Policy Predictability

The policy field represents two diametrically opposite views about the predictability of policy. One approach to this topic is rooted in the belief that policy developments can be viewed as a science, where a rational process of deliberation and analysis leads one to gather information that seeks to address social, political, or economic problems. The opposite approach emphasizes the unpredictability and uncertainty of both the political processes as well as the range of actors with multiple values that are a part of the decision-making process.

The scientific approach to this topic seeks to analyze decisions and situations that produce specific policy outcomes. There are various lenses that have been used in this analysis, including attention to the stages of the policy process (usually defined as agenda setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation), economic approaches that involve the calculation of benefits to the participants in the process (who are expected to maximize their interests), and the values and agendas of the participants in the decision-making process. These and other lenses have been employed, to respond to crisis situations and also to prevent problems and anticipate decisions.

The early stage of the policy analysis field rests on this set of assumptions. Policy analysts in the 1960s usually attempted to pursue objective and rational solutions to policy problems and find ways to employ market metaphors and public choice theories in this search. The classic model of policy making employed by rational actor policy analysts calls on individuals to identify objectives, devise alternative courses of action to achieve these objectives, predict the consequences of each alternative, and select an option that best achieves the objectives.

The alternative approach to this topic rests on a model of political reasoning that assumes that organizations and institutions make decisions in a chaotic and unplanned manner. For some, this decisionmaking process approaches anarchy, and these commentators are unable to specify the institutions or even the processes that lead to decisions. Others are willing to define the agendas, ideas, institutions, and processes that lead to decisions within a constantly changing environment. John Kingdon has identified three streams that interplay to produce policy outcomes—problems, policies, and politics. His analysis begins with the assumption that policy ideas come from multiple and unpredictable sources, which then are tossed into a messy and complex policy process. He notes that the three streams only come together when a “policy window” is opened, providing a limited opportunity for various participants in the three streams to present their agendas.

Deborah Stone emphasized a related approach. She notes that policy comes out of a political environment that defines people in and out of a conflict. She notes that issues are designed to attract support and to forge alliances. Like Kingdon, she noted that the relationship [Page 702]between ideas and alliances is constantly changing and problems are never really solved.

These two views about policy predictability have such diverse approaches and assumptions that it is extremely difficult to define a middle ground on which policy participants can engage with one another.