
Policy Indicators
Links Between Social Science and Public Debate
Duncan MacRae Jr.(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 30. January 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
432 pages
978-0-8078-6565-1 (ISBN)
Description
Duncan MacRae analyzes the ways in which experts can aid a political community in choosing public statistics for citizens to use in making policy judgments. In contrast to the study of social indicators, which has emphasized descriptions and models of social change, he stresses that the relevant measures should be selected in view of their potential applications.
The usefulness of a public statistical series depends on the goals it represents and on our knowledge of how to act collectively to achieve those ends. The measures chosen, MacRae notes, can include gauges of social objectives, such as health and education improvements or crime reduction, and administrative inputs that promote them. He recommends, however, that the measures should be organized around general ends such as net economic benefit, subjective well-being, and equity. Knowledge about how to further collective aims, MacRae contends, requires strenthening of ""technical communities"" of researchers who study the means to the ends that policy indicators measure.
Policy Indicators provides a critical review of the field of social indicators, stressing the uses of statistics in policy debate. For applied social scientists and policy analysts, it presents broad proposals for the roles of their fields in a democracy.
The usefulness of a public statistical series depends on the goals it represents and on our knowledge of how to act collectively to achieve those ends. The measures chosen, MacRae notes, can include gauges of social objectives, such as health and education improvements or crime reduction, and administrative inputs that promote them. He recommends, however, that the measures should be organized around general ends such as net economic benefit, subjective well-being, and equity. Knowledge about how to further collective aims, MacRae contends, requires strenthening of ""technical communities"" of researchers who study the means to the ends that policy indicators measure.
Policy Indicators provides a critical review of the field of social indicators, stressing the uses of statistics in policy debate. For applied social scientists and policy analysts, it presents broad proposals for the roles of their fields in a democracy.
More details
Series
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
697 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8078-6565-1 (9780807865651)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Duncan MacRae, Jr.'s books include Policy Analysis for Public Decisions, The Social Function of Social Science, and Parliament, Parties, and Society in France, 1946-1958.