ABSTRACT
Chapter Roadmap: To understand and evaluate the rational model of policy analysis, you need to understand its genesis, history, and evolution, including the critical reaction it spurred. After providing you with that base we explain the rational model and present one example (Vietnam) where it is traditionally blamed, perhaps erroneously, for producing poor policy. Next we offer a case that demonstrates how the rational model can help policy analysis, and we discuss its relevance in practice. We then provide you with the tools necessary to evaluate this and other models before reviewing the status of the rational model, sharing some concluding thoughts about all of these important topics and how they relate to material coming in future chapters, and then finally closing the chapter by letting you grapple with a second case that not only relates to two pressing global issues and material covered up to this point, but also foreshadows an important issue central to the last half of the book-democracy.
