Société québécoise de science politique

Public Policy-Making as Practical ReasoningAuthor(s): Ronald ManzerSource: Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 17,No. 3 (Sep., 1984), pp. 577-594Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science politiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3227609 .Accessed: 01/02/2011 06:52

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cpsa. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Canadian Political Science Association and Société québécoise de science politique are collaborating withJSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne descience politique.

http://www.jstor.org

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning

RONALD MANZER University of Toronto

Two very different paradigms of decision-making have dominated contemporary studies of public policy-making. One paradigm may be summarized as "elitist planning." Its advocates regard collective decisions as deliberate choices from available options made by designated decision-makers on behalf of a group. In this view public policies are or, perhaps better, should be the result of anticipatory problem-solving, synoptic planning and rational choice. The other paradigm may be summarized as "pluralist exchange." Its advocates regard collective decisions as epiphenomenal outcomes of decisions made by many individuals or groups interacting with one another. Public policies in this view are the result of reactive problem-solving, strategic planning and incremental decisions.

Whether they are developed in a pluralist-exchange or in an elitist-planning paradigm, the dominant models of public policy-making generally adopt an instrumental concept of policy rationality. The standard criteria for evaluating policy options and making decisions among them are premised on explicit knowledge and adoption of some set of valued objectives. Evaluation then is focussed on the effectiveness with which policies achieve these objectives and their efficiency in terms of either minimizing the costs of attaining the given objectives or maximizing the realization of values with given resources. Satisfying the criteria of effectiveness and efficiency provides good reasons for adopting a policy option; failure to meet these criteria provides good reasons for rejecting it.

Although commonly assumed, instrumental rationality is not the only acceptable concept of policy rationality. A concept of substantive rationality is also possible and appropriate to apply in evaluating public policy decisions. When facts and values are no longer separated and a given set of valued policy objectives is not taken for granted, then evaluation of policy options turns on at least two additional criteria-the legitimacy of the policy as it is judged against fundamental beliefs and political principles of the community, and the responsiveness of the policy as it purports to satisfy the basic needs of some particular

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, XVII:3 (September/septembre 1984). Printed in Canada / Imprime au Canada

578 RONALD MANZER

individuals or the community as a whole. Under the criteria of substantive rationality a good reason for adopting a policy option would be that it was "just" or "in the public interest," and if it did not satisfy these standards that would be a good reason for rejecting it.

Every theory of public policy has to deal with the problem of the choice of criteria for decision-making. This is as true for those who

propose models to explain the behaviour of policy-makers as it is for those who are concerned to understand and explain the criteria of good judgment.' Whether a theory of policy-making is normative or

empirical, it must incorporate some concept of policy rationality. An

adequate concept of policy rationality in turn must take account of both instrumental and substantive criteria for accepting or rejecting policy options. By our confronting contemporary decision-making models with a concept of policy rationality that gives appropriate weight to both instrumental and substantive rationality, the respective shortcomings of the two dominant types of models are more clearly revealed. Hence we

may gain improved understanding of their complementarity as partial rather than general models of decision-making, and the potential for their more fruitful use in empirical studies of policy-making may be better established.

Practical Reasoning

In modern analytic philosophy David Gauthier's analysis of practical reasoning has been a highly influential contribution to the development of a concept of substantive rationality. According to Gauthier, "a practical problem is a problem about what to do."'2 A practical problem always arises in a particular context or set of circumstances which must be taken into account in resolving it. It confronts a person or a group whose capacities and attitudes constrain the potentials for action. "General formulae for the solution of practical problems, or for the

justification of proposed solutions, which do not take account of the dynamic context, can offer little practical guidance to the agent.'3

A practical problem is resolved when the person or group confronted with it decides, or is decided about, what to do. There is no simple formula for expressing such a decision. Its phrasing will depend

1 Charles Anderson, "The Place of Principles in Policy Analysis," American Political Science Revliew 73 (1979), 711.

2 See David Gauthier, Practical Reasoning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 1. The

possible application of Gauthier's work initially was suggested to me by reading Graham Orpwood's excellent thesis, "The Logic of Curriculum Policy Deliberation: An Analytic Study from Science Education" (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Toronto, 1981). I am also grateful to Professor William Abbott, Department of

Philosophy, University of Waterloo, for helping me to understand the importance of Gauthier's contribution to contemporary moral philosophy.

3 Ibid., 3.

Abstract. Public policies can be understood as practical judgments which involve both self-regarding prudential reasoning and other-regarding moral reasoning. A general model of decision-making that has an adequate concept of policy rationality should have a place for both kinds of practical reasoning. Two paradigms of decision-making have dominated contemporary studies of public policy-making, but neither meets this test. Pluralist-exchange models assume that the reasons backing policy decisions are always self-regarding. Elitist-planning models assume they are exclusively other-regarding. Because each of the paradigms separately produces only partial models of decision-making, they must be used together to provide a full account of public policy-making.

