ABSTRACT
The optimal model makes it clear that knowledge is potentially of tremendous importance for public policymaking, both because the rational components are based on it, and because it can better define the roles of, and stimulate, the extrarational components. But for knowledge to actually perform these functions in public policymaking, three conditions must be satisfied: (1) the knowledge that can perform the function must exist; (2) there must be means for integrating it into actual public policymaking; and (3) powerful policymakers must want to improve public policymaking by using the knowledge strongly enough to overcome conservative ideologies and other forces of inertia. In this chapter I will see how much knowledge that is relevant to policymaking is available. The later chapters will in part discuss means for integrating knowledge into the public-policymaking process, and in Chapter 21 I will make some comments on the “will to innovate.”
