CONCRETE FICTIONS AND HEGEMONIC METHODOLOGIES - DOING POLICY RESEARCHIN GOVERNMENT

Faced with having to justify programs to offices of management and bud get, government agencies generate numbers which describe expected prog ram impacts. But the assumptions or data on which these numbers are ba sed are frequently suspect, as is the utility of relying on counts and modeling techniques for evaluating the achievement of program aims. T he result is that agencies often create ''concrete fictions,'' hard nu mbers with feet of (soft) clay. Offices of management and budget are a ble to make their methodology ''hegemonic'' because agencies usually h ave to secure their approval to get funding. But imposing this methodo logy encourages agencies to use research staffs more to defend against the budget office than to help create effective programs, creates dif ferences between the expectations of government and the public, and fo sters the overrepresentation of particular interests.