Resum6. Les politiques publiques peuvent etre consid6r6es comme 6tant des jugements d'ordre pratique impliquant a la fois des raisonnements prudentiels interess6s et des raisonnements moraux altruistiques. Un modele g6neral de prise de d6cision offrant une conceptualisation adequate de la rationalite decisionnelle devrait pouvoir accommoder ces deux sortes de raisonnement pratique. Deux paradigmes ont domin6s les etudes contemporaines sur la prise de decision publique, cependant ni l'un ni l'autre rencontre ce bareme. Les modeles << pluralist-exchange > partent de la presupposition que ce sont toujours des raisons int6ress6es qui sous-tendent les choix de politiques. Les modules << elitist-planning >> assument que ce sont exclusivement des raisons altruistiques. Puisque s6par6ment ces deux paradigmes ne nous offrent que des modiles partiels de la prise de d6cision, ils doivent done 6tre utilis6s conjointement afin de nous donner un compte rendu complet de la prise de d6cision publique.

on the problem and the type of considerations backing the judgment. Nonetheless, Gauthier argues, although many practical judgments may be formulated without them, the concepts of "ought," "should" and "best" belong to the basic vocabulary of practical discourse. Given the specific circumstances or context of the problem, a practical judgment is intended to guide action with respect to what ought to be done or what it is best to do.4

Practical judgments depend on deliberation. They involve weighing the options and the reasons for acting in the particular situation specified in the practical problem. The best course of action, the one that ought to be taken, is the one supported by the weightiest reasons or the strongest grounds. Gauthier adopts Kant's distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives in arguing that the reasons or grounds to justify a practical judgment involve both prudential and moral considerations.

Prudential reasoning is restricted to the wants, desires, needs and aims of the agent. According to Gauthier, prudential practical reasoning has three basic types of statements: statements that specify and rank the decision-maker's preferences; statements that specify the context of decision-making, the options available and their possible benefits and costs; and statements that specify the actions to be taken given the premises.5 Only rarely will prudential reasoning produce full certainty

4 Gauthier makes the point that practical judgments are action-guiding not

action-determining. He recognizes that very often we act on present desires or inclinations against what we know to be the reasonable course of action. " Unless the criterion for what Ijudge best to do is assumed to be what I decide to do-and this is to

beg the question-it cannot be supposed impossible for me to decide and act against my judgment" (ibid., 13).

5 Ibid., 43-44.

580 RONALD MANZER

because decision-makers cannot predict the consequences of all options open to them and they cannot specify and rank all their wants, present and future. "The sphere of the practical is necessarily the sphere of the uncertain; this is the condition of significant action. One must look before one leaps, but one must still leap."'

Prudential reasoning is restricted to the wants of the decision-maker; moral reasoning takes account of the wants of others. The wants of others need not be desirable to a decision-maker in order to provide him with a reason for acting to satisfy those wants. Gauthier admits that the role of the wants of others in practical reasoning is highly complex, but he argues that the fundamental distinction is simple. "I want, so I act; you want, so you act, so I assist you." The model of practical reasoning is extended to cover both prudential and moral reasoning when, within the limits of reasonable foresight and care and appropriate regard for interpersonal differences, all wants of all persons are included in the decision-maker's calculus.

Thus we avoid both a doctrine of farsighted selfishness, in which the concern for the wants of others is only a means to self-satisfaction, and a doctrine of complete self-indifference, in which the wants of others are treated identically with those of the agent. There is genuine concern for others, genuine consideration of their wants as reasons for acting, but this concern is for others as others.7

In Gauthier's view practical judgments not only should but commonly do involve both prudential and moral considerations. As it is used in making practical judgments "ought" has both prudential and moral meanings. Both moral and prudential considerations are weighed together, and the force of a practical judgment is neither dependent entirely on interests nor on obligations."

In both the elitist-planning and the pluralist-exchange paradigms, public problems and public policies clearly fit Gauthier's conception of practical problems that need practical judgments. Whether they are reached by comprehensive analysis or by political interaction, in the specific circumstances or context of a problem public policy decisions

6 Ibid., 49; emphasis in the original. Gauthier argues that only a practical judgment produced after limited deliberation is useful because the time to deliberate is limited. Such a limited practical judgment still serves to explain orjustify action. "In general, a practical argument is satisfactory if the arguer takes reasonable care to determine the sufficiency of the basis, recognizing that to presume to know the agent's future history, whether the agent be himself or another, is absurd. If reflection does not suggest the presence or probable future presence of wants sufficiently compelling to over-ride those considered, if the situation in which the action must be performed is carefully assessed, if the consequences of the more promising actions are examined, then it is probable that the action proposed in the consequent judgment will be the most desirable one for the agent to perform."

