THE ART AND CRAFT OF POLICY ANALYSIS

The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis

Aaron Wildavsky

©Aaron Wildavsky 1979

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1979 978-0-333-27347-0

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the USA 1979

First published 1980 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

ISBN 978-1-349-04957-8 ISBN 978-1-349-04955-4 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-04955-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96

For Gale Gordon M. V.M.F.R.J.D.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book recites lessons I have learned from my teachers: the stu­dents, staff, and faculty at the Graduate School of Public Policy of the University of California at Berkeley. Two chapters have been coauthored with students at the school: David Good on "A Tax by Any Other Name," and Bob Gamble, Presley Pang, Fritzie Reisner, and Glen Shor on "Co­ordination without a Coordinator." Presley Pang used his incisive under­standing to help me tease out the craft aspects of policy analysis. The chapter "Distribution of Urban Services" originally appeared, in slightly different form, in Urban Outcomes: Schools, Streets, and Libraries, with Frank S. Levy, and Arnold J. Meltsner, co-authors who are also colleagues. My collaborators on two other chapters- Jack Knott on "Jimmy Carter's Theory of Governing," and Bruce Wallen on "Oppor­tunity Costs and Merit Wants"- were then students in the Political Sci­ence Department. No one knows enough about the broad sweep of public policy to do it alone and I have not tried.

Like everyone else I have benefitted by reading classics in the field -Y ehezkel Dror' s Public Policy Making Reexamined ( San Francisco: Chandler, 1968), Charles Hitch and Rowland McKean's The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960 for the Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, California), E. S. Quade's Analysis for Military Decisions (New York: Elsevier, 1970), Sir Geoffrey Vickers' The Art of Judgment: A Study of Policy Making (New York: Basic Books, 1965). Critical commentary has proved invaluable. Robert Merton has provided the best (and toughest) comments it has ever been my good fortune to receive. Gordon Wasserman helped me cut out as well

vii

viii AcJCNOWLEDGMENTS

as include in. Herman van Cunsteren, Elaine Spitz, and Paul Sneiderman improved the sections on citizenship and trust. Leroy Craymer and sev­eral commentators for Little, Brown gave me a useful teaching perspec­tive. Harvard Williamson helped improve my expression. I mean this book to be widely accessible, so that special thanks are due to my citizen critics -Juliette Diller and Judith Polisar. William Siffin labored long for Little, Brown (but more for me) to bring out the potential of this volume. I alone am irresponsible.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Analysis as Art 1

Problems of Implementation 3 Morality in Policy Analysis IS The Art of Policy Analysis 15 Notes 19

PART 1 Resources versus Objectives !1

CHAPTER 1 Policy Analysis Is What Information Systems Are Not 26

Modem Management Information Systems 17 Theory 35 Organization 36 History 38 Notes 39

CHAPTERS Strategic Retreat on Objectives: Learning from Failure in American Public Policy 41

Retreat on Objectives 43 The Search for Attainable Objectives 48 Retreat or Rout? 53 Rede6ning the Problem 56 Notes 60

ix

x CoNTENTS

CHAPTER 3 Policy as Its Own Cawe 62

The Law of Large Solutions in Public Policy 63 Internalizing External Effects 67 The Corporate State? 71 Government as a Federation of Sectors 73 The World Outside 77 Change for Its Own Sake 79 Sectors of Policy as Prohibiters and Proponents of Change 80 Problems and Solutions 82 Notes 84

CHAPTER 4 Coordination without a Coordinator 86

The Revolution We Are Waiting for Is Already Here 87 Rules Containing the Consensus 90 Rules for Resolving Uncertainty about Values 91 Program Characteristics as Determinants of Cost 95 Misunderstandings that Always Cost More 101 Alternative Hypotheses 103 Notes 107

PART 2 Social Interaction versus Intellectual Cogitation 109

CHAPTER 5 Between Planning and Politics: Intellect vs. Interaction as Analysis 114

Exchange 117 Motivation 118 Planning and Politics 120 Analysis 124 Rationality 127 Politics and Planning Are Equally ( Ir )rational 128 The Imperatives 129 "Retrospection" 135 Reprise 139 Notes 140

