1. Introduction

This entry relates Whiteheadian process thought to policy studies seeking a policy theory and method for increased global application. Its focus is on policy components and models, rather than positions, since a review of policy proposalsfor each issue area in any one political culture—let alone all—is out of the question. It seeks to explain the method of polarity and balance employed by Whitehead and Hartshorne. By seeing their work in the context of a global canon of process polