Customer Reviews

Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Revised Edition

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Deborah Stone's "Policy Paradox" is an important work in the field of policy analysis. The subtitle is illuminating: "The Art of Political Decision Making." Her takeoff point is the following statement (pages x-xi): "This new field of policy analysis supposedly devoted to improving governance, was based on a profound disgust for the ambiguities and paradoxes of politics. . . . In rational analysis, everything has one and only one meaning." In her own words, she (page xi) ". . .wrote this book to critique the field and to capture, I hope, a more inspiring and humane kind of policy analysis."

Her basic point is that the rational models drawn from economics do not explain very well how policy analysis works. Nor, in her view, should it be the actual model for decision making. She contends that economic rationality often gives way to political reality, to accommodation to conflicting interests, to compromise, to values other than economic efficiency (such as liberty, fairness, and so on).

The introduction opens the book strongly, with Stone noting policy paradoxes, where the economic rational model does not prevail and explain how things work. She argues (page 13) that "each type of policy instrument [e.g., inducements, rules, rights, for example] is a kind of sports arena, each with its peculiar ground rules, within which political conflicts are continued." The first chapter continues the theme, by speaking of the market (economics) and the polis (politics), with a nice table summarizing key points on page 33). She concludes that (page 34) "Problems in the polis are never `solved' in the way that economic needs are met in the market model." Two different realms, and what works in the market may or may not work in the polis.

The book proceeds in three major sections: Part II focuses on broad goals (e.g., equity, efficiency, security, liberty); Part III examines problems (with chapters labeled as follows: symbols, numbers, causes, interests, decisions); Part IV focuses on solutions (or tools or instruments, such as inducements, rules, facts).

In the end, the book examines nicely the tensions between economic rational analysis of policy ideas and the messier but inescapable political process as it addresses policy issues. The reader will be provoked to think about important issues upon encountering Stone's perspective. A very useful work on the bigger picture of policy analysis.

Stone writes this book for people who are interested in implementing public policy, not merely studying it as an academic exercise. She takes us beyond the methodological self-satisfaction of too many academics and points out how applied policy arenas, from the simplest of settings like the school yard to the most complex of arenas such as national defense or social welfare policies, are characterized by the phenomenon of policy paradox.

It's not easy to find a find a profound book in the area of policy analysis. The typical book, as a rule, is analytically sharp, but isn't usually notable for the insight it yields. Stone argues that it is wholly inadequate to ground decision-making for a wide range of policy issues and contexts, characterized by policy paradox, in conventional rationalist terms.

Like Alberto Guerreiro Ramos, Stone finds what she calls the "rationality project" or "calculative rationality" at once typically characteristic of the discipline of policy analysis and inadequate as means/method for analyzing a broad range of contemporary public policy issues. Her analysis suggests that this inadequacy becomes increasingly transparent, the closer one gets to the concrete challenges of implementation. While in some ways she doesn't go as far as Ramos in analyzing and articulating alternative political theoretical grounds for policy analysis, she is notably clear and remarkably articulate as far as she goes, revealing among other things, how the very movement from policy analysis at large toward implementation analysis in particular is likely to bring to the surface, what may otherwise remain hidden paradoxes of public policy.

In the face of the phenomenon of policy paradox, Stone grounds the enlargered policy analytic framework she offers in the specifically interactive context of political theory. Politics may unfold in higher or lower forms (differentiated by Ramos and others) and which Raghavan Iyer portrays diagramatically through interlocking ascending and descending triangles in his book Parapolitics. While Stone doesn't make this differentiation explicit, nevertheless, she compactly interweaves this kind of political understanding with an understanding of literary theory, drawing upon a deep understanding of the often covert role of metaphor in language. Throughout her text, she brings this kind of fundamental rhetorical insight to the surface and reveals the use of metaphor in processes of reasoning, notably including "calculative rationality." Stone's interweaving of insights from political theory and rhetorical theory in turn, suggests an analytic means for penetrating the obscurantist or covert "cognitive politics" that she, like Ramos, appears to believe, too often masquerade in semi-imperial fashion, as "rational" solutions to policy problems.

