What use is a policy cycle? Plenty, if the aim is to help public servants make sense of the policy task. Setting out a sequence of steps to turn ideas into Cabinet recommendations can provide structure in the otherwise dizzying world of policy‐making. It would be a mistake, though, to see a policy cycle as other than a first step, a guide amid complexity. To read the policy cycle as rationalism revived is to misjudge both form and intent. Debate is a wonderful thing, and we are pleased the policy cycle described in The Australian Policy Handbook (Bridgman and Davis 2000) has stimulated a response. Although we believe a critique in the June issue of the Australian Journal of Public Administration (Everett 2003) is misguided, it invites reflection on the purpose ‐ and limitations ‐ of a policy cycle approach.
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Bridgman et al. (2003) studied this question.
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