Policy analysis

Question 1

BOX 8.1

Mapping a Policy Argument

Policy arguments have seven elements: information, claim, qualifier, warrant, backing, objection, and rebuttal. The following guidelines are useful in identifying and arranging these elements:

1. If possible, identify arguments by performing a stakeholder analysis (see Chapter 3). Stakeholders are the main source of policy arguments.

2. Start by locating the claim, which is the endpoint or output of the argument. A claim is always more general than the information on which it is based. Claims involve an “inferential leap” beyond information.

3. Look for language that indicates the degree of credibility the arguer attaches to the claim—this is the qualifier.

4. Look for the information that supports the claim. The information answers two questions: What does the arguer have to go on? Is it relevant to the case at hand?

5. Look for the warrant, which in conjunction with the information supports the claim. The warrant answers the question: Why is the arguer justified in making the claim on the basis of the information?

6. Repeat the same procedure with the backing. If there is a question whether a statement is a backing or a warrant, look for the one that is more general. This is the backing.

7. Remember that a warrant or backing may be implicit and unstated—do not expect arguments to be entirely transparent.

8. Look to the arguments of other stakeholders to find objections and rebuttals. If possible, obtain objections and rebuttals from someone who actually believes them.

9. Remember that elements may contain rules, principles, or entire arguments.

10. An uncontested argument is static; argumentation, which involves at least two parties, is dynamic and usually contested.

11. The initial qualifier usually changes when objections and rebuttals are advanced to challenge the claim.

12. Most qualifiers become weaker, although some stay the same. Some can grow stronger (a fortiori) by withstanding challenges.

13. Argumentation produces “trees” and “chains” involving dynamic processes of argumentation that change over time.

MODES OF POLICY ARGUMENTATION

Distinct modes of argumentation are used to justify policy claims. Modes of argumentation, which are specific patterns of reasoning include reasoning from authority, method, generalization, classification, cause, sign, motivation, intuition, analogy, parallel case, and ethics.6 Each of these modes of argumentation and its characteristic reasoning pattern is described in Table 8.1. Note that more than one mode may be used in a policy argument.

TABLE 8.1

Modes of Policy Argumentation with Reasoning Patterns

Mode	Reasoning Pattern
Authority	Reasoning from authority is based on warrants having to do with the achieved or ascribed statuses of producers of policy-relevant information, for example, experts, insiders, scientists, specialists, gurus, power brokers. Footnotes and references are disguised authoritative arguments.
Method	Reasoning from method is based on warrants about the approved status of methods or techniques used to produce information. The focus is on the achieved or ascribed status or “power” of procedures. Examples include approved statistical, econometric, qualitative, ethnographic, and hermeneutic methods.
Generalization	Reasoning from generalization is based on similarities between samples and populations from which samples are selected. Although samples can be random, generalizations can also be based on qualitative comparisons. In either case, the assumption is that what is true of members of a sample is also true of members of the population not included in the sample. For example, random samples of n ⩾ 30 are taken to be representative of the (unobserved and often unobservable) population of elements from which the sample is drawn.
Classification	Reasoning from classification has to do with membership in a defined class. The reasoning is that what is true of the class of persons or events described in the warrant is also true of individuals or groups described in the information. An example is the untenable ideological argument that because a country has a socialist economy it must be undemocratic, because all socialist systems are undemocratic.
Cause	Reasoning from cause is about generative powers (“causes”) and their consequences (“effects”). A claim may be made based on general propositions, or laws, that state invariant relations between cause and effect for example, the law of diminishing utility of money. Other kinds of causal claims are based on observing the effects of some policy intervention on one or more policy outcomes. Almost all argumentation in the social and natural sciences is based on reasoning from cause.
Sign	Reasoning from sign is based on signs, or indicators, and their referents. The presence of a sign or indicator is believed to justify the expectation that some other sign or indicator will occur as well. Examples are indicators of institutional performance such as “organizational report cards” and “benchmarks” or indicators of economic performance such as “leading economic indicators.” Signs are not causes, because causality must satisfy temporal precedence and other requirements not expected of signs.
Motivation	Reasoning from motivation is based on the motivating power of goals, values, and intentions in shaping individual and collective behavior. For example, a claim that citizens will support the strict enforcement of pollution standards might be based on reasoning that since citizens are motivated by the desire to achieve the goal of clean air and water, they will support strict enforcement.
Intuition	Reasoning from intuition is based on the conscious or preconscious cognitive, emotional, or spiritual states of producers of policy-relevant information. For example, the belief that an advisor has some special insight, feeling, or “tacit knowledge” may serve as a reason to accept his or her judgment.
Analogy	Reasoning from analogies is based on similarities between relations found in a given case and relations characteristic of a metaphor or analogy. For example, the claim that government should “quarantine” a country by interdicting illegal drugs — with the illegal drugs seen as an “infectious disease” — is based on reasoning that since quarantine has been effective in cases of infectious diseases, interdiction will be effective in the case of illegal drugs.
Parallel Case	Reasoning from parallel case is based on similarities among two or more cases of policy making. For example, the claim that a local government will be successful in enforcing pollution standards is based on information that a parallel policy was successfully implemented in a similar local government elsewhere.
Ethics	Reasoning from ethics is based on judgments about the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, of policies or their consequences. For example, policy claims are frequently based on moral principles stating the conditions of a “just” or “good” society, or on ethical norms prohibiting lying in public life. Moral principles and ethical norms go beyond the values and norms of particular individuals or groups. In public policy, many arguments about economic benefits and costs involve unstated or implicit moral and ethical reasoning.