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Rationality as Situated Inquiry: A Pragmatist Perspective on Policy and Planning Processes

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Abstract

Rationality bashing has become a popular sport. Critiques have quite rightly challenged models of rational planning that follow a linear progression from predefined ends to achieved goals. There have been several alternative theoretical and empirical developments including incrementalist projects, network theories, critical communication approaches, and heuristic models.

Notwithstanding critiques of linear models of policy-making and planning, rationality as a general idea remains an important reference point for designing and evaluating policy-making and for orientating planning projects. We suggest that the concept of rationality needs to be revised rather than abandoned and this article discusses how rationality in decision making may be reconstructed.

We first review and critique some of the main preconceptions of rationality in policy-making and planning. We then discuss the nature and purpose of rationality from the perspective of John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy and in light of contemporary theoretical and empirical analyses. We position rationality as a procedural standard of excellence that evolves and informs practices in the context of problematic situations. We propose that a theory of rationality, as a guide for planning and policy, should be developed for application in concrete problematic situations and at the same time should play a normative role and be orientated to moral, socio-historical, and ecological considerations. Dewey’s pragmatist theory is a promising source for such considerations.

In this article we identify four ‘pillars’ of pragmatism to support such a revised rationality construct: (i) situationality, (ii) normativity, (iii) philosophical via media between foundationalism and relativism, and (iv) democratic inquiry. We discuss the application of a pragmatist rationality, that we refer to as ‘situational transactive’ rationality, using a model of decision making that builds on current understandings in planning and policy science. Finally, we discuss some of the possible advantages and challenges of undertaking such a pragmatist revision of rationality.

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References

  1. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the conference Philosophy of Management 05 at St Anne’s College Oxford 6–10 July 2005 organised by this journal.

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  7. Dewey’s pragmatism is also referred to as ‘instrumentalism’, which does not correspond to our use of ‘instrumental’. Dewey’s ‘instrumentalism’ includes concerns and methods of developing ends and purposes. It thereby denotes the exact opposite of ‘instrumental’ where purposes and ends are fixed.

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  21. John Dewey How we Think MW 6 p 17 our italics

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  84. Dewey Logic: Theory of Inquiry LW 12.116

  85. John Dewey Experience and Education MW 13.61

  86. John Dewey Knowing and the Known LW16

  87. This model is further developed and discussed in: Shyama Kuruvilla and Philipp Dorstewitz: ‘Pragmatist Rationality and the Decision Cell: An Integrated Model of Public Policy-making’. (Working paper in review, contact email: ssk14@cornell.edu).

  88. John Friedman Retracking America. A Theory of Transactive Planning Garden City NY Anchor Press/ Doubleday 1973

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  90. Frank R Baumgartner and Bryan D Jones ‘Agendas and Instability in American Politics’ Journal of Politics 43 no 4 1991)

  91. John Friedman Retracking America. A Theory of Transactive Planning Garden City NY, Anchor Press/ Doubleday 1973; Hugh Heclo ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment’ in: King A (ed) The New American Political System Washington D.C., American Institute for Public Policy Research Issue 1978

  92. Peter John ‘Analysing Public Policy’ in Jules Townshend (series ed) Critical Studies London, New York Pinter 1998; Michael Howlett and Michael Ramesh Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Subsystems Ontario Canada, Oxford University Press 2003

  93. John Kingdon Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies Harper Collins College Publishers 1995

  94. Murray Edelman Political Language: Words That Succeed and Policies That Fail New York, Institute for the Study of Poverty 1977

  95. John Dewey Logic: Theory of Inquiry LW 12

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  98. Peter Bachrach and Morton S Baratz ‘Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework’ American Political Science Review 56 no 2 1962 pp 632–642

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  102. Alan Irwin ‘Constructing the Scientific Citizen: Science and Democracy in the Biosciences’ Public Understanding of Science 10 2001 pp 1–18 quotation p 16

  103. Herbert Simon Administrative Behavior New York Free Press 1945

  104. Cf John Dewey The Quest for Certainty and here especially chapter XV ‘The Construction of Good’ LW 4

  105. Hugh P McDonald John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy Albany, State University of New York Press 2004

  106. John Dewey Democracy and Education LW 9

  107. John Dewey The Public and its Problems LW 2

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  110. Dewey The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays London, UK, Prometheus 1997 [1910]

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  112. John Dewey Logic: Theory of Inquiry LW12.109 italics added

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  115. John Dewey Logic: Theory of Inquiry LW 12.108

  116. Ibid

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  118. Sheila Jasanoff ‘The ‘Science Wars’ and American Politics’ in: M Dierkes and C von Grote (eds) Between Understanding and Trust: The Public, Science and Technology pp 39–60 Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publisher 2000

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  120. John Dewey The Public and its Problems LW 2

  121. Peter Checkland Systems Thinking, Systems Practice Chichester UK, New York et al, John Wiley 1981 Alan Irwin ‘Constructing the Scientific Citizen: Science and Democracy in the Biosciences’ Public Understanding of Science 10 2001 pp 1–18; Frank Fischer Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices New York, Oxford University Press 2003

  122. John Dewey The Public and its Problems LW 2

  123. John Dewey The Public and its Problems LW 2.34

  124. John Dewey Logic: Theory of Inquiry LW 12

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  1. Department of Public Health and Policy, London, UK

    Shyama Kuruvilla (Research Fellow)

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  1. Philipp Dorstewitz
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  2. Shyama Kuruvilla
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Dorstewitz, P., Kuruvilla, S. Rationality as Situated Inquiry: A Pragmatist Perspective on Policy and Planning Processes. Philos. of Manag. 6, 35–61 (2007). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom2007614

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