Public Planning and
Political Strategy
Dennis A. Rondinelli”
Technology and Development Institute, The East-West Center
Planning theory and practice derived from
corporate experience, management science
and rational decision theory have had little
influence on decision-making in the public
sector. The political environment and organ-
izational complexity of public decision
making render conventional approaches to
objective, rational, comprehensive planning
of limited value in government agencies
and in private corporations involved in
public policy making. A more effective
approach to strategic planning and manage-
ment must be based on an understanding
of the political dynamics through which
policies are made. It must adopt a variety
of styles directly related to major functions
in the policy making process and use a
variety of political intervention and in-
fluence techniques that facilitate the im-
plementation of plans and policies.
P LANNING HAS A LONG TRADITION IN
ment and plays a significant role in national
and local budgeting, programming and manage-
GOVERN-
ment. Theories and practices of public planning
were derived primarily from principles of manage-
ment science and from the strategic planning
experience of large corporations.’ Planning, in its
broadest sense, borrowed its prescriptions from
rational decision theory, and consists of a set of
procedures whereby decision makers attempt to :
identify and define major problems and goals,
analyze relevant environmental and strategic
conditions,
project trends, needs, opportunities and
constraints,
transform goals into operational targets,
identify alternative courses of action for
achieving goals and targets,
*Dennis A. Rondinelli is Senior Fellow at the The East-
West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii.
APRIL, 1976
calculate costs and benefits of each alternative,
estimate the probabilities of future events and
projected trends occurring,
determine the potential non-economic gains,
losses and consequences of each alternative,
choose the optimal alternative or set of
actions,
integrate chosen courses of action into a
comprehensive long-range plan.
Plans are then transformed into operational
programs, budgets and schedules for implementa-
tion.
This ideal model of long range planning has
generally failed, however, to produce desired
results in the public sector. Indeed the ideal model
has rarely been operationalized in public policy-
making. Intensive evaluations of public decision-
making-at national as well as local levels, in both
advanced and developing nations-document the
difficulties of doing comprehensive planning.
Reviewing the process in a number of countries,
Wildavsky found few truly successful efforts. The
paucity of effective planning systems, he concluded,
‘suggests that the record of planning has hardly been
brilliant. For all we know, the few apparent suc-
cesses (if there are any) constitute no more than
random occurrences.” Examining the American
experience with master planning in local govem-
ment led one expert to conclude that ‘where it was
tried and judged by its own claims, comprehensive
planning turned out to be a colossal failure.‘3
Analysts note that individuals and organizations
do not, and indeed cannot, make decisions in the
highly rational and comprehensive manner pre-
scribed by conventional planning theory. They cite
‘cognitive limits on rationality’, inability of indi-
viduals to take into account complex sets of
values, goals and consequences, and the high costs
of searching widely for optimal solutions as
parameters that keep decision-making inevitably
a ‘satisficing’, and incremental process.4
Problems of operationalizing comprehensive
planning in government are attributable, to a large
75
extent, to the fact that public policy-making is
substantially different from and more complex than
decision-making in a single corporation. Manage-
ment science versions of planning theory generally
assume a high level of central control over organ-
izational activities through a hierarchical structure
that vests authority and responsibility for decision-
making in a single chief executive or a set of
top management officials. Administrative units are
departmentalized by major purpose, process,
product or clientele, with authority delegated to
various levels, each supervised by and responsible to
the next higher level. Span of control is limited and
unity of command is preserved to prevent overlap,
duplication and waste and to promote efficiency.
In public policy-making, however, these con-
ditions rarely prevail. Indeed, major decisions are
rarely within the purview or authority of a single
agency. Planning is usually done by a number of
decision-makers in an organizationally complex
environment under politically dynamic conditions.
The characteristics of this complex decision
environment-emerging more frequently not only
in the public sector but in large private organiza-
tions as well-severely complicate conventional
processes of comprehensive, long range planning.
Harlan Cleveland most concisely summarizes the
situation when he observes that:
“The organizations that get things done will no longer be
hierarchical pyramids with most of the real control at the
top. They will be systems-interlaced webs of tension in
which control is loose, power diffused, and centers of
decision plural. ‘Decision-making’ will become an in-
creasingly intricate process of multilateral brokerage both
inside and outside the organization that thinks it has the
responsibility for making, or at least announcing, the
decision. Because organizations will be more horizontal,
the way they are governed is likely to be more collegial,
consensual and consultative. The bigger the problems to
be tackled, the more real power is diffused and the larger
the number of persons who can exercise it-if they work
at it. The trend is visible in totalitarian as well as demo-
cratic societies.“s
In such an environment planning and decision-
making inevitably become political activities.
