Democratic Politics
and Policy Analysis:
Harmony or Tension?
Policy analysis, as a set of techniques and criteria with which to evaluate public policy
options and select among them, has been widely promoted since the 1960s as a tool to
rationalize the development and implementation of public policy. The proponents of
analysis-from presidents of the United States to practitioners of the art-have touted
analysis as the means to greater efficiency and equity in allocation of public resources.
Democratic politics will be improved, it is said, by a more accurate translation of the
preferences of American citizens into public policy.
In nearly equal measure, however, the widespread use of policy analysis in public
policy formulation has been roundly condemned as destructive to the norms, institutions,
and practices of American politics. Analysis, it is argued, will result in the transfer of
power to a new, unrepresentative, and narrow technical elite. Furthermore, critics charge
that the application of policy analysis will serve to seriously distort the expression of
public preferences
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because of flaws in both the underlying theory of value and the techniques employed by
the policy analyst. Other critics see the primary source of the threat of analysis in the
generation of overwhelming strains on the political process and institutions. In this view,
both the cognitive capabilities of decision makers and the institutional processes through
which political power is fragmented and (in some measure) coordinated in American
politics are placed in jeopardy.
Particularly perplexing for those of us who would assess these competing
contentions is that both the proponents and the various critics of policy analysis are able
to marshal theoretical and empirical evidence to support their arguments. Each can point
to contingencies in the application of policy analysis that seem to bear out their hopes or
fears. How can the general plausibility of the threats and promises of analysis for our
political processes be assessed?
These are matters that must concern any student, practitioner, or scholar of policy
analysis. For those of us who do (or who plan to do) policy analysis, the belief that we are
"doing good" is a central professional motivation. Yet when one looks to the literature on
the debate over the threats and promise of policy analysis, one is struck by the eerie
quality of the dialogue: the proponents and critics of policy analysis seem more often
than not to talk past one another, generating images of analytical perfection (wherein all
citizens' preferences are accurately measured and reduced to a single comparable metric
of benefits and costs) that compete with specters of analysis from hell (in which analysts
usurp political power, mangle preferences, or reduce venerable political institutions to
ruin by the very weight of the analytical complexity they generate).1 It is no wonder that
new entrants to the debate ignore their adversaries, or that many students and
practitioners of policy analysis ignore the debate altogether. But that is a tragedy, because
analysis has become, for better or worse, an integral part of the workings of our political
institutions. Its implications for our democratic processes are of urgent concern to us all.
I should make clear that I do not enter this particular debate with clean hands. As
a student, practitioner, and teacher of policy analysis, and now as director of a public
policy research institute, I have remained convinced that analysis does indeed have a
great deal to offer policy makers and citizens in
1
Contrast Edith Stokey and Richard Zeckhauser's A Primer for Policy Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton
and Co., 1978): 1S1, and Allan Williams' "Cost-Benefit Analysis: Bastard Science? And/Or Insidious
Poison in the Body Politick?", eds. Robert Haveman and Julius Margolis Public Expenditure and Policy
Analysis, 2nd ed. (Chicago: RandMcNally, 1977),with Irving Horowitz's "Social Science Mandarins:
Policyrnaking as a Political Formula," Policy Sciences, vol. 1 (1970), pp. 339-360, or Edward Banfield's
"Policy Science as Metaphysical Madness." Robert Goldwin (ed.) Bureaucrats, Policy Analysts, Statesmen:
Who Leads? (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1980).
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democratic societies. And yet both practice and study of analysis have also convinced me
that, on occasion at least, public policy analysis is in tension with important norms of
democratic practice. This book, as a result, makes a self-conscious argument about the
characteristics, potential costs, and benefits of policy analysis that in some measure
reflects these discordant convictions. Throughout, this argument is based as solidly as
possible on empirical evidence concerning the pattern of demand for, provision of, and
response to policy analysis in our political institutions; and I have sought to address that
evidence directly to the normative boasts and condemnations of analysis.
My intent is to systematically evaluate the validity of the conflicting claims about the
place and effect of policy analysis in American politics. In particular, I attempt to assess
the praise and damnation of analysis in light of its practice in context over the range of
contingencies of the policy process. The chapters of Part One seek to clarify the
underlying foundations of, and claims for, policy analysis in theory and the perceived
threats for democratic politics should such analysis be widely applied. The characteristic
elements of policy analysis-with emphasis on the theoretical underpinnings and
techniques of efficiency analysis-are distilled and clarified in chapter 2. The implications
of these characteristic elements, and of the claims made for policy analysis by its
proponents, for the practice of American politics are highlighted. In chapter 3, the
primary themes critical of policy analysis are pulled together from a broad array of
sources and perspectives. The specific threats posed by analysis are developed in a
manner designed to facilitate subsequent assessment of their validity in light of a
conceptual model of the practice and process of policy analysis. Specifically, what does
the theme of criticism presume about the context in which analysis is applied, and about
the constraints and incentives with which the policy analyst is confronted? As it turns out,
the presumptions implicit within the different critical themes are quite at odds with one
another.
