LEARNING THE METHODS OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND PLANNING

Methods courses are usually taught by supplying students a tool box of analytical techniques (e.g., forecasting methods and regression analysis) that can ostensibly be applied to policy problems.

There are many drawbacks to this approach. It creates the sense that all that needs to be done is to discover the proper match between problem type and specific method and then crank out a solution. This is seldom the case.

It also fails to acknowledge that the complex problems facing governments are usually multifaceted and require multiple. not single, analytical approaches. Problems examined this way usually lose their context and become mathematics problems rather than policy problems.
In reaction to this approach to learning methods, some have said that since each problem is unique, what is needed is a "proper frame of mind" to do analysis. In other words, there is no standard method that can be used to approach these problems; each time an approach must be created new.

Our position lies between these two. We believe that a standard procedure exists for addressing these problems. We also believe that a number of fundamental or basic methods can be used within this procedure to analyze complex problems.

We have brought these basic methods together in this book for the beginning policy analyst. We believe these basic methods cannot be effectively learned without a context.

Thus in this book we describe the process of policy analysis and planning and explain a number of basic methods appropriate to each step in that process. Each method is illustrated with examples. The end of each process chapter contains practice problems.

The second part of the book contains policy cases, which will take from five to 25 hours each to resolve. For each policy case, unlike the more directed exercises provided with the process chapters, readers are on their own in delineating the problem. choosing an approach, and adopting methods of analysis. This combination of traditional learning and learning by doing was selected with several goals in mind. We hope each user of this book will:

1. Learn to recognize situations in which specific basic methods can be applied quickly and appropriately.

2. Become competent at using methods of analysis and designing approaches to policy problems.

3. Learn how to communicate the results of analysis to appropriate decision makers.

In the process of attaining these goals, we hope our readers will also:

• Learn the language of policy planning.

• Learn to write with organization, clarity and precision.

• Larn to use supporting documentation (maps, charts, grapha) effectively.

• Learn to speak publicly, delivering critical information concisely.

• Learn to develop simple models that are supported theoretically and empirically.

• Learn to evaluate the distributional aspects of policies and programs.

• Learn to incorporate political factors into analysis.

• Learn to advocate uncomfortable positions.

• Learn to work under time constraints and to allocate analytic resources.

• Develop management skills and the ability to work in, and/or direct a team.

• Learn how to obtain policy-relevant data, through efficient search techniques and persistence.

• Practice the sifting and synthesizing of mountains of seemingly irrelevant reports and memoranda.

• Practice using secondary data sources.

• Develop quantitative analytic skills.

• Develop skills for qualitative analysis.

• Learn to design effective program implementation guidelines.

• Learn to cope with'uncertainty in a policy context by being flexible and tolerating false starts and dead ends.

• Learn to read and understand legislative language.

• Learn how to develop a program of researched analysis for staff.

• Learn to be skeptical of their own solutions as well as those of other analysts.

Attachment:- POLICY ANALYSIS AND PLANNING.rar