Defining Policy Analysis: A Journey that Never Ends

This Element explores the differences in the definitions of the goals, work and significance of policy analysis in society.

Beryl A. Radin (Author)

9781108927802, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 January 2021

75 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 0.5 cm, 0.12 kg

'What is a policy scholar for, what is the mission of schools of governance (and, [Diane Lesley] Stone would add, transnational governance) - bluntly, what are we doing in the world? Radin has a brilliant approach to capture this issue, right from the telling runner title: A Journey that Never Ends. Her volume is also yet another opportunity to appreciate the subtlety of Wildavsky's insights - Radin reflects on some truly memorable quotes and the defining, often enigmatic, moments of Wildavsky's intellectual progression. And there is more: at the end of the book, we find a questionnaire about what it means to be a policy analyst - hence, we can complete and find our own answer. This volume explains cogently and with a warm, passionate, heart-felt style, how policy analysts must learn to cope and possibly enjoy the tension between embracing the values of science, as well as embracing pragmatic values of utility.' Claudio M. Radaelli, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice

For much of its life, the field of policy analysis has lived with a wide range of definitions of its goals, work and significance in the society. This Element seeks to sort out these differences by describing the issues, players and developments that have played a role over the life of this field. As a result of the relationships that have developed an environment has emerged where both academics and practitioners who self identify as 'policy analysts' are not always recognized as such by others who use that same label. This Element explores the reasons why this conflictual situation has developed and whether the current status is a major departure from the past. While these developments may not be new or found only in policy analysis, they do have an impact on the status of the academics as well as the practitioners in the field.

1. Introduction
2. Section One: The Origins of the Policy Analyst Concept and its Early History
3. The Whiz Kids and their Descendants
4. Look to California: Aaron Wildavsky and Activity on the West Coast
5. Section Two: What Helps Explain the Changes in the Definition of Policy Analysis? Five Questions
6. Question One: The Differences between Analysis and Research
7. Question Two: The World of Practice vs. the Culture of the Academy
8. Question Three: Changes in the Environment of Policy Analysis
9. Question Four: Information, Analytic Techniques and Evidence
10. Question Five: Values
11. Conclusion
12. Section Three: The QUESTIONNAIRE. What does it mean to be a Policy Analyst?

Subject Areas: Central government policies [JPQB], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP], Society & culture: general [JF]