Planning cannot assume an objective, rational,
technical, value-free role and be effective. Planning
becomes a process not only of analyzing problems,
goals and alternative courses of action, but also of
advocating positions, influencing behavior and
intervening in the policy-making process to affect
the outcome of decisions. It becomes a method not
only for choosing alternative courses of action but
for designing strategies for executing them. The
characteristics of political decision-making have
profound implications for the nature, process,
techniques and methods of planning. If strategic
planning and management are to become more
effective in the public sector, theory and practice
must : (1) be based on a thorough understanding of
the political environment in which policies are
made; (2) adopt a variety of forms and styles that
are directly related to major functions in the
policy-making process; and, (3) fashion a variety
76
of intervention and interaction techniques into
strategies for influencing not only the choice of
alternatives but also the implementation of selected
policies.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PUBLIC
POLICY-MAKING
Public policy-making is an inter-organizational,
rather than an intra-organizational, process. Public
decisions evolve from the interaction of individuals
and groups each seeking a legitimate allocation of
resources or authority from the governmental
system. Policy-making, as political scientists point
out, involves a variety of functions: perception and
definition of needs, problems and goals, formula-
tion of proposals and plans; mobilization of
support; social analysis and political ‘deliberation’;
policy enactment and legitimization. Once policies
are enacted, plans are implemented through organ-
ization and administration of programs and
projects; program results are evaluated and
policies reformulated.6
In reality, policymaking is itinitely more com-
plicated than implied by this simple descriptive
model. Yet policies do evolve through a cycle of
identifiable stages. The process described earlier is
not necessarily sequential; nor are the stages
always clearly distinguishable in practice or
mutually exclusive, since some activities may occur
simultaneously and other functions are inextricably
linked. Plans may be stalled or die before complet-
ing the process, or are resurrected later in different
form. Because of the procedural and organizational
complexity, effective planning in the public sector
must be based on a thorough understanding of the
characteristics of the policy-making process :7
(1) Policymaking is Essentially a Political
Activity
Public decision-making is a political process
rather than an intellectual or deliberative one.
Policies evolve through social interaction, conflict
resolution and mutual adjustment among groups
with diverse goals. Priorities are determined and
final choices made through compromises among
groups with a diversity of values, decision criteria,
interests, and perceptions of benefits and costs.
(2) Policy Goals are Adjusted to the
Availability of Means to Achieve Them
Rarely are public policies the result of optimal
decisions. Goal formulation is situational. Each
organization participating in public decision-
making pursues its own interests; goals may be
terminal or instrumental, changing over time in
relation to changes in social, economic and
political conditions. The level of expectations of
decision-makers are adjusted to the probability,
subjectively determined, of achieving their objec-
tives, to estimates of uncertainties and risks of
LONG RANGE PLANNING
pursuing a particular course of action, to percep-
tions of past success in influencing the outcome
of political conflict, and to their access to resources
for influencing the behavior of other decision-
makers.
(3) Policy Planning Requires Trading-Off
Complex Variables to Reach a Politically
Feasible Alternative
Policy-making involves tradeoffs among econ-
omic, political, social and other criteria, weighing
tangible facts, information, and data against
intangible and incalculable potential opportunities
and constraints. Quantitative variables must be
balanced with qualitative factors. Decisions affect-
ing immediate problems and issues must be
balanced against long range impacts and conse-
quences. A wide variety of goals, criteria and
interests considered important by different groups
and individuals must be reconciled in a plan
capable of attracting sufficient support to be
enacted and implemented.
(4) Policy is Formulated and Implemented
Through a ‘Horizontal’ Decision Structure
Policy is initiated, enacted, executed and eval-
uated through a complicated set of ‘horizontal’
interactions within an organizationally complex
decision environment. Government structure is
fragmented and open to the influence of a wide
variety of public agencies, private organizations
and specialized interest groups. Powers and
responsibilities are dispersed and unevenly distri-
buted among specialized organizations within and
outside of the government structure. Policy is
implemented through a complex system of formal
and informal delegation of responsibility and
control. The policy-making structure has a multi-
tude of leverage points at which individuals and
groups attempt to exercise influence. Participants
possess a diversity of potential resources for in-
fluencing the outcome of political contlicts-
money, credit, control over jobs, votes, information,
expertise, popularity and others-and varying
skills at utilizing them.
