The Making and Analysis of Public Policy: A Perspective on the Role of Social Science

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the policy analysis “movement” irrupted into American political life. Opportunistically assembling rudiments of authority, knowledge, technical skill and application that began to accumulate with the emergence of the modern administrative state, a well-positioned group of Federal executives succeeded in forging new structural links between research-based knowledge and policy making. The legacies of their efforts are still evident in social science scholarship, in undergraduate, graduate, and professional training, and in administrative institutions, technologies, and practices at all levels of government. These legacies remain controversial, however. The role of social science in democratic governance and the mediating contributions of policy analysts are vigorously contested, raising issues concerning the future of policy analysis training and practice that are addressed in this paper.