Policy analysis is what information systems are not

Abstract

Policy analysis is about making the inevitable weaknesses in the formulation of public policy - theoretical aridity, organizational rigidity, historical passivity, into sources of strength. Where traditional modes of decision-making were anti-analytical because they suffered arrested development at the stage of inputs — comparing effort instead of accomplishment, modern information systems have become fixated on objectives. But ends and means are chosen simultaneously, and what life has joined policy analysis must not rend asunder. Policy analysis may be viewed as a reaction against major modern information systems — MBO, PPB, ZBB, PERT. Analysis is what information systems are not, not protectors but correctors of error, not maintainers but changers of preferences, not neglectors but protectors of history.