The artificial debate between rationalist and incrementalist models of decision making

As students of the formation and implementation of government policies have become dissatisfied with a predominantly descriptive and generally atheoretical approach to their subject, so more express attention to the abstract concepts and ideas which guide data collection and analysis in policy studies has become indispensable. The notion of ‘decision making’ is indisputably central to studying the process through which policies are both designed and effected and this paper is about the components of that idea. Such analysis may be thought redundant for ‘decision’ is a common enough term. But, as the already extended discussions of ‘key concepts’ such as poverty, ¹ need, ² justice, ³ implementation ⁴ or control ⁵ have shown, commonsense notions in everyday usage tend initially to be rather blunt instruments when pressed into service as tools for research. And as any good craftsman knows, there are few things more dangerous than using blunt tools.