Political realists Lindblom, Wildavsky, Hogwood and Gunn developed an alternative theory to rational policy analysis view. They stated that policy analysis is an activity, which can help to raise the level of political debate. They also support the view that policy analysis is an art and a craft rather than a science. Although decision-makers expect solutions from social scientists, it is not possible for them to produce solutions, as there is no one best way of decision-making. All they can do is to measure the impact of current and past public policies.
In addition, the forensics approach supports the view that policy analysis is an activity of subjecting policy arguments to the test of persuasiveness, rather than quasi-scientific proof or rational ‘truth’. It is not possible to consider policy analyst as a scientist measuring or experimenting. A theorist, Martin Rein, ‘most widely known proponent of this approach’ states that policy analyst tell stories which can not be disentangled by any scientific procedure or rational technique. (1976:15) The most important thing is therefore the framework within which decisions about policy are made and how plausible these frameworks are. On the other hand, William Dunn, another proponent of this approach, argues that all stories are not equal, because some are more logical or more truthful than the others are. He also believes that experimentalism and the model of scientific explanation is not possible for policy analysis (1981:23)
The Limitations of Rational Policy Analysis
Parsons supports the view that the key techniques of rational analysis include cost-benefit analysis, economic forecasting, financial planning, operational research, systems analysis, social indicators and impact assessment. (1995:399) However, the technical base of policy analysis is weak. Since values are at the centre of policy-making, ‘neutral’ or value-free analysis can never be practicable.
For example the benefit-cost analysis has serious problems and limitations. Lynch in his book ‘Policy Analysis in Public Policy Making’ explains these limitations with a few examples. (1975:78)
“…..a new freeway exchange saved an extra one or two minutes for a commuter. What is the value, if anything, of that extra minute? Some would argue that one or two minutes saved on travel time can not be considered a benefit because people do not think such units of time are valuable. The final benefit-cost ratio is normally open to dispute, as there is no established convention on how and what various costs and benefits should be computed.”
“….for example an analyst can say that upgrading the transit service to poverty areas is a benefit and using some method he can assign a dollar amount to that benefit. However, the amount chosen by the analyst could be challenged. Also, another analyst could argue that such improved service is not a benefit.” (taken from Hoos 1972:136)
Moreover, while measuring benefits or costs it is important whether the policy will be implemented for a short term or a long term. Because some policies experience difficulties at first but it can be successful in the long term. Program, Planning and Budgeting System which is a form of cost-benefit analysis specifies the output of a government program, then measures the cost of achieving this output and learns whether benefits exceed the costs. Although PPBS is successful to measure the direct costs it is very difficult to identify the indirect, symbolic costs. In addition, there are some social outcomes, which do not have any price. For example it is not possible to set values on good health, finding a cure for cancer, teaching poor children to read and write.
Social indicators are developed by some social scientists to show social progress. They can be defined as quantitative data, which focus attention on certain social conditions. However they are not enough to measure units of social wellbeing and are open to criticisms because of problems associated with value judgements. Dye makes the point that in the social indicators movement there is an implicit political elitism- the view that social scientists are the best judges of what is “good” for the people. (1992:366)
Apart from physical and biological sciences there are also some limitations which are caused from the design of social science research. In social experiments it is not possible to control all the factors that go into a real world situation. We can give an interesting example of this important matter. In the New Jersey Graduated Work Incentive Experiment; the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity funded a three-year social experiment involving 1,350 families in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The aim of the experiment was to answer some serious questions about the impact of welfare payments or the incentives for poor people to work; such as would a guaranteed family income reduce the incentive to work?
