ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews and builds on some central features of C. E. Lindblom's approach to the use of the concept of authority in public policy analysis. It explores the concept within a broader policy-oriented view of politics. The chapter shows how the concept of the political problem helps to link authority to concepts of institutional interests, conflict and integration, and thence to certain developmental trends in Western political economies, widely viewed as public policy problems. It describes how Lindblom's approach helps to link Lindblom's concept of authority more explicitly with values and ideology. The chapter discusses the concept of authority analysed in such a framework has implications for policy debates. Political science in its policy orientation is also concerned with the solution of "problems". "Political" problems arise from the fact that the realisation of values is never certain, and that uncertainty arises, to a significant degree from the actions of others.
