sense) or to be rational decision makers. Moreover, all of them are
subject to pressure from influential lobbyists or interests.Problems with ‘rational’ policy making
The problems of interpreting organisational behaviour as if it were
the product of rational decision making by its top managers are
neatly illustrated by Allison’s seminal book The Essence of Decision:
Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis(1987) to which we briefly
referred in Chapter 2. He rightly suggests that most of the litera-
ture of international relations treats the behaviour of states as if it
were the product of rational policy makers, behaving much as
Lindblom’s rational–comprehensive model suggests. This is what he
calls the ‘classical rational actor’ model (or Model 1). In practice
such assumptions seem to be a long way from empirical reality. For
instance, in the Cuban missile crisis US policy makers produced a
series of hypotheses about ‘Russian’ behaviour in installing IRBMs
(intermediate-range ballistic missiles) in uncamouflaged soft silos,
none of which were very convincing because they assumed the
behaviour was part of a single co-ordinated and rational policy.
We can briefly summarise some reasons why any organisation is
likely to diverge from the rational–comprehensive model of policy
making, in Box 8.4.BOX 8.4 WHY ORGANISATIONS ARE NOT ALWAYS
RATIONAL
220 POLICIES
(a) Psychological limitations
(b) Limitations arising from multiple values
(c) Factored problems and fractionated power
(d) Information problems
(e) Cost limitations – blind rule implementation.
(Hogwood and Gunn, 1984: 50–53)