Technocratic Policy Research Articles

Social Protection and the Politicization of Class Cleavages During Latin America’s Left Turn

Why and how do class cleavages become politicized in party systems? The recent tenure of left governments in South America has seen the party system realigned along the class cleavage in Venezuela but not in Brazil or Chile. This article argues that different approaches to expanding social protection—“mobilizational” in Venezuela and “technocratic” in Brazil and Chile—explain divergent outcomes. Mobilizational policies incentivized social organization among beneficiaries and allowed for linkages between these organizations and left parties, facilitating credit claiming and recruitment by the left. Technocratic policies targeted atomized beneficiaries with no room for partisan involvement, making credit claiming and recruitment difficult. Case-based evidence illustrates these mechanisms whereas survey analysis using genetic matching confirms that mobilizational and technocratic programs exerted strikingly different effects on support for left parties. The broader contribution is to theorize a new form of class-based political mobilization in Latin America, also being implemented in other countries.

Book reviews: Tuna Baskoy The Political Economy of European Union Competition Policy: A Case Study of the Telecommunications Industry, Routledge: London, 2008, 242 pp: 9780415965255 £60 (hbk)

Tuna Baskoy The Political Economy of European Union Competition Policy: A Case Study of the Telecommunications Industry, Routledge: London, 2008, 242 pp: 9780415965255 60 [pounds sterling] (hbk) There is a widespread consensus on the importance of competition policy. The mainstream political right sees it as a necessary means of ensuring a free market economy, while for the mainstream left it is a way of curbing monopoly and the concentration of corporate power in capitalism. All see competition as necessary to promote innovation and to enhance economic efficiency, prosperity and social welfare. Competition policy is perceived as necessary because 'perfect competition' is not encountered in the real world, and firms often behave in ways that are detrimental to competition. Competition policy has thus become the central pillar of modern micro-economic policy, conducted mainly by technocratic agencies and paralleling monetary policy as the central pillar of macroeconomic policy. Most developed industrial nations have independent competition agencies, and the European Commission has significant supranational powers in the area. This all suggests that competition policy and its implementation is and should be a matter mainly for technical specialists, a perspective that is intellectually rooted in liberal theory of market competition, and that underpins much of the literature on competition policy. This book seeks to undertake a critical analysis of these assumptions grounded in critical political economy and drawing on the development of competition policy in the EU telecommunications sector. Baskoy makes a compelling argument that most studies in the large body of literature on competition policy take the liberal model for granted, and do not critically analyse the nature of either market competition or competition policy. This consensus and the assumptions of the liberal model, Baskoy argues, have led to a European market in telecommunications that is not highly competitive, and that has favoured larger corporate interests at the expense of broader social and consumer welfare. At the heart of the book is a critique of the notion of 'workable' or 'effective' market competition that is put forward by many mainstream analysts of EU competition policy, and which informs the European Commission's policy making. The model of workable competition purports to overcome some of the problems of the liberal model, notably the static focus on market structure and the unobtainable ideal of perfect competition. Workable competition focuses more on the process of competition, and involves a recognition that it can flourish in oligopolistic structures and that the dynamics of markets mean that competition policy might have to be adjusted during short-run falls in profitability to ensure longer-term sustainable competition. Nevertheless, Baskoy argues that workable competition shares some of the key weaknesses of the liberal model--in particular its failure to conceptualise market competition in terms of varying economic, social and political power--and the underlying assumption that the state is an independent and omnipotent body. In order to address these policy and analytical problems, Baskoy argues for the adoption of a more credible model of market competition. Drawing on radical traditions in the analysis of markets, notably Thorstein Veblen, the book suggests the need for a model of 'dynamic market competition' in which market competition is conceptualised in terms of multiple political, economic and social forces, and competing values and ideas. This offers the hope of a better understanding of market competition by policy makers and the hope of better competition policy that might increase social welfare, rather than the welfare of those with economic power. …

Constructing Dutch Immigrant Policy: Research–Policy Relations and Immigrant Integration Policy-Making in the Netherlands

The development of Dutch immigrant policy over the past decades has been characterised by the rise and fall of several policy frames. The role that social researchers and research institutes have played in these frame shifts has changed significantly. This article reveals that there was a clear relation between the structure of the policy-making process in the Netherlands, including the division of labour between social research and policy-makers therein, and the culture of policy-making or how immigrant integration was framed. A trend was discerned from a technocratic policy structure with a very direct role of researchers in depoliticised processes of policy-making to more engineering-like policy structures with a strong political primacy and a more selective approach to using scientific expertise for legitimating policy discourse. This article argues that these structural changes provided an important condition for the rise of a more assimilationist frame of immigrant policy in the Netherlands.

