Introduction
POLICY ANALYSIS is a social and political activity. True, you take personal
moral and intellectual responsibility for the quality of your policy-analytic work.
But policy analysis goes beyond personal decision making. Firs3 the subject matter
concerns the lives and well-being of large numbers of our fellow citizens. Second,
the process and results of policy analysis usually involve other professionals and
interested parties: it is often done in teams or oficewide settings; the immediate
consumer is a "client" of some sort like a hierarchical superior; and the ultimate
audience will include diverse subgroups of politically attuned supporters and
opponents of your work. All of these facts condition the nature of policy-analytic
work and have a bearing on the nature of what is meant by qualiy work.