7 Ibid., 90; emphasis in the original. 8 Ibid., 23.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 581

are practical judgments intended to guide public action with respect to what ought to be done or what it is best to do. As practical judgments public policy decisions rest on some kind of deliberation, they are action-guiding but not necessarily action-determining, and they are defensible by reference to good reasons or strong grounds.

From the standpoint of Gauthier's scheme of practical reasoning the critical question, however, concerns the reasons or grounds for practical judgments. If public policy decisions are properly understood as practicaljudgments, then, following Gauthier, a good model or theory of public policy decision-making should make a place for both prudential reasoning and moral reasoning. Unfortunately, neither of the two types of decision-making models that have dominated public policy studies for the past two decades appears to succeed in meeting this test.

Dominant Models

Probably no one has been more influential in setting out and analyzing the two dominant paradigms of collective decision-making then Charles Lindblom. In The Intelligence of Democracy he has undertaken an extended comparative analysis of the virtues and defects of "central coordination" and " mutual adjustment." More recently in Politics and Markets he has distinguished two models of political organization based on these decision-making processes.

Lindblom's Model 1 is "bureaucratic society" founded on central direction and control. It assumes the existence of a governing elite sufficiently wise and informed to solve social problems and guide social change. "As a consequence, in Model I the intellectual leaders of the society are envisaged as having been able to produce a comprehensive theory of social change that serves to guide the society."9 The elite's approach to problem-solving is synoptic and analytic. This prevailing comprehensive rationality implies extended analysis of the problem situations, determination of clear objectives, wide search for options, assessment of their benefits and costs, and willingness if analysis leads to it to adopt substantial changes in policy.

The elitist-planning style of policy-making also might be described as anticipatory problem-solving. 10 Decision-makers try to pre-empt the cycle of policy-making by identifying potential policy problems and resolving them before they become serious issues or social crises. Their orientation is preventative rather than curative policy-making. Their

9 Charles E. Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 249.

10 On the distinction between reactive and anticipatory problem-solving see Jeremy Richardson, Gunnel Gustafsson and Grant Jordan, "The Concept of Policy Style," in Jeremy Richardson (ed.), Policy Styles in Western Europe (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982), 12-13.

582 RONALD MANZER

objective in this intellectually-guided society is to discover the correct policy and solve their society's problem.

In elitist-planning models of public policy decision-making practical reasoning is predominantly moral reasoning. On the one hand, in the "communist" version as it is portrayed in Lindblom's Model 1, correct institutions and policies are not matters of opinion or volition or of reconciling preferences or interests. They are questions of fact calling for diagnosis."1 The selfish interests of the decision-making elite are, in principle at least, irrelevant. Their analysis of public problems and their choices to solve them are purely objective based on their comprehensive, scientific theory of social development. On the other hand, in the "democratic" version as it is portrayed in contemporary theories of welfare economics and policy analysis, institutional values and policy objectives are matters of popular preferences or volitions; and institutions and policies are chosen so as best to satisfy popular wants. As in the communist version, however, the selfish interests of the decision-making elite are irrelevant to its policy-making role. Voters and interest group leaders express their preferences, but politicians and bureaucrats who have the responsibility to govern are assumed to make their choices about public policies according to their objective under- standing of what are the correct institutions and policies to satisfy these popular wants or needs.

Contemporary theories of policy analysis perhaps provide the most explicit discussion of the assumptions about the decision-maker's calculus in elitist-planning models. In their important textbook, A Primer for Policy Analysis, Edith Stokey and Richard Zeckhauser use a framework for analysis which includes establishing the context of the public problem and the objectives to be pursued, laying out the alternative courses of action and the possibilities for gathering further information, predicting the consequences of alternative actions, valuing the outcomes, and making a choice as to the best course of action. Their discussion of "nuts and bolts"-difference equations, queues, simulation, Markov chains, benefit-cost analysis, linear programming and decision trees-is intended to show policy analysts how models can provide simplified representations of reality and help decision-makers get their thinking straight. As much as modelling may aid rational calculation, however, it does not resolve decision-makers' problems in determining the proper ends of public decisions and the values to be assigned to alternative outcomes.

Stokey and Zeckhauser recognize that there is no unambiguous, universally applicable procedure for aggregating the welfares of different individuals in order to compare the welfare of society if one policy were followed with its welfare if some other policy were

11 Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 251.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 583

followed.12 Nevertheless, they believe that significant insights about policy-making may be derived by reflecting on the appropriate way to value social outcomes. Accordingly they review several potentially useful procedures for making individual welfares the building blocks for the welfare of society.

