institutional arrangements
and political processes on public policy; and an evaluation of the consequences of public
policies on society, both intended and unintended.

What Can Be Learned From Policy Analysis?

Policy analysis is finding out what governments do, why they do it, and what difference, if
any, it makes. What can be learned from policy analysis?

Description
First, we can describe public policy - we can learn what government is doing (and not doing)
in welfare, defense, education, civil rights, health, the environment, taxation, and so on. A
factual basis of information about national policy is really an indispensable part of everyone's
education. What does the Civil Rights Act of 1964 actually say about discrimination in
employment? What did the Supreme Court rule in the Bakke case about affirmative action
programs? What do the Medicaid and Medicare programs promise for the poor and the aged?
What agreements have been reached between the United States and Russia regarding nuclear
weapons? How much money are we paying in taxes? How much money does the federal
government spend each year, and what does it spend it on? These are examples of descriptive
questions.

Causes
Second, we can inquire about the causes, or determinants, of public policy. Why is public
policy what it is? Why do governments do what they do? We might inquire about the effects
of political institutions, processes, and behaviors on public policies. For example, does it
make any difference in tax and spending levels whether Democrats or Republicans control
the presidency and Congress? What is the impact of lobbying by the special interests on
efforts to reform the federal tax system? We can also inquire about the effects of social,
economic, and cultural forces in shaping public policy. For example: What are the effects of
changing public attitudes about race on civil rights policy? What are the effects of recessions
on government spending? What is the effect of an increasingly older population on the Social
Security and Medicare programs? In scientific terms, when we study the causes of public
policy, policies become the dependent variables, and their various political, social, economic,
and cultural determinants become the independent variables.

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Consequences
Third, we can inquire about the consequences, or impacts, of public policy. Learning about
the consequences of public policy is often referred to as policy evaluation. What difference, if
any, does public policy make in people's lives? We might inquire about the effects of public
policy on political institutions and processes. For example, what is the effect of continuing
high unemployment on Republican Party fortunes in Congressional elections? What is the
impact of economic policies on the president's popularity? We also want to examine the
impact of public policies on conditions in society. For example, does capital punishment help
to deter crime? Does cutting cash welfare benefits encourage people to work? Does increased
educational spending produce higher student achievement scores? In scientific terms, when
we study the consequences of public policy, policies become the independent variables, and
their political, social, economic, and cultural impacts on society become the dependent
variables.

Policy Analysis and Policy Advocacy

It is important to distinguish policy analysis from policy advocacy. Explaining the causes and
consequences of various policies is not equivalent to prescribing what policies governments
ought to pursue. Learning why governments do what they do and what the consequences of
their actions are is not the same as saying what governments ought to do or bringing about
changes in what they do. Policy advocacy requires the skills of rhetoric, persuasion,
organization, and activism. Policy analysis encourages scholars and students to attack critical
policy issues with the tools of systematic inquiry. There is an implied assumption in policy
analysis that developing scientific knowledge about the forces shaping public policy and the
consequences of public policy is itself a socially relevant activity, and that policy analysis is a
prerequisite to prescription, advocacy, and activism.

Specifically, policy analysis involves:

1) A primary concern with explanation rather than prescription. Policy
recommendations if they are made at all - are subordinate to description and
explanation. There is an implicit judgment that understanding is a prerequisite to
prescription and that understanding is best achieved through careful analysis rather
than rhetoric or polemics.
2) A rigorous search for the causes and consequences of public policies. This search
involves the use of scientific standards of inference. Sophisticated quantitative

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 techniques may be helpful in establishing valid inferences about causes and
consequences, but they are not essential.
3) An effort to develop and test general propositions about the causes and consequences
of public policy and to accumulate reliable research findings of general relevance.
The object is to develop general theories about public policy that are reliable and that
apply to different government agencies and different policy areas. Policy analysts
clearly prefer to develop explanations that fit more than one policy decision or case
study explanations that stand up over time in a variety of settings.

However, it must be remembered that policy issues are decided not by analysts but by
political actors - elected and appointed government officials, interest groups, and
occasionally even voters. Social science research often does not do well in the political arena;
it may be interpreted, misinterpreted, ignored, or even used as a weapon by political
combatants. Policy analysis sometimes produces unexpected and even politically
embarrassing findings. Public policies do not always work as intended. And political interests
will accept, reject, or use findings to fit their own purposes.

Policy Analysis and the Quest for Solutions

It is questionable that policy analysis can ever "solve" public problems. Ignorance, crime,
poverty, draught, Ethnic conflict, inequality, housing problem, ill health, pollution,
unemployment, and displacement have afflicted people and societies for a long time. Of
course, this is no excuse for failing to work toward a society free of these difficulties. But our
striving for a better society should be tempered with the realization that solutions to these
problems may be very difficult to find. There are many reasons for qualifying our enthusiasm
for policy analysis.