CHAPTER 6 A Bias Toward Federalism 142

The Cooperative-Coercive Model 143 The Conflict-Consent Model 147

CONTENTS xi

Size vs. Number or Interaction vs. Cogitation Revisited 150 Notes 153

CHAPTER 7 Opportunity Costs and Merit Wants 155

Two Doctrines 156 Cost Versus Merit, or Interaction and Cogitation in a New Guise 156 Cost in Economics 159 History 161 Texts in the Private Sector 163 Four Concepts of Worth 164 Opportunity Cost and Markets 167 Cost in the Public Sector 172 Economics in the Public Sector: Public Goods and Merit Wants 174 Notes 181

CHAPTER 8 Economy and Environment/Rationality and Ritual 184

The Delaware River Basin Project's Failure 184 Alternatives for Controlling Water Pollution 191 The Risky Environment 193 Economics for Environmentalists 199 Notes 202

PART 3 Dogma versus Skepticism 205

Notes 211

CHAPTER 9 The Self-Evaluating Organization 212

Evaluation 213 Obstacles to Evaluation 214 The Policy-Administration Dichotomy Revisited 220 Who Will Pay the Costs of Change? 224 Evaluation, Incorporated 226 Adjusting to the Environment 229 Joining Knowledge with Power 231 Evaluation as Trust 234 Notes 237

xii CoNTENTS

CHAPTER 10 Skepticism and Dogma in the White House: Jimmy Carter's Theory of Governing 238

Uniformity 240 Predictability 240 Cogitation 241 Comprehensiveness 242 Incompatibility 243 Top-Ught and Bottom-Heavy 245 Belief 246 "He-the-People" 247 Notes 249

CHAPTER 11 Citizens as Analysts 252

Citizenship as Moral Development 253 Mr. and Mrs. Model Citizen 256 A Strategy of Specialization 257 Citizenship in Daily Life 259 Distinguishing Big from Uttle Change 263 Prod Change 266 Fact and Value: Convention or Constraint? 270 Why Analysis Is Conservative 274 Morality and Policy Analysis 277 Notes 278

PART 4 Policy Analysis 281

CHAPTER 12 Doing Better and Feeling Worse: The Political Pathology of Health Policy 284

Paradoxes, Principles, Axioms, Identities, and Laws 285 Why There Is a Crisis 290 Does Anyone Win? 291 Curing the Sickness of Health 292 Alternative Health Policies 295 Market versus Administrative Mechanisms 296 Thought and Action 301 Planning Health-System Agencies 302 The Future 306 Notes 308

CoNTENTs xiii

CHAPTER 13 Learning from Education: If We're Still Stuck on the Problems, Maybe We're Taking the Wrong Exam 309

Compensation without Education 309 Educational Opportunity without Social Equality 314 The Objective of Having Objectives 316 Politicization without Politics 320 Clarification of Objectives as a Social Process 323 Notes 325

CHAPTER 14 A Tax by Any Other Name: The Donor-Directed Automatic Percentage-Contribution Bonus, A Budget Alternative for Financing Governmental Support of Charity 326

Budget Alternatives 327 Proposals, Criteria, and Consequences 329 What Difference Does a Government Subsidy Make? A Sensitivity Analysis 341 How Much of Which Problems Are We Prepared to Live with? An Analysis of Criteria 343 Political Feasibility 345 Testing the Percentage-Contribution Bonus 348 Notes 349

CHAPTER 15 Distribution of Urban Services 352

Patterns of Resource Distribution 355 Three Patterns: The More, The More; Compensation; and Resultants 357 An Explanation 359 Adam Smith in Action 361 Judging Outcomes 365 Altering Outcomes 370 Notes 383

CHAPTER 16 Analysis as Craft 385

Solutions as Programs 391 Solutions as Hypotheses 393 Solutions as Social Artifacts 395 The Craft of Problem Solving 397 Speaking Truth to Power 401 Notes 406

xiv CoNTENTS

Appendix 407

Structure of the School 409 Faculty 411 Curriculum 41! Administration 418 Afterword 418 Notes 419 Postscript 420

Index 455