Successive limited comparisons is,
then, indeed a method or system; it is not a failure of method for which
administrators ought to apologize. None the less, its imperfections, which have
not been explored in this paper, are many. For example, the method is without a
built-in safeguard for all relevant values, and it also may lead the
decision-maker to overlook excellent policies for no other reason than that
they are not suggested by the chain of successive policy steps leading up to
the present. Hence, it ought to be said that under this method, as well as
under some of the most sophisticated variants of the root method — operations
research, for example — policies will continue to be as foolish as they are
wise.
Why then bother to describe the method
in all the above detail? Because it is in fact a common method of policy
formulation, and is, for complex problems, the principal reliance of
administrators as well as of other policy analysts.' And because it will be
superior to any other decision-making method available for complex problems in
many circumstances, certainly superior to a futile attempt at superhuman
comprehensiveness. The reaction of the public administrator to the exposition
of method doubtless will be less a discovery of a new method than a better
acquaintance with an old. But by becoming more conscious of their practice of
this method, administrators might practice it with more skill and know when to
extend or constrict its use. (That they sometimes practice it effectively and
sometimes not may explain the extremes of opinion on 'muddling through', which is
both praised as a highly sophisticated form of problem-solving and denounced as
no method at all. For I suspect that in so far as there is a system in what is
known as 'muddling through', this method is it.)
One of the noteworthy incidental
consequences of clarification of the method is the light it throws on the
suspicion an administrator sometimes entertains that a consultant or adviser is
not speaking relevantly and responsibly when in fact by all ordinary objective
evidence he is. The trouble lies in the fact that most of us approach policy
problems within a framework given by our view of a chain of successive policy
choices made up to the present. One's thinking about appropriate policies with
respect, say, to urban traffic control is greatly influenced by one's knowledge
of the incremental steps taken up to the present. An administrator enjoys an
intimate knowledge of his past sequences that 'outsiders' do not share, and his
thinking and that of the `outsider' will consequently be different in ways that
may puzzle both. Both may appear to be talking intelligently, yet each may find
the other unsatisfactory. The relevance of the policy chain of succession is
even more clear when an American tries to discuss, say, antitrust policy with a
Swiss, for the chains of policy in the two countries are strikingly different
and the two individuals consequently have organized their knowledge in quite
different ways.
If this phenomenon is a barrier to
communication, an understanding of it promises an enrichment of intellectual
interaction in policy formulation. Once the source of difference is understood,
it will sometimes be stimulating for an administrator to seek out a policy
analyst whose recent experience is with a policy chain different from his own.
This raises again a question only
briefly discussed above on the merits of like-mindedness among government
administrators. While much of organization theory argues the virtues of common
values and agreed organizational objectives, for complex problems in which the root
method is inapplicable, agencies will want among their own personnel two types
of diversification: administrators whose thinking is organized by reference to
policy chains other than those familiar to most members of the organization
and, even more commonly, administrators whose professional or personal values
or interests create diversity of view (perhaps coming from different
specialties, social classes, geographical areas) so that, even within a single
agency, decision-making can be fragmented and parts of the agency can serve as
watchdogs for other parts.
No comments:
Post a Comment