ABSTRACT
The import, so far as policy analysis is concerned, is that the Cultural Theory approach allows us not to neglect the currently neglected definitions of the problem and the solution: the egalitarian's definitions. And, for good measure, it allows us to recognize the fatalist's position, a vital ingredient in any robust policy. With conventional and Cultural Theory approaches contrasted in this way –in-sufficient to sufficient variegation, tacit to explicit recognition of the social constructions of nature, and boring to interesting change –we can set about deducing what will be entailed in switching from the former to the latter. The message, essentially, is that most of the policy analysis we know and love has reached a dead end. Conventional policy analysts of course will argue that fairness, unlike economic efficiency, is a value-laden concept and therefore has no place in the dispassionate business that they are engaged in. But they deceive themselves.
