Shifting policy frameworks: Disclosure and discipline

Abstract

This chapter emphasises the difference between traditional and ‘post-positivist’ approaches to policy analysis. Traditional or positivist analysis, it argues, is a process of disclosure that seeks the closure of policy solutions by disciplining and constraining political analysis. By contrast, post-positivist analysis is a constant attempt to avoid closure by uncovering the narrative construction of problems. The chapter first illustrates that the dominant models of policy analysis are disclosure models which produce closure by suggesting that puzzles have been solved, that answers to ‘problems’ have been revealed. Next, it offers competing models, including an approach called ‘What’s the problem (represented to be)?', which open up a space to consider the constructed nature of policy narratives. Finally, the chapter comments on what is at stake in these debates. The contrast drawn in this chapter between rationalist and postpositivist models of policy analysis is meant to highlight the political implications of approaches to teaching and ‘doing’ policy analysis.