Democratic and technocratic policy deliberation

The discussion of the potential of Habermas' discourse ethics to help us better understand, and perhaps even improve, the making of public policy touches on a number of relevant issues, but perhaps...

Review: God and Gold Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World

GOD AND GOLD Britain, America and Making ofthe Modern World Walter Russell Mead New York: Knopf, 2008. 449 pp, US$27.95 cl°m ISBN 978-0-375-41403-9In view ofthe author's interest in ideas and conviction that history is indeed relevant to analysis of current affairs, this reviewer is predisposed to find God and Gold: Britain, America, and Making ofthe Modern World to be of compelling interest. In an international relations field too often dominated by philistines, fuzzy thinking, and technocratic policy intellectuals, Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow in US foreign policy at Council on Foreign Relations, represents a style of thinking about the big picture that is somewhat rare in official Washington today. And chosen subject for his current book is nothing if not relevant to burning questions (yes!) of modernity, rise and fall of empires, and trajectory of historical forces in early 21st century.Sadly, author makes a hash of his opportunity. His argument, in brief, is that the Anglo-Saxons have dominated world over past three centuries because of their unique blend of capitalist democracy and Protestant religion at home, a largely benign hegemony abroad based on free trade, and an ingenious structure of international finance, and that all this has been undergirded strategically and militarily by sea power. This time-proven system, based on what Mead calls the protocols ofthe elders of Greenwich (360), should give us confidence - as against declinists like Paul Kennedy, late Samuel P. Huntington, and others - that the Anglo-Saxon ascendancy will continue into foreseeable future (271). For Americans chief lesson ofthe last three hundred years is easy to state as a principle, but much more difficult to put into practice, Mead writes. Here is lesson: plan works. Stick to plan. The 'protocols ofthe elders of Greenwich' are still best guide to grand strategy (361).In his conclusion Mead pulls out all stops. In a triumphalist trumpet voluntary, intellectual ornament of Council on Foreign Relations effuses that the values that have shaped Anglo-American world and by which Anglo-Americans have gone on to take lead in last three tumultuous centuries remain values that bring success... these values are leading us westward and upward... America will continue rushing forward, however steep slope or forbidding terrain, bearing banner with strange device: Excelsior! (413).All works of history, perhaps especially middle-brow renditions of history, inevitably reflect intellectual and political culture of era in which they are conceived and written. Whatever Mead's intention, passages quoted above insensibly reflect mindset of George W. Bush's America. They seem jarring, to say least, in Barack Obama's America of flamboyant multiculturali sm, international financial collapse, massive trade imbalances, economic distress at home, and highly problematic military adventures east of Suez, as an old-style American anglophile of Ivy League -educated kind might well express matter. Yet this reviewer has a hunch that Mead's deliberately archaic turns of phrase and anachronistic mindset will seem equally odd in today's multicultural London.Certainly Mead's reading of British history and of modern history generally is not likely to earn him an invitation to lecture at Oxford or Cambridge anytime soon. Mead laments that the study of British history and culture has almost vanished from American schools today, and that lamentation is no doubt sincere. Moreover Mead (like Paul Kennedy, Niall Ferguson, and even Simon Schama) is right to insist that Americans interested in world affairs should study closely history of Britain and of British empire. …

En contra del fracaso escolar: nuevos discursos, nuevos retos para la educación infantil

El artículo que nos ocupa indaga acerca de la situación de la escolaridad temprana en el contexto español y de los alcances que la implementación de políticas tecnocráticas y hegemónicas, que convierten las prácticas docentes en compensatorias, tienen para la sociedad en su conjunto, en tanto la escolaridad, en todas sus etapas, es formadora de ciudadanía. Se postula que, si efectivamente se quiere una escuela que no fracase, han de desarrollarse proyectos emancipadores y con continuidad en el sistema educativo, y cuya política sustentadora sea denunciar la injusticia, accionar reflexiva y críticamente contra las desigualdades sociales y, consecuentemente, construir democracia. Se sostiene que este es un derrotero a favor de gestar una sociedad más justa e igualitaria, con independencia de las condiciones y/o características de los sujetos, y que no asumir esta responsabilidad en cualquiera de las etapas educativas nos hace artífices del fracaso de la escuela, que una vez más tendría como destinatarios a los más débiles y/o marginados, niños pequeños con escasos recursos de toda índole que, de esta forma, tampoco tienen una escolaridad inicial en la que involucrarse.
 Postula que una escolaridad temprana crítica hace frente a la exclusión también desde las más tempranas edades, convirtiéndose en un foro público en el cual niños y adultos participan juntos en proyectos que potencian la vida democrática en su seno, de manera que de ella misma puedan surgir nuevos movimientos sociales que ahora y en el futuro trabajen en favor de la justicia en el mundo.

