Sabatier offered six very concrete complaints about the policy process as a unifying concept within the policy sciences (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier, 1993, pp. 3-4; emphases in original)
1. "The stages model is not really a causal model at all." That is, it did not lend itself to prediction, or even to indicating how one stage led to another.
2. "The stages model does not provide a clear basis for empirical hypothesis testing." Hence it is not amenable to confirmation, amendment, or fabrication.
3. "The stages heuristic suffers from descriptive inaccuracy in posing a series of stages…."
4. "The stages metaphor suffers from a built-in legalistic, top-down focus."
5. "The stages metaphor inappropriately emphasizes the policy cycle as the temporal unit of analysis." In other words, it neglects the concept of a system of intergovernmental relations.
6. "The stages metaphor fails to provide a good vehicle for integrating the roles of policy analysis and policy-oriented learning throughout the public policy process. "