Limits on Government Power

First, it is easy to exaggerate the importance, both for good and for ill, of the policies of
governments. It is not clear that government policies, however ingenious, can cure all or even
most of society's ills. Governments are constrained by many powerful social forces-patterns
of family life, class structure, child-rearing practices, religious beliefs, and so on. These
forces are not easily managed by governments, nor could they be controlled even if it seemed
desirable to do so. Some of society's problems are very stubborn.

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Disagreement over the Problem
Second, policy analysis cannot offer solutions to problems when there is no general
agreement on what the problems are. For example, in educational policy some researchers
assume that raising achievement levels (measures of verbal and quantitative abilities) is the
problem to which our efforts should be directed. But educators often argue that the
acquisition of verbal and quantitative skills is not the only, or even the most important, goal
of the public schools. They contend that schools must also develop positive self-images
among pupils of all races and backgrounds, encourage social awareness and the appreciation
of multiple cultures, teach children to respect one another and to resolve their differences
peacefully, raise children's awareness of the dangers of drugs and educate them about sex and
sexually transmitted diseases, and so on. In other words, many educators define the problems
confronting schools more broadly than raising achievement levels.

Policy analysis is not capable of resolving value conflicts. If there is little agreement on what
values should be emphasized in educational policy, there is not much that policy research can
contribute to policymaking. At best it can advise on how to achieve certain results, but it
cannot determine what is truly valuable for society.

Subjectivity in Interpretation
Third, policy analysis deals with very subjective topics and must rely on interpretation of
results. Professional researchers frequently interpret the results of their analyses differently.
Social science research cannot be value-free. Even the selection of the topic for research is
affected by one's values about what is important in society and worthy of attention.

Limitations on Design of Human Research

Another set of problems in systematic policy analysis centers around inherent limitations in
the design of social science research. It is not really possible to conduct some forms of
controlled experiments on human beings. For example, researchers cannot order children to
go to overcrowded or underfunded schools for several years just to see if it adversely impacts
their achievement levels. Instead, social researchers must find situations in which educational
deprivation has been produced "naturally" in order to make the necessary observations about
the causes of such deprivation. Because we cannot control all the factors in a real-world
situation, it is difficult to pinpoint precisely what causes educational achievement or non-
achievement. Moreover, even where some experimentation is permitted, human beings

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frequently modify their behavior simply because they know that they are being observed in
an experimental situation. For example, in educational research it frequently turns out that
children perform well under any new teaching method or curricular innovation. It is difficult
to know whether the improvements observed are a product of the new teaching method or
curricular improvement or merely a product of the experimental situation.

Complexity of Human Behavior

Perhaps the most serious reservation about policy analysis is the fact that social problems are
so complex that social scientists are unable to make accurate predictions about the impact of
proposed policies. Social scientists simply do not know enough about individual and group
behavior to be able to give reliable advice to policymakers. Occasionally policymakers turn
to social scientists for "solutions," but social scientists do not have any. Most of society's
problems are shaped by so many variables that a simple explanation of them, or remedy for
them, is rarely possible. The fact that social scientists give so many contradictory
recommendations is an indication of the absence of reliable scientific knowledge about social
problems. Although some scholars argue that no advice is better than contradictory or
inaccurate advice, policymakers still must make decisions, and it is probably better that they
act in the light of whatever little knowledge social science can provide than that they act in
the absence of any knowledge at all. Even if social scientists cannot predict the impact of
future policies, they can at least attempt to measure the impact of current and past public
policies and make this knowledge available to decision makers.

Policy Analysis as Art and Craft

Understanding public policy is both an art and a craft. It is an art because it requires insight,
creativity, and imagination in identifying societal problems and describing them, in devising
public policies that might alleviate them, and then in finding out whether these policies end
up making things better or worse. It is a craft because these tasks usually require some
knowledge of economics, political science, public administration, sociology, law, and
statistics. Policy analysis is really an applied subfield of all of these traditional academic
disciplines.

We doubt that there is any "model of choice" in policy analysis - that is, a single model or
method that is preferable to all others and that consistently renders the best solutions to public
problems. Instead we agree with political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, who wrote: Policy
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analysis is one activity for which there can be no fixed program, for policy analysis is
synonymous with creativity, which may be stimulated by theory and sharpened by practice,
which can be learned but not taught.

Wildavsky goes on to warn students that solutions to great public questions are not to be
expected: In large part, it must be admitted, knowledge is negative. It tells us what we cannot
do, where we cannot go, wherein we have been wrong, but not necessarily how to correct
these errors. After all, if current efforts were judged wholly satisfactory, there would be little
need for analysis and less for analysts.

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