ABSTRACT
Policy analysis involves creating problems that are solvable by specific organizations in a particular arena of action. A problem in policy analysis, then, cannot exist apart from a proposed solution, and its solution is part of an organization, a structure of incentives without which there can be no will to act. Policy analysis serves organizations of people who want to correct their mistakes. Information theory handles quantities of data. For policy analysis, however, when analysis is part of organized action, information is any communication by which organizations detect and correct error. Analysis works toward embedding itself in organizational incentives, holding that information is good only if organizations actually use it to do better. To say that contemporary information systems are ahistorical is to conclude that they increase the sources of error while decreasing the chances of correcting mistakes. The ideal specimen of an ahistorical information system is zero-base budgeting.
