the science of muddling through - charles e lindblom-1959

8/12/2019 The Science of Muddling Through - Charles E Lindblom-1959

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The Science of "Muddling Through"

Author(s): Charles E. LindblomSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Spring, 1959), pp. 79-88Published by: Blackwell Publishingon behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/973677.Accessed: 30/03/2011 15:00

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h e c i e n c e o uddling hroughBy CHARLESE. LINDBLOM

Associate Professor of EconomicsYale University

SUPPOSE an administrator is given respon-sibility for formulating policy with re-spect to inflation. He might start by try-ing to list all related values in order ofimportance, e.g., full employment, reasonablebusiness profit, protection of small savings,prevention of a stock market crash. Then allpossible policy outcomes could be rated asmore or less efficient in attaining a maximumof these values. This would of course requirea prodigious inquiry into values held bymembers of society and an equally prodigiousset of calculations on how much of each valueis equal to how much of each other value. Hecould then proceed to outline all possiblepolicy alternatives. In a third step, he wouldundertake systematic comparison of his multi-tude of alternatives to determine which at-tains the greatest amount of values.In comparing policies, he would take ad-vantage of any theory available that general-ized about classes of policies. In consideringinflation, for example, he would compare allpolicies in the light of the theory of prices.Since no alternatives are beyond his investi-gation, he would consider strict central con-trol and the abolition of all prices and mar-kets on the one hand and elimination of allpublic controls with reliance completely onthe free market on the other, both in the lightof whatever theoretical generalizations hecould find on such hypothetical economies.Finally, he would try to make the choicethat would in fact maximize his values.An alternative line of attack would be toset as his principal objective, either explicitlyor without conscious thought, the relativelysimple goal of keeping prices level. This ob-jective might be compromised or complicatedby only a few other goals, such as full em-

> Short courses, books, and articles exhort admin-istrators to make decisions more methodically, butthere has been little analysis of the decision-makingprocess now used by public administrators. Theusual process is investigated here-and generally de-fended against proposals for more scientific meth-ods.Decisions of individual administrators, of course,must be integrated with decisions of others toform the mosaic of public policy. This integrationof individual decisions has become the major con-cern of organization theory, and the way individualsmake decisions necessarily affects the way those de-cisions are best meshed with others'. In addition,decision-making method relates to allocation of de-cision-making responsibility-who should make whatdecision.More scientific decision-making also is dis-cussed in this issue: Tools for Decision-Making inResources Planning.

ployment. He would in fact disregard mostother social values as beyond his present in-terest, and he would for the moment not evenattempt to rank the few values that he re-garded as immediately relevant. Were hepressed, he would quickly admit that he wasignoring many related values and many pos-sible important consequences of his policies.As a second step, he would outline thoserelatively few policy alternatives that occurredto him. He would then compare them. Incomparing his limited number of alternatives,inost of them familiar from past controversies,he would not ordinarily find a body of theoryprecise enough to carry him through a com-parison of their respective consequences. In-stead he would rely heavily on the record ofpast experience with small policy steps to pre-dict the consequences of similar steps ex-tended into the future.Moreover, he would find that the policy al-ternatives combined objectives or values indifferent ways. For example, one policy mightoffer price level stability at the cost of some

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8o PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEWrisk of unemployment; another might offerless price stability but also less risk of unem-ployment. Hence, the next step in his ap-proach-the final selection-would combineinto one the choice among values and thechoice among instruments for reaching values.It would not, as in the first method of policy-making, approximate a more mechanical proc-ess of choosing the means that best satisfiedgoals that were previously clarified andranked. Because practitioners of the secondapproach expect to achieve their goals onlypartially, they would expect to repeat end-lessly the sequence just described, as condi-tions and aspirations changed and as accuracyof prediction improved.

By Rootor by BranchFor complex problems, the first of thesetwo approaches is of course impossible. Al-though such an approach can be described, itcannot be practiced except for relatively sim-ple problems and even then only in a some-what modified form. It assumes intellectualcapacities and sources of information thatmen simply do not possess, and it is even moreabsurd as an approach to policy when the

time and money that can be allocated to apolicy problem is limited, as is always thecase. Of particular importance to public ad-ministrators is the fact that public agenciesare in effect usually instructed not to practicethe first method. That is to say, their pre-scribed functions and constraints-the politi-cally or legally possible-restrict their atten-tion to relatively few values and relativelyfew alternative policies among the countlessalternatives that might be imagined. It is thesecond method that is practiced.Curiously, however, the literatures of deci-sion-making, policy formulation, planning,and public administration formalize the firstapproach rather than the second, leaving pub-lic administrators who handle complex deci-sions in the position of practicing what fewpreach. For emphasis I run some risk of over-statement. True enough, the literature is wellaware of limits on man's capacities and of theinevitability that policies will be approachedin some such style as the second. But attemptsto formalize rational policy formulation-tolay out explicitly the necessary steps in the

process-usually describe the first approachand not the second.'