In Part Two, I develop a conceptual model of policy analysis as applied in political
institutions, and provide tests and elaboration of the model through a series of case
studies. Chapter 4 presents the model of the process of policy analysis, arguing that the
characteristics of the application of analysis-and the uses to which it is put-must be
understood as an interactive process within the cluster of specialized policy experts,
government officials, lobbyists, reporters, and others who work closely in the issue area.
Characteristics of the policy-issue context-the intensity of conflict, the level of analytical
uncertainty attending the issue, and the nature of the political forum-systematically affect
the tendency toward, and constraints on, particular kinds of uses of policy analysis.
Chapter 4 also examines the kinds of professional roles, here called "styles" of policy
analysis, promoted for policy analysts and explores the applicability and effect of these
styles within the varying issue contexts.
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Chapters 5 and 6 apply the model of the process of analysis to a set of detailed case
studies on the use of energy policy analysis in the federal government. First, the use of
policy analysis within a bureaucratic debate among an array of federal agencies over oil
export policy is examined in detail. Particular attention is given to the styles of analysis
adopted by the various protagonists and to the strategies employed in advocacy of
particular policy options by those protagonists. Second, a series of cases-including
analytical debates over natural gas regulation, domestic refinery policy, and the size of
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve-are reviewed with attention to the attributes and
implications of analysis when applied in varying policy contexts.
Part Three weaves together the themes of praise and criticism of policy analysis with
the exploration of the use and characteristics of analysis in practice. Under what
circumstances-what configurations of attributes of the policy context-do the threats
perceived by the critics of analysis hold greatest plausibility? Are instances of such
contexts likely to occur with sufficient frequency, and with enough breadth, to threaten
democratic political processes? If not, are there particular regions of the policy process in
which such threats do hold greater validity?
On the whole, I will argue, the threats anticipated by the critics of analysis have not
been realized. Analysis has been transformed as it has been integrated into the political
process and dispersed among its halls and denizens. Except perhaps in rare instances,
policy analysis has not been applied as prescribed by the policy analysis paradigm
outlined in chapter 2. Rarely does policy analysis acquire significant independent
influence in the shaping of public policy, although on occasion, policy analysis can alter
the beliefs of policy makers. Furthermore, the interactive and often iterative process of
analysis serves to limit the potential for unbridled distortion of the expression of values
and beliefs on the part of any particular analyst.
Rather than indict policy analysis generally, the criticisms of policy analysis hold
greatest force when applied to the use of analysis in specific contexts. When the forum
for analytical debate is open, and many contending sides have cause and resources to
mobilize analysis, the threats to democratic process are slight; when applied in less
visible and less open fora, however, and particularly when the issue under review is
subject to domination by particular political interests, advocacy analysis may do most to
distort policy and mislead decision makers. It is in such contexts that the criticisms that
policy analysts wield undue influence and distort the expression of citizen preferences
holds greatest force.
I will argue that the most general institutional effect of policy analysis is its surprising
tendency to inhibit political initiatives, thereby reinforcing the policy status quo. Critics
who fear that the mobilization of analysis will lead to radical change in policy and
political institutions should be reassured.
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If anything, the provision of another tool with which to resist political initiatives serves to
reinforce the decanting and slowing of political power that for liberal democrats is so
essential. Participatory democrats, on the other hand, will find little to celebrate; though
policy analysis poses little threat to direct decision makers, its tendency to inhibit change
on larger issues may reduce the case with which popular expression can work its way
through the policy process to create new public policy.
It is not necessary to conclude, however, that policy analysis is inevitably a mere
handmaiden to the exercise of power politics. In a policy context of moderate conflict, on
analytically tractable issues, and when employed in a forum dominated by similarly
trained policy analysts, policy analysis can be expected to make a substantial contribution
to the ways that policy elites perceive policy issues and options. Of course, most policy
contexts are neither completely hospitable to the provision of analysis nor wholly
conducive to the use of analysis as a political resource.
Based on this assessment, how should policy analysis be practiced to mitigate the
apparent threats of analysis while still allowing provision of useful advice and
information to decision makers? How can the practitioner adapt to the systematically
varying context in which he or she plies the trade? In what ways can analytical resources
be most effectively, and least threateningly, applied?
A primary concern of this volume is to develop a conceptual framework that allows
the policy analyst to distinguish among the various types of policy contexts and to
anticipate the probable efficacy of various styles for the practice of analysis within those
contexts. I will argue that arming policy analysts with such a framework provides a
possible resolution to this problem. Prudent analysts can constructively tailor the practice
of policy analysis to the contingencies of the policy context. Recognizing that within
some contexts there exist unresolvable tensions between the practice of analysis and the
norms of democratic governance, I will describe a style of policy analysis that will permit
the analyst sufficient flexibility to adapt to the varying policy context while limiting and
counteracting potential threats and abuses of analysis.
Given the contentious nature of the debate over the harmonies and tensions between
policy analysis and democratic politics, I anticipate that much of the argument contained
in these pages will spark rejoinder, modification, and I hope, extension and further tests
of the hypotheses it contains. Indeed, much of this book is a response to what others have
written and argued. Should such rejoinders be made, I will claim success, for my intent is
to push the debate in the direction of bridging the empirical work on the role of policy
analysis in policy making-and on policy change in general-with the theoretical and
normative concerns about the role of public policy analysis in a democracy.