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Strategic Retreat on Objectives: Learning from Failure in American Public Policy

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Abstract

How does one group of preferences (say for governmental provision of medical care) succeed another (such as for fees for service by private doctors)? Do people observe what is happening and adjust their preferences accordingly? Preferences, then, would be determined by individual cogitation. Or do people relate to others, modifying their values and beliefs in these engagements? Preferences thus would be a product of social interaction. If preferences result from thinking, our interest should turn to the individual mind; if preferences are molded by interaction, then it is social relations that deserve our attention.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth.…

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone but on error also.

Carl Jung

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Wildavsky, A. (2018). Strategic Retreat on Objectives: Learning from Failure in American Public Policy. In: Peters, B. (eds) The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58619-9_2

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