¹ By “systematic empirical research” we mean the use of quantitative data gathered from a number of instances of policy making in order to test specific hypotheses. Examples of recent work in this direction are provided by Yin, Robert K. and Yates, Douglas, Street-Level Governments, R–1527–NSF (Santa Monica: Rand; 1974)Google Scholar; Lucas, William A., The Case Survey Method, R–1515–RC (Santa Monica: Rand, 1974)Google Scholar; and Yin, Robert K. and Heald, Karen A., “Using the Case Survey Method to Analyze Policy Studies,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 20 (09 1975), 371–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² For a description of that project, see our “Case Study Aggregation and Policy Theory,” Proceedings, 1973 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, La., 09 4–8, 1973 Google Scholar.

³ Our use of the terms “output” and “outcome” follows Ranney's definition of those terms. See his “The Study of Policy Content,” in Political Science and Public Policy, ed. Ranney, Austin (Chicago: Markheim, 1968), pp. 8–9 Google Scholar.

⁴ We refer, of course, to the ideas presented in the series of three articles: “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies and Political Theory,” World Politics, 16 (07 1964), 677–715 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Decision Making vs. Policy Making: Toward an Antidote for Technocracy,” Public Administration Review, 30 (May-06 1970), 314–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” Public Administration Review, 32 (July-08 1972), 298–310 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ This is why Lowi found the '60s tariff to be so different. In earlier times, tariff policy was distributive, but “The true nature of tariff in the 1960s emerges as regulatory policy…. Issues that could not be thrashed out through the ‘group process’ also could not be thrashed out in committee but had to pass on to Congress and the floor,” Lowi, , “American Business,” p. 701 Google Scholar. Lowi presented data on amendments to bills in Congress from the floor in “Decision Making vs. Policy Making,” pp. 321–22.

⁶ “If there is ever any cohesion within the peak associations, it occurs on redistributive issues, and their rhetoric suggests that they occupy themselves most of the time with these” ( Lowi, , “American Business,” p. 707)Google Scholar.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 690–91.

⁸ Banfield, Edward C., “The Chicago Transit Authority,” in Political Influence (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 91–125 Google Scholar.

⁹ Wilson, James Q., Political Organizations (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 329 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 339.

¹¹ Lowi, , “American Business,” p. 707, footnote 28.Google Scholar

¹² Marmor, Theodore R., “The Congress: Medicare Politics and Policy,” in American Political Institutions and Public Policy, ed. Sindler, Allan P. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), pp. 3–68 Google Scholar.

¹³ Gamson, William A., Power and Discontent (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1968), p. 71 Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., Modern Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 39–54 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ [McCulloch, Winifred,] “The Glavis-Ballinger Dispute,” in Public Administration and Policy Development, ed. Stein, Harold (New York: Harcourt, 1952), pp. 77–87 Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Banfield, p. 309.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 318.

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 322.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 308.

¹⁹ Muir, William K. Jr., Defending “The Hill” Against the Metal Houses, ICP Case #26 (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1955)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Froman, Lewis A. Jr., “An Analysis of Public Policy in Cities,” Journal of Politics, 29 (02 1967), 94–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Altshuler, Alan, Locating the Intercity Freeway, ICP Case #88 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965)Google Scholar.

²² Gamson, p. 63.

²³ Lambright, W. Henry, Shooting Down the Nuclear Plane, ICP Case #104 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967)Google Scholar.

²⁴ Dahl, Robert A., Democracy in the United States, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1972), p. 303 Google Scholar.

²⁵ Zeigler, Harmon, The Florida Milk Commission Changes Minimum Prices, ICP Case #77 (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

²⁶ Lowi criticizes Dror for defining policy as simply any output of any decision maker in his book Public Policy Making Reexamined (San Francisco: Chandler, 1968)Google Scholar. Dror never formally defines policy but his discussion indicates Lowi is correct. See Lowi, , “Decision Making vs. Policy Making,” p. 317 Google Scholar. Dye, Thomas R. defines public policy as “Whatever governments choose to do or not to do,” Understanding Public Policy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 1 Google Scholar.

²⁷ Lasswell, Harold D. and Kaplan, Abraham define policy as “a projected program of goal values and practices,” Power and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), p. 71 Google Scholar. See also Friedrich, Carl J., Man and His Government (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 70 Google Scholar.

²⁸ For example, Easton writes: “Arriving at a decision is the formal phase of establishing a policy; it is not the whole policy in relation to a particular problem. A legislature can devise to punish monopolists; that is the intention. But an administrator can destroy or reformulate the decision by failing either to discover offenders or prosecute them vigorously. The failure is as much a part of the policy with regard to monopoly as the formal law. When we act to implement a decision therefore we enter the second or effective phase of a policy.” The Political System, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf, 1971), p. 130 Google Scholar.

²⁹ This is our own preferred definition of policy. See our “Case Study Aggregation and Policy Theory,” p. 11.

³⁰ Dye includes the consequences of inaction as well as action, whether intended or not, in his definition of policy. Dye, p. 2.

³¹ Lowi suggests the need to look at only important substantive government decisions, “Decision Making vs. Policy Making,” p. 317.

³² Ranney, p. 7.

³³ Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

³⁴ E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, 1960), pp. 3–77, passim.

³⁵ Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

³⁶ This does not mean that Olson's theory is necessarily correct. There may be additional contingent conditions which he failed to state that would further refine or modify his theory. John Chamberlin, for example, has recently suggested some additional contingent conditions under which large groups are likely to provide large amounts of a collective good in contradiction to Olson's predictions. All we want to imply is that the concepts in Olson's theory are reasonably well specified and the theoretical relationships among concepts are stated with reasonable precision, allowing others successfully to re-examine and test them. See Chamberlin, John, “Provision of Collective Goods as a Function of Group Size,” American Political Science Review, 68 (06 1974), 707–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ For illustrations of how this process can both permit the elaboration of theory and provide operationalized hypotheses for empirical testing, see Miller, Jeffrey A., “Welfare Criteria and Policy Outcomes: An Empirical Assessment” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1975)Google Scholar.

³⁸ See our “Case Study Aggregation and Policy Theory,” p. 14.

³⁹ For an illuminating discussion of the role of “hard” research in developing social theory of various types, see the following two papers by Rapoport, Anatol: “Various Meanings of ‘Theory’,” American Political Science Review, 52 (12 1958), 972–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Explanatory Power and Explanatory Appeal” (Paper prepared for the Conference on Explanatory Theory in Political Science, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin, 02 19–23, 1968)Google Scholar. Rapoport argues that because of the limitations of social science, improved conceptualization is often a more important criterion in judging good theory than predictive power. In this regard, the value of the application of hard methods in social science would not necessarily lie so much in improved prediction as in better conceptualization and the reformulation of thinking about problems.