Chapter 11 Policy Analysis Policy analysis is ubiquitous. You can hardly go through the day without bumping into it. You wake up to a talk radio show spewing vitriolic opinions on a new presi¬dential proposal. As you eat breakfast reading the local morning newspaper, you are exposed to more analysis on regional issues such as school taxes and crime rates. At work your officemates freely give you their analyses of the behavior of a political leader caught in the latest financial or sex scandal. Returning home from work you review your mail and find more analyses in the magazines to which you subscribe and in the unsolicited junk mail from public interest groups and political parties. Finally, you conclude your day by falling asleep watching even more analyses on television news and talk shows. It seems that almost everybody is constantly complaining or explaining about something. If journalism represents the first rough draft of history, it is also the first policy analysis that most people will hear or read on a new issue. The powers that be make policy but it is then reported and explained to the public by the journalistic media. All the major news organizations, both print and television, have reporters that spe¬cialize in various policy areas. Thus there are White House, congressional, Supreme Court, education, medical, consumer, and financial correspondents among others. It is these specialists that are almost always the first analysts to tackle a new policy issue. Scholarly analysis is usually years behind—unless, of course, it is done by the rela¬tively small group of academics who also write for journalistic sources. The op-ed pages are full of college professors and think tank denizens telling the public what the implications are of any new policy. 397 Policy Analysis All this—from the current buzz at work to the weekly news magazines—is informal policy analysis. These "quick and dirty" critiques of current issues are both widespread and essential to a flourishing democracy. While they may be made with style, wit, and true depth of feeling, they tend to lack the methodological rigor of a formal policy analysis. Formal policy analysis uses a set of techniques that seeks to answer the question of what the probable effects of a policy will be before they actually occur. A policy analysis undertaken on a program that is already in effect is more properly called a program evaluation. Nevertheless, policy analysis is used by many to refer to both before- and after-the-fact analyses of public policies. All policy analysis involves the application of systematic research techniques (drawn largely from the social sciences and based on measurements of program effectiveness, quality, cost, and impact) to the formulation, execution, and evaluation of public policy to create a more rational or optimal administrative system. It was Jeremy Bentham's (see Chapter I) desire to see this kind of formal, methodologically rigorous analysis applied to all policy issues. To the extent that we make judgments on governmental policies from affirmative action to zoning variances, we all do policy analysis. Any judgment on a policy issue requires an analysis however superficial. Policy analysis can be viewed as a continuum from crude judgments made in a snap ("The governor is an idiot and all his policies are stupid!") to the most sophisticated analysis using complicated methodologies ("I have just administered anl.Q. test to the governor and he really is an idiot."). In 1854 Abraham Lincoln wrote this: The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or can not so well do, for themselves—in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

What Lincoln was calling for, though he didn't use the term, was a cost-benefit approach to ascertain whether goods and/or services should be provided collectively rather than individually. This is the test that James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock proposed for all public policies in their classic analysis, The Calculus of Consent (1962). They ask: "When will a society composed of free and rational utility-maximizing individuals choose to undertake action collectively rather than privately?" The answer is that the rational person takes collective action to obtain a collective good, anything of value (such as clean air, safe streets or tax loopholes) that cannot be denied to a group member. A group can vary from all of society to any subset of it Economist Mancur Olson in The Logic of Collective Action (1965) found that small groups are better at obtaining collective goods. The larger the potential group, the less likely it is that most will contribute to obtain the "good." Just as in military strategy concentration is the key. Thus a particular industry is better able to obtain tax loopholes for itself than the general public is able to obtain overall tax equity (fairness and justice in how taxes are assessed and administered). The problem with collectively provided goods, those paid for by tax dollars, is that the demand will always exceed what can be supplied. After all, if something appears to be both desirable and "free," demand for it will only continue to rise. This leads to budget deficits and the kind of destruction illustrated by Garrett Hardin, in his article, "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science (December 13, 1968), reprinted here. This shows that the principle that the maximization of private gain will not result in the maximization of social benefit. Garrett asks you to "picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching and disease keep the numbers . . . below the carrying capacity of the land." Eventually there "comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the com¬mons remorselessly generates tragedy?' Because then each herdsman seeks to maxi¬mize his gain. . . . The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another, and another . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a com¬mons." When herdsmen sought to maximize individual gain by adding more and more cattle to a common pasture, the common was overgrazed. The resulting tragedy was that no one was able to effectively use the common for grazing. "Ruin is the des¬tination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." The concepts involved with the tragedy of the commons apply to societal prob¬lems, such as pollution and overpopulation. Neutral competence is a long-standing concept in public administration. It his¬torically refers to a continuous, politically uncommitted cadre of bureaucrats at the disposal of elected or appointed political executives. This ethic of neutrality has now been borrowed by the policy analyst.

