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Charles Lindblom's seminal article, "The Science of 'Muddling Through,'" recognized serious policy-development limitations at the time of its writing. He argued that while root analysis theoretically offered a more rational-comprehensive approach policy analysts lacked the intellectual and computing capacity to accomplish it; whereas, branch analysis, or limited successive comparison, was more reachable. Much has changed since then. This article revisits Lindblom's arguments and asserts root and branch analyses are separate and distinct from rational-comprehensive and incremental policy approaches. More rigorous and robust analyses are possible and desirable within the context of an emergent complex adaptive political system framework. Such an approach provides more "analytical" justification and less "muddling through," yet may still require incremental implementation because of the emergent nature of the system. This paper concludes with two questions: despite useful tools to support effective policy, do policymakers use rhetoric about advancing a good society merely as a means to achieving political power? If so, can this paradigm be influenced? Answers are critical for any society constituted as a self-determining regime.
Introduction
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009 and A New Era of Responsibility (Office of Management and Budget, 2009) are recent examples of "muddling through" policymaking in the United States (U.S.) on the grandest scale in history. Yet, there is no indication these policies benefitted from any analysis of the economic crisis or a risk analysis that treated possible unintended consequences (Jervis, 1997; Merton, 1 936). Arguably the effort more closely reflects the features of a "garbage can model" advanced by Cohen et al. (1972) and expanded by Kingdon (1995: 84-89); worse, minority party elected policy stakeholders were deliberately disenfranchised from the process.
Fifty years ago, Lindblom (1959) explained and justified the merits of muddling through as a method for policymaking. It represents successive limited comparisons (SLC) of incremental policy improvements. At the time, he asserted the lack of intellectual capacity and computing power could not support a rational-comprehensive (RC), or root, approach. Despite intensive computing requirements for mission control in the early 1960s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had no computers in any of its facilities, providing strong support for Lindblom's assertion (Krantz, 2000). Lindblom uses the terms SLC, incrementalism, and branch analysis synonymously. Similarly, he equates...