The emerging conception of the policy sciences

Abstract

The policy sciences may be conceived as knowledge of the policy process and of the relevance of knowledge in the process. Professional careers in the theoretical branches of policy analysis have been typically academic and include professors of political science, jurisprudence, political economy, and public administration. One novelty of recent decades has been the prodigious multiplication of policy careers having little direct contact with traditional policy theory, though grounded in some specialized knowledge of the physical, biological, or cultural sciences. New specialties have arisen that affect the procedures of the policy making process itself, such as the handling of computerized information.Whatever their origin policy scientists appear to be converging toward a distinctive outlook. Contextuality calls for a cognitive map of the whole social process in reference to which each specific activity is considered. Problem orientation includes five intellectual tasks: goal clarification; trend description; analysis of conditions; projection of future developments; invention, evaluation and selection of alternatives. There is also a distinctive synthesis of technique, guided by principles of content and procedure.A distinctive identity image is evolving in which the role of the mediator-integrator among men of knowledge and between knowledge and action is becoming more explicit.Policy science careers have come into existence with little fanfare and little awareness of an identity in common or of a distinctive outlook or synthesis of skills. We are, somewhat belatedly, engaged in appraising these developments and proposing future lines of growth. Hence our current interest in the emerging conception of the policy sciences. As a working formula I describe the policy sciences as concerned with two separable though entwined frames of reference: knowledge of the policy process; knowledge in the process.1

La promoción de la cultura de defensa en las universidades españolas: Evaluación de diseño del Programa de Colaboración del Ministerio de Defensa

“…Estos atributos contribuyen a que pueda presentar un carácter descriptivo, explicativo, prescriptivo o normativo. Esa doble orientación, definida originalmente por Harold D. Lasswell (1970) como el knowledge of (análisis de) las políticas y el knowledge in (análisis para), ha guiado la investigación efectuada, interesada tanto por el conocimiento acerca del desarrollo de la política de promoción de la cultura de defensa como por su perfeccionamiento.…”

Keeping the faith: policy sciences as the gatekeeper

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Policy Implementation and Determinant of Access to Education for Disable Learners in Siaya and Kisumu Counties- Kenya: A Phenomenological Study

“…He added that implementation fails because of lapses of planning, specification and control. Similar idea was echoed by (Lasswell, 1970) but in a different fashion, claimed policy implementation can be administered in seven stages; intelligence, promotion, prescription, innovation, application, termination, and appraisal. Thomas R. Dye.…”