A MODEL OF MUDDLING THROUGH

As arguments about the effectiveness of ''muddling through'' have prov en frustratingly inconclusive, incrementalism-once a major approach to the study of boundedly rational policy processes-has gone dormant. In an attempt to revitalize the debate, I present a formal model of mudd ling through. The model, by clarifying the logical structure of the in formal theory, presents a clearer target for criticism. More important ly, it establishes numerous deductive results. First, some of Lindblom 's less controversial conjectures-about the benefits of seriality (rep eated attacks on the same policy problem) and redundancy (multiple dec ision makers working on the same problem)-turn out to be correct if co nflict across policy domains is absent or takes certain specified form s. But given other empirically reasonable types of conflict, even thes e claims are wrong. Second, the advantages of incremental (local) poli cy search (Lindblom's best-known and most controversial claim) turn ou t to be still less well founded: in many empirically plausible context s the claim is invalid.