(5) Participants in Policy-Making Act
Within Narrowly Defined Conceptions of
the ‘Public Interest’
Unlike private corporations, public agencies
rarely have easily defined criteria by which to judge
the ‘correctness’ of alternative courses of action.
Plans in the private sector may be aimed at increas-
ing profits, expanding market share, or diversifying
product lines. In public policy-making there is
often no over-riding, clearly defined set of goals by
which to choose one alternative over another.
Policy is initiated, formulated, enacted and im-
plemented by groups pursuing their own interests
and their own conceptions of ‘the public interest’.
APRIL, 1976
Policy-making is an amoral process, governed by an
ethics of responsibility; each participant determines
the correctness of a course of action in terms of his
ability to satisfy a constituency or to represent a
position considered by him to be morally correct.
Policy-making is governed by situational ethics
rather than by absolute principles of right and
wrong. Conflict often erupts over disagreements
concerning decision criteria as well as over disagree-
ments on substantive content of policy proposals.
(6) Public Decisions Evolve Through
Conflict Resolution
Policies emerge most often through a process of
conflict resolution in which individuals and groups
attempt to influence each others’ behavior through
psychological field manipulation, adaptive adjust-
ments, bargaining, negotiation, coalition-building,
conflict displacement, inducements, threats, authori-
tative control and force.
(7) Policies are Not Chosen Through
Objective Optimization
Public policy-making is not a process of optimiz-
ing, that is, of discovering one, rational, optimum
alternative for the solution of a social problem.
Public problems may not have distinctive solutions.
Social problems are complex, amorphous and
difficult to define concisely; each participant in
policy-making may define the problem differently,
in terms of a single component of a larger issue, or
within the context of another problem. Facts,
information and statistics used to analyze policy
alternatives are subjectively interpreted through
preconceived interests from which groups and
individuals reach different conclusions concerning
the ‘best’ course of action. Indeed, optimization
does not characterize public planning because often
the number of possible alternatives for ameliorating
a social problem is indeterminate at the outset-
politically feasible alternatives evolve from pro-
cesses of political interaction and intervention.
(8) Policy-Making is Synergistic
Political interaction produces policy proposals
and decisions different from those espoused by any
single participant in a policy-making conflict. As
the scope of disagreements over policy proposals
expand and contract, as new groups enter and leave
a conflict, as issues, goals and perceptions are
adjusted to changing political conditions, and as
support is mobilized around compromise positions,
initial proposals are redefined producing outcomes
that were unpredictable at the outset. Past decisions
often produce unanticipated consequences that
influence the scope, content and feasibility of
current alternatives. As disagreements arise from
the interaction of disparate participants the process
of policy formulation takes on a life of its own;
77
central control and comprehensive planning of the
outcome is made more difficult.
(9) Public Policy Formulation and
Implementation are Characterized by
Long Lag and Lead Times
Few policy innovations or plans receive im-
mediate acceptance in the public decision-making
arena. Social problems must be widely recognized,
support for their solution mobilized, proposals
formulated and enacted and programs implemented
-a process that, for major social issues, may
require a decade to complete. The long lag times
between initiation of plans and their implementa-
tion occur because of the nature of the policy-
making process, because of the dispersion of in-
fluence, the multiple channels for exercising in-
fluence, and the ability of a wide variety of groups
to delay or veto action. Policy execution requires
the formulation of strategic plans for exploiting the
proper timing and atmosphere for action.
(10) Policy Enactment and Implementation
Require a Strong Coalition of Support
Public plans are formulated, enacted and im-
plemented through concerted efforts and pooled
resources of groups and individuals organized into
coalitions. Coalition building is essential to policy
formulation and execution because of the fragmen-
tation of authority, organizational complexity and
unequal distribution of power that characterizes
decision-making. Coalitions may vary in size from
small elites %th substantial resources to potentially
large constellations of groups with mutual interests
in the outcome of a decision. Coalitions shift over
time, expanding, contracting, dispersing and re-
forming in response to changes in the political
environment and changes in perceptions of issues,
costs and benefits. Every coalition attempts to
carve out a ‘policy space’ or ‘sphere of influence’
over a set of issues from which it can dominate
decision-making. Innovation and change often
require destruction or reformulation of existing
spheres of influence and the creation of new
coalitions based on different perceptions of prob-
lems, new goals, redefinition of needs, or dis-
satisfaction with existing programs and policies.
