ABSTRACT
This penultimate chapter continues a discussion on how far it may be possible to develop effective policy decisions within a world divided by ideological and ethical disagreement and riven by self-interest. Frameworks for determining more rigorous means of creating workable public policies have been suggested, as outlined in Chapter 2, by pioneers of policy studies such as Harold Lasswell and in the analysis of the factors that may presage success or failure of policy initiatives in the previous chapter. Many of these arguments, however, have a largely positivist direction in that they tend to counsel better evaluation techniques or more comprehensive dovetailing of the resources and information required to ensure policy can get off the ground. Far less attention is directed to subjective issues even though, as this study has emphasised, a central issue in the development of effective public policies is that the content of any output has been established with due regard to rational thought in relation to the balance of ethical and ideological values and preservation of legitimate self-interest. This chapter outlines some of the possible directions in which the subjective differences between individuals, societies and nations may be evened out to provide a more democratic form of policy making and hence governance than is currently provided by the liberal democratic ethic.
