The Failure of Social Programs

Bibliographic Data

ID10401150
AuthorsJames Prather (0000-0003-2807-6042), James E Prather, Frank K Gibson
Year1977
Volume37
Issue5
Pages556-556
Publication date1977-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePublic Administration Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-3352 • E-ISSN: 1540-6210
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/974711
OpenAlexW2334621739
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited8

Social programs have proliferated with seeming abandon, but of late efficacy of such programs has been widely debated. It is purpose of this article to explore concept of program efficacy and technical-scientific rationale used in assessing that efficacy. We do not intend to investigate norms or values that provide impetus for creation of social programs; we analyze programs in terms of their performance, given values they represent. It is first necessary to review epistemology of policy analysis. For instance, what is meant when one asks if a policy is successful? Kerr (1976) has provided a thoughtful work on this question. She defines a public policy as the intention to act according to a given conditional imperative when certain conditions are obtained, resulting in policy action itself. Policy failure is hierarachically defined by Kerr as follows: (1) Implementation Failure occurs when a policy cannot be put into action all or some of time; (2) Instrumental Failure occurs when a policy cannot fulfill its purpose(s): and (3) Normative Justification Failure happens when a policy lacks ethical integrity. In this article, we focus our attention only on first two types of failure. Policy evaluation has been largely concerned with measurement of public policy success, and most observers agree that many purported evaluations of government programs are neither

Business · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Income, Poverty, and Inequality

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