PLANNING AS THE DESIGN OF
POLITICAL INTERVENTION STRATEGIES
Conventional approaches to planning are not
effective under the politically dynamic conditions
of public policy-making. Even within private cor-
porations, Taylor argues, ‘it is clear that the
theory and practice of strategic management is
inadequate to handle social and political problems’.
As public and private organizations become more
intertwined in policy-making, new and improved
approaches to government and corporate planning
are needed for ‘developing strategies and policies
78
designed to achieve social acceptance’ and for ‘the
preparation of operational plans and programmes,
and the measurement of effectiveness of these
programmes in gaining social acceptance’.* Plan-
ning must become not only an analytical instrument
for defining and selecting goals, but also a means
for designing strategies of intervention in the
policy-making process to influence the acceptance
and execution of planned objectives. Planning
theory has given little attention, however, to the
need for, development and utilization of alternative
intervention techniques. A variety of tactics, other
than those of central co-ordination and control
most frequently used in hierarchical organizations,
are available to influence the outcome of policy
conflicts in the political arena (see Figure 1).
Central co-ordination and control are often the
least useful techniques in organizationally complex
decision situations because policy-making, by its
very nature, provides access for a diversity of
semi-autonomous participants. Groups can em-
ploy tactics of social influence to create unantici-
pated demands, to delay, obstruct and veto plans,
build and mobilize support for a variety of alterna-
tive policies, and subvert central control in plan
implementation. In order to influence the outcome
of public decisions intervention strategies must be
formulated that incorporate both direct and in-
direct techniques of influence.
(1) Indirect Influence Tactics
Techniques such as information dissemination,
education and training, persuasion and consulta-
tion, as opposed to central control and co-ordina-
tion, are indirect, voluntary, and require a low
degree of direct intervention by planners in specific
policy conflicts. They often provide a strong base
of influence in early stages of policymaking by
attempting to shape the environment or atmos-
phere for problem recognition and the need for
action. Psychological manipulation, modeling, and
techniques that psychologists, refer to as ‘shaping
and reinforcement seek to influence behavior while
allowing a large degree of choice in compliance.g
Non-coercive adaptation can influence behavior in
support of planned objectives through tacit
co-ordination, by obtaining the mutual consent of
those potentially affected by proposed plans, and
through provisions of incentives and rewards.
Adaptive adjustments are often made in the
content of plans to avoid adverse effects for groups
that are likely to oppose the plan because of
perceived losses.
(2) Direct Intervention Tactics
Other techniques of political intervention require
more direct exercise of control and more intensive
interaction in policy conflicts. Reciprocal exchange
and compromise, promises and threats, formal and
informal bargaining and negotiation, and media-
tion, together with subsidies or regulation may be
LONG RANGE PLANNING
 Methods of Indirect Influence
High Degree of Choice In Compliance
LOW Degree of Intervention In Policy Conflict
Methods of Direct Influence
Figure 1. Tactical Approaches
used in combination with other indirect influence
tactics to reinforce desired political behavior or to
discourage undesired actions. Techniques requiring
the most direct control, the least freedom of com-
pliance, and the most intense intervention in
political conflict are authoritative prescription,
pre-emption, command and coercion and force.
The most effective technique or combination of
tactics must be determined by strategists through
analysis of the problem or issues under considera-
tion, the power and resources of potential con-
tenders in political conflict, and the organizational
environment in which plans and policies must be
formulated and implemented.
TAILORING PLANNING STYLES TO
POLICY-MAKING FUNCTIONS
The concept of planning as strategic intervention in
and management of public policy-making recog-
nizes not only that a multitude of decision-makers
plan, but that a variety of planning functions and
roles must be performed in order to influence
public decisions. One style of planning, essential
and appropriate for a particular decision-maker at
one stage of the policy-making process, may be
inappropriate for others. If planning is to become
more effective in influencing the outcome and
quality of public decisions, a number of distinctive
planning styles that are directly related to policy
formulation and implementation functions, must
be used. Seven approaches are suggested here (see
Figure 2).
(1) Innovative Planning
Perception of needs, goals and problems and the
APRIL, 1976
Low.
