1977/12/01 by George D. Greenberg, Jeffrey Miller, Lawrence B. Mohr +1 · 56 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Defense, Military, and Policy Studies #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Policy Transfer and Learning #Public policy #Positive economics #Politics #Focus (optics) #Political science #Process (computing) #Empirical research #Test (biology) #Policy making #Epistemology #Management science #Sociology #Economics #Public administration #Computer science #Law
paper · doi:10.2307/1961494
published in American Political Science Review 71(4), 1532-1543 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1977/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
There has been considerable interest in the development of theories of public policy formation, but theoretical efforts to date have not demonstrated adequate recognition of the distinctive qualities of the dependent variable as a focus of research. Facets of public policy are far more difficult to study systematically than most other phenomena investigated empirically by political scientists. Our attempt to test hypotheses with some rigor demonstrated that public policy becomes troublesome as a research focus because of inherent complexity–specifically because of the temporal nature of the process, the multiplicity of participants and of policy provisions, and the contingent nature of theoretical effects. We use examples of policy making taken from the case study literature to show concretely how such complexity makes it essentially impossible to test apparently significant hypotheses as they are presented by Lowi, Dahl, Banfield, and others. Our effort here is to enhance theoretical development by carefully specifying and clarifying the major shortcomings and pointing out the apparent directions of remedy.