ABSTRACT
How can we develop a better understanding of the public policy process, its actors, modes of decision making, outcomes and consequences? This question lies at the heart of contemporary public policy research. Different schools of thought in policy research give different answers to this question. Whereas neopositivist approaches embrace the rationality model of policy making and attempt to provide unequivocal, value-free answers to major questions, argumentative policy analysis rejects the focus of policy studies being the application of scientifi c techniques and rationality, instead moving language and the process of utilizing, mobilizing and weighing arguments and signs in the interpretation and praxis of policy making and analysis into its center.
