Politics and Policy Archive

Welcome to Politics and Policy where you will find the latest thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the important political and public policy questions facing us as Jews and as Americans living in the ever more interdependent global village of today. Every other week you will find a new article on this page.

To access the Politics and Policy Archive, click here.

Our authors are especially interested in hearing your responses to what they have written. So after reading, visit the Politics and Policy Discussion Forum where you can join in conversation with CLAL faculty and other readers.

To join the conversation at Politics and Policy Talk, click here

Defining the Problem

By Steve Greenberg

We have been told that we - the Jews -- are disappearing, that intermarriage is up and that affiliation is down. We no longer care to belong; we have lost interest in being Jewish. The problem has been defined as a failure of steadfastness. A third to a half of us have already abandoned ship, and more are getting ready to jump. Assimilation has been defined as the problem, and the solution has been an array of programs from trips to Israel to low-cost day school education. While these responses to the perceived crisis can do no harm and have an impact on individual lives, they have failed to adequately address the first priority of policy analysis, that of problem definition.

In 1996, Eugene Bardach, of U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Public Policy, condensed his twenty years of teaching policy studies into a nifty handbook entitled The Eight-Step Path of Policy Analysis (A Handbook for Practice). The mix of intellectual insight and practical advice in the book is a perfect guide for professional and lay leaders who must act within the real world's constraints of limited time, resources and data.

The first step of Bardach's eight-step process of policy formation - the one I will be focusing on in this article -- is "Defining the Problem." Policies are often wrongheaded from the start, according to Bardach, because they poorly define the problem that they wish their policy initiatives to address. Because the step of problem definition is so intimately tied to "readings of reality," which are themselves grounded upon unexamined and deeply rooted philosophical commitments, the task of problem definition requires much more care and attention than it is often given. Very often the problem is defined within minutes by a committee, and deliberations concerning the steps to address it are thrashed about endlessly. Bardach cautions his readers to take time with this first step of problem definition in order to avoid some common pitfalls.

Pitfall #1: Don't define the solution into the problem. Often problems are constructed with solutions implicit in their formulation. "There is too little shelter for homeless families" inadvertently implies that the best solution is "more shelter." Such a formulation might inhibit thinking about ways to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.

Pitfall #2: Conditions that cause problems, while often not experienced by people in the street as particularly troublesome, are themselves excellent candidates for "problem definition." The social forces which give rise to problems can disappear into the background of deliberations and fail to be pegged as "the problem." When defining a problem in this way, it is crucial to consider not only the root conditions which might generate a problem, but also the structure of initiatives, constraints, and capabilities that hold a problem in place. Typically, this sort of problem definition requires a fairly strenuous social science research component. For example, drops in attendance at synagogues or lower levels of philanthropic giving are common problems that demand a deeper inquiry into the social conditions that are causally related.

Pitfall #3: Problem solving tends to be reactive. If the larger goal of those in the business of problem solving is communal vitality, then problems ought to be plotted upon a vision of Jewish vitality, a future imagination of yet unrealized possibilities, and not upon the smooth functioning of the status quo. If policy is always in the business of patching and fixing, then the problem of "missed opportunities" fails to grab anyone's attention. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a confining idea because it restricts the search for plausible creative opportunities. According to Bardach, there are a number of generic creative opportunities that are waiting to be exploited.

Complementarity. Two or more activities might be joined so the each might make the other more productive.
Exchange. Unrealized possibilities for exchange exist that might increase social value. Stimulating market-like arrangements between communal agencies can increase social value and serve clients better. Jewish communal campus projects have often done just this sort of thing.
Underutilized Capacity. Organizations have facilities that are utilized in limited ways. After hours use of museums, schools, or other communal facilities for communal programs is such an opportunity.
Non-Traditional Participants. Public agencies gain helpful insight when employees and clients are invited in to discuss program improvements. Inviting in "outsiders" is one way to bring fresh perspectives to any organization.
By-products of Personal Aspirations. Structuring incentives for personal advantage or satisfaction can directly result in increased social benefit. Getting local high schools to accredit a Hebrew language program benefits teenagers and the community.
Rummaging. By mentally "rummaging" through improbable but readily available resources, synergies can be found. For example, one state government created a system by which car registration carried out voter registration as well.

The poor definition of "the problem" that emerged from the 1990 population study has wasted millions of dollars. This is not to say that nothing good has come of the Jewish identity initiatives of the past ten years, but that much less has come of them than might have. Had we spent more time in the process of problem definition, had we not presumed the solution in our formulation of the problem, had we considered the social causes of disaffection more carefully, invited more "outsiders" into deliberations and exploited the emerging synergies between people's lives and Jewish tradition, we just might have gotten a good more bang for our bucks. The good news is, we still can.