Description
1. Summarize at least three key points from the required materials. Look for ideas that bridge across the assigned readings.
– Please identify which reading(s) you are discussing in each of your points.
– When you see a similar or related (or conflicting) point being made across two or more different readings, be sure to point that out!
2. Articulate one question, puzzle, or point of confusion prompted by the assigned material.
3. 300 words maximum
______________________________________________________________________
Readings:
8 Steps: Part I, Steps 1-2
8 Steps: Part II (skip sections on gaining access and conducting an interview)
M&S: Chapter 2
Unformatted Attachment Preview
A Practical Guide
for Policy Analysis
i i i
A Practical Guide
for Policy Analysis
The Eightfold Path to More Effective
Problem Solving
Fourth Edition
Eugene Bardach
Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy,
University of California, Berkeley
FOR INFORMATION:
CQ Press
Copyright © 2012 by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE
Publications, Inc. CQ Press is a registered trademark of
Congressional Quarterly Inc.
An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320
E-mail: [email protected]
SAGE Publications Ltd.
1 Oliver’s Yard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
55 City Road
London, EC1Y 1SP
United Kingdom
Printed in the United States of America
SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Bardach, Eugene.
Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044
A practical guide for policy analysis : the eightfold path to
more effective problem solving / Eugene Bardach. — 4th ed.
India
SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd.
33 Pekin Street #02-01
Far East Square
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Singapore 048763
ISBN 978-1-60871-842-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Acquisitions Editor: Charisse Kiino
Production Editor: Mirna Araklian
Copy Editor: Amy Marks
Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.
Proofreader: Stefanie Storholt
1. Policy sciences. 2. Decision making. 3. Problem
solving. I. Title.
H97.B37 2011
320.6—dc23 2011032521
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Indexer: Marilyn Augst, Prairie Moon Indexing
Cover Designer: Catherine Anderson and Anne C. Kerns,
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Anne Likes Red, Inc.
Marketing Manager: Chris O’Brien
12 13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E
ugene Bardach has been teaching graduate-level policy analysis workshop classes since 1973 at the Goldman School of Public Policy,
University of California, Berkeley, in which time he has coached some
400 projects. He is a broadly based political scientist with wide-ranging
teaching and research interests. His focus is primarily on policy implementation and public management, and most recently on problems of
facilitating better interorganizational collaboration in service delivery
(e.g., in human services, environmental enforcement, fire prevention,
and habitat preservation). He also maintains an interest in problems of
homeland defense regulatory program design and execution, particularly in
areas of health, safety, consumer protection, and equal opportunity.
Bardach has developed novel teaching methods and materials at Berkeley,
has directed and taught in residentially based training programs for
higher-level public managers, and has worked for the Office of Policy
Analysis at the U.S. Department of Interior. He is the recipient of the
1998 Donald T. Campbell Award of the Policy Studies Organization for
creative contribution to the methodology of policy analysis. This book is
based on his experience teaching students the principles of policy analysis and then helping them to execute their project work.
v
CONTENTS
PREFACE
xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xiii
INTRODUCTION
xv
PART I
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH
Step One: Define the Problem
Step Two: Assemble Some Evidence
Step Three: Construct the Alternatives
Step Four: Select the Criteria
Step Five: Project the Outcomes
Step Six: Confront the Trade-Offs
Step Seven: Decide!
Step Eight: Tell Your Story
1
1
11
16
31
47
63
69
70
PART II
ASSEMBLING EVIDENCE
Getting Started
Locating Relevant Sources
Gaining Access and Engaging Assistance
Conducting a Policy Research Interview
79
80
82
89
94
vii
v i i i c o n t e n t s
Using Language to Characterize and Calibrate
Protecting Credibility
Strategic Dilemmas of Policy Research
103
104
106
PART III
“SMART (BEST) PRACTICES” RESEARCH: UNDERSTANDING
AND MAKING USE OF WHAT LOOK LIKE GOOD IDEAS
FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE
Develop Realistic Expectations
Analyze Smart Practices
Observe the Practice
Describe Generic Vulnerabilities
But Will It Work Here?
