The past half-century has witnessed the emergence of a large body of literature devoted to the issue of decision-making process in policy. At the center of this methodological discussion are the notion of rationality and the question of how policy decisions are being made. Rationality -- as understood by neo-classical economics – has been often perceived as value-free and objective.[1] Under this premise, policy makers carefully weight the pros and cons, evaluate the means and define the objectives of a given policy. But even if we agree with this narrow definition of rationality, we can always wonder to what extent this rational model provides an adequate explanatory framework for decision-making? Indeed rational choice, although still dominant in the policy analysis literature, has been widely contested for its capacity in assessing decision-making in “real world” policy environments.
Lindblohm (1959) and Forester (1984) draw our attention to the fact that during the decision-making process rational choice is often an optimal condition that is rarely achieved. For Lindblohm, the complex problems and decisions of public administrators stumble across disagreements on nebulous values and objectives. In this sense, the policy maker rarely operates under optimal-rational conditions. More so, the realities of decision-making are grounded on what Lindblohm calls “the science of muddling through”, an incremental process that relies upon modest step-by-step comparisons. Perhaps the merit of Lindblohm analysis relies not only on the critique of the rational model but also in the fact that it recognizes continuity in the policy-making process. Following his branch-incremental instead of root-rational method, one can detect the underlying notion of path dependency in policy making.
Forester, departs from Lindblohm’s “muddling through” concept in order to establish several gradients of “boundedness” in rational decision-making. He determines a scale of increasing complexity (from the one-actor comprehensive and unbounded scenario to the cognitive, socially differentiated, pluralist and structurally distorted bounded rationalities) in the decision-making and emphasizes how the context greatly affects the decisions and strategies adopted. He concludes, “If practical strategies are context dependent and contexts in practice vary widely, always changing, then rational action and decision making will fail in a technical search for a one-best-recipe. Instead of recipes, repertoires of strategies are called for-and should be investigated in diverse decision-making situations.” (1984:30).
Perhaps the failure of the one-best-recipe that Forester refers to, crystalized in the policy world during the Washington Consensus era and the implementation of structural adjustment policies (SAPs) that took place in several developing countries in the 1980s. In recent years, many scholars have criticized these policies as neglecting the specific country context and focusing on first-best thinking. Indeed, SAPs were founded on the conviction that we can always approximate the conditions under which Pareto optimums are possible by simply applying appropriately targeted remedies and policy reforms based on rational economic thinking. But as Rodrik reveals in One Economics Many Recipes the striking feature of the economic growth after the SAPs period is that the most successful economies (China, South Korea, Taiwan, Mauritius etc) among developing countries adopted policies that look quite different than the rational first-best reforms formulated under the various SAPs.
Certainly, this realization has implications on the legitimacy of the rational approach in decision-making. While, there is no denial that the “root method” can provide a valid intellectual framework, is it appropriate in encompassing the complex contextual environment of decision-making? Forester argues that rationality is not an abstract notion but one that morphs along specific informational and contextual parameters. He argues that policy makers “do what they can” in a given situation. Perhaps his view offers a more realistic understanding of the complexities of the policy process and provides further understanding on the acute antagonisms and the difficulties of implementing policy recommendations.
Ultimately, through their critiques of the rational model, both Lindblohm and Forester offer a multi-dimensional analytical lens of the policy process. Their analysis has repercussions on the ways we think about decision-making; not as isolated decisions based on a mere aggregation of personal preferences but as a societal process involving power dynamics, cooperation and conflict between the different actors involved in the policy process.
Achilles
[1] Simon argues, that the perception of rationality in neoclassical economics differs from the other social sciences in three main respects: (a) in its silence about the content of goals and values;( b)in its postulating global consistency of behavior; and (c) in its postulating "one world"-that behavior is objectively rational in relation to its total environment, including both present and future environment as the actor moves through time.
Lindblohm (1959) and Forester (1984) draw our attention to the fact that during the decision-making process rational choice is often an optimal condition that is rarely achieved. For Lindblohm, the complex problems and decisions of public administrators stumble across disagreements on nebulous values and objectives. In this sense, the policy maker rarely operates under optimal-rational conditions. More so, the realities of decision-making are grounded on what Lindblohm calls “the science of muddling through”, an incremental process that relies upon modest step-by-step comparisons. Perhaps the merit of Lindblohm analysis relies not only on the critique of the rational model but also in the fact that it recognizes continuity in the policy-making process. Following his branch-incremental instead of root-rational method, one can detect the underlying notion of path dependency in policy making.
Forester, departs from Lindblohm’s “muddling through” concept in order to establish several gradients of “boundedness” in rational decision-making. He determines a scale of increasing complexity (from the one-actor comprehensive and unbounded scenario to the cognitive, socially differentiated, pluralist and structurally distorted bounded rationalities) in the decision-making and emphasizes how the context greatly affects the decisions and strategies adopted. He concludes, “If practical strategies are context dependent and contexts in practice vary widely, always changing, then rational action and decision making will fail in a technical search for a one-best-recipe. Instead of recipes, repertoires of strategies are called for-and should be investigated in diverse decision-making situations.” (1984:30).
Perhaps the failure of the one-best-recipe that Forester refers to, crystalized in the policy world during the Washington Consensus era and the implementation of structural adjustment policies (SAPs) that took place in several developing countries in the 1980s. In recent years, many scholars have criticized these policies as neglecting the specific country context and focusing on first-best thinking. Indeed, SAPs were founded on the conviction that we can always approximate the conditions under which Pareto optimums are possible by simply applying appropriately targeted remedies and policy reforms based on rational economic thinking. But as Rodrik reveals in One Economics Many Recipes the striking feature of the economic growth after the SAPs period is that the most successful economies (China, South Korea, Taiwan, Mauritius etc) among developing countries adopted policies that look quite different than the rational first-best reforms formulated under the various SAPs.
Certainly, this realization has implications on the legitimacy of the rational approach in decision-making. While, there is no denial that the “root method” can provide a valid intellectual framework, is it appropriate in encompassing the complex contextual environment of decision-making? Forester argues that rationality is not an abstract notion but one that morphs along specific informational and contextual parameters. He argues that policy makers “do what they can” in a given situation. Perhaps his view offers a more realistic understanding of the complexities of the policy process and provides further understanding on the acute antagonisms and the difficulties of implementing policy recommendations.
Ultimately, through their critiques of the rational model, both Lindblohm and Forester offer a multi-dimensional analytical lens of the policy process. Their analysis has repercussions on the ways we think about decision-making; not as isolated decisions based on a mere aggregation of personal preferences but as a societal process involving power dynamics, cooperation and conflict between the different actors involved in the policy process.
Achilles
[1] Simon argues, that the perception of rationality in neoclassical economics differs from the other social sciences in three main respects: (a) in its silence about the content of goals and values;( b)in its postulating global consistency of behavior; and (c) in its postulating "one world"-that behavior is objectively rational in relation to its total environment, including both present and future environment as the actor moves through time.
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