The following excerpt of text is from the book, Between Inquiry and Advocacy: A Critique of the Pragmatic Foundations of Academic Public Policy, by E. Robert Statham, Jr., edited by Nora Percival Muller, available from Parkway Publishers, PO Box 3678, Boone, NC 28607.

As complicated and multi-dimensional as the study of public policy is, it has been formed by a singular progression of ideas and practices. The foundation of the study of policy is, in fact, the same as the basis for nearly all American social and political science: pragmatism. Alexis de Tocqueville was quite accurate in noting that America is one of the countries where the precepts of Descartes are least studied and are best applied. Recent developments in the public policy discipline are rooted in the work of Harold Lasswell and based on the theories of William James, Charles Pierce, and particularly John Dewey. Lasswell rested the foundation of policy study on the pragmatism of John Dewey and his colleagues. Pragmatism is a uniquely American attempt to combine theory and practice, a synthesis central to Lasswell's development of what he termed the policy sciences. The policy sciences were to be concerned with knowledge of and in the decision process, and directed toward the development of a dppendable theory and practice of 'problem solving' in the public interest. This approach to the study of public policy was grounded in the attempt to bridge the distance between theory and practice, knowledge and power, contemplation and action.

For the American mind, to know is to do. The pragmatic tendency which predominates in America simply does not intellectually distinguish between knowing and doing. All knowledge must be useful for the pragmatist; thinking must be directly related to doing. An academic expression of this intellectual leaning is the present orientation of public policy research, which is to utilize thought to provide solutions to political problems, presupposing that such solutions are possible. Working from the preponderant view that thinking must serve a practical purpose, current policy analysis aspires to solve, as well as define, public problems. The fact that this approach to the academic study of public policy has largely been a failure (no significant public problem has been solved by policy science) has not, thus far, been a deterrent.

The underlying philosophy of pragmatism unifies a field of study which is otherwise amorphous and fragmented. The academic study of public policy is animated by the desire to solve public problems, as there is a modest consensus that social research can and should be relevant to immediate policy concerns. In other words, policy concerns, which are, by definition, public, are proposals for government and social action. In this way, the emphasis is placed directly upon practical solutions of public problems. Pragmatism offers a theoretical justification for the policy scientist to use thought to affect politics proper, since it prescribes, and is contingent upon, a synthesis of ideas and action. The attempt to unite theory and practice is the unifying characteristic of approaches to policy as superficially different as Easton's 'post-behavioralism,' Lindblom's 'disjointed incrementalism,' and Dror's 'prescriptive-preferable policymaking.' The current orientation of policy study is part of an ongoing effort to make thought relevant, and to put it in the service of practical problems, however they may be perceived.