ABSTRACT
A policy argument is the product of argumentation, which is the process. A knowledge claim or contention is the conclusion of an argument. There are four types of knowledge claims: definitive, designative, evaluative, and advocative. Policy maps are useful in representing complex arguments. The Senator supports the privatization of the federal highway system, which will bring gains in efficiency and reduced taxes. Policy arguments have seven elements: information, claim, qualifier, warrant, backing, objection, and rebuttal. Modes of argumentation, which are specific patterns of reasoning about policy, include reasoning from authority, method, generalization, classification, intuition, cause, sign, motivation, analogy, parallel case, and ethics. The evaluation of policy arguments facilitates critical thinking in public policy analysis. Hermeneutics investigates the meanings of human texts. It is perhaps the most comprehensive and systematic of the qualitative methodologies. Rather, qualitative methods also known as hermeneutic, interpretive, ethnographic, or constructivist methods—are expressly designed to investigate the meanings of individual and collective action.
