VALUE-CRITICAL POLICY ANALYSIS 309This raises the question of the criteria used for evaluation. On what bases is it possible to make
critical evaluations of the value positions of protagonists in a policy dispute? Some scholars, of
course, have argued that there are no criteria for values that can make any valid truth-claim at all,
since statements of value are in themselves meaningless expressions of personal preference, much
like one’s preference for this taste over that (see, e.g., Ayer 1959). Thus, if my preference is for
really creamy vanilla ice cream, while yours is for really crispy potato chips, whose preference is
more valid, more true? Other scholars disagree, however, as do most human beings living their
lives—almost all human beings have criteria we use for distinguishing the greater or lesser valid-
ity of statements of value, and it would be nearly impossible to live without the use of such
criteria. Most of the time, nevertheless, our criteria for making these judgments are implicit; quite
frequently, as well, they are not the result of careful thought and critical analysis.
As noted at the outset of this chapter, the premise of value-critical policy analysis is that it is
fruitful to subject our own, as well as others’, value preferences to systematic critical analysis.
This is so because—as human beings, as citizens, as policy makers, as policy analysts—we typi-
cally (and perhaps necessarily) take a great deal for granted in living our day-to-day lives, includ-
ing our basic orientation toward, and evaluation of, the social processes, events, and arrangements
in which our lives are embedded. In political life this means that we often take positions or policy
stances based upon a frame of reference involving loyalty to past allies, judgments made based on
information gathered in a cursory fashion under time pressure, animosities based on a limited
range of negative experiences from which we have generalized to larger social settings and group-
ings, and so forth. Some of this information may be outdated; some of it may have been “wrong”
even from the beginning based on an incomplete understanding of the situation. Placing our own
value positions under critical scrutiny may help us better understand our own situation as well as
that of the larger social and political world of which we are a part. Placing the value positions of
others, including our fellow members of a political community, under critical scrutiny can help us
in the same way. The aim throughout is to develop a narrative framed in terms of a complex and
comprehensive understanding of the issues at stake in the conflict, a narrative that seeks to give
each relevant policy camp’s perspective a “fair hearing” that accurately represents the policy
advocates’ claims and understandings of the contexts and stakes involved in the policy dispute.
The political role of policy analysts is useful as a frame for discussing these issues. At the
outset of this chapter, I distinguished between value-neutral, value-committed, and value-critical
policy analysis. What do these three forms of analysis entail regarding policy analysts as persons
doing public work, their political roles, and their values? What roles do their values play in the
analysis itself? As noted previously, a value-neutral policy analyst attempts to “bracket out” her
own values (and takes as “given” the values embedded in policy goals) in order to concentrate the
analysis exclusively on “factual” questions.^3 And the presumed political role that accompanies
this orientation toward public values is that of the detached, scientific, professional “expert” with
no personal stake in the issue. Since her only commitment is to the factual “truth” as revealed by
her presumed “scientific” procedures of investigation and analysis, the public and its policy mak-
ers are expected to have faith in the analytical product—unless, of course, her deployment of
these procedures has been faulted by other, equally detached, scientific and professional experts.
A value-committed analyst, by contrast, uses his policy values as a foundation for organizing
and developing rhetorical strategies (typically by weaving together a narrative that includes both
factual interpretations and value statements) that maximize the persuasiveness of his own previ-
ously adopted policy position for a particular audience. The political role assumed by the value-
committed policy analyst is that of the partisan activist or policy advocate. Adopting such a role
signals to policy makers and citizens alike that the analysis developed and articulated by the