History and Context in Comparative Public Policy (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies) - Hardcover

9780822936947: History and Context in Comparative Public Policy (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822936941 ISBN 13: 9780822936947

Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr, 1992

Douglas Ashford joins a growing number of scholars who question the behavioralist assumptions of much contemporary policy science. The essays collected in this volume show why policy analysis cannot be confined to prevailing methods of social science. Policymaking behavior involves historical, contextual, and philosophical factors that also raise critical questions about the concepts and theory of the discipline. Ashford asks difficult questions about the contextual, conjunctural, and unintentional circumstances that affect actual decision making. His bridging essays summarize opposing points of view and conflicting interpretations to help form a new agenda for comparative policy analysis.
The argument uniting this volume is that every political system is based on a substratum of shared intentions, meanings, and rules of conduct embedded in a culture. Genuine understanding of any policy necessitates a knowledge of context: the unspoken assumptions that make the application of policy different in each new environment. Thus comparison of public policies across physical and temporal boundaries compels researchers to go beyond visible effects and causes in a quest for more intangible realities.
History and Context in Comparative Public Policy pursues its thesis from various angles. Fifteen chapters discuss the power of historical experience, intellectual tradition, ethnicity, prejudice, power structures, and concepts of the state--all of which vary dramatically across geographical and temporal boundaries and must be accounted for in studying the creation and functioning of public policy. Clearly, very different conceptions of poverty and of the welfare state prevailed in Victorian Britain and in twentieth-century Sweden, and the role of philosophers and intellectuals in shaping policy decisions varies widely from one milieu to the next. Other chapters cover the limitations of conventional political science language and concepts and explore fresh linguistic approaches that offer new strategies for contextually rooted comparison.
Douglas Ashford's bridging essays are useful in placing theoretical commentary and case studies in perspective. Surveying the evolution of the social sciences since the 1950s and commenting broadly on contending schools of thought and research methodology, Ashford's chapters provide a tight organization for a wide-ranging exchange of ideas.

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About the Author:

Douglas E. Ashford was Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Pittsburgh.

Review:

“A benchmark contribution. Its theme is that policy studies constitute the one area of research in political science that best lends itself to interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives and historical frameworks of analysis. . . . It stands as a broad survey of the field of comparative policy studies as well as a testament to the importance of this area of inquiry.”
—Journal of Policy History

“This volume is a thoughtful and challenging contribution of ideas to a post-positivist agenda.”
—American Politics Review

“Those who think this volume will be of interest only to those pursuing comparative public policy will miss a major work on the nature and future of our discipline. . . . In one way or another all of the essays portray the limitations that behavioral analysis has imposed on the discipline. They also present arguments for alternative approaches to understanding public policy broadly defined as the 'why' of politics.”
—Journal of Politics

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