ABSTRACT
Widely diverse examples and mini-cases, ranging from historical decisions about war to a decision about building a rural health clinic, help readers understand the genesis of the rational model in public administration and policy analysis—in theory and in practice—as well as grapple with some of the debates about its relative merits and shortcomings. You will learn where the rational model has failed, where it can work, and in a mini-case focusing on GMOs and climate change, debate the role of science and democracy (foreshadowing an issue, democracy, central to the last half of the book). Along the way you learn how to evaluate models, as well as the meaning and importance of praxis, and why—despite Big Data and the quants—policy analysis in everything from foreign and national security policy to baseball is perhaps better thought of as a craft than as either an art or a science.
