Policy problems are not conceptual constructs like atoms or cells. Instead,
expressed for instance as sulfur dioxide parts per million in the air, they are
practical constructs that serve as measures for the design and enforcement of a
clean air law or policy. The constructs are the product of thought acting on the
environment; they are artificial in the sense that someone subjectively judges
these conditions to be problematic. The inherent artificiality of constructs for
any policy area makes it easier for policymakers and especially the media to misconstrue the real problem. One way around such misconstrual is to disaggregate the problem. Some argue for a form of rational reductionism of complexity-divide, conquer, simplify, and reduce multifaceted problems into components for action. However, disaggregating policy problems into smaller, more manageable elements runs the risk of providing the right solution to the wrong problem. For example, past concern over what government should do (if anything) about the declining economic international competitiveness of the United States was frequently boiled down to an issue of excessive foreign access American technology. But Robert Reich (1987, 63) argued that this conclusion misinterpreted the real problem. "The underlying predicament is not that the Japanese are exploiting our discoveries but that we can't turn basic inventions into new products as fast or as well as they can."Defining the problem