A place at the table: Policy analysis, its postpositive critics, and future of practice

Abstract

Postpositivist critics have brought a new stridency to the ongoing discourse about the nature, applications, and usefulness of policy analysis. Regrettably, their critique is based on a decontextualized caricature, virtually a parody, of policy analysis training and practice. Their assertions are chilling but false, ideological rather than analytical, and detached from the inconvenient realities of policy making and management. Far from being narrowly technocratic and scientistic, policy analysis is dedicated to improving the craft of governance. It is fueled by intuition, argument, and ethical promptings; clearly engaged with the world of political action; and often identified with interests and values otherwise unrepresented at the table. Q-methodology and other approaches to values identification and analysis can be important contributors to policy analysis practice, but postpositivists have a very long way to go if they are to be relevant to the practical challenges of democratic governance that arise in the many roles that working policy analysts perform. © 1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

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