The common tendency to describe policyformulation even for complex problems asthough it followed the first approach has beenstrengthened by the attention given to, andsuccesses enjoyed by, operations research, sta-tistical decision theory, and systems analysis.The hallmarks of these procedures, typical ofthe first approach, are clarity of objective, ex-plicitness of evaluation, a high degree of com-prehensiveness of overview, and, whereverpossible, quantification of values for mathe-matical analysis. But these advanced proce-dures remain largely the appropriate tech-niques of relatively small-scale problem-solvingwhere the total number of variables to beconsidered is small and value problems re-stricted. Charles Hitch, head of the EconomicsDivision of RAND Corporation, one of theleading centers for application of these tech-niques, has written:I would make the empirical generalization frommy experience at RAND and elsewhere that oper-ations research is the art of sub-optimizing, i.e., ofsolving some lower-level problems, and that diffi-culties increase and our special competence di-minishes by an order of magnitude with every levelof decision making we attempt to ascend. The sortof simple explicit model which operations re-searchers are so proficient in using can certainlyreflect most of the significant factors influencingtraffic control on the George Washington Bridge,but the proportion of the relevant reality whichwe can represent by any such model or models instudying, say, a major foreign-policy decision, ap-pears to be almost trivial.

Accordingly, I propose in this paper toclarify and formalize the second method,

1James G. March and Herbert A. Simon similarlycharacterize the literature. They also take some im-portant steps, as have Simon's recent articles, to de-scribe a less heroic model of policy-making. See Or-ganizations (John Wiley and Sons, 1958), p. 137.2Operations Research and National Planning-ADissent, 5 Operations Research 718 (October, 1957).Hitch's dissent is from particular points made in thearticle to which his paper is a reply; his claim thatoperations research is for low-level problems is widelyaccepted.For examples of the kind of problems to which op-erations research is applied, see C. W. Churchman,R. L. Ackoff and E. L. Arnoff, Introduction to Opera-tions Research (John Wiley and Sons, 1957); and J. F.

McCloskey and J. M. Coppinger (eds.), Operations Re-search for Management, Vol. II, (The Johns HopkinsPress, 1956).


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THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH 81much neglected in the literature. This mightbe described as the method of successive lim-ited comparisons. I will contrast it with the firstapproach, which might be called the rational-comprehensive method.3 More impressionis-tically and briefly-and therefore generallyused in this article-they could be character-ized as the branch method and root method,the former continually building out from thecurrent situation, step-by-step and by smalldegrees; the latter starting from fundamentalsanew each time, building on the past only asexperience is embodied in a theory, and al-ways prepared to start completely from theground up.Let us put the characteristics of the twomethods side by side in simplest terms.Rational-Comprehensive (Root)la. Clarification of values or objectives distinct fromand usually prerequisite to empirical analysis ofalternative policies.2a. Policy-formulation is therefore approached throughmeans-end analysis: First the ends are isolated,then the means to achieve them are sought.3a. The test of a good policy is that it can be shownto be the most appropriate means to desired ends.

4a. Analysis is comprehensive; every important rele-vant factor is taken into account.

5a. Theory is often heavily relied upon.

Assuming that the root method is familiarand understandable, we proceed directly toclarification of its alternative by contrast. Inexplaining the second, we shall be describinghow most administrators do in fact approachcomplex questions, for the root method, thebest way as a blueprint or model, is in factnot workable for complex policy questions,and administrators are forced to use themethod of successive limited comparisons.

