Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies

Schon and Rein propose that policy controversies arise in policy arenas when contending actors bring conflicting action frames to the task of designing or redesigning a policy object. Through case studies that trace the evolution of policy controversies over decades, Schon and Rein describe the dialectical processes by which policies evolve, the limited rationality that governs policy designing and the ways in which practitioners can at times pragmatically resolve their controversies through situated reflection on their conflicting frames.

This seminal, challenging, and deeply thought provoking book by two eminent MIT scholars challenges prevalent conceptions of the public policy process and dominant modes of policy analysis that derive from those conceptions. This text is for readers concerned with something more than the academic study of public policy and is aimed rather at those who accept responsibility for initiating action as policy-makers or making recommendations as policy analysts in the face of "intractable policy controversies." The authors differentiate "disagreements about fact" from "policy controversies" and ariculate the notion of "frame reflection" as a requisite step in constructively addressing "policy controversies." Just as Herbert Simon had highlighted a form of limited reason just before the mid-century mark that he characterized as "bounded rationality" and that Simon argued applied across all professional fields, so Donald Schon and his colleague Martin Rein highlight another form of limited reason that they believe applies across all professional fields as soon as one moves beyond mere analysis of facts to make professional recommendations. They characterize this limited form of reason as "design rationality." While Simon's notion of "bounded rationality" may be well understood as emphasizing realistic cognitive contraints within which professionals act, Schon's notion of "design rationality" is likewise well understood as a limited notion of reason, yet one that emphasizes possibilities for exemplary practice. Frame Reflection provides a serious study of "design rationality" as applied to public policy practice. This text proceeds simultaneously at practical levels of analysis, theoretical levels of analysis, and fundamentally re-examines the relationship between theory and practice as applied to the public policy arena. It requires study rather than a simple reading. This book is for those scholars interested in a more inclusive conception of the public policy process (that is also useful to practitioners) and to that group of practitioners who are possibility thinkers and willing to work explicitly at developing further, their policy design skills as exemplary practitioners. The book interweaves distinctive bodies of literature/levels of analysis that traditionally have studied separately empirical policy practice with levels of analysis that haved addressed the bearing of one's assumptional structures on policy consequences. The text argues that the former type of inquiry is necessary but insufficient for constructively engaging the latter. Indeed, the text argues that conventional academic approaches risk becoming misbegotten enterprises and that apart from "situated policy learning," there is little hope for resolving "intractable policy controversies." This book disputes inherited notions of properly ordered relations between theory and practice in relation to policy professionals much as Schon had made a similar argument with r

Most leadership books recycle old leadership theories by using different anecdotes to illustrate the same points as previous books. Not so with this book. I would say this is among 5 or so leadership books (that I've read) that is truly groundbreaking. It reminds me a little bit of another pathbreaking book--Howard Gardner's Leading Minds. Anyone who enjoyed that book will certainly love this one. Policy making is not my strong suit, but I feel much more informed about the subject after reading this book. Schon and Rein show how past ways of handling policy controversies are insufficient and that a new way (frame reflection) is necessary to end policy stalemates and pendulum swings in policy. I can't recommend this book enough. It is not an easy book to read though: it will take some time to digest all the ideas in this small tome. But its well worth it. Two thumbs up for this book!

This is an important book. Schon and Rein give a crystal clear explanation of why intractable policy controversies occur, and review the theory base underlying the three most common means of dealing with them: 1) "rational" policy analysis, 2)power politics, and 3)mediated negotiation. They show how each of these depends on assumptions of microeconomics, which do not hold when people hold different "basic values." The dominant tradition of policy choice, based on the rational actor model hopes to treat disputes as instrumental problems that can be solved through the application of a value-neutral policy science. The political perspective is a pluralist model in which policy making is seen as a political game of multiple rational actors, each with his own interests, freedoms, and powers. Consensual dispute resolution through joint gains is the theme of mediated negotiation.A large and important class of policy disputes has proven resistant to each of these 3 main traditions. Once the reader can understand why this is so, the authors propose a new 4th way of making sense of intractable policy controversies, which focuses on getting at the underlying structures of belief, perceptiion, and appreciation, which they call "frames." The idea is that once actors in the dispute can get a better understanding of their underlying assumptions, and frames, they can begin to shift their often tacit and untested ways of seeing the world and the issue. This can lead to better understanding of the arguments each side is making, and a reasoned approach to what "data" is relevant to the situation.Several case studies are included in the book, which illustrate how this new approach can work. For anyone struggling to do better on a seemingly unsolvable conflict, this book will help.Paul Monus bp Chemicals, Lima Ohio