Vocabulary
A settled course of action to be followed by a government body or institution. Often used as a synonym for plan and program.
What is policy?
General beliefs about the relative worth of items or behaviors. Identifying a problem implies that these are not being satisfied.
What are values?
This category of evaluation criteria measures policy or program outcomes in terms of impact on relevant power groups such as decision-makers, legislators, coalitions, etc.
What is political viability?
This is a formal group process technique for generating ideas in which ideas from one person are intended to trigger ideas from another. Positive reinforcement is encouraged and and criticism is held to a minimum.
What is brainstorming?
This method of predication which assumes that patterns that existed in the past will continue into the future and that those patterns are regular and can be measured.
What is extrapolative forecasting?
A process through which the analyst collects non-standardized information from selected, key individuals who have standardized knowledge of an event or process.
What is elite (specialized or intensive) interviewing?
An approach to problem definition where the analyst seeks out expressions of discontent and tries to define societal problems that should be solved.
What is the social criterion approach?
This category of evaluation criteria measures whether policy or program outcomes achieve their purpose.
What is technical feasibility?
This method considers those policies proposed by interested groups and individuals.
What is the advocacy search process?
A set of methods in which the future state is predicted (by persons who have some knowledge that makes them likely to do this accurately), and then data and assumptions necessary to achieve this outcome are deduced.
What is inductive (or intuitive) forecasting?
The analysis of data that helps describe, show or summarize data in a meaningful way such that, for example, patterns might emerge from the data.
What are descriptive statistics?
Simple ways to estimate numbers that are important to defining the direction and magnitude of a problem.
What are back-of-the envelope calculations?
This category of evaluation criteria measures what policies cost and then what they produce as benefits.
What is economic and financial possibility?
This is an approach to creating alternatives through the manipulation of variables into coherent strategies.
What are feasible manipulations?
Modeling, or using a construct of how some subsystem of the world functions to predict how things will happen in the future.
What is theoretical forecasting?
A systematic evaluation of the technical, economic and political feasibility of alternative policies and the consequences of policy adoption.
What is policy analysis?
This approach to problem definition is consistent with the perspective that a policy analysis can be conducted only when there is disagreement about how an issue or problem is being handled and when there are alternative ways to deal with the problem.
What is the pragmatic approach?
This category of evaluation criteria measures how possible it is to actually implement the proposed policy within a given administrative context.
What is administrative operability?
This alternative describes the state that would evolve in the absence of an action alternative for the future and can be defined as reasonable maintenance or extrapolation of current trends and policies.
What is the no-action alternative?
A type of analysis that involves consideration of the actors involved, their beliefs and motivations, the resources they hold, their effectiveness in using these resources, and the sites at which decisions will be made.
What is political feasibility analysis?
A process for approaching policy problems in which problem definition leads to identification and evaluation of alternatives, which is followed by implementation.
What is the rational model?
The constraints within which policy analysis is to be performed which may include problem definition, values for certain parameters, and even a set of alternatives.
What is the policy envelope?
This refers to the distribution of goods and services among individual members or subgroups and involves questions of who benefits and who pays.
What is equity?
This method involves the examination of how similar problems were resolved in the past to identify possible alternatives for current problems.
What is analogy (metaphor, simile)?
This is a method that is useful both for evaluating alternatives and for presenting the results of analysis. Scenarios are scripts of what might happen under different alternatives. They describe in narrative form the unfolding events, reactions of key actors, and consequences - including measurable costs and benefits as well as intangible changes.
What is scenario writing?