IntertwiningEvaluationand EmpiricalAnalysis (lb)The quickest way to understand how valuesare handled in the method of successive lim-'II am assuming that administrators often make pol-icy and advise in the making of policy and am treatingdecision-making and policy-making as synonymous forpurposes of this paper.

ited comparisons is to see how the rootmethod often breaks down in its handling ofvalues or objectives. The idea that valuesshould be clarified, and in advance of the ex-amination of alternative policies, is appeal-ing. But what happens when we attempt itfor complex social problems? The first diffi-culty is that on many critical values or objec-tives, citizens disagree, congressmen disagree,and public administrators disagree. Evenwhere a fairly specific objective is prescribedfor the administrator, there remains consid-erable room for disagreement on sub-objec-tives. Consider, for example, the conflict withrespect to locating public housing, describedin Meyerson and Banfield's study of the Chi-Successive Limited Comparisons (Branch)ib. Selection of value goals and empirical analysis ofthe needed action are not distinct from one an-other but are closely intertwined.2b. Since means and ends are not distinct, means-endanalysis is often inappropriate or limited.3b. The test of a good policy is typically that vari-ous analysts find themselves directly agreeing on apolicy (without their agreeing that it is the mostappropriate means to an agreed objective).4b. Analysis is drastically limited:i) Important possible outcomes are neglected.ii) Important alternative potential policies areneglected.iii) Important affected values are neglected.5b. A succession of comparisons greatly reduces oreliminates reliance on theory.

cago Housing Authority4-disagreement whichoccurred despite the clear objective of provid-ing a certain number of public housing unitsin the city. Similarly conflicting are objectivesin highway location, trafficcontrol, minimumwage administration, development of touristfacilities in national parks, or insect control.Administrators cannot escape these con-flicts by ascertaining the majority's preference,for preferences have not been registered onmost issues; indeed, there often are no prefer-ences in the absence of public discussion suffi-cient to bring an issue to the attention of theelectorate. Furthermore, there is a question

4Martin Meyerson and Edward C. Banfield, Politics,Planning and the Public Interest (The Free Press,1955).


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82 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEWof whether intensity of feeling should be con-sidered as well as the number of persons pre-ferring each alternative. By the impossibilityof doing otherwise, administrators often arereduced to deciding policy without clarifyingobjectives first.Even when an administrator resolves to fol-low his own values as a criterion for decisions,he often will not know how to rank themwhen they conflict with one another, as theyusually do. Suppose, for example, that an ad-ministrator must relocate tenants living intenements scheduled for destruction. One ob-jective is to empty the buildings fairlypromptly, another is to find suitable accom-modation for persons displaced, another is toavoid friction with residents in other areas inwhich a large influx would be unwelcome, an-other is to deal with all concerned throughpersuasion if possible, and so on.How does one state even to himself therelative importance of these partially con-flicting values? A simple ranking of them isnot enough; one needs ideally to know howmuch of one value is worth sacrificing forsome of another value. The answer is thattypically the administrator chooses-and mustchoose-directly among policies in which thesevalues are combined in different ways. Hecannot first clarify his values and then chooseamong policies.A more subtle third point underlies boththe first two. Social objectives do not alwayshave the same relative values. One objectivemay be highly prized in one circumstance,another in another circumstance. If, for ex-ample, an administrator values highly boththe dispatch with which his agency can carrythrough its projects and good public relations,it matters little which of the two possibly con-flicting values he favors in some abstract orgeneral sense. Policy questions arise in formswhich put to administrators such a questionas: Given the degree to which we are or arenot already achieving the values of dispatchand the values of good public relations, is itworth sacrificing a little speed for a happierclientele, or is it better to risk offending theclientele so that we can get on with our work?The answer to such a question varies withcircumstances.

The value problem is, as the exampleshows, always a problem of adjustments at amargin. But there is no practicable way to

state marginal objectives or values except interms of particular policies. That one valueis preferred to another in one decision situa-tion does not mean that it will be preferredin another decision situation in which it canbe had only at great sacrifice of another value.Attempts to rank or order values in generaland abstract terms so that they do not shiftfrom decision to decision end up by ignoringthe relevant marginal preferences. The sig-nificance of this third point thus goes veryfar. Even if all administrators had at hand anagreed set of values, objectives, and con-straints, and an agreed ranking of these val-ues, objectives, and constraints, their mar-ginal values in actual choice situations wouldbe impossible to formulate.Unable consequently to formulate the rele-vant values first and then choose among poli-cies to achieve them, administrators mustchoose directly among alternative policies thatoffer different marginal combinations of val-ues. Somewhat paradoxically, the only practi-cable way to disclose one's relevant marginalvalues even to oneself is to describe the policyone chooses to achieve them. Except roughlyand vaguely, I know of no way to describe-or even to understand-what my relative eval-uations are for, say, freedom and security,speed and accuracy in governmental decisions,or low taxes and better schools than to de-scribe my preferences among specific policychoices that might be made between the al-ternatives in each of the pairs.In summary, two aspects of the process bywhich values are actually handled can be dis-tinguished. The first is clear: evaluation andempirical analysis are intertwined; that is,one chooses among values and among policiesat one and the same time. Put a little moreelaborately, one simultaneously chooses a pol-icy to attain certain objectives and choosesthe objectives themselves. The second aspectis related but distinct: the administrator fo-cuses his attention on marginal or incremen-tal values. Whether he is aware of it or not,he does not find general formulations ofobjectives very helpful and in fact makes spe-cific marginal or incremental comparisons.Two policies, X and Y, confront him. Bothpromise the same degree of attainment of ob-jectives a, b, c, d, and e. But X promises himsomewhat more of f than does Y, while Ypromises him somewhat more of g than does