As Stokey and Zeckhauser make their argument it is evident that the procedures for aggregating individual welfares depend on moral not prudential reasoning on the part of decision-makers. One procedure they discuss, for example, is the Pareto optimum: situation Q is preferred to situation R if no one is worse off and at least one person is better off. No doubt the Pareto optimum has a very limited usefulness, as Stokey and Zeckhauser recognize; but, as a criterion for public choice, it has an inherently moral rather than prudential orientation. The one who is better off in situation Q has a selfish interest in moving to it; but the others, including presumably the decision-makers, who are neither better off nor worse off have only their regard for the welfare of the one as their reason for moving to Q. A more important criterion, the social welfare function, in theory displays completely how a decision-maker would be willing to trade each person's welfare or utility against the welfare of every other person. The individuals whose welfare or utilities must be included in the comprehensive social-welfare function are all those whom the decision-maker has the responsibility to serve. There is no place in this criterion for vote-maximizing politicians, budget-maximizing bureaucrats, or power-seeking interest group leaders. The social-welfare function requires public authorities who are committed to exclusively moral reasoning.

Lindblom's Model 2 is "market society" based on partisan analysis and mutual adjustment. It assumes a more skeptical view of human intellectual capacities. No synoptic theory exists. At best there are only scattered partial theories; and "even within their limited domains, they are tentative, inadequately tested, and consequently imperfect sources of guidance in practical affairs."'"13 Because intellectual analysis cannot produce comprehensive, correct solutions, interactive processes such as debate and bargaining are employed to find a policy acceptable to participants and make analysis unnecessary. In Model 2 decision-makers do not think out their problems; they act them out. Decisions are highly disjointed and decentralized, and large societal problems routinely are resolved as by-products or epiphenomena of many individual or group decisions.

As an approach to problem-solving, incrementalism implies a process of trial-and-error focussing on marginal analysis of the problem, trying one resolution and then another, proceeding serially by 12 Edith Stokey and Richard Zeckhauser, A Primer for Policy Analysis (New York:

Norton, 1978), 257. 13 Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 249.

584 RONALD MANZER

successive adjustments. This pluralist exchange process might also be described as reactive problem-solving. Decision-makers wait for the pressure of events to establish their priorities. Then they fight fires or prescribe cures, dealing with pressing issues and political crises as the need arises.

Although there is a considerable variety of pluralist-exchange models with important differences among them, each of them implicitly or explicitly assumes the predominance of prudential reasoning. A good illustration can be found in Charles Lindblom's The Intelligence of Democracy, where he formally sets out his model of a governmental process based on mutual adjustment and clearly implies that the orientations of all participants in the governmental process are

self-regarding.14 The voters, politicians, bureaucrats and interest group leaders who comprise the decision-makers are assumed to make their choices about public policies according to their own wants or preferences. Adam Smith's classic observation about market exchange is understood as applying to political exchange as well: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."'15 Priorities, perceptions, and issues can be understood in terms of each policy-maker's position and interests in the political game. As Graham Allison has put it, "where you stand depends on where you sit."'16

Among pluralist-exchange models of decision-making public choice theories certainly have been the most explicit about assuming the predominance of prudential reasoning, although there are significant differences among them in their understanding of self-interest. William Niskanen, for example, assumes that self-interest leads bureaucrats to seek to maximize their budgets, while Albert Breton and Ronald Wintrobe see bureaucrats as power-maximizers rather than

budget-maximizers.171 In his economic analysis of bureaucracy Anthony Downs argues that the general motives of officials are usually mixed, including power, money, income, prestige, convenience, security, personal loyalty, pride in proficient performance of work, desire to serve the public interest and commitment to a specific course of action; 14 Charles E. Lindblom, The Intelligence of Democracy: Decision Making Through

Mutual Adjustment (New York: The Free Press, 1965), 87-101. 15 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of'the Wealth of Nations (New

York: Modern Library, 1937), 14. 16 Graham T. Allison, "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American

Political Science Review 63 (1969), 711. Allison attributes this aphorism to Don K. Price.

