ABSTRACT
So what is policy analysis? According to its orthodox formulation, a formulation I shall refer to as the technological conception, policy analysis is social scientific research conducted in order to assist rational policy-making (Lindblom and Cohen 1979). It is this research which, it is claimed, adds a measure of rationality to the hurly burly of policy-making. By providing objective evidence, such research supposedly helps counteract the special pleading and selfish sectional interests that might otherwise seem to dominate the political process. It could be said that policy analysis, viewed as a technology, has an ‘underlabourer’s’ job to the more upfront activities of policy development and implementation. Policy analysts are social scientists trained to reason and collect data about social processes in careful and rigorous ways, and to provide information to policy-makers about such things as the likely options and possible consequences of various policy choices. Policy analysis is thus viewed as applied social research.