Back to the Eightfold Path
109
109
110
115
119
120
123
APPENDIX A
SPECIMEN OF A REAL-WORLD POLICY ANALYSIS
Preface
Summary
125
125
126
APPENDIX B
THINGS GOVERNMENTS DO
Taxes
Regulation
Subsidies and Grants
Service Provision
Agency Budgets
Information
The Structure of Private Rights
The Framework of Economic Activity
Education and Consultation
Financing and Contracting
Bureaucratic And Political Reforms
141
141
142
143
144
145
145
146
147
148
148
149
c o n t e n t s i x
APPENDIX C
UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC AND NONPROFIT INSTITUTIONS:
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Mission
Environment
Performance Measurement
Technology
Production/Delivery Processes
Front-Line Workers and Co-Producers
Partners and Other Outsiders
Centralization/Decentralization
Culture and Communications
Politics
Leadership
Change
151
151
151
152
153
154
155
155
156
156
156
156
157
APPENDIX D
STRATEGIC ADVICE ON THE DYNAMICS OF GATHERING POLITICAL SUPPORT
159
REFERENCES
167
INDEX
171
PREFACE
T
his handbook serves as a guide to concepts and methods applied in
the analysis of policy. I have developed the general approach and
many of the specific suggestions over thirty-five years of teaching policy
analysis workshops to first- and second-year graduate students at the
Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of
California, Berkeley. In the handbook’s earliest incarnation, the ideas
took form slowly and were conveyed to students in lectures. But because
my faculty colleagues and I systematically overloaded our students with
work, they would sometimes skip a lecture—and thus miss out on ideas
that I regarded as essential. I determined that if I were to create a handout
for the students, at least I would have discharged my responsibility, and
it would be up to the students to retrieve the ideas they had missed. Over
the years, as the handout grew, it was disseminated informally to colleagues at other universities and was posted on the Web site of the
Electronic Hallway, based at the University of Washington. This book is
the outgrowth of these previous compilations and the product of many
years of experience.
The presumed user is a beginning practitioner preparing to undertake a
policy analysis, such as one of our master’s students at the Goldman School.
But I have found this handbook useful at both ends of the spectrum—in
teaching undergraduate introduction to public policy courses as well as
executive education groups.
xi
x i i P R E F A CE
The handbook assumes a familiarity with basic economic concepts,
including those having to do with market failures (including market
imperfections). It is not meant to stand alone but should be used in conjunction with other sources, including some of the best textbooks in
policy analysis, which are cited often to amplify points in this handbook:
Weimer and Vining (2004); Stokey and Zeckhauser (1978); Behn and
Vaupel (1982); Friedman (2002); MacRae and Whittington (1997);
Gupta (2010); and Morgan and Henrion (1990).
This new edition of A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis clarifies some
of the exposition, particularly with regard to “design problems” and the
choice of a “base case.” It also substitutes a new set of environmental
problems in Table I and the surrounding discussion that is more up-todate and more interesting than the previous one.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
wish to acknowledge the patience and helpful response of the students
and friends who have used this handbook, especially those who withstood
its earlier versions. Special thanks are due Robert Behn, Joy Bonaguro,
Sandford Borins, Jose Canela-Cacho, Hank Dempsey, David Dery, John
Ellwood, Lee Friedman, David Garcia-Junco Machado, Nina Goldman,
David Kirp, Jake Lavin, Leo Levenson, Martin A. Levin, Duncan MacRae,
Sarah Marxer, Carolyn Marzke, Jane Mauldon, John Mendeloff, Michael
O’Hare, Steven Page, Eric Patashnik, Beryl Radin, Jesse Rothstein, Andres
Roemer, Larry Rosenthal, Mark Sabean, Eugene Smolensky, David
Weimer, and Marc Zegans.
