Interpretation and Method Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn

VALUE-CRITICAL POLICY ANALYSIS 315

of the language policy debate, I concluded with a recommended policy approach that combines
aspects of both the pluralist and assimilationist arguments, as well as my critique of both. My
recommendations, then, combine a pluralist language policy with an assertive immigrant settle-
ment policy, as well as measures aimed at reducing the growing disparity between the wealthy
and the poor in U.S. society (R. Schmidt 2000, chapter 8).

CONCLUDING THOUGHT

This chapter has aimed at helping the reader better understand what is involved in a value-critical
policy analysis—why such an approach might be valuable, to whom it should be valuable, and
how it might be done—as well as how this approach differs from both the value-neutral approach
and the value-committed approach. The latter distinction is crucial for explicating how the policy
analyst is not really one of the protagonists and has not “stacked the deck” in the analytic process.
The question is, did the policy analyst represent the arguments, the values, and the interpretive
frameworks of the various protagonists in an even-handed and balanced way? Where can his
interpretation be criticized? Perhaps he did “stack the deck.” If so, the analyst should be con-
demned for doing a poor job, for having slipped into a value-committed analysis that only pre-
tends to be value critical. In the end, it is only the reader who is really in a position to make that
judgment.

NOTES

The author thanks the students in his spring 2003 and 2004 courses on “Public Values and Public Policy” for
helping him to work through the ideas contained in this chapter. Their course projects were the “laboratory
materials” that enabled the author to refine his articulation of the steps involved in doing a value-critical
policy analysis. I am also grateful to Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea for inviting me to present
an earlier version of this chapter at the Workshop in Interpretive Research Methods in Empirical Political
Science, held at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association in Denver (March 2003).

1. Though the processes of gathering and of interpreting/analyzing data are here presented as two sepa-
   rate steps, in reality they are inextricably intertwined; that is, we have already begun the process of interpre-
   tation when we decide what kinds of information to gather, and the process of gathering information really
   doesn’t “end” until the analyst stops writing/interpreting/analyzing.


2. In doing this work, my assumption is that, to a large degree, educated and thoughtful persons share
   common understandings of “balanced” and “fair” and even “accurate” or “inaccurate” critical thinking skills.
   That is, we can tell when a person is being one-sided or unfair in articulating and evaluating a public policy
   argument about the goals or aims of the policy. Being “balanced” means giving “both” or “all” sides their
   due and making the best case possible for each “side,” and also being willing to articulate the weaknesses of
   each side of the argument with a rough degree of fairness. It means being able to listen to the arguments of
   others, and, when writing, being able to imagine their criticisms and comments on what you have written,
   then responding with revisions and enhancements until you can imagine that they will be satisfied that you
   have given their position a fair articulation. To the degree that that is not done, our analysis should be
   criticized by others who can point out its weaknesses and lack of “balance” or “fairness.” This criticism
   comes in the form of statements like the following: “Though X said ‘this,’ he neglected to acknowledge ‘that’
   and this makes his analysis unbalanced or unfair because it doesn’t give equal treatment to the needs or
   aspirations of all parties to the dispute”; or, “Z described the situation as follows, but his description is
   inaccurate because it neglected to include ‘this’ and ‘that,’ thereby distorting his depiction of the situation.”


3. The validity and appropriateness of this set of assumptions and procedures, of course, is highly
   controversial, and a number of other chapters in this volume address these questions. They are not pursued
   in this chapter.


4. Due to space limitations, this section summarizes my critique of the assimilationist value position on
   language policy only; see R. Schmidt 2000, 198–209, for my critique of the pluralist position.