At bottom, Stone contrasts the "calculative rationality" which she finds characteristic of much of the policy analysis field with a broader notion of political reason that she grounds in the reciprocal interplay between facts and values within each individual and in such deliberation across communities of persons within the "polis." For Stone, the dignity amidst the messiness of politics and its creative import lies in the extent to which people may, through meaningful deliberation, constructively engage the pursuit of common and diverse ends and means in ways that constructively and concretely address particular problems of social significance.

The deliberation Stone conceives and observes accounts at once for individual notions of self-interest and some notion of a common good through which persons are bound into a larger community or political whole. For Stone, this whole is neither merely the laissiz-faire sum of its individual parts, nor some super-whole lording over individual parts, but rather -- as it was for Mary Parker Follett -- a creative "whole-a-making;" Stone takes her notion of community seriously as the foundational notion of political association, just as the exchange of individual self-interest constitutes for her the foundation of economic assocation. A reductive interpretation of human association in either this fundamental economic or this fundamental political direction is for Stone, inadmissable. Real social problems are confronted and political economic life is lived between these tensions. For Stone, it is through interactive processes of deliberation within and across communities that means are employed/discovered to reconcile or otherwise engage the phenomena of "policy paradox."

Policy Paradox is one of those handful of texts that is a particularly good investment in that it is worth reading and re-reading. It is a text in which you are likely to find something more with each re-read as you progress in your studies and/or professional work. Stone's book contains insightful material throughout, written simply. Highly recommended for anyone concerned with reciprocally bridging theory and practice in the policy analytic field and/or for those reflective practitioners concerned with more effectually addressing critical issues in the practical art and challenge of policy implementation.

This scholar not only shares her understanding of complex patterns and interconnections of policy decision-making but also writes so readably! She captures what used to be in my mind as a very messy business. After I completed the book, I have much clearer concept of how and why political decision-making happens. I thought James G. March was the father of decision-making theory. Deborah Stone has become the dominant mother.

A most useful book, full of insightful theories that are backed up by realistic analysis and applications. Highly recommended and would very likely be delightful to anybody who is not a die-hard ideologue.

I'm the director of the Masters in Advocacy and Political Leadership (MAPL) Program at University of Minnesota Duluth. Ours is a weekend program, aimed at young and not so young people who wish to learn how to change policy--in whatever direction they wish to see it changed. Policy Paradox is the first book our students study and it sets the tone for our program because it is both analytical and realistic. There's nothing else in the field quite like it. If you want your students to understand the reality of policy decision making, Policy Paradox is the book you want. If, on the other hand, you want them to learn how to build rational choice policy castles in the sky, you'll have to go elsewhere.

Very stimulating reading and very applicable in many kinds of negotiations & meetings, not just "policy making" as in government. Her thesis is the "most books" assume policy should be rational and analyze when it is not. She argues that policy is INTRINSICALLY a paradoxical, conflicting process where (to greatly simplify) some people see A and others see B and others see C no matter how much data and rationality are tossed about, and that is HER starting point for discussing "policy making." I found it very stimulating and see wide ranging applications in my work and even outside work for these ideas. It's a fairly long book and not to be skimmed so it defies easy summary.

This is a splendid book for trying to understand the interaction between different parts of the policy-making process. The emphasis put on ideal types in most textbooks is certainly nice from the idealist perspective, but even if you could eliminate personal gain considerations from the agenda of most political entities, it would still say very little about the actual dynamics of decision formation/issue framing, etc., while this book does that in spades. I wouldn't go so far as to call Stone the Machiavelli of the 21rst century, but she's certainly trying for an empirical turn.
While I take issue with some of the normative statements/personal reflections she puts in the book (especially when it comes to the power/relevance of statistics, which she says she hopes will be of transient importance, and which just seems silly to me, as though she's confounding political uses of said things with actual uses they can be put to, given that people know how to interpret statements that contain 'facts'.. Although it does seem to be a feature of American politics that political people can safely choose to ignore any and all data in their considerations/deliberations without anyone reprimanding them for it; why everyone is allowed to invent his/her own truth is unclear to me, but it seems to me to come from some idiotic belief in 'relativism' and voter/media cynicism if anything. Anyway, continuing:) they're mostly minor quibbles that could easily be fixed in a new edition. On the whole I think this is a very useful book, though, especially for people who are hoping to gain some insight into the deliberative processes surrounding policy-making/setting. (Though it's probably not for people who can't look past the superficial shock value of the contents.)

