Frame Reflection: Toward The Resolution Of Intractable Policy Controversies - Hardcover

Schon, Donald A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465025064 ISBN 13: 9780465025060

Publisher: Basic Books, 1994

Synopsis

Shows how seemingly insoluble disputes and negotiations can sometimes be resolved by reframing the problem

About this title

From the Publisher

This innovative approach to intractable policy controversies shows how "reframing" the issues can lead to success where simply appealing to facts often fails.

From the Back Cover

Why are controversies about such issues as abortion, welfare, persistent poverty, and environmental destruction so intractable? As anyone who has ever engaged in or tried to settle an argument on highly charged issues knows, facts rarely persuade in such situations. This innovative approach to intractable policy controversies shows how "reframing" the issues can succeed where simply appealing to facts often fails.

In "Frame Reflections", two of his country's leading organizational theorists and policy analysts show how disputes that in abstract debate or negotiation seem insoluble can sometimes be resolved pragmatically by those who actually have to design and implement the specific programs. The authors illustrate their theory through a detailed examination of three specific programs: the evolution of early retirement programs in Germany; a statewide project for the homeless in Massachusetts; and the development of Project Athena, a large-scale experiment in the use of computers in undergraduate education at MIT.

Policy stalemates are inevitable. Yet we know that people sometimes do change their minds, even in situations that at first appeared hopeless. How that happens is the subject of this pathbreaking book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0465025064
• ISBN 13: 9780465025060
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272