17 William Niskanen, Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971), 36-42; Albert Breton and Ronald Wintrobe, "Bureaucracy and State Intervention: Parkinson's Law," Canadian Public Administration 22 (1979), 218-26.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 585

but he leaves no doubt that he views the first five goals as pure manifestations of self-interest and that he places the greatest weight upon them in explaining the behaviour of officials.18

In pluralist-exchange models of public decision-making, the predominance of prudential reasoning is not simply an empirically-based proposition or a convenient positivist assumption; often it is also asserted as a desirable norm. According to Aaron Wildavsky, for example, in making budgets it is much simpler for each participant to calculate his own preferences than for each to try to calculate the preferences of all. It is difficult enough for a participant to calculate how the interests he is protecting might best be served without requiring that he perform the same calculation for many others who might also be affected.19

Of the two dominant paradigms of public decision-making it may be said that pluralist-exchange models assume exclusively or predominantly prudential reasoning, and elitist-planning models assume exclusively or predominantly moral reasoning on the part of decision-makers. According to Gauthier's analysis of practical reasoning, however, neither self-interest nor self-indifference can serve alone as an adequate assumption for a general scheme of practical reasoning: "all wants of all persons are to be included in the basis of practical reasoning of any agent.'"20 Can the assumptions about practical reasoning in the pluralist-exchange paradigm be given an "extended basis" by integrating or adding moral reasoning to the prudential reasoning that is its standard assumption? Can the assumptions about practical reasoning in the elitist-planning paradigm similarly be given an appropriate extended basis by integrating or adding prudential reasoning to the moral reasoning that is its standard assumption?

A simple and direct resolution of the problem would substitute the extended basis of practical reasoning in place of prudential reasoning in pluralist-exchange models and in place of moral reasoning in elitist-planning models, but this resolution will not do. We do need models that simplify the complexity of public policy-making and at the same time bring out its main features for our understanding. Straightforward substitution of the extended basis for practical reasoning in each type of model would fatally undermine their heuristic value as ideal types. Public choice theories that began by assuming not only individual self-interest but also individual regard for the wants of others as others would fail to deduce a single formal hypothesis for testing against the tangled complexity of the real world. Theories of policy analysis and welfare economics that balanced their

18 Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), 84. 19 Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown,

1964), 166. 20 Gauthier, Practical Reasoning, 86; emphasis in the original.

586 RONALD MANZER

other-regarding assumptions with self-regarding motivations would hopelessly entangle the formal concept of planning in the web of bureaucratic politics.

Rather than abandon the simplifying assumptions which distinguish prudential and moral reasoning, perhaps we should concentrate on

understanding the relationship between them. At least two approaches to conceptualizing the extended basis of practical reasoning appear possible. One is to extend the basis of practical reasoning by expanding our account of the phases of policy development that are included in the

decision-making models. Another is to extend the basis of practical reasoning by more carefully researching and defining the particular conditions in which each type of model seems to provide an adequate account of public policy-making.

Extended Models

In order to extend the basis of practical reasoning in models of public policy-making but still maintain a conceptual distinction between prudential and moral reasoning, one approach might be to extend each model to include phases of the policy-making process that are based on different types of reasoning and styles of problem-solving. The ap- proach would recognize that it is misleading to focus on a single policy decision. In practice, whether they are seen as outcomes or choices, policies are made by a sequence of decisions which may be taken in different ways with different considerations in mind. In order to illustrate this potential for sequencing in types of reasoning and styles of problem-solving, consider the extension required for each type of model as we move from collective decisions to take action to include consideration of the usual requirements for implementing such decisions.

Giandomenico Majone has pointed out that policy analysis normally is understood as a pre-decision activity intended to improve the eventual decision; but policy-makers also need analysis after a decision is made in order to explain their decision, improve its compatibility with other policies and persuade other people to accept it. ' The self-regarding, often unarticulated reasons that may earlier have guided the decision-maker(s) are inadequate to satisfy this need.

Policy decisions may be the outcome of a complex sequence of

prudential reasoning and political interactions, but implementation at some stage requires a rational, other-regarding reconstruction that will

justify different pieces of action and fit them together into a coherent pattern. As the process of implementation proceeds, this rational

21 Giandomenico Majone, "The Uses of Policy Analysis," in Bertram H. Raven (ed.), P'olicy Studies Review Annual 4 (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980), 168.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 587

reconstruction almost certainly will be significantly modified in practice by another sequence of prudential reasoning and political bargaining. Bureaucratic politics involving self-regarding administrative agencies and pressure groups is an important determinant of post-decision policy development. My point is not intended to underestimate the significance of prudential reasoning in the implementation of public policies; it is simply to recognize that, in public policy-making of the pluralist- exchange type, pre-decision politics and post-decision politics normally must be separated by a rational reconstruction of policy as a theory or a doctrine and that this process depends on more comprehensive, anticipatory problem-solving and moral reasoning.

