Introduction

Public policy decisions that are based on rigorous analysis and the best available evidence should better address public problems than policy based on anecdote, belief, or inaccurate or partial data (Quade, 1975). The Policy Sciences (Lerner & Lasswell, 1951) stands as a starting point for the modern policy analysis movement, offering an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to the study of public problems and the development of rational solutions based on careful analysis of evidence. Harold Lasswell's original conceptualization of the policy sciences sought to distinguish analysis from political decision-making and to position policy analysis as a foundation for good governance (Lasswell, 1951). From those origins, policy analysts have been traditionally tasked with providing scope and precision to the definition of policy problems, collecting and analyzing evidence, supporting decision-making with fearless advice, faithfully implementing decisions, and objectively overseeing the evaluation of how effective policy interventions are.

Despite significant advances during the first half-century of the policy analysis movement, coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, debates over the real, perceived, and proposed role of policy analysis have coloured the profession’s latter years (Dryzek, 1994; Stone, 1988). While technical policy analysis rooted in quantitative methods became increasingly sophisticated during the 1970s and 1980s, high-profile failures exposed the limits of positivist policy analysis (May, 1992). Coupled with the perceived inability of quantitative policy analysis to solve complex public problems, critics of positivism argued that the attempt to model social interactions on the natural sciences was a misguided form of technocracy (Amy, 1984), that policy wisdom should be seen as more than the results of data impressively distilled (Meltsner, 1976; Prince, 2007; Wildavsky, 1978), and that positivism was fundamentally incapable of dealing with complex problems in a democracy (Fischer, 1995). The “malaise of the policy sciences” can be traced to an overemphasis of positivist, neo-classical economics for understanding human behaviour, the increasing complexity of policy problems that policy analysis has been incapable of solving, and the divergence of policy analysis technocracy and democratic values (deLeon, 1994, p. 82). The implementation problem, where the intentions and objectives of policymakers fail to materialize at the point of delivery or enforcement, has highlighted how positivist models do not adequately accommodate autonomous human behaviour and situational judgement (Pressman & Wildavsky, 1973).