Wildavsky, the eminent political scientist, noted, ‘…policy analysis is one activity for which there can be no fixed program, for policy analysis is synonymous with creativity, which may be stimulated by theory and sharpened by practice, which can be learned but not taught. In large part, it must be admitted, knowledge is negative – it tells us what we cannot do, where we cannot go, wherein we have been wrong, but not necessarily how to correct these errors. After all, if current efforts were judged wholly satisfactory, there would be little need for analysis and less for analysts (Wildavsky 1979: 3, 9).’

In Chapter 1, we examined the rationale for the study of public policy and in particular, the need for the study of policy processes. We introduced the policy sciences as a field of study comprising both the process and the prescriptive dimensions of public policy. In this chapter, we further explore the characteristics of policy analysis and describe its evolution as a field of enquiry. We then review different models of policy choice and theories of the policy process. These models are conceptual lenses for studying policy and explaining how policy processes take shape. They provide an analytic framework for the analysis of public policy. These models help us structure our thinking on policy; however, none of them is necessarily superior to the others. It is for us, as students of public policy, to critically evaluate each of them and examine their relevance for the study of public policy processes. Policy processes can be explained using one or a combination of these.

The organisation of this chapter is thus: we start with a review of some characteristics of policy analysis: it is applied, client-oriented and politically sensitive. We then look at how policy analysis has emerged as an interdisciplinary field, drawing from but at the same time deviating from conventional disciplines. The evolution of policy analysis as an applied interdisciplinary field is traced to the disenchantment with conventional disciplines on the supply side and the quest for the explanation of unsatisfactory development performance on the demand side.

We then move on to examine what is meant by a model, and why we should be interested in modelling social phenomena. The objectives of developing models of policy processes are described.