When a public policy decision is a choice of the correct course of action to follow from among a number of options and is taken by decision-makers operating on predominantly moral reasoning, the transition from collective decision to implementation requires political calculation based on prudential reasoning. In order to get people to understand, accept and implement the decision, support for it has to be mobilized. People may be persuaded by reasoned arguments; they may be exhorted by reference to common values; they may be induced by offers of material incentives; they may be forced by threats of physical punishment. Whatever the strategy needed to implement a particular policy, it is rarely without cost to the decision-makers. Nor is it certain to succeed. Consequently, unless public policy decision-makers are completely indifferent to maintaining the position of political authority in the system, let alone unconcerned about their personal positions as current occupants of those positions, a sequence of prudential reasoning and reactive problem-solving must be undertaken to turn the planners' correct decision into the public's acceptable one.

Prudential reasoning in an elitist-planning model is required to bring the criterion of political rationality into balance with the economic and technical criteria that dominate an other-regarding decision process. What will be the impact of policy on the position of the decision-makers if people cannot be persuaded to accept it? What will be the impact on their position if gaining acceptance requires very high expenditures of scarce resources, for example, material inducements or physical coercion? Such vital political questions by their nature force a self-regarding mode of reasoning on political authorities. They also may require a reactive, incrementalist approach to the problem of implementation. Political authorities may attempt to anticipate both the problems of implementation and their costs, but in most cases they will be uncertain about how difficult the mobilization of support will be. Accordingly, by necessity they may have to work incrementally, continually assessing their political costs for implementation against their predictions of societal benefits and making appropriate adjustments.

588 RONALD MANZER

The process of making public policy involves a number of phases which are at least conceptually distinct, however poorly defined they may be in practice. Those phases include recognizing public problems, processing issues, determining priorities for collective action, developing optional courses of action in order to resolve a problem, deciding (by choice or outcome) on one course, implementing the collective decision, and evaluating its impacts. The analysis here has focussed on only two phases, decision and implementation. It suggests that decisions predominantly shaped by one mode of practical reasoning, whether prudential or moral, must be balanced by the other before implementation can proceed. This is the expected result if public policies are understood as practical judgments based on practical reasoning that unifies prudential and moral considerations. It also implies that extension of the analysis to cover other phases of the process of making a policy would reveal there a similar balancing at work, both in modes of reasoning and in styles of problem-solving.

Extended Typologies

Another approach to extend the basis of practical reasoning while maintaining a conceptual distinction between prudential and moral reasoning might be to specify more precisely the particular conditions in which each type of model seems to provide an adequate account of public policy-making. The heuristic value in maintaining a conceptual distinction between prudential and moral reasoning suggests the utility of trying to combine this distinction in modes of practical reasoning with the distinction commonly made between "disjointed incrementalism" and "comprehensive rationality." The immediate result is a typology of four models of decision-making which can be used to guide an analysis of decision-making under varying conditions. The farther promise, when the dichotomies are understood as variables, is a "field" of decision-

making models within which different styles or modes of making policy may be more systematically located. To illustrate the potential utility of this approach, consider four examples of policy-making commonly found in Western democracies which appear to fit respectively into each of the four corners of our field.

"Judicial policy-making" in the Anglo-American democracies is characterized by predominantly moral reasoning and an incremental, reactive style of problem-solving. Cases are taken one at a time as they are brought for decision. Lindblom has emphasized the importance that adversarial procedures play in bringing out the evidence on which a decision eventually will be made.22 Yet the incrementalist, reactive, adversarial process is also constrained by principles of procedural

22 Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 256.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 589

justice, and it is explicitly the responsibility of thejudge to enforce them. In this situation the fairness of the decision-making procedure is vitally dependent on the independence of the judiciary from partisan considerations. The judge's decision is expected to be a reasoned conclusion from the evidence, the requirements of law and the principles of justice; and the decision can be reviewed on appeal.

TABLE 1

A TYPOLOGY WITH EXAMPLES OF PUBLIC POLICY DECISION-MAKING

Predominant type of practical reasoning

Predominant approach to problem-solving Moral Prudential

Incremental-reactive judicial budget policy-making policy-making

Comprehensive- commission ministry anticipatory policy-making policy-making

This ideal type of judicial policy-making is open to subversion by judicial self-interest. Insertion of personal preferences into judicial decisions does happen. Survey data also show a significant statistical association between judicial attitudes and decisions.2" Yet such an association is not necessarily evidence that moral reasoning in judicial policy-making has been generally subverted by prudential considerations. It simply confirms that in moral discourse practical judgments may be validly reached from different but still justifiable beliefs about what actions ought to be taken. The critical element remains that the premises of decision-making include justifiable beliefs and reasoned judgments.

