Incremental versus Methodological Policymaking in the Liberal State

Abstract

Disjointed incrementalism became a feasible paradigm for American administrative decision making during the growth of interest-group liberalism. Over the same time, methods of quantitative rationalism gained their efficacy for administrative decision making amid the rise of a technocratic liberalism, and amid social transformations that made public life more systematic, enumerable, and quantifiable. How could both these forms of reasoning come to be plausible ways of responding to the world, despite their seeming incompatibility? How could the two paradigms coexist in American administration during the liberal era? In view of the apparent failings of incrementalism, did methodological policymaking fare better? This article argues that incrementalism and methodology each depended for its policymaking efficacy on historically derived structural conditions. Since history never fulfilled the requisites of any rationalist decision paradigm, the paradigms provided inadequate principles for public decisions.

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