The Reach and Grasp of Policy Analysis

What has been tried and what has been accomplished by a generation of policy analysis? What conditions accounted for the near-meteoric rise in the 1960s and 1970s of this special brand of applied social science - and what accounts for its seeming decline in the 1980s? Hofferbert identifies the seeds of apparent decline of the 'policy analysis industry' in its own institutional features, and he proposes specific alternatives for the policy-analyst/policy-maker relationships that offer the most promise of mutual benefit. The Reach and Grasp of Policy Analysis examines the division of scholarly labor and the often uncomfortable intellectual relationship between policy analysis and traditional academic disciplines, especially between policy analysis and political science. Why, asks Hofferbert, have political scientists been so seldom interested in the consequences of governmental action? He finds the explanation in the contrasting moral priorities of political science versus policy analysis.