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Educating Policy Analysts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Hindy Lauer Schacter
Hindy Lauer Schacter*
Affiliation:
New Jersey Institute of Technology
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Extract

This article explores the role of political science in educating people who perform policy analysis in public bureaucracies. Policy analysts are defined as applied scientists who study the nature, causes and effects for alternative public policies, using relevant academic disciplines, theories and methodologies to choose optimal policies to achieve a given aim. Typically, analysts evaluate enacted policies but occasionally they compare hypothetical alternatives.

The education of policy analysts is similar to the education of engineers. Both draw on several basic sciences for information to solve real-world problems. However, greater consensus exists on which sciences are important for engineers. Their key science is physics although engineering education also uses insights from chemistry, geology and biology.

Type
Educating Public Service Executives
Information
News for Teachers of Political Science , Volume 44 , Winter 1985 , pp. 1 - 3
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

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References

Notes

1. Nagel, Stuart “The Policy Studies Perspective,” Public Administration Review, 40 (July/August, 1980) 391–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Meltsner, Arnold, Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1976)Google Scholar, Chaps, 1 and 4. See also Mead, Lawrence, “The Interaction Problem in Policy Analysis,” Unpublished paper, January 20, 1983.Google Scholar

3. Gene Maeroff, “Government Complexity Spurs Public-Policy Courses,” New York Times (August 4, 1976), 17. See also, Carl Van Horn and Stephen Salmore, “Designing an M.A. Program in Public Policy and Survey Research,” DEA News (1980), 21.

4. Wildavsky, Aaron, Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis (Boston: Little Brown, 1979), p. 413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Ibid.

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8. Ibid. p. 448.

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14. For example, Behn, Robert and Vaupel, James, “Teaching Analytical Thinking,“ Policy Analysis, 2 (Fall, 1976), 663–692Google Scholar; Hitch, Charles, Decision Making for Defense (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1965), p. 54Google Scholar; and Strauch, Ralph, “A Critical Look at Quantitative Methodology.“ Policy Analysis, 2 (Winter, 1976), 121–144.Google Scholar

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21. MacRae, pp. 387-388.

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26. See the analysis in Willie, Charles Vert, Desegregation Plans that Work (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1984).Google Scholar

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30. For example, see the attempt to define responsiveness operationally in Tucker, Harvey and Zeigler, Harmon, Professionals Versus the Public: Attitudes, Communication and Response in School Districts (New York: Longman, 1980).Google Scholar

31. Lindblom, Charles and Cohen, David, Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 11.Google Scholar

32. Examples of well-known works from the two literatures would be Truman, David, The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951)Google Scholar and Bailey, Stephen and Mosher, Edith, ESEA: The Office of Education Administers a Law (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1968)Google Scholar, respectively. Public policy textbooks written by political scientists tend to focus on process; see, for example, Jones, Charles, An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy, 2nd ed. (North Scituate, Massachusetts: Duxbury Press, 1977).Google Scholar

33. For an interesting discussion about economists doing policy analysis with natural scientists, see Koopman, Tjallings, “Economics Among the Sciences,” American Economic Review, 69 (March, 1979), 1–13.Google Scholar

34. Wildavsky, p. 411.