I wish to extend my thanks to my reviewers for their help with this
edition: Su Jin Jez, California State University, Sacramento; Daniel Press,
University of California, Santa Cruz; Thomas W. Taylor, Duke University;
and John Witte, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thanks also go to
Charisse Kiino, Elise Frasier, Nancy Loh, and Sarah Fell of CQ Press for
their help in bringing this new edition to press. Many thanks to Amy
Marks, as well, for her sharp editorial recommendations.
Sasha Dobrovolsky deserves my gratitude more than anyone else,
however. Sasha was in my undergraduate Public Policy 101 class in 1991.
An unusually gifted and entrepreneurial fellow, he once accosted me with
this announcement: “Professor Bardach, these handouts you give us are
outstanding. You should publish a book. When I graduate, I’m creating
xiii
x i v A C K NO W L E D G M ENTS
my own publishing house, and your book is the first I’m putting out.”
I said, “Sasha, you are surely mad. It’s fine by me, but I am not going to
be responsible for your financial losses. You are on your own.” Sasha did
exactly as promised. Alas, his publishing venture, Berkeley Academic
Press, did not last long, but he went on to great success in other fields.
I have unaccountably neglected to thank Sasha in the preface to earlier
editions. I hope I am now making sufficient amends.
INTRODUCTION
P
olicy analysis is a social and political activity. True, analysts take moral
and intellectual responsibility for the quality of their policy-analytic
work. But policy analysis goes beyond personal decision making. First,
the subject matter concerns the lives and well-being of large numbers of
their fellow citizens. Second, the process and results of policy analysis
usually involve other professionals and interested parties: it is often done
in teams or officewide settings; the immediate consumer is a “client” of
some sort, such as a hierarchical superior; and the ultimate audience will
include diverse subgroups of politically attuned supporters and opponents of the analysts’ work. All of these facts condition the nature of
policy analysis and have a bearing on the nature of what is meant by
“quality work.”
A policy analyst can work in any number of positions. Once upon a
time, the term implied a rather wonkish individual who worked in a large
government bureaucracy, serving up very technical projections of the
possible impacts of one or more policy alternatives to some undersecretary of planning. No longer. Today’s policy analysts help in planning,
budgeting, program evaluation, program design, program management,
public relations, and other functions. They work alone, in teams, and in
loose networks that cut across organizations. They work in the public,
nonprofit, and for-profit spheres. Although their work is ideally distinguished by transparency of method and interpretation, the analysts
themselves may explicitly bring to their jobs the values and passions of
advocacy groups as well as the technical expertise of “neutral” civil
xv
x v i I NT R O D U CT I ON
s ervants. The professional networks in which they work may contain—in
most cases, do contain—colleagues drawn from law, engineering,
accounting, and so on, and in those settings the policy-analytic point of
view has to struggle for the right to counter—or, better yet, synthesize—
the viewpoints of these other professionals. Although policy-analytic
work products typically involve written reports, they may also include
briefings, slide presentations, magazine articles, and television interviews. The recipients of these products may be broad and diffuse audiences as well as narrowly construed paying clients or employers.
The advice in this handbook is directed both to policy analysts in
practice and to students and others who, for whatever reasons, are
attempting to look at the world through the eyes of a practitioner.
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH
Policy analysis is more art than science. It draws on intuition as much as
on method. Nevertheless, given the choice between advice that imposes
too much structure on the problem-solving process and advice that
offers too little, most beginning practitioners quite reasonably prefer too
much. I have therefore developed the following approach, which I call the
Eightfold Path:
• Define the Problem
• Assemble Some Evidence
• Construct the Alternatives
• Select the Criteria
• Project the Outcomes
• Confront the Trade-offs
• Decide!
• Tell Your Story
These steps are not necessarily taken in precisely this order, nor are all of
them necessarily significant in every problem. However, an effort to define
the problem is usually the right starting place, and telling the story is almost
inevitably the ending point. Constructing alternatives and selecting criteria
for evaluating them must surely come toward the beginning of the process.