"Budget policy-making" in industrial democratic countries is characterized by predominantly prudential reasoning and an incremental, reactive style of problem-solving. Aaron Wildavsky's studies of budget policy-making in the United States, France, Britain, and Japan have found two constants that lead to regular patterns of behaviour. One is prudential reasoning. Everywhere there are spenders and savers as departmental officers and treasury guardians identify their self-interests with the division of their policy-making roles. The other is incremental problem-solving which is caused by the overwhelming complexity of the budget of any large organization. Budgetary reforms such as zero-base budgeting and planning-programming budgeting have

23 See, for example, John Hogarth, Sentencing as a Human Process (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971).

590 RONALD MANZER

attempted to substitute more comprehensive rationality for the reactive incrementalism that characterizes traditional budgetary processes, but so far the record shows few signs of success.24

The most recent budgetary reform in Canada may likewise join its predecessors among the debris of failed governmental reforms; but the Policy Expenditure Management System is sufficiently plausible in the context of our orientation to policy-making as practical reasoning that it deserves careful, sympathetic consideration. PEMS follows earlier reforms by attempting to establish a more comprehensive, anticipatory style of budgetary policy-making. It does this by multi-year fiscal plans that set expenditure limits for ten policy sectors (envelopes) over the next four years. Within the expenditure ceilings created for each policy sector, the ministers on each of the five cabinet policy committees backed by counterpart committees of deputy ministers negotiate the amounts to be distributed to particular departments and programmes. If this reform works as intended, the roles of spenders and guardians will become much less distinct. All ministers, not just the president of the Treasury Board and the minister of finance, will become more conscious of the interdependence of departmental expenditure decisions and more involved in expenditure control; and less prudential, more other-regarding orientations to budgetary policy-making will be institutionalized, at least at the ministerial level.

"Ministry policy-making" in British parliamentary democracies is characterized by predominantly prudential reasoning. British prime ministers, for example, choose ministers from within the party according to their political weight, debating ability and previous governmental experience." In addition to these criteria Canadian prime ministers and premiers customarily take regional origins, ethnic origins and religious affiliations into account. A prime minister who has just become party leader will have accumulated obligations to those who helped him win the leadership. At the same time the interests of party unity will require some accommodation with those who opposed him in the leadership race. No doubt the new prime minister will try to avoid giving his rivals influential positions in cabinet, but some still may be strong enough even to specify the post they will accept.26

The ministry decision-making that follows a general election or even a major reshuffling of occupants in portfolios also appears to be predominantly comprehensive and anticipatory in style. Even in a country like Canada which tolerates large cabinets, the leader's

24 See Aaron Wildavsky, Budgeting: A Comparative Theory of Budgetary' Processes (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), part 4.

25 Anthony King, "Executives," in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science, Volume 5: Governmental Institutions and Processes (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1975), 200-01.

26 R. M. Punnet, The Prime Minister in Canadian Government and Politics (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1977), 62-63.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 591

selection problems cannot be resolved simply by expanding the cabinet. Nor can they be resolved by trial and error. A delicate balance needs to be struck among a complex set of selection criteria, and it has to be done in a matter of days. Perhaps cabinet shuffles at a later date can be employed to make incremental adjustments, but a prime minister must also know that his political reputation may long since have been deeply, even irretrievably, affected by his initial choices.

"Commission policy-making" is characterized by predominantly moral reasoning and a comprehensive, anticipatory style of problem-solving. Among industrial democracies the study commissions of Sweden are perhaps the pre-eminent example of an anticipatory and planning approach to problem-solving, especially in the areas of welfare policy and education policy.27 The general effect of study commissions and the remiss process is acknowledged to make Swedish policy-making rationalist and deliberative as well as open and consensual.28

In Canada many royal commissions are investigatory rather than policy-oriented, and even among those that are policy-oriented the methodology is often more incrementalist than comprehensive. Nonetheless, a surprising number of Canadian royal commissions have taken a predominantly comprehensive, anticipatory approach to re- solving the public problem given in their terms of reference. For one reason, the ad hoc appointment and independent status of royal commissions in Canada potentially ensures that their deliberations and recommendations are relatively free from self-regarding political calculation. Critics of royal commissions in Canada sometimes contend that their inability to implement their recommendations is a fundamental weakness, but V. S. Wilson has correctly pointed out that "the stamp of innovation and imagination is fostered by a spirit of independence which stems from being free of formal responsibility.""29

According to Wilson, "recent experiences seem to indicate that the commission device is more likely to be used for incremental changes rather than for any grand design to radically change the direction of government policies"; but an incrementalist approach to implementation should not cause us to underestimate the coherence and force it may derive from the comprehensive analysis and moral argument of a royal commission's report. Commenting on the process by which comprehensive secondary schools were established in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s, Arnold Heidenheimer has suggested that

27 Olof Ruin, "Sweden in the 1970s: Policy-Making Becomes More Difficult," in Richardson, Policy Styles in Western Europe, 142.