Policy analysts should be unbiased when they initially approach a problem. An open mind is essential for the systematic compilation and interpretation of facts. But once the analytical task of the analyst is complete, he or she may be transformed by his or her conclusions and attendant circumstances from an analyst to an advocate. This is dangerous. Presently policy analysis allows the analyst to pose as a neutral nonpartisan, disinterested professional. But prescribing public policy on the basis of an analysis takes the analyst into the realm of politics. The advocate may then become a lobby and risk his or her reputation for objectivity. Just as there are best ways to undertake a policy analysis, there are also ways not to do it—paths that should not be taken. In 1976 Arnold J. Meltsner published Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy. When he produced a revised edition in 1986 he included a new section on "The Seven Deadly Sins of Policy Analysts?' These 394 Policy Analysis distilled• " "sins are organized into the following seven categories, which Meltsner warns "are not mutually exclusive; they bleed into each other." i. Channeled advice: Here "both analyst and client ignore that circumstances have changed or that constraints exist." In consequence, "the advice is in a rut, groove, or furrow." 2. Distant advice: This is a distance grounded in ignorance. "Policy analysts all too often come up with general solutions for very specific conditions." An example is "advice cooked up in Washington [that] does not square with the reality of San Antonio." 3. Late advice: Better late than never does not apply here. "An analyst may be late to his or her wedding but must be on time when advice is wanted." 4. Superficial advice: Beware of advice that "is too quick, too off-the-cuff, and not based on enough digging into the roots of the problem." Superficial efforts "interfere with appropriate diagnosis and the hard work necessary to achieve sensible policies." 5. Topical advice: This occurs when "the demand for advice stems from some sort of crisis." This too often "leads to a kind of firehouse mentality, advice on the run. Then the analyst is likely to provide superficial and distant advice." 6. Capricious advice: This refers to change for change's sake. "We lack enough incen¬tives in policymaking to say just leave it alone." 7. Apolitical advice: This occurs when "political advice is not appropriately linked or integrated with the substantive advice of policy!' Meltsner offers this final bit of advice on his "sins." "Knowing what is wrong will not tell us what is good. But it is a start." To summarize we can put a positive perspective on Meltsner's "seven deadly, sins" by asserting that policy recommenda¬tions should be unique to the circumstances, fitted to the specific condition, on time, based on solid research, not developed in a crisis atmosphere, only offered if true change is needed, and fully in keeping with the political environment. Of course, real life seldom offers ideal circumstances for public policy analysis. ThuS policy analysts often find themselves in an inherently "sinful" occupation. Some people have a gift for administration. We have all met such natural admin-istrators. They are not only perpetually organized but have a knack for getting people to harmoniously work together. The administrative art is judgment, panache, and common sense. But the artist is useless without tools—without the technical skills (the science) that allow for the digestion and transference of information. Nothing is more pointless than to argue whether the practice of public administration is more art or science. It is inherently both. Of course, the more science you have, the better artist you'll be. But "book learnin'" won't make you an artist if you don't possess an element of the gift in the first place.

Aaron B. Wildaysky (1930-1993), one of the preeminent scholars in public administration, was well aware of the art versus science question in public adminis¬tration. After he became the founding dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, he began to grapple with this same art ver¬sus science problem within the context of policy analysis. Reprinted here is "The Art of Policy Analyses" from his 1979 Speaking Truth to Power. Of course all art includes a large degree of technique or science. Thus aspiring artists in public policy and policy analysis would be wise to study the experiences of other policy artists and would-be artists. In this way both the successes and failures of the past can be instructive. These studies traditionally take the form of case studies—in-depth analyses of a single subject. It is a history that offers an understanding of dynamic, constantly moving and changing, processes over time. Most traditional news stories use the case study approach. Note that aspiring journalists are taught that a story should contain all the essential elements of a case study: "who, what, why, when, where and how." The first case studies examined battles and wars. Thucydides's History of the Pelo-ponnesian War (404 B.C.E.) (discussed in Chapter 0) is the progenitor of these mili¬tary case studies. Military colleges—and general staffs—have long used the case study method to review battles and study generalship. This same technique is now widely used in a civilian context to examine how policy proposals become law, how programs are implemented and how special interests affect policy development. College courses in public policy and administration often use a case study approach. An entire course may consist of case studies of policy development and implementation. The goal is to artificially inculcate experience. Any policy analyst rich with years of experience will have had the opportunity to live through a lifetime of "cases:' By having students study many cases, each of which may have extended over many years, the case study course compresses both time and experience. The rel¬atively young student should then have the insight and wisdom of those who have had hundreds of years of experience. In theory this makes them so wise beyond their years that employers will eagerly seek them out.

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