Assembling some evidence is actually a step that recurs throughout the
entire process, and it applies particularly to efforts to define the problem
and to project the outcomes of the alternatives being considered.
I NT R O D U CT I ON x v i i
The primary utility of this structured approach is that it reminds you
of important tasks and choices that otherwise might slip your mind; its
primary drawback is that, taken by itself, it can be mechanistic.
The Problem-Solving Process
The problem-solving process—being a process of trial and error—is
iterative, so you usually must repeat each of these steps, sometimes more
than once.
The spirit in which you take any one of these steps, especially in the
earliest phases of your project, should be highly tentative. As you move
through the problem-solving process, you will probably keep changing
your problem definition, as well as your menu of alternatives, your set of
evaluative criteria, and your sense of what evidence bears on the problem.
With each successive iteration you will become a bit more confident that
you are on the right track, that you are focusing on the right question, and
so on. This can be a frustrating process, but it can also be rewarding—if
you learn to enjoy the challenges of search, discovery, and invention.
Some of the guidelines are practical, but most are conceptual. Most of
the concepts used will seem obvious, but there are exceptions. First, technical terms are sometimes employed. Second, some commonsense terms
may be used in a special way that strips them of certain connotations and
perhaps imports others. For the most part, all these concepts will become
intelligible through experience and practice.
The concepts come embedded in concrete particulars. In real life,
policy problems appear as a confusing welter of details: personalities,
interest groups, rhetorical demands, budget figures, legal rules and interpretations, bureaucratic routines, citizen attitudes, and so on. Yet the
concepts described in this handbook are formulated in the abstract. You
therefore need to learn to “see” the analytic concepts in the concrete
manifestations of everyday life.
Caution: sometimes, some steps are already determined. Suppose
your client says, “We need an extra million dollars to run this program in
the next budget year: find it.” Does the Eightfold Path apply to this
“analysis”? In a limited way. The client has already defined the problem
and narrowed the relevant criteria very tightly. There won’t be much
x v i i i I NT R O D U CT I ON
creative scope for you when it comes to those steps. But all the other steps
are likely to be relevant.
This challenge to “find it” is a simplified version of a more complex
challenge—“Design it,” as in “Figure out [that is, ‘design’] a way to protect this subway system from terrorist attack.” Here, too, the problem
definition step has already been settled by the client, though the other
steps are likely to get the creative juices flowing. Ideas for dealing with
design problems in general are introduced in the section headed “Step
Three: Construct the Alternatives.”
Your Final Product
So what will your final product look like? Here is a very rough sketch of
a typical written policy-analytic report:
• In a coherent narrative style you describe some problem that needs
to be mitigated or solved.
• You lay out a few alternative courses of action that might be taken.
• To each course of action you attach a set of projected outcomes that
you think your client or audience would care about, suggesting the
evidentiary grounds for your projections.
• If no alternative dominates all other alternatives with respect to all
the evaluative criteria of interest, you indicate the nature and magnitude of the trade-offs implicit in different policy choices.
• Depending on the client’s expectations, you may state your own
recommendation as to which alternative should be chosen.
The Spirit of the Eightfold Path
The spirit of the Eightfold Path is, I hope, economizing and uplifting.
Analyzing public policy problems is a complex activity. It is easy to get
lost, to waste a lot of time, to become demoralized. Other manuals and
textbooks in policy analysis are primarily concerned that you get the
analysis “right,” in some sense. This one should help in that respect, too.
But, in addition, I hope that this handbook will help you to get it done
with reasonable efficiency—and with a minimum of anxious confusion.