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THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH 83X. In choosing between them, he is in factoffered the alternative of a marginal or incre-mental amount of f at the expense of a mar-ginal or incremental amount of g. The onlyvalues that are relevant to his choice arethese increments by which the two policiesdiffer; and, when he finally chooses betweenthe two marginal values, he does so by mak-ing a choice between policies.5As to whether the attempt to clarify ob-jectives in advance of policy selection is moreor less rational than the close intertwining ofmarginal evaluation and empirical analysis,the principal difference established is that forcomplex problems the first is impossible andirrelevant, and the second is both possible andrelevant. The second is possible because theadministrator need not try to analyze anyvalues except the values by which alternativepolicies differ and need not be concerned withthem except as they differ marginally. Hisneed for information on values or objectivesis drastically reduced as compared with theroot method; and his capacity for grasping,comprehending, and relating values to one an-other is not strained beyond the breakingpoint.

Relations Between Means and Ends (2b)Decision-making is ordinarily formalized asa means-ends relationship: means are con-ceived to be evaluated and chosen in thelight of ends finally selected independently ofand prior to the choice of means. This is themeans-ends relationship of the root method.But it follows from all that has just been saidthat such a means-ends relationship is possibleonly to the extent that values are agreedupon, are reconcilable, and are stable at themargin. Typically, therefore, such a means-ends relationship is absent from the branchmethod, where means and ends are simul-taneously chosen.Yet any departure from the means-ends re-lationship of the root method will strike somereaders as inconceivable. For it will appear tothem that only in such a relationship is it pos-sible to determine whether one policy choiceis better or worse than another. How can anadministrator know whether he has made a

'The line of argument is, of course, an extension ofthe theory of market choice, especially the theory ofconsumer choice, to public policy choices.

wise or foolish decision if he is without priorvalues or objectives by which to judge his de-cisions? The answer to this question calls upthe third distinctive difference between rootand branch methods: how to decide the bestpolicy.The Test of Good Policy (3b)

In the root method, a decision is correct,good, or rational if it can be shown to at-tain some specified objective, where the objec-tive can be specified without simply describingthe decision itself. Where objectives are de-fined only through the marginal or incremen-tal approach to values described above, it isstill sometimes possible to test whether a pol-icy does in fact attain the desired objectives;but a precise statement of the objectives takesthe form of a description of the policy chosenor some alternative to it. To show that a pol-icy is mistaken one cannot offer an abstractargument that important objectives are notachieved; one must instead argue that anotherpolicy is more to be preferred.So far, the departure from customary waysof looking at problem-solving is not trouble-some, for many administrators will be quickto agree that the most effective discussion ofthe correctness of policy does take the form ofcomparison with other policies that mighthave been chosen. But what of the situationin which administrators cannot agree on val-ues or objectives, either abstractly or in mar-ginal terms? What then is the test of goodpolicy? For the root method, there is no test.Agreement on objectives failing, there is nostandard of correctness. For the method ofsuccessive limited comparisons, the test isagreement on policy itself, which remains pos-sible even when agreement on values is not.It has been suggested that continuing agree-ment in Congress on the desirability of ex-tending old age insurance stems from liberaldesires to strengthen the welfare programs ofthe federal government and from conservativedesires to reduce union demands for privatepension plans. If so, this is an excellent dem-onstration of the ease with which individualsof different ideologies often can agree on con-crete policy. Labor mediators report a similarphenomenon: the contestants cannot agree oncriteria for settling their disputes but canagree on specific proposals. Similarly, when


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84 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEWone administrator's objective turns out to beanother's means, they often can agree onpolicy.Agreement on policy thus becomes the onlypracticable test of the policy's correctness.And for one administrator to seek to win theother over to agreement on ends as wellwould accomplish nothing and create quiteunnecessary controversy.If agreement directly on policy as a testfor best policy seems a poor substitute fortesting the policy against its objectives, itought to be remembered that objectives them-selves have no ultimate validity other thanthey are agreed upon. Hence agreement isthe test of best policy in both methods. Butwhere the root method requires agreement onwhat elements in the decision constitute ob-jectives and on which of these objectivesshould be sought, the branch method fallsback on agreement wherever it can be found.In an important sense, therefore, it is notirrational for an administrator to defend apolicy as good without being able to specifywhat it is good for.

