The Application of General Systems Methodology to the Comparative Study of Public Policy†

The authors have three purposes in this article:—To review and critique the field of comparative policy output research, as an example of applied systems analysis; —To identify gaps in knowledge and understanding which could be foreshortened by modest conceptual and methodological adjustments suggested by general systerrts analysis; and, —To propose specific conceptual and methodological techniques to that end. Two major steps are identified as required to enable comparative policy analysis to take advantage of general systems methodology:—Adoption of various analytical tactics employing a cross-time/cross-jurisdictional (“pooled”) data matrix; and, —Methodological developments that transform the dominant form of analysis from concern with fixed independent and dependent variables to the analysis of time-relevant relationships.