28 Thomas J. Anton, "Policy-Making and Political Culture in Sweden," Scandanarian Political Studies 4 (1969), 94.

29 V. Seymour Wilson, "The Role of Royal Commissions and Task Forces," in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin (eds.), The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1971), 119.

592 RONALD MANZER

comprehensive anticipatory analysis by study commissions was combined with incremental implementation to create a very successful model of "rolling reform." This model "is distinguished from both 'incremental' and 'omnibus' reform, in that it projects long-term restructuring goals but reaches them in small and partial steps, so as to utilize both the practical and the theoretical insights gained in modifying original blueprints."30

Judicial, budget, ministry and commission policy-making are four examples of policy-making institutions or procedures which incorporate different modes of practical reasoning and different styles of problem-solving. It may be supposed that other policy-making institutions and procedures could be similarly located and analyzed. Advisory councils like the Science Council or the Economic Council of Canada, for example, might be seen to adopt an anticipatory style of problem-solving similar to a royal commission, but they are perhaps less independent of the political executive and accordingly more likely to require a somewhat greater reliance on prudential reasoning. As another example, regulatory agencies also are less independent of both the political executive and, perhaps more importantly, their clients than is the judiciary, which opens the possibility of their capture by self-regarding considerations. They may also be more likely because of their circumstances to be drawn from a reactive, incremental style of problem-solving into an anticipatory, comprehensive one.

These examples also imply that inductive generalization about institutionalized practical reason should be an important objective of policy studies. In some cases old generalizations may gain new meaning. For example, the relative independence of decision-makers from political executive, administrative responsibility and self-interested clients appears to be an important condition for shifting policy rationality from prudential to predominantly moral reasoning. In other cases new generalizations may be articulated. For example, the explicit responsibility of decision-makers to enforce procedural norms and values and the existence of a clear normative consensus in the community also appear to be conditions highly conducive to predominantly moral reasoning.

Whatever the particular results from this approach, if a concept of substantive rationality is adopted and typologies of policy decision-making are extended accordingly, the research agenda will include locating and analyzing the major institutions and procedures of each policy-making system and attempting to generalize about their relationships with one another and their respective contributions to the policy process as a whole.

30 Arnold Heidenheimer, Hugh Heclo, and Carolyn Teich Adams, Comparative Public

Policy: The Politics of Social Choice in Europe andAmerica (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), 55.

Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning 593

Substantive Rationality and Public Policy Studies

David Gauthier has insisted on the essential unity of practical reason. Practical judgments require both prudential and moral reasoning. Public policies result from practical judgments. If we are to develop an adequate account of the process of making public policies, we must have a concept of substantive rationality which gives appropriate consideration and weight to both prudential reasoning and moral reasoning.

Unfortunately neither of the two types of models that dominate current studies of public policy has an adequate concept of substantive rationality. Pluralist-exchange models are constructed on the assumption that the only good reasons, those given weight or worth consideration by decision-makers, are self-regarding ones. Elitist-planning models are constructed on the assumption that the only good reasons backing policy decisions are other-regarding. Essentially each type of model has assumed away the issue of substantive rationality by adopting a one-sided view of practical reasoning.

One's immediate reaction might be to dismiss existing pluralist-exchange and elitist-planning models in favour of more complex but more empirically relevant models. Such a reaction should be resisted. In both pluralist-exchange and elitist-planning models, the simplifying assumptions about their concepts of substantive rationality are in fact helpful as long as we are not seduced by their rival claims to provide a full account of public policy-making. As a partial model each type can be used in conjunction with the other and with other potential combinations of policy-making styles, such as "other-regarding incrementalism" or "self-regarding anticipatory planning."

Two approaches have been suggested here in order to incorporate an adequate concept of substantive rationality into studies of public policy-making. One would recognize that policies result from sequences of decisions each of which may involve different weights being given to moral and prudential considerations and to reactive and anticipatory problem-solving. Another would recognize that institutions and

procedures in public policy-making may be categorized and analyzed according to their predominant mode of reasoning and style of problem-solving.

Obviously these two approaches are mutually supportive, not

mutually exclusive, enterprises. Each simply proposes a different way of looking at the process of public policy-making. One would look at the history of a public policy and attempt to understand it as a

developmental or diachronic activity involving different kinds of decisions. The other would look at a cross-section of policy-making institutions and procedures which involve different decision-making styles and attempt to understand their functioning and contribution in

594 RONALD MANZER

the policy-making system as a whole. Both promise the same result-an understanding of public policy-making that rests on an adequate concept of policy rationality.