Non-ComprehensiveAnalysis (4b)Ideally, rational-comprehensive analysisleaves out nothing important. But it is impos-sible to take everything important into con-sideration unless important is so narrowlydefined that analysis is in fact quite limited.Limits on human intellectual capacities andon available information set definite limits toman's capacity to be comprehensive. In actualfact, therefore, no one can practice the ra-tional-comprehensive method for really com-plex problems, and every administrator facedwith a sufficiently complex problem must findways drastically to simplify.An administrator assisting in the formula-tion of agricultural economic policy cannotin the first place be competent on all possiblepolicies. He cannot even comprehend one pol-icy entirely. In planning a soil bank program,he cannot successfully anticipate the impactof higher or lower farm income on, say, ur-banization-the possible consequent looseningof family ties, possible consequent eventualneed for revisions in social security and fur-

ther implications for tax problems arising outof new federal responsibilities for social se-curity and municipal responsibilities for ur-

ban services. Nor, to follow another line ofrepercussions, can he work through the soilbank program's effects on prices for agricul-tural products in foreign markets and conse-quent implications for foreign relations, in-cluding those arising out of economic rivalrybetween the United States and the U.S.S.R.In the method of successive limitedcomparisons, simplification is systematicallyachieved in two principal ways. First, it isachieved through limitation of policy com-parisons to those policies that differ in rela-tively small degree from policies presently ineffect. Such a limitation immediately reducesthe number of alternatives to be investigatedand also drastically simplifies the character ofthe investigation of each. For it is not necessaryto undertake fundamental inquiry into an al-ternative and its consequences; it is necessaryonly to study those respects in which the pro-posed alternative and its consequences differfrom the status quo. The empirical compari-son of marginal differences among alternativepolicies that differ only marginally is, ofcourse, a counterpart to the incremental ormarginal comparison of values discussedabove.6Relevance as Well as Realism

It is a matter of common observation thatin Western democracies public administratorsand policy analysts in general do largely limittheir analyses to incremental or marginaldifferences in policies that are chosen to differonly incrementally. They do not do so, how-ever, solely because they desperately need someway to simplify their problems; they also do soin order to be relevant. Democracies changetheir policies almost entirely through in-cremental adjustments. Policy does not movein leaps and bounds.The incremental character of politicalchange in the United States has often been re-marked. The two major political parties agreeon fundamentals; they offer alternative poli-cies to the voters only on relatively smallpoints of difference. Both parties favor fullemployment, but they define it somewhatdifferently; both favor the development of

6 A more precise definition of incremental policiesand a discussion of whether a change that appearssmall to one observer might be seen differently byanother is to be found in my Policy Analysis, 48American Economic Review 2g8 (June, 1958).


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THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH 85water power resources, but in slightly differentways; and both favor unemployment compen-sation, but not the same level of benefits.Similarly, shifts of policy within a party takeplace largely through a series of relativelysmall changes, as can be seen in their onlygradual acceptance of the idea of govern-mental responsibility for support of the un-employed, a change in party positions begin-ning in the early 30's and culminating in asense in the Employment Act of 1946.Party behavior is in turn rooted in publicattitudes, and political theorists cannot con-ceive of democracy's surviving in the UnitedStates in the absence of fundamental agree-ment on potentially disruptive issues, withconsequent limitation of policy debates torelatively small differences in policy.Since the policies ignored by the adminis-trator are politically impossible and so irrele-vant, the simplification of analysis achievedby concentrating on policies that differ onlyincrementally is not a capricious kind ofsimplification. In addition, it can be arguedthat, given the limits on knowledge withinwhich policy-makers are confined, simplifyingby limiting the focus to small variations frompresent policy makes the most of availableknowledge. Because policies being consideredare like present and past policies, the ad-ministrator can obtain information and claimsome insight. Non-incremental policy pro-posals are therefore typically not only politi-cally irrelevant but also unpredictable in theirconsequences.The second method of simplification ofanalysis is the practice of ignoring importantpossible consequences of possible policies, aswell as the values attached to the neglectedconsequences. If this appears to disclose ashocking shortcoming of successive limitedcomparisons, it can be replied that, even ifthe exclusions are random, policies may never-theless be more intelligently formulated thanthrough futile attempts to achieve a compre-hensiveness beyond human capacity. Actually,however, the exclusions, seeming arbitrary orrandom from one point of view, need beneither.Achieving a Degree of Comprehensiveness