Deliberative Equality and the Transgovernmental Politics of the Global Financial Architecture

Revisiting the concept of transgovernmentalism, originally developed by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, can shed considerable light on the nature of interstate cooperation in contemporary global financial governance. Transgovernmentalism highlights how certain technocratic policy communities, composed of finance ministries, central banks, and regulators, dominate the global financial architecture. It also provides insights into the political and social basis of these actors' interactions and deliberations. Most importantly, renovating the concept of brings the participatory deficits in the current global financial architecture into sharp focus and points us in the direction of a workable reform agenda that would expand inclusion and participation. This article advocates basing future reform on efforts to achieve a closer realization of the principle of Unfortunately, transgovernmentalism is incompatible with deliberative equality, meaning that it is precisely the transgovernmental characteristics of the current global financial architecture that have to be challenged and overturned if we are to arrive at anything approximating deliberative equality. KEYWORDS: global financial architecture, transgovernmental politics, G7, G-20, deliberation. ********** Over thirty years ago, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye published a seminal article in the journal World Politics that outlined the concept of transgovernmental relations. (1) In the intervening period, political scientists have rarely applied the concept in empirical research, fewer still sought to revise it for the contemporary era. In this article, I make the argument that a renovated version of the concept of can make a significant contribution to our understanding of the political dynamics of the current global financial architecture (GFA). (2) As a concept, not only reveals much about the nature of interstate cooperation in contemporary global financial governance, but also brings the participatory deficits in the current GFA into sharp focus and points in the direction of a modest, workable reform agenda that would increase inclusion and participation. The review of the GFA undertaken after the Asian financial crisis involved three distinct trends. There was both a partial privatization of financial governance evident in the creation of twelve codes and standards that were designed to enhance market scrutiny of national policies and practices (3) and a limited shift away from the club model of diplomacy evident in the creation of the G-20, which challenged the monopoly of leading developed countries. Most significantly, the architectural exercise consolidated and deepened the transgovemmental characteristics of the GFA. The transgovernmental nature of the GFA restricts participation in key deliberative spaces to a limited number of regulators and central state agencies (almost exclusively finance ministries, central banks, and specialist regulatory agencies), which dominate and control the deliberations that determine the terms and content of global financial governance, resulting in a narrow, technocratic, closed insider policy process that remains largely impenetrable to a wider range of concerned societal interests. While there is some evidence of a shift in global governance arrangements toward a more polycentric form of complex multilateralism in which various civil society groupings, nonstate actors, and developing countries participate alongside more traditional advanced capitalist state bureaucracies in the form of trisectoral networks, (4) I argue in this article that the principal defect of the global financial architecture is that it remains insufficiently pluralist and that this is a direct result of its overriding transgovernmental character. I begin with a brief discussion of the growing significance of the concept of deliberation for the study of global governance, including some consideration of the importance of the issues of participation and representation in the act of deliberation. …

Europeanization? Two Logics of Change of Policy-Making Patterns in Switzerland

This article is based on a comparison of changes of policy-making patterns in Switzerland between the strongly Europeanized sector of economic regulatory policy (in spite of Switzerland not being a EU member state) and the weakly Europeanized sector of social policy (as a control case). We observe in both sectors the erosion of the traditional Swiss concensual pattern that was used to imply a strong influence for the interest groups at the expense both of the executive and of parties of the legislature. Co-operative procedures lost their influence for different reasons: in the case of economic regulatory policy their integrative role was considered as an obstacle to reform, and in the case of social policy it was undermined by a higher level of conflict. Also process change meant more technocratic policy making in the first case, and an increased influence of parliamentary politics in the second. Two “causal narratives” emphasize the distinctiveness of the logic of change in each policy sector.

Ecological modernization in the UK: rhetoric or reality?

