WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY

Policy:

1. A definite course or method of action selected from among alternative and in the light of given conditions to guide and usually determine present and future decisions.

2. A projected program consisting of desired objectives and the means to achieve them.

1. Separation or breaking up of a whole into its fundamental elements or components or component parts.
2. A detailed examination of anything complex made in order to understand its nature or to determine it nature or to determine its essential features, through a study.

MUNGER, Analyzing Policy (New York, NY: WW Norton, 2000), p. 6

Policy Analysis is the process of assessing, and deciding among alternatives based on their usefulness in satisfying one or more goals or values.

WEINER AND VINING, Policy Analysis (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998), p. 27

Policy Analysis is client-oriented advice relevant to public decisions and informed by social values.

DUNN, Public Policy Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981), p. xi

Policy Analysis is an applied social science discipline which uses multiple methods of inquiry and argument to produce and transform policy-relevant information that may be utilized in political settings to resolve problems.

STONE, Policy Paradox and Political Reason (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1988) p. 4

We must understand analysis in and of politics as strategically crafted argument, designed to create paradoxes and resolve them in a particular direction.

MAJONE, Evidence, Argument, & Persuasion in the Policy Process, (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1989) p. 7

The job of analysts consists in large part of producing evidence and arguments to be used in the course of public debate.  Its crucial argumentative aspect is what distinguishes policy analysis from the academic social sciences on the one hand, and from problem-solving methodologies such as operations research on the other.

PLCY 71 Students, Fall 2001

Policy analysis is the process of establishing community values, promoting agreed upon objectives, resolving conflicts, and designing effective solutions to well-defined problems that affect a community.  Analyses should be developed in a systematic and unbiased manner and involve breaking down an issue into its key components, developing criteria for evaluating problems, comparing alternative solutions, and providing feedback to policy makers and the community at large.

PERREIRA

Public policy analysis is a set of processes (politics) and evaluative techniques (analysis) used to determine what we, the public, wants to do and how we want to do it.