be used rationally if legislators carefully identify and assess all options before
choosing the best. In practice, however, policy can emerge from irrational
sources, such as the play of “social and political forces” which are
“manifested in and through institutions and processes”.
46
Indeed, so much is this the case that Ellen Beerworth inclines towards the view
that in practice policy making for statutes is often not performed rationally.
Instead, irrational forces such as politics (for example the mood of the
electorate or pressure from interest groups to whom a government is
beholden)
47
and ideology (an a priori
commitment to ways of thinking and
acting) overwhelm and displace scientific reasoning.
48
___________________
46
Simeon (1976) p 566
47
See Marsh (1983), Woods (1978).
48
Beerworth (1980) pp 68-70
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