The experiment continued for 3 years , but in this period some political events occurred in US. In 1969 President Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan to Congress, which promised all families a minimum income of 50 percent of the poverty level and a payment reduction of 50 percent of outside earnings. The results of the OEO experiment had not been explained and the Nixon administration pressured OEO to produce favourable supporting evidence that a guaranteed income at the levels proposed in FAP would not reduce incentives to work among the poor. So the results of the experiment showed that there were no differences in the outside earnings of families receiving guaranteed incomes (experimental group) and those who were not (control group). However later results confirmed the preliminary results, which were produced to assist the FAP bill in Congress. The Rand Corporation reanalyzed the Graduated Work Incentive Experiment and reached different results. Because one important factor University of Wisconsin researchers failed to consider was changed during this experiment. Six months later after the experiment began, New Jersey charged its state law and offered all families very generous welfare benefits so during the experiment both the “control” group and “experimental “ group were being given equal benefits. Rand study reached different results that guaranteed annual income would reduce willingness to work.(Dye 1992:367)
There is another set of problems in policy experimentation. In general people tend to modify their behaviour when they know they are being watched. This is known as “ Howthorne effect”. A new policy can appear more successful than the old one at first because of this ‘effect’. And different results can be obtained with large-scale nation-wide policies than small-scale experiments.
Value Conflicts
Since policy analysis deals with very subjective topics and relies upon interpretation of results, it can not be “value-free”. This is the major weakness of the scientific policy analysis. For instance, liberal reform oriented social scientists expect liberal reforms to produce positive results. Thus even professional researchers interpret the results of their analyses differently.
Further evidence supports the view that in the physical and biological sciences the temptation to cheat in research is reduced by the great danger of being caught and disgraced. Whereas in social experiments the temptation to recode and fudge the data and reinterpret the results is very great. (Dye 1992:372)
A professor -James Q. Wilson- formulates two general laws about all kinds of social science researches. Wilson’s First Law: All policy interventions in social problems produce the intended effect – if those implementing the policy or their friends carry out the research. Wilson’s Second Law: No policy interventions in social problems produces the intended effect –if the research is carried out by independent third parties, especially those sceptical of the policy. (1970:34)
The major criticism of the scientific policy analysis view is that policy analysts can not act as objective technicians; because analysts usually have supervisors who can be thought as clients. These clients who have different policy preferences can be immediate supervisors or higher-ranking officials. Sometimes they can ignore the analysis and want to reach different conclusions, which support their political interests. So value conflicts can occur. That is why policy analysis sometimes produces unexpected and even embarrassing findings. (For an interesting example of this see, Dye: 8)
It is possible to argue that different political interests interpret the findings of policy analysis differently. Social scientists’ values or own purposes play an important role in using these findings. Not only experimental evidence but also case studies support this point of view.
The Green Card Policy Of Turkish Government
The purpose of this case study is to assess whether policy analysis is an exact scientific activity or not by evaluating results of the green card policy in a small district in Turkey. The methods used in the research are to collect primary and secondary data.
The green card policy is being implemented since 1992.In Turkey a mixed model has been applied in health sector. In other words health services are not free of charge. In general social security bodies pay for the services but not all people belong to these bodies. Some of them do not have any health insurance. That is why health sector is very important for politicians.
In 1992, before elections, Turkish Government began to implement a new policy. The target group of this policy was poor people who do not have enough money to afford health services. But a lot of people wanted to get a green card and tried to cheat officials by giving them wrong information about their social state. Therefore, total expend amount exceeded sent total payment and this has led to budget deficits. (This case is illustrated in Table 1.)
Table 1. Given Green Cards and Total Expenditures ; Source DPT 2004
After a five year period time, a research team from Ankara University, conducted a study that is analyzing the green card policy in all country. The team director, Professor Alpaslan Celebi Isikli, was known with his notions supporting social welfare state. They had very interesting results. For instance, in Antalya the number of people given green cards was more than the population of city. This is confirmed by evidence from another study; which is conducted by an assistant professor in Antalya in 1998 ( Ozkazanc 1998:25)
Furthermore the research found that same people could manage to get a green card in spite of being rich. For getting more votes; politicians turned a blind eye to this case. But the research team was believing in this policy’s success in the long term and hence, they ignored most of the statistical information. Although their belief in green card policy these problems lasted and every year great losses occurred because of budget deficits. That is confirmed by evidence from my case study. Though total population of this district was 9267, the number of people given green card was 10.030 ( see, table 2 and 3). This is attributed to the fact that some people could manage to get a green card although they did not live in that district.