Finally, just as policy analysis originates in politics, so it concludes
in politics. Political life has two sides: channeling conflict and building
I NT R O D U CT I ON x i x
community. Policy analysis serves both sides. It channels conflict by
showing that some arguments, and their proponents, are in some sense
superior to others and deserve to win out. But it helps to build community by marking off potential common ground as well. This common
ground is defined by the rules and conventions of rational discourse—
where opponents may employ analytical procedures to resolve disagreements, or where they may discover that at least some seemingly irreducible values conflicts can be recast as dry-as-dust technical disagreements
over how much higher a probability Policy A has than Policy B for
mitigating Problem P.
OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
This book is a compilation of many component parts. The primary component is Part I, describing the Eightfold Path and recommending heuristics to help you negotiate it.
Part II focuses on one particular step in the Eightfold Path: assembling
evidence. It first appeared thirty-five years ago as a journal article, but I
have since modified it and tried to integrate it better into the overall book
in terms of both style and content. I include it because its objective is, I
think, unique among the many prescriptive works in the social sciences
and in journalism about data gathering and interpretation: it is, above all,
concerned with using the researcher’s time and energy efficiently.
Part III also addresses a specialized topic in policy analysis not dealt
with in other works: making use of ideas—and specimens of “smart
practices”—that are to be found in other sites. Imitation and adaptation
are standard routes to progress (albeit occasionally, to regress) in other
areas of life, so why not in public policy?
In previous editions of this book, the third appendix offered a summary of “semantic tips.” It may not surprise readers to learn that semantic pitfalls abound on the Eightfold Path of policy analysis, but it will
surely be more surprising that there are many semantic tricks to help
policy analysis along. Tips about these pitfalls and the tricks that can help
to bridge them appear throughout this volume, and these practical recommendations—no longer collected in a separate appendix—are now
highlighted in context by means of a new semantic tips icon that appears
at the beginning of each such discussion in Parts I, II, and III.
x x I NT R O D U CT I ON
Appendix A contains the preface and summary sections of a lengthy
study by researchers at the RAND Corporation on the relative worth of
mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers. I include this material
because many students and fellow teachers have voiced the wish for a
specimen of real, high-quality policy analysis, along with some commentary to highlight its most effective characteristics. Institutionally, RAND
is the oldest policy research organization in the country, if not the world.
It has a deserved reputation for excellence. It also has a tradition of doing
cost-effectiveness analysis, beginning with work for the military and, in
the past two or three decades, branching into domestic policy. It is therefore particularly fitting to make use of a specimen produced by RAND.
Why this particular specimen? Not because its conclusions are necessarily correct; I do not know enough about the drug policy field to have
an opinion. I do know that these are highly respected researchers in the
field and that the work selected here highlights the fifth, “Project the
Outcomes,” step in policy analysis—which I pronounce “the hardest step,”
mostly because of the uncertainties involved in projecting the future. The
chosen specimen wrestles in an interesting way with such uncertainties. It
also takes a creative approach to defining alternatives. And it illustrates
clearly how to integrate strictly analytical work into a larger policy discussion rife with the value disagreements that are inevitably present in a
democratic, pluralistic society.
Appendix B, “Things Governments Do,” is a condensed survey of
eleven types of governmental instruments for intervening in society. This
new edition also offers both a new Appendix C, “Understanding Public
and Nonprofit Institutions: Asking the Right Questions,” and an Appendix
D, “Strategic Advice on the Dynamics of Political Support.”
I have tried to keep the style simple and the text short. But the topics
covered are numerous and complicated. The result is that the book is in
some respects very dense. My students tell me that the book should be
treated not just as a quick and pleasurable read, which of course it is, but
as a reference volume to be experienced again and again for its delicious
subtleties. No doubt they are right.
PART
I
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH
T
he analytic work in problem solving generally proceeds in a certain
direction, from defining the problem at the beginning all the way to
making a decision and explaining it at the end. But remember, this is a process much given to reconsidering, reviewing, changing your mind—in other
words, retracing your steps on the path before starting out once more. Also,
in some cases, the client or, perhaps, the political situation has already narrowed and focused the analytic task to such a degree that you need not even
bother thinking through some of the steps. The exposition that follows lays
out a generic process that must be adapted to particular contexts.