Policy Paradox is truly a gem. Stone's language is clear, entertaining and very educating. The book is very witty and can be recommended to anyone interested in the peculiarities of political decision-making. I treasure my copy.

This book gives insight into the decision making process for administrators. It is not the cut and dried process you would think.

A must for those in public service.

Deborah Stone's Policy Paradox is an exercise in analyzing and describing how and why public policy is made in the United States. Her book is an invaluable contribution to political science and public administration.

Stone presents us with the paradox of two apparently contradictory models of policy-making: a rational-analytic model and a polis model. The two models seem to exclude each other, yet we can observe the processes of both in policy making. Stone examines and attempts to resolve the paradox by analyzing public policy through the perspectives of both models.

The rational-analytic model is the perspective and methodology of the professional policy analyst. The policy analyst examines a problem and then generates and evaluates possible solutions. He weighs the costs, benefits, and feasibility of each option. He selects and recommends a solution which he expects (or hopes) lawmakers and officials will implement. Stone describes the rational-analytic model as a "market model" because it mirrors the decision-making process made by individual consumers and business people. In the idealized marketplace, buyers and sellers carefully compare costs and benefits before agreeing to a trade.

Stone offers the polis model as the other perspective on how policy is made. In the polis model, different interest groups compete and cooperate to define problems and decide on solutions. As a society, we acknowledge common values, needs, and wants. Collectively, we recognize problems and crises when they arise. Unfortunately, individuals often hold different definitions of those supposedly "common" values, needs, and wants. The polis model recognizes that values, wants, and needs are abstract. A crisis or problem may be ill-defined. Groups (e.g., ethnic voting blocs, labor unions, business associations, single-issue advocacy groups) consolidate and define the values, wants, and needs of the individuals they represent. Advancing their members' interests, groups not only make claims on resources, but also on how wants should be defined, ranked, compared, and satisfied for all.

In the polis model, claims are weighed according to the influence of the groups advancing them. These influences are like the gravitational forces of planets within our solar system. Depending on their size and density, planets exert differing forces, but each one, even the smallest, exerts some influence on the movement and position of all. Although an interest group may dominate policy, less influential groups often bound or redirect policy efforts and outcomes.

In the final chapter, Dr. Stone concludes that we need not choose between the two models as normative or positive representations of policy making. Stone argues, instead, that public policy making is both. It is a single, integrated, but complex process involving rational decision-making and political dialogue and negotiation (polis model). The two "opposing models" that she investigates and describes in great detail are simply different perspectives on the same activity. We need to examine public policy through two different lenses in order to describe and understand the policy paradox, but a photograph using one lens or the other will provide us with an incomplete view. It is probably impossible to develop a template for the policy process; indeed, Stone does not provide a normative model or investigate the implications for the richly-detailed policy paradigm she offers.

My analogy for Stone's policy paradigm is that of two rivers from different sources flowing into a single channel. The rivers, one brown with silt and the other blue and clear, join but do not quite merge until they reach a common destination. Standing on one bank of the wide channel, we see only a brown stream and describe the whole river as muddy and fertile (as some might describe democracy). From the other bank, we view a clear stream and observe with clarity the river bottom with fish darting among the rocks. The perspective from either bank is accurate but incomplete. We can wade into the river to take in both perspectives, but as Heraclitus noted, we cannot step into the same river twice. Yet, the river continues flowing, doing its work--creative and destructive--as it reaches towards the sea.