Table 2. Eldivan’s population , 2004
Source: DPT, 2004
Table 3. Total Number of Women and Men Given Greencards Source: Cankiri Province, 2004
It is possible to see same situation if we examine the population of villages. (See table 4)
Table 4. The populations of the villages of Eldivan district and the number of greencards issued in each village. Source; Cankiri Province, 2004
The table indicates that the total number of people given green cards are more than the population both in the district centre and in villages. Evidence confirms that headmen do not hesitate to give green cards to people who actually do not live in that residence.
Although the research team found the same results; they did not want to explain their findings. Because these findings did not support their point of view. When I interviewed the director of this research team he explained that they believed the success of green card policy in a long-term period and ignored the findings of their research and decided not to publish their findings for a while.
Though it is difficult to generalize the district based results for all country, the evaluation of other factors will identify the problems in this policy implementation. For example; for getting a green card; the most important factor is income level. The income level must be below 444.150.000 TL for per month. This amount is known as minimum wage. In Turkey according to data which is supplied by DPT (a planning organization ) in 2003 the total number of people who have minimum wage was 12.800.000. However the total number of people given green cards was approximately 13.500.000. The difference between these figures shows us the failure of this policy.
Another important factor, which shows the failure of this study, is that some people who belong to a social security body have green cards. (See table 5) If we think the whole country; it is certainly explicit that the total number is great.
As a result; the social researchers, who analyze the green card policy of government, ignored these problems by recoding their data. Since they thought presenting the real data would lead to losing confidence in the achievement of this policy.
In my point of view the government wanted a mispresentation from the research team to maximise their votes and other political benefits. But this is not certain. The only thing, which is certain, those social researchers interpret their findings depending on their social values; thus sometimes they reject and sometimes accept.
Conclusion
Policy analysis is an interdisciplinary science, which is about explaining the causes and consequences of various policies. The reason for policy analysis is dissatisfaction with present governmental decision-making approaches and a belief that policy analysis will result in better decisions.
Social scientists do not have any solutions. This is attributed to the fact that social problems are so complex and most of them are shaped by so many variables that a simple explanation of them is not possible.
It is possible to argue based on the discussion above that policy analysis is therefore something, which can not be subjected to tests, which determine right and wrong, truth and error. Furthermore, analysis in the decision-making process is essentially embedded in values, rather than being value-free. Because the utilisation of information is shaped by factors that are political, organizational, social and not merely methodological or technical in nature.
In other words, social scientists can interpret even the same findings differently and this is an indication of the absence of reliable scientific analysis. Thus, providing reliable and valid information about policy performance can be possible if the values of analysts are not in the centre of policy analysis.
Word Count: 3293 words, 203 Paragraphs, 454 Lines
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ankara University Publisments (2000) “ A study about green card policy: 1992-1997 Ankara,
No: 12564
Cankiri (2000) The population of Cankiri, Cankiri, no: 198
Dunn William N. (1981) Public Policy Analysis USA, Prentice Hall
Dye Thomas R (1992) Understanding Public Policy New Jersey, Prentice Hall
Lynch Thomas D (1975) Policy Analysis in Public Policymaking USA, Lexington Books
Ozkazanc Alev (1998) A case-study about green card policy Antalya , Ihlas Publication
Parsons Wayne (1995) Public Policy UK, Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
Quade E.S. (1976) Analysis for Public Decisions Newyork, Elseiver
Rein Martin (1976) Social Science and Public Policy Harmondsworth, Penguin Education
Richardson J.J.(1969) The Policymaking Process London , Routledge&K Paul
State Planning Organization (2004) Yearly Statistics Ankara, DPT 24
State Planning Organization (2001) VIII. Development Plan Ankara, DPT 17
Weimer David L (1992) Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practise New Jersey, Prentice Hall
Wildavsky Aaron (1979) The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis UK, The Macmillan Press Ltd.
Wilson James Q (1989) Bureaucracy New York, Basic Books
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………….1
WHAT IS POLICY ANALYSIS? ……………………………………………………1
CAN POLICY ANALYSIS BE REGARDED AS A SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY?…….2
THE LIMITATIONS OF RATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS………………………...3
VALUE CONFLICTS…………………………………………………………………..5
THE GREEN CARD POLICY OF TURKISH GOVERNMENT………………………7
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………….11
