Nevertheless, most (even subsequent critics) agree that the framework of the policy process and its various stages held center stage for at least the better part of the 1970s and 1980s. It was, for many, the "conventional wisdom" (Robert Nakaruma, 1987, referred to’ it as “the textbook policy process”) that forced itself upon an emerging discipline, largely in disregard of Albert Hirschman’s(1970)
prescient warning that paradigms, unless closely considered, can become a hindrance to understanding. And arguably, that is exactly what happened as policy scholars began to inform their own interpretation of the policy process framework as if it were the target rather than the condition it sought to describe. Although certainly none would argue against a new statement of perspectives, one can openly question its basic assumptions. Let us therefore examine the thrust of these criticisms