Taking Stock: The Normative Foundations of Positivist and Non-Positivist Policy Analysis and Ethical Implications of the Emergent Risk Society
Titel:
Taking Stock: The Normative Foundations of Positivist and Non-Positivist Policy Analysis and Ethical Implications of the Emergent Risk Society
Auteur:
Johnson, Genevieve Fuji
Verschenen in:
Journal of comparative policy analysis
Paginering:
Jaargang 7 (2005) nr. 2 pagina's 137-153
Jaar:
2005-06
Inhoud:
Approaches to policy analysis have diversified, methodologically and morally. This diversification is desirable insofar as policy makers seek the ends of justice and legitimacy in their decisions. Indeed, the aims of justice and legitimacy might be particularly important in policy areas associated with human, social and environmental risk. Toward these aims, positivist approaches based on the regulatory ideal of efficiency may be insufficient. In this paper, I take stock of the normative bases of alternative, non-positivist, approaches to policy analysis with an eye to identifying prospective moral complements to efficiency-based analysis. I identify two promising ideals: (1) the ideal of rational discourse among moral policy stakeholders (the deliberative/discursive-procedural approach) and; (2) the ideal of the fundamental moral equality of policy takers (the deontological-substantive approach). Nuclear waste management policy in Canada highlights how these approaches could address moral problems in achieving safety, justice and legitimacy in the context of risk, uncertainty and futurity.
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