High
[I
to influencing Policy Conflicts.
initiation of change can evolve only from a creative
planning approach. Problem perception, identifi-
cation of threats and opportunities, and change-
initiation do not generally emerge from ‘routine’
bureaucratic forms of programming. The innovative
planning style anticipates and seeks change, explores
and exploits opportunities for new policy direc-
tions, crystallizes dissatisfaction with current
conditions and searches, through what Etzioni has
called ‘mixed scanning’ processes, for marginally
better alternatives. Innovative planning is con-
cerned not so much with operational issues as with
the contextual or strategic aspects of policy. It is
futuristic, often concerned with forecasting and
predicting trends as well as with searching for
potential solutions to problems that are still in
the experimental or pilot stages. In other situations,
innovative planning is less concerned with the
future, but directed more toward re-orienting
perspectives of decision-makers on current prob-
lems, redefining social values, changing decision
agendas, altering priorities and immediate goals of
resource-allocating organizations comprising the
major spheres of influence over strategic policy
issues.
(2) Advocacy Planning
While the innovative approach is useful for
defining the directions and parameters of desired
change and assisting decision-makers to delineate
problems and needs, ultimately, objectives must
be translated into specific proposals. Only demands
that are clearly and persistently expressed receive
serious public attention. Individuals and groups
79
 Determination
and Technical
Coordinative
Figure 2.
skilled at innovative planning often lack the
interest and ability to promote demands publicly,
thus requiring another form of planning-advocacy.
Advocacyplanning makes no pretense of objectivity.
Its purpose is to represent a policy position or the
perceptions of a particular ‘interested public’.
Advocate planners strive to translate felt needs of
groups and organizations into policy demands, to
obtain access to decision centers and leverage points,
and to satisfy those demands through authoritative
allocation of tangible resources.
Advocate planners seek to develop leadership,
induce participation, develop and promote argu-
ments and disseminate information in support of a
policy position. If the objective is to assist groups
and organizations to obstruct, delay or modify
policy proposals adverse to their interests, advocacy
planning takes on a lobbying function. Advocacy
includes formulation of coalition-building strate-
gies, communication of policy demands, presenta-
tion of policy positions to authoritative decision
makers through direct persnal contact, psycho-
logical field manipulation and intermediation.
Through adversary functions it moves to counter
and offset the impact of opposing plans.
(3) Adjunctive Planning
In both support mobilization and deliberation
phases, participants in political conflict often seek
assistance in analyzing issues and positions from
‘third parties’, sources considered to be more
neutral, who place policy analysis within a broader
social context. Information and analysis is sought
from sources outside the immediate arena of
political conflict. The functions required are, in a
sense, adjunctive. The adjunctive planning style
80
Policy Enactment
Allocative
Planning
Alternative Planning Styles.
attempts to preserve an image of objectivity;
adjunctive planners most often perform informa-
tion collection and analysis functions and make the
results available to all contenders in policy contlict
without becoming absorbed in the imbroglio them-
selves. Adjunctive functions are often performed by
‘think tanks’, foundations and research institutes
with interests in national policy, and by regional
planning agencies, municipal research bureaus and
city planning commissions at the local level.
Adjunctive planners perform ‘research and de-
velopment’ functions: they organize and imple-
ment demonstration projects, gather operational
and planning data, and evaluate positions and
proposals as inputs for policy conflict resoluti0n.l’
(4) Allocative Planning
Allocation of scarce resources among competing
demands and interests is the essence of policy-
making. Allocativeplanning seeks to facilitate policy
enactment by proposing resource distribution
plans that result in satisfactory tradeoffs among
competing groups. Allocative planning is often
sequential, an incremental series of compromises
aimed at attaining mutually acceptable positions
by various participants in the policy-making process.
It seeks, where necessary, to balance economic,
political, social, physical and other criteria, to
allocate tangible and symbolic rewards, to mediate
between pressing and long-term considerations in
order to find alternatives acceptable to a coalition
large enough to enact and implement a plan. At a
technical level allocative planning institutionalizes
resource distribution proposals through operating
and capital budgets. But it attends to the distri-
bution of normnancial resources as well.
LONG RANGE PLANNING
(5) Coordinative Planning
Planning for policy enactment and implementa-
tion requires co-ordination and integration of the
decisions of the multitude of participants involved
in policy-making. The co-ordinative planning ap-
proach develops strategies for mobilizing disparate
resources and focusing them on remediable aspects
of problems. Co-ordinative planning seeks to
reconcile differences among decision-makers with
diverse interests and to search for compromises,
bases for exchange, incentives and instruments of
manipulation and persuasion. It explores grounds
for joint action by explicating shared interests,
potential linkages, and requirements for mutual
consent. It seeks to reduce the lag and lead times
between plan enactment and implementation.