Suppose that each value neglected by onepolicy-making agency were a major concernof at least one other agency. In that case, a

helpful division of labor would be achieved,and no agency need find its task beyond itscapacities. The shortcomings of such a systemwould be that one agency might destroy avalue either before another agency could beactivated to safeguard it or in spite of anotheragency's efforts. But the possibility that im-portant values may be lost is present in anyform of organization, even where agenciesattempt to comprehend in planning morethan is humanly possible.The virtue of such a hypothetical divisionof labor is that every important interest orvalue has its watchdog. And these watchdogscan protect the interests in their jurisdictionin two quite different ways: first, by redressingdamages done by other agencies; and, second,by anticipating and heading off injury beforeit occurs.In a society like that of the United States inwhich individuals are free to combine topursue almost any possible common interestthey might have and in which governmentagencies are sensitive to the pressures of thesegroups, the system described is approximated,Almost every interest has its watchdog. With-out claiming that every interest has a suffi-ciently powerful watchdog, it can be arguedthat our system often can assure a more com-prehensive regard for the values of the wholesociety than any attempt at intellectual com-prehensiveness.In the United States, for example, no partof government attempts a comprehensiveoverview of policy on income distribution. Apolicy nevertheless evolves, and one respond-ing to a wide variety of interests. A process ofmutual adjustment among farm groups, laborunions, municipalities and school boards, taxauthorities, and government agencies with re-sponsibilities in the fields of housing, health,highways, national parks, fire, and police ac-complishes a distribution of income in whichparticular income problems neglected at onepoint in the decision processes become centralat another point.Mutual adjustment is more pervasive thanthe explicit forms it takes in negotiation be-tween groups; it persists through the mutualimpacts of groups upon each other evenwhere they are not in communication. Forall the imperfections and latent dangers inthis ubiquitous process of mutual adjustment,it will often accomplish an adaptation of pol-


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86 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEWicies to a wider range of interests than couldbe done by one group centrally.Note, too, how the incremental pattern ofpolicy-making fits with the multiple pressurepattern. For when decisions are only incre-mental-closely related to known policies, it iseasier for one group to anticipate the kind ofmoves another might make and easier too forit to make correction for injury already ac-complished.7Even partisanship and narrowness, to usepejorative terms, will sometimes be assets torational decision-making, for they can doublyinsure that what one agency neglects, anotherwill not; they specialize personnel to distinctpoints of view. The claim is valid that effec-tive rational coordination of the federal ad-ministration, if possible to achieve at all,would require an agreed set of values8-ifrationala is defined as the practice of theroot method of decision-making. But a highdegree of administrative coordination occursas each agency adjusts its policies to the con-cerns of the other agencies in the process offragmented decision-making I have just de-scribed.For all the apparent shortcomings of theincremental approach to policy alternativeswith its arbitrary exclusion coupled with frag-mentation, when compared to the rootmethod, the branch method often looks farsuperior. In the root method, the inevitableexclusion of factors is accidental, unsystem-atic, and not defensible by any argument sofar developed, while in the branch methodthe exclusions are deliberate, systematic, anddefensible. Ideally, of course, the root methoddoes not exclude; in practice it must.Nor does the branch method necessarilyneglect long-run considerations and objec-tives. It is clear that important values must beomitted in considering policy, and sometimesthe only way long-run objectives can be givenadequate attention is through the neglect ofshort-run considerations. But the values omit-ted can be either long-run or short-run.

The link between the practice of the method ofsuccessive limited comparisons and mutual adjustmentof interests in a highly fragmented decision-makingprocess adds a new facet to pluralist theories of govern-ment and administration.Herbert Simon, Donald W. Smithburg, and VictorA. Thompson, Public Administration (Alfred A. Knopf,1950), p. 434.