AbstractThis paper discusses the degree to which recent trends in UK policy‐making amount to a paradigm shift towards the prescriptions of ecological modernization (EM) theory. First, in keeping with EM's ‘win–win’ philosophy, recent political speeches and policy documents on the environment have expressed the idea that there is no conflict between environmental protection and economic growth. Second, policies have attempted to encourage the invention and diffusion of clean technologies. Third, policy‐makers have explored innovative market‐based policy approaches to tackle environmental problems. These three trends suggest UK policy‐makers' predilection towards EM as a policy strategy. However, there has arguably been less success in terms of a fourth key characteristic of ‘ecologically modernized’ states, that of environmental policy integration. The paper concludes that New Labour's failure at ‘greening government’, combined with its economistic and technocratic policy focus, places the UK at the weak end of Christoff's (1996) weak–strong continuum of ecological modernization. As such, environmental imperatives continue to remain ideologically and politically peripheral to conventional economic goals. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Popular Participation in Contentious Policy Areas: Education Policy in Mauritius

Mauritius, like many developing countries, has a need for educational reform. Education is a contentious policy area where it is difficult to build consensus. Mauritius has a well-established procedure, the civic network, for involving the public in policy making, and building state legitimacy and capacity. Yet, in recent attempts at educational reform, the civic network has been avoided. Instead, they have relied upon technocratic policy making which, in political terms, has had limited success. We explain why this happened and conclude that, in Mauritius and similar participatory societies, a participatory policy procedure probably is essential to the successful development and implementation of reforms in contentious policy areas like education.

Just the Usual Suspects? Partnerships and Environmental Regulation

Governance based on partnerships has become a characteristic of late capitalist societies. This paper explores how this new collaborative approach to environmental regulation creates challenges for existing technocratic policy networks, drawing on an organisational ethnography of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Our findings suggest partnership working is embraced for four reasons—to improve understanding of problems, to develop resource-efficient management solutions, to improve implementation of these solutions, and to improve communication and trust within the policy network. However, there appear to be three areas of difficulty. First, decisionmaking appears to be dominated by technocratic public servants; second, practical reasons for partnership, rather than embracing the normative arguments for discursive democracy, motivate most participants; and, third, participants are yet to experience the benefits of partnerships. We suggest three key areas which might address these problems and contribute towards a more successful implementation of the collaborative approach to regulation, namely to provide incentives for partnership working (demonstrating how the perceived benefits outweigh costs), developing interorganisational trust and providing organisational support (resources). We conclude with an analysis of the constraints that must be overcome to develop effective partnerships for environmental management, particularly the need to extend the network beyond the ‘usual suspects' and to embrace the normative dimensions of participatory democracy.

Technocratic policy partnerships: a new descriptor for public administration?

This paper deals broadly with the issue of public policy-making in the United Kingdom, and more particularly with the issue of the transfer and application of scientific or technical expertise into policy decision-making. It is argued that it is increasingly the case that "expert knowledge" is the driving force, or even the initiator, of new policy. However, public policy decisions remain political choices. Thus, this paper will argue that although there is a relationship between policy makers and cohorts of policy specialists, specialist knowledge is only incorporated insofar as it can fit within an existing framework of acceptable government action. The relationship is thus two-way, where certain expert knowledge as well as government ideology will inform the understanding of both the nature of the policy problem and the policy options available for its solution. The central argument then is that policy-making is a political process, which thus does not necessarily synthesise the best advice into a legislative solution.

Planning for Anywhere: Housing Policy in Northern Ireland

The establishment of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) in 1971 was a response to a complex crises in which the existence of the state, the objectivity of policy and housing allocation and supply decisions were questioned. By adopting highly technocratic values, systems and policies the NIHE successfully depoliticised housing in a short and highly productive period. However, the organisation's most recent strategic policy statements ignore the local ethnic context within which housing need is analysed and determined. This paper offers some explanations for this and highlights the need for a more positive and open engagement of the reality of ethnic cleavages and how they shape the local housing scene.

The Scandinavian tradition of open government and the European Union: problems of compatibility?

