Synopsis and contents of the book

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be satisfied in order for a series of intellectual and practical activities to qualify as policy analysis? What mode of thinking is required of policy analysts? What are the core knowledge, skills and ethics to be conveyed through public policy programmes? What constitutes ‘good’ policy analysis? In answering these related questions, it is important to recognise that there are two main approaches or frameworks in relation to the practice of policy analysis: positivism and post-positivism. Proponents of these approaches are often at odds with one another, especially when addressing the big questions in their field, such as the level of rationality and objectivity that should be applied by policy analysts, how to conceptualise the relationship between facts and values, what weight to accord to quantitative analysis vis-a-vis qualitative analysis, and what criteria to adopt in ranking policy alternatives. The conflict between positivism and post-positivism over these mainly philosophical/methodological issues is important and should not be ignored, but we should also be wary of drawing a definitive line between the two and be prepared to look at their shared characteristics. In fact, a conception of policy analysis that comprises the following three propositions is now widely shared among policy theorists and policy practitioners in almost all democracies, including Japan (Stokey and Zeckhauser, 1978; MacRae and Wilde, 1985; Weimer and Vining, 1989; Patton and Sawicki, 1993; Radin, 2000; Heineman et al, 2001; Fischer, 2003; Geva-May, 2005; Lejano, 2006; Dobzinskis et al, 2007; Adachi, 2009; Dunn, 2011; Bardach, 2012):

• • Policy analysis is the ‘process by which we arrive at a course of public action that will effect beneficial change in the situation at hand’ (Lejano, 2006: 7).

• • The primary mission of policy analysis is not to be a substitute for democracy, but to complement it by providing major policy actors with evidence-based policy options.

• • Policy analysis is composed of three main processes or phases: analysis of the problems to be tackled; examination and selection of policy objectives; and conceptualisation and selection of specific prescriptions.