Credibility Logic and Policy Analysis

Abstract

The early promise of positivistic-based policy analysis was based on the authority of “science.” A “scientific approach” could bring rationality and rigor to public policy-making. But with all this promise and confidence, the actual utilization of policy analysis by decision makers within the last decade has been dismal. The purpose of this article is to suggest that policy analysts need not cling to scientific pretensions to bring some rationality and rigor to policymaking. This article introduces a “credibility model” in which policy analysts bring to the policymaker insights not available from the fund of ordinary knowledge, experience, and intuition that policymakers themselves contribute.