ABSTRACT
For better or for worse, policy choices simply must be made, even when values and rights conflict. If policy analysis refuses to rise to the challenge presented by conflicting values and rights - the essence of all policy dilemmas - then it must end up addressing only the less important, technical means-ends problems in policy choice, as opposed to the more fundamental questions of value. Shifting the focus to analytical mechanisms for the identification of preferred policies when values conflict, "economic rationality" has its advocates too. The political stream brings to the confluence from the recognition that political interaction left to itself produces policy outcomes in a fragmented, disjointed, and systematically biased manner. Applied to deliberations over public policy, this open communications ideal would involve both political actors and experts such as policy analysts. Thomas R. Berger inquiry is a model of dialogue as an integral part of the policy process.