STEP ONE: DEFINE THE PROBLEM
Your first problem definition is a crucial step: it gives you both a reason
for doing all the work necessary to complete the project and a sense of
direction for your evidence-gathering activity. And in the last phases of
the policy analysis, your final problem definition will probably help you
structure how you tell your story.
Think of Deficit and Excess
Semantic Tip It often—but not always—helps to think in terms of deficit
and excess. For instance:
• “There are too many homeless people in the United States.”
• “The demand for agricultural water is growing faster than our ability
to supply it at an acceptable financial and environmental cost.”
1
2 A P R A C T I C A L G U I D E F O R P O L I C Y A N A LY S I S
• “California’s population of school-age children is growing by
140,000 per year, and our ability to develop the physical facilities in
which to educate them is not growing nearly as fast.”
It often helps to include the word too in the definition—as in “too big,”
“too small,” “growing too slowly,” “growing too fast.” These last two
phrases (about “growing”) remind us that problems deserving our attention don’t necessarily exist today but are (at least potentially) in prospect
for the future, whether near or distant.
However, it does not help to think in terms of deficit and excess when
your problem is an already well-structured decision choice—for example,
“Dump the dredging spoils either in the Bay or somewhere out in the
Pacific Ocean.” Nor does it help if your challenge is to invent any way to
accomplish some defined objective—for example, “Find some grant
funds to close the anticipated gap between revenues and expenditures.”
These decision- and invention-type challenges are problems for the policy analyst but are not the substantive sort of problems I am addressing
in this section.
Make the Definition Evaluative
Remember that the idea of a “problem” usually means that people think
there is something wrong with the world, but note that wrong is a very
debatable term. Not everyone will agree that the facts you (or others)
have defined as a problem really do constitute a problem, for each person
may apply a different evaluative framework to these facts. Unfortunately,
there are no obvious or accepted ways to resolve philosophical differences of this type.
A common philosophical as well as practical question is this: “What
private troubles warrant definition as public problems and thereby
legitimately raise claims for amelioration by public resources?” It is usually helpful to view the situation through the “market failure” lens
(Weimer and Vining 2004, chap. 5).1 In its simplest formulation, market
1. For an analysis of most traditional market failures in transaction cost terms, see
Zerbe and McCurdy (1999), which also emphasizes the rich variety of interventions
besides those undertaken by government to remedy traditionally conceived “market
failures.”
T H E E I G H T F O L D PA T H 3
failure occurs when the technical properties of a good or service have
one of the following effects:
• Making it hard to collect payment from all the potential beneficiaries—
for instance, the large number of people who profit, albeit indirectly, from advances in basic science
• Making it hard to collect from the beneficiaries of consumption the
true economic cost of making use of the good or service—such as
the fresh air that vehicle owners use as a sink for their auto emissions
• Making it hard for consumers (and sometimes suppliers) to know
the true qualities of the good or service they are acquiring—for
instance, many repair-type services, including those performed by
physicians as well as those performed by auto mechanics
• Making the cost of producing the marginal unit lower than the
average cost within the relevant range of demand—such as a magazine article distributed via the Internet
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this point. In most—
though not all—situations in which no actual market failures can be identified, people’s private troubles cannot typically be ameliorated by even the
most well-intentioned governmental interventions. Even when some amelioration is possible, there are usually many adverse side effects. In some
cases, it may nevertheless be worthwhile to pay the price of these side
effects, but such calculations must be done carefully and scrupulously.