Succession of Comparisons (5b)The final distinctiveelement in the branchmethod is that the comparisons, ogetherwiththe policy choice, proceed in a chronological

series. Policy is not made once and for all; itis made and re-madeendlessly. Policy-makingis a process of successive approximation tosome desired objectivesin which what is de-sired itself continues to change under recon-sideration.Making policy is at best a very rough proc-ess. Neither social scientists, nor politicians,nor public administratorsyet know enoughabout the social world to avoid repeatederrorin predicting the consequences of policymoves. A wise policy-maker onsequentlyex-pects that his policies will achieve only partof what he hopes and at the same time willproduceunanticipatedconsequences e wouldhave preferred to avoid. If he proceedsthrough a succession of incremental changes,he avoids serious lasting mistakes in severalways.In the first place, past sequencesof policysteps have given him knowledge about theprobable consequences of further similarsteps. Second,he need not attempt big jumpstowardhis goals that would require predic-tions beyond his or anyone else's knowledge,because he never expects his policy to be afinal resolution of a problem. His decision isonly one step, one that if successful canquickly be followed by another.Third, he isin effect able to test his previous predictionsas he moves on to each furtherstep. Lastly,he often can remedy a past error fairlyquickly-more quickly than if policy pro-ceeded through more distinct steps widelyspaced n time.

Compare this comparative analysis of in-crementalchangeswith the aspirationto em-ploy theoryin the root method. Man cannotthink without classifying,without subsumingone experienceunder a moregeneralcategoryof experiences.The attempt to push categori-zation as far as possible and to find generalpropositionswhich can be applied to specificsituations is what I refer to with the wordtheory. Where root analysis often leansheavily on theory in this sense, the branchmethoddoesnot.The assumption of root analysts is thattheoryis the most systematicand economicalway to bring relevantknowledgeto bearon a


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THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH 87specific problem. Granting the assumption,an unhappy fact is that we do not have ade-quate theory to apply to problems in anypolicy area, although theory is more adequatein some areas-monetary policy, for example-than in others. Comparative analysis, as inthe branch method, is sometimes a systematicalternative to theory.Suppose an administrator must chooseamong a small group of policies that differonly incrementally from each other and frompresent policy. He might aspire to under-stand each of the alternatives-for example,to know all the consequences of each aspectof each policy. If so, he would indeed requiretheory. In fact, however, he would usually de-cide that, for policy-making purposes, he needknow, as explained above, only the conse-quences of each of those aspects of the policiesin which they differed from one another. Forthis much more modest aspiration, he requiresno theory (although it might be helpful, ifavailable), for he can proceed to isolate prob-able differences by examing the differences inconsequences associated with past differencesin policies, a feasible program because he cantake his observations from a long sequence ofincremental changes.

For example, without a more comprehen-sive social theory about juvenile delinquencythan scholars have yet produced, one cannotpossibly understand the ways in which a va-riety of public policies-say on education,housing, recreation, employment, race rela-tions, and policing-might encourage or dis-courage delinquency. And one needs such anunderstanding if he undertakes the compre-hensive overview of the problem prescribed inthe models of the root method. If, however,one merely wants to mobilize knowledge suf-ficient to assist in a choice among a smallgroup of similar policies-alternative policieson juvenile court procedures, for example-he can do so by comparative analysis of theresults of similar past policy moves.

Theorists and PractitionersThis difference explains-in some cases atleast-why the administrator often feels thatthe outside expert or academic problem-solver is sometimes not helpful and why they

in turn often urge more theory on him. Andit explains why an administrator often feelsmore confident when flying by the seat of his

pants than when following the advice oftheorists. Theorists often ask the administra-tor to go the long way round to the solutionof his problems, in effect ask him to followthe best canons of the scientific method, whenthe administrator knows that the best avail-able theory will work less well than moremodest incremental comparisons. Theoristsdo not realize that the administrator is oftenin fact practicing a systematic method. Itwould be foolish to push this explanation toofar, for sometimes practical decision-makersare pursuing neither a theoretical approachnor successive comparisons, nor any other sys-tematic method.It may be worth emphasizing that theory issometimes of extremely limited helpfulness inpolicy-making for at least two rather differentreasons. It is greedy for facts; it can be con-structed only through a great collection of ob-servations. And it is typically insufficientlyprecise for application to a policy process thatmoves through small changes. In contrast, thecomparative method both economizes on theneed for facts and directs the analyst's atten-tion to just those facts that are relevant to thefine choices faced by the decision-maker.With respect to precision of theory, eco-nomic theory serves as an example. It predictsthat an economy without money or priceswould in certain specified ways misallocateresources, but this finding pertains to an al-ternative far removed from the kind of poli-cies on which administrators need help. Onthe other hand, it is not precise enough topredict the consequences of policies restrict-ing business mergers, and this is the kind ofissue on which the administrators need help.Only in relatively restricted areas does eco-nomic theory achieve sufficient precision to gofar in resolving policy questions; its helpful-ness in policy-making is always so limited thatit requires supplementation through compar-ative analysis.

