Pragmatism and the Origins of the Policy Sciences: Rediscovering Lasswell and the Chicago School (Elements in Public Policy)

This Element presents an examination of the origins of the policy sciences in the School of Pragmatism at the University of Chicago in the period 1915–38. Harold D. Lasswell, the principal creator of the policy sciences, based much of his work on the perspectives of public policy of John Dewey and other pragmatists at Chicago. Characteristics of the policy sciences include orientations that are normative, policy-relevant, contextual, and multi-disciplinary. These orientations originate in pragmatist principles of the unity of knowledge and action and functionalist explanations of action by reference to values. These principles are central to the future development of the policy sciences. Cover Title page Copyright page Pragmatism and the Origins of the Policy Sciences: Rediscovering Lasswell and the Chicago School Contents Preface 1 Pragmatism and the Policy Sciences 1.1 The Policy Sciences Circa 1930 1.2 Legal Realism and the Policy Sciences 1.3 The Roots of Pragmatism 1.4 Dewey’s Reflex Arc 1.5 The Reflex Arc and Functionalism 2 The Chicago School of Pragmatism 2.1 Chicago Antecedents 2.2 Dewey’s Influence 2.3 The Cross-Disciplinary Manifold 2.4 Focus on Public Policy 2.5 Financial and Research Infrastructure 2.6 The Decline of the Cross-Disciplinary Manifold 3 Functions of the Decision Process 3.1 The Concept of Decision 3.2 The Decision Process 3.3 Decisional Functionalism 3.4 The Maximization Postulate 3.5 Barnard’s Decision Complex 3.6 The Intelligence Function 3.7 Contextuality, Methodological Diversity, and the Policy Orientation 3.8 The Seven Decisional Functions 3.9 Decisional Functions and Practical Reasoning 3.10 The Circuitry of Decisional Functions 4 Functionalism and Policy Change 4.1 Practical Reasoning 4.2 The Problem Orientation 4.3 Abduction and Practical Inference 4.4 Volitional Pragmatism 5 The Unity of Knowledge and Policy 5.1 Pragmatism and the Maximization Postulate 5.2 The Pragmatist Maxim and the Associational Fallacy 6 The Roots of Misinterpretation 6.1 Criticisms of the Stages Framework 6.1.1 Absence of Causality 6.1.2 Heuristic Limitation 6.1.3 Descriptive Inaccuracy 6.1.4 Legalistic-Hierarchical Bias 7 Rediscovering Pragmatism 7.1 Post-Positivist Pragmatism 7.2 The Lasswellian Puzzle 7.3 The Circuitry of the Decision Process 7.4 Abductive Reasoning and “Wicked“ Problems 7.5 Transactional Field Experiments 7.6 Explaining Policy Effectiveness: The Maximization Postulate 7.7 The Unity of Knowledge and Policy 7.8 The Marshallian Inversion References Acknowledgments About the Author