This style of planning recognizes that semi-
autonomous decision units can be integrated
effectively only along lines of shared interest,
specialization and interdependence. The great
potential for policy co-ordination lies within
spheres of influence among groups seeking mutual
gains. Co-ordination, to be successful, must have an
explicit objective. Response is based primarily on
self interest; co-ordination cannot be imposed
through hierarchical integration, centralized con-
trol, regulation or structural consolidation. Mutu-
ally beneficial rewards must accrue to parties in a
co-operative act. This form of planning focuses on
creation of inducements, compensation, reciprocity,
and encourages and facilitates bargaining and
negotiation among individuals and organizations.
It attempts to create informal co-ordination mech-
anisms where formal institutional arrangements for
integration are weak. Co-ordinative planners may
also act as intermediaries-explicating and explain-
ing policy innovations, mediating conflicting
demands, communicating information, bargaining
positions and compromise solutions to conflicting
parties. They may, through co-ordinating adminis-
trative units, act as catalysts for resource mobiliz-
ation in plan implementation and program
evaluation.
(6) Administrative and Technical Planning
If plans and policies, once enacted, are to
ameliorate problems and attain stated objectives,
they must be effectively applied, institutionalized
and managed. This phase of policy-making re-
quires administrative planning, which, according to
Gross, ‘is the complex process through which
administrators try to guide the activities of people
in an organization toward formulating or achieving
some accepted pattern of purposes’. Administrative
planning subsumes the interpretation of statutes,
liaison with co-operating and competing organiza-
tions, interaction with resource suppliers and output
users, and design of basic management systems.
Functionalplanning-the organization and manage-
ment of distinct program components-snd control
and direction of program outputs through technical
APRIL, 1976
and project pkuming are prerequisites to effective
plan implementation. Administrative planning
results in operational programs and schedules
‘related to production, budgeting and accounting,
personnel, distribution of output, general internal
services and research’.”
(7) Evaluative Planning
Finally, because policy-making is a continuous
process, programs and policies must be continually
monitored and evaluated. Evaluative planning aims
to reduce the opportunity costs of failing to adjust
resource mobilization, allocation and utilization
decisions to changing socioeconomic and political
conditions. Evaluative planners analyze previous
public and private decisions to determine their
results. Evaluation includes performance auditing
that leads to recommendations for program re-
formulation, termination or continuation. Evalua-
tive planners attempt to determine the effectiveness
of policies using the wide variety of criteria im-
posed by the nature of public decision-making.
In organizationally complex decision environments,
evaluation-as Gross notes-must account for and
satisfy diverse interests, measuring multiple outputs
-both tangible and intangible, immediate and
long-range-of different kinds, quality and quan-
tity. Not only efficiency, but organizational, pro-
grammatic and political viability must be assessed.
At the same time evaluation must assure that the
operation of programs conforms to generally
observed codes: internal due process and applica-
tion of external regulations.
In brief, conventional processes of comprehen-
sive planning based on rational decision theory and
hierarchical concepts have proven of little use in
public policy-making, and are becoming less useful
in complex private organizations that deal in-
timately with governmental agencies. Concepts
offered by theorists such as Emery, that view
planning as a system of hierarchical control, are
at best irrelevant. At worst they are perverse in the
organizationally complex policy environments
where decisions are made primarily through
horizontal interaction among semi-autonomous
participants. r2 The emerging character of public
and private decision-making calls for new concepts
and approaches to planning. The seven approaches
described here attempt to relate planning to policy-
making functions. The styles are not mutually
exclusive, either in function or performance. A
planner may perform a number of roles, operating
within a single organization, at different stages of
the policy-making process. In other cases he may
choose to specialize in a particular style of planning
in order to influence policy at a specific stage in its
formulation or implementation. The point is that
planning theory must begin to recognize the
validity, need for and effectiveness of a diversity of
planning styles, roles and functions. Effective
planning must be grounded in the characteristics
of the policy-making process, and must be a tool
81
not only for the analysis of alternative courses of (5) Harlan Cleveland, The Future Executive: A Guide for
Tomorrow’s Managers, Harper 8 Row, New York
action, but also for fashioning strategies to in-
(1972).
fluence behavior in policy implementation. n
(6) Charles 0. Jones, An introduction to the Study of
Public Policy, Wadsworth, Belmont,California (1970).

(7) Dennis A. Rondinelli, Urban Planning as Policy

Analysis: Management of Urban Change, Journal
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Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1970).
(3) John Friedmann, The Future of Comprehensive
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(4) J. March and H. Simon, Organizations, Wiley, New Bertram M. Gross, Organizations and Their Managing,
(11)
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