Besides market failures, the main situations in which private troubles
can warrant definition as public problems are these:
• Breakdowns of systems, such as family relationships, that occur
largely outside markets
• Low living standards that arise precisely because markets do function well and do not reward individuals very generously if they lack
marketable talents or skills
• The existence of discrimination against racial and other minorities
• The failure of government to function well in areas in which it is
traditionally expected to act effectively (e.g., in providing public
schools)
4 A P R A C T I C A L G U I D E F O R P O L I C Y A N A LY S I S
Using issue rhetoric. Usually, the raw material for the evaluative aspect of
your initial problem definition comes from your client and derives from
the ordinary language of debate and discussion in the client’s political
environment—language that I call generically “issue rhetoric.” Such
rhetoric may be narrowly confined to a seemingly technical problem or
broadly located in a controversy of wide social interest. In either case, you
have to get beyond the rhetoric to define a problem that is analytically
manageable and that makes sense in light of the political and institutional means available for mitigating it.
Use the raw material of issue rhetoric with care. It often points to
some condition of the world that people don’t like or consider “bad”
in some sense, such as “teenage pregnancy,” “media violence,” or “global warming.” These evaluations do not necessarily need to be taken at
face value. You will sometimes wish to explore the philosophical and
empirical grounds on which you, your client, or others in your eventual audience should or should not consider the alleged condition
“bad.” Furthermore, issue rhetoric may point to some alleged—but not
necessarily real—cause of the troubling condition, such as “welfare” or
“human wastefulness.”
Issue rhetoric often has a partisan or ideological flavor. Although
Americans cluster toward a mixed-ideology and pragmatic center, issue
rhetoric is created by the more passionate and often more articulate individuals who settle closer to the extremes. The great ideological divide in
most developed democracies concerns the role of government assistance
and regulation in solving problems relative to reliance on self, kin, and
neighbors. Self-reliance is generally presumed to be the ideal, but this is
a rebuttable presumption. “Liberal” issue rhetoric typically offers many
rebuttals, usually involving distrust of “the market,” but only some of
these rebuttals are grounded in realistic understanding of how markets
do and do not work. “Conservative” issue rhetoric sometimes offers
thoughtless defenses of “the market” but can also fall silent when favored
business interests seek protectionist legislation. Because government as
an institution is the chief alternative to private and community problemsolving, liberals and conservatives alike ideologize the question of just
how competent and trustworthy it is. Selective perception abounds on
both sides of this argument.
T H E E I G H T F O L D PA T H 5
Generalities originating in issue rhetoric only sometimes suffice to
settle concrete issues of policy choice and policy design, although economic theories of market failures and imperfections can often tell us
when not to rely on the market, and public choice theories of government
failure can often tell us when not to rely on the government (Weimer and
Vining 2004; Glazer and Rothenberg 2001). Policy analysis typically
bridges all political ideologies by reliance on the normative standard of
“maximizing welfare” and on social science theorizing about the comparative advantages of different institutions for different purposes. Thus
you want not simply to echo the issue rhetoric in your problem definition,
but to use it as raw material for a provisional problem definition that you
hope will prove analytically useful.
Note also that some issue labels may signify more than one problem.
Depending on the audience, for example, “teenage pregnancy” may connote any or all of the following conditions: sexual immorality, the blighting of young people’s and their children’s life chances, exploitation of
taxpayers, and social disintegration. Usually you will want to determine
a primary problem focus, to ensure that the analysis does not get out of
hand. But if the problems aren’t too complicated, you may feel willing to
define more than one.
Quantify If Possible
Your problem definition should, insofar as possible, include a quantitative
feature. Assertions of deficit or excess should come with magnitudes attached.
How big is “too big”? How small is “too small”? How about “too slowly” or
“too fast”? With regard to homelessness, how many homeless people are
there in the United States? Or in the case of agricultural water, how many
acre-feet of water are used now, and how does that amount compare with the
demand in some specified future year (given certain assumptions about
water pricing)? Exactly what is “our ability to develop physical facilities for
water storage,” and how do we expect it to grow, or shrink, over time?
If necessary, gather information to help you calibrate the relevant magnitudes. (See the discussion under “Step Two: Assemble Some Evidence.”)
In many