Successive Comparison as a SystemSuccessive limited comparisons is, then, in-deed a method or system; it is not a failure ofmethod for which administrators ought toapologize. None the less, its imperfections,which have not been explored in this paper,

are many. For example, the method is withouta built-in safeguard for all relevant values,and it also may lead the decision-maker to


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88 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEWoverlook excellent policies for no other rea-son than that they are not suggested by thechain of successive policy steps leading up tothe present. Hence, it ought to be said thatunder this method, as well as under some ofthe most sophisticated variants of the rootmethod-operations research, for example-policies will continue to be as foolish as theyare wise.Why then bother to describe the method inall the above detail? Because it is in fact acommon method of policy formulation, andis, for complex problems, the principal reli-ance of administrators as well as of otherpolicy analysts.9 And because it will be su-perior to any other decision-making methodavailable for complex problems in many cir-cumstances, certainly superior to a futile at-tempt at superhuman comprehensiveness.The reaction of the public administrator tothe exposition of method doubtless will beless a discovery of a new method than a betteracquaintance with an old. But by becomingmore conscious of their practice of thismethod, administrators might practice it withmore skill and know when to extend or con-strict its use. (That they sometimes practice iteffectively and sometimes not may explain theextremes of opinion on muddling through,which is both praised as a highly sophisticatedform of problem-solving and denounced as nomethod at all. For I suspect that in so far asthere is a system in what is known as mud-dling through, this method is it.)One of the noteworthy incidental conse-

9Elsewhere I have explored this same method ofpolicy formulation as practiced by academic analystsof policy ( Policy Analysis, 48 American EconomicReview 298 [June, 1958]). Although it has been herepresented as a method for public administrators, it isno less necessary to analysts more removed from im-mediate policy questions, despite their tendencies todescribe their own analytical efforts as though theywere the rational-comprehensive method with an espe-cially heavy use of theory. Similarly, this same methodis inevitably resorted to in personal problem-solving,where means and ends are sometimes impossible toseparate, where aspirations or objectives undergo con-stant development, and where drastic simplification ofthe complexity of the real world is urgent if problemsare to be solved in the time that can be given to them.To an economist accustomed to dealing with the mar-ginal or incremental concept in market processes, thecentral idea in the method is that both evaluation andempirical analysis are incremental. Accordingly I havereferred to the method elsewhere as the incrementalmethod.

quences of clarification of the method is thelight it throws on the suspicion an adminis-trator sometimes entertains that a consultantor adviser is not speaking relevantly and re-sponsibly when in fact by all ordinary objec-tive evidence he is. The trouble lies in the factthat most of us approach policy problemswithin a framework given by our view of achain of successive policy choices made up tothe present. One's thinking about appropriatepolicies with respect, say, to urban traffic con-trol is greatly influenced by one's knowledgeof the incremental steps taken up to the pres-ent. An administrator enjoys an intimateknowledge of his past sequences that out-siders do not share, and his thinking andthat of the outsider will consequently bedifferent in ways that may puzzle both. Bothmay appear to be talking intelligently, yeteach may find the other unsatisfactory. Therelevance of the policy chain of succession iseven more clear when an American tries todiscuss, say, antitrust policy with a Swiss, forthe chains of policy in the two countries arestrikingly different and the two individualsconsequently have organized their knowledgein quite different ways.If this phenomenon is a barrier to commu-nication, an understanding of it promises anenrichment of intellectual interaction in pol-icy formulation. Once the source of differenceis understood, it will sometimes be stimulat-ing for an administrator to seek out a policyanalyst whose recent experience is with a pol-icy chain different from his own.This raises again a question only brieflydiscussed above on the merits of like-minded-ness among government administrators. Whilemuch of organization theory argues the vir-tues of common values and agreed organiza-tional objectives, for complex problems inwhich the root method is inapplicable, agen-cies will want among their own personnel twotypes of diversification: administrators whosethinking is organized by reference to policychains other than those familiar to most mem-bers of the organization and, even more com-monly, administrators whose professional orpersonal values or interests create diversity ofview (perhaps coming from different special-ties, social classes, geographical areas) so that,even within a single agency, decision-makingcan be fragmented and parts of the agencycan serve as watchdogs for other parts.

the science of muddling through - charles e lindblom-1959

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