ABSTRACT Two recent developments have brought the issue of transparency in European Union (EU) policy-making on to the agenda of the European Community. First, increased attention to the Community's democracy or legitimacy deficit has brought into focus the technocratic policy style which characterizes Community institutions and decision-making bodies. Second, the 1995 accession of Sweden and Finland has reinforced an alternative tradition of public policy-making and administration which challenges traditional Community policy styles. This article compares the policy of open government in Sweden and Denmark with recent attempts to render European policy-making more transparent to the public. It is argued that the concept of transparency is basically perceived differently in the Scandinavian member states than in the Community institutions and most other member states. The core element of Scandinavian style transparency is extensive public access to official documents, files and registers which is perceived as an important means of holding public policy-makers accountable. Community style transparency, on the other hand, is primarily directed at keeping the public informed of ongoing activities. Transparency through public access may seem alien and unsuitable to policy-makers used to operating in more closed polities, but the Scandinavian way of addressing politico-administrative accountability does offer a possible solution to the Community's perceived legitimacy deficit.

Uncertainty, Complexity and Concepts of Good Science in Climate Change Modelling: Are GCMs the Best Tools?

In this paper we explore the dominant position of a particular style of scientific modelling in the provision of policy-relevant scientific knowledge on future climate change. We describe how the apical position of General Circulation Models (GCMs) appears to follow ‘logically’ both from conventional understandings of scientific representation and the use of knowledge, so acquired, in decision-making. We argue, however, that both of these particular understandings are contestable. In addition to questioning their current policy-usefulness, we draw upon existing analyses of GCMs which discuss model trade-offs, errors, and the effects of parameterisations, to raise questions about the validity of the conception of complexity in conventional accounts. An alternative approach to modelling, incorporating concepts of uncertainty, is discussed, and an illustrative example given for the case of the global carbon cycle. In then addressing the question of how GCMs have come to occupy their dominant position, we argue that the development of global climate change science and global environmental ‘management’ frameworks occurs concurrently and in a mutually supportive fashion, so uniting GCMs and environmental policy developments in certain industrialised nations and international organisations. The more basic questions about what kinds of commitments to theories of knowledge underpin different models of ‘complexity’ as a normative principle of ‘good science’ are concealed in this mutual reinforcement. Additionally, a rather technocratic policy orientation to climate change may be supported by such science, even though it involves political choices which deserve to be more widely debated.

Technocracy, educational structures and libraries: historical notes from the United States

This paper discusses the application and effects of technocratic ideology in schooling and educational policy in the United States, and traces it up through present planning for ‘virtual libraries’ and rethinking of educational structures. This is done by reviewing the development of educational structures and policies and by looking at selected developmental/historical periods in American life when technocratic ideology was particularly influential in schooling and educational policy. Through this process the authors establish ideological connections between technocracy, education and the new educational processes that virtual libraries represent. In this analysis virtual libraries are the newest site of the extension, deepening and possible totalizing of the values of technocratic educational policy and processes. The paper begins with a brief definition of the concept of technocracy which is placed in its historical context. An overview of the historical periods of dominant technocratic ideology in Ame...

Austrian trade unions betsveen continuity and modernisation

Although the national trade union movements in Europe face very similar challenges, considerable differences can be observed in their responses to these challenges and in the results achieved (Crouch/Traxler 1995). During the 1980s the Austrian trade unions' record in this respect was relatively good. In particular, they achieved positive developments in real wages and employment. Between 1979 and 1989 real pay in Austria rose by more than 1.1% a year, a rate higher than in most other OECD countries (Guger 1991); the rate of unemployment, meanwhile, was comparatively low (annual average of 3%). An important factor in these successes has been the formal corporatist arrangement which gives the trade unions a consultative role in all economic and social policy fields. It is an arrangement dependent on two fundamental features, namely, the specific organisational structure of the participating organisations and a political culture peculiar to Austria (Traxler 1992). In organisational terms, the principle of the single trade union confederation is strictly adhered to. All the 14 existing trade unions in Austria (four public service unions, nine private sector manual workers' unions and one trade union for private sector white-collar workers - the GPA) belong to the Austrian Trade Union Confederation (ÖGB). Even though the principle of industrial unionism is not fully established, this organisational structure does provide the high degree of centralisation and concentration required by corporatism.. The political culture peculiar to Austria has been an important factor in establishing the legitimacy of social partnership and of the policy pursued by the trade unions. Until the early 1980s Austria was divided into two political "camps": social democracy on the one hand and the Christian-conservative camp on the other. Though the ÖGB,has been, formally speaking, situated "above" all political parties, it managed to internalise the situation of political cleavage by the informal creation of political factions. In this way it was able to enlist in both camps ideologically grounded support for and solidarity with the technocratic policy which it pursued at several removes from its members' immediate interests. That this recipe for success ran up against limits is clear from trends in membership figures. During the eighties the ÖCB suffered an above-average drop in membership (compared with other countries); union density fell from 56.2% to 46.2% (OECD 1994). One important cause of this development is the erosion of the political camps. As a result of the structural changes which are affecting the whole nature and experience of work, collective aspirations are gradually being replaced by individualistic trends, thus making it increasingly difficult for the trade unions to maintain their legitimacy. At political level evidence of such trends is provided by the number of floating voters and the growing fragmentation and competition within the party system, making corporatist cooperation between the large organisations and the political parties (i.e. those currently in government) increasingly difficult. Another factor which has further helped to weaken corporatism is that, with the internationalisation of the economy, price policy, a traditional tool of policy implementation, has become obsolete. The effects of EU accession (in particular the need to meet the fiscal policy convergence criteria laid down at Maastricht), and the opening up of eastern Europe with its reservoir of cheap labour, are placing an increasing strain on corporatism in general and on the trade unions in particular. This article sets out to consider the most important areas of problem which together constitute this challenge. In relation to each area, we examine the nature of the trade unions' responses, assessing the extent to which they have altered their policies and their structures to adapt to the changing circumstances.

