Where Policy Studies Go Wrong

Abstract

Public policies are raw resources. They can be put to practical use in ways that offend those who initially created them. Policy research sometimes takes the perspective of the offended without giving due regard to the perspective of the offenders. The conceptual and practical limitations of such an approach are illustrated in this article. The contextual example concerns policy research on the so-called chilling and addiction problems of collective bargaining in the public sector. The general point is simply that what is misuse to some (in the example, overuse) is quite proper to others. Policy researchers, in their eagerness to produce "relevant" studies on policies believed to have gone astray, frequently dismiss or ignore the situationally specific uses to which public policies are put. A social action perspective toward policy science is suggested in this article as a partial counterbalance to such research oversights.