ABSTRACT
Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the policy sciences emerged as a means of studying and addressing some of the most pressing societal problems through the
use of highly quantitative and quasi-scientific approaches to social problem solving. Examples of these approaches include operations research and planning programming budgeting systems (PPBS). Operations research entails the use of statistics and mathematical modeling in decision making, while PPBS is the systematic comparison
of different programs with regard to costs and effectiveness. With the advent of the
antipoverty movement during the administrations of President John F. Kennedy and
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the policy science community saw an opportu-
nity to contribute in the area of policy formulation. Policy science contributions cul-
minated with the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which
was the centerpiece of Johnson’s Great Society agenda. In
spite of a comprehensive legislative effort to combat poverty,
there was little improvement in the lives of the nation’s poor.