Authoritarianism or democracy? Marketization as a political problem

As the enormous scope of the reform task in Eastern Europe is becoming paintfully clear, there are growing doubts that the new democratic regimes will be capable of making the transition to the market successfully. A variety of plausible arguments suggest that pursuing the ‘right’ economic reform policies may require the strong hand of authoritarian rule. This view derives from a faulty conception of the problem according to which economic transformation is a technical problem, to be solved by a set of well-established technocratic policies. This article identifies the weaknesses of this narrow conception, proposes an alternative view, and reassesses the potential contributions of democratic institutions and practices to economic transformation.

Rural development and the Fifth Malaysia Plan

The Fifth Malaysia Plan, 1986–1990, represents the fourth phase of Malaysia's Outline Perspective Plan, 1971–1990. Its strategies for the rural sector incorporate broadly technocratic policies outlined in the 1984 National Agricultural Policy (NAP). Maximization of farm incomes, and of the national income derived from agriculture, is to be based on ‘efficiency of production involving the judicious selection of economically remunerative crops and employing the most efficient technology’. The model for the efficient mode of agricultural production is the estate or plantation. The greatest challenge to this ‘modernization’ policy lies in the padi sector. Much of Malaysia's padi land remains low in productivity and many farms are too small to support a family. Although great advances have been made in padi production since 1950, poverty amongst padi households remains high and, since the mid-1970s, there has been an active withdrawal from the industry by substantial numbers of farmers. The problem facing Malaysian planners in the padi sector is that of reconciling the continuation of existing land ownership and inheritance patterns with the need for the creation of larger operating units to permit the use of modern technology and raise the incomes of those working them. In general the technical advances of the last 30 years have widened the income gap between larger and smaller farmers. Weaknesses of the plantation mode of production in the padi sector relate both to its methods per se and their inability to cope with inadequate production by very small farms or shares. With or without major land reforms, which are not on the Fifth Plan's agenda, there is an urgent need to reduce the number of households dependent on padi growing for their living.

Ideology and Analysis in American Social Security Policymaking

AbstractThe extreme dispersion of authority and power in the American political system fosters a politics of bargaining, negotiation, and compromise. Nevertheless, technical-rational analysis plays a major role in the identification of public problems and in the legitimation of official responses. We explore this apparent paradox through an examination of the interaction between politics, ideology and analysis in the current crisis of the American public retirement system. Two analytical approaches are employed: an interpretation of the historical evolution of the programme through three relatively distinct phases; and an evaluation of the reports of three recent national commissions which have studied the social security crisis. We argue that in the American system policy must be made through either subsystem or consensual politics. Social security has benefited from the unusual conjunction of these two conditions through most of its history. Policy has been made by a small subsystem dominated by the social security bureaucracy itself and the programme has received widespread bipartisan support. Analysis has been central to this process, but its impact has differed over time. Analysis exerted a decisive influence on the initial shape of the programme even in the absence of an ideological consensus because it enjoyed a quasi-monopoly position in the President's Committee on Economic Security. During the long expansionary phase of the programme, subsystem autonomy and bipartisan consensus together fostered the emergence of a technocratic policy style, but the independent effects of analysis were more apparent than real. The contemporary commissions fail to provide an adequate response to the crisis because their technically competent proposals no longer rest on an underlying consensus and because the institutional autonomy of the old social security policymaking subsystem has broken down.