Facts, Values and the Policy World

Abstract

Policy analysts trained in various social sciences face a generally unacknowledged contradiction. Traditionally, mainstream social science has assumed that there is a gulf –a “dichotomy”– between facts and values, and that rigorous social science must be as uncontaminated by values as possible. But policy analysis, as reflection on the question “what is to be done?,” is intrinsically concerned with matters of value. Evasions of this contradiction have relied on various stratagems that have the effect of smuggling unexamined values into analysis. This book demonstrates the damage that this contradiction inflicts upon policy analysis, and upon society as a whole. It resolves the contradiction by showing that values are every bit as amenable to critical analysis and reasoned defence as factual beliefs. It also presents key qualities of a policy analysis decisively freed from the “binary view” of facts and values The introduction presents the binary view and the alternative to it. Part I then examines the effects, both obvious and subtle, of the dichotomy, effects seen both in the practice of policy analysis and in our broader culture. Part II shows how policy analysis is transformed when one embraces a consistently non-binary approach. The third part addresses some of the dangers of the approach being advocated, while the conclusion discusses the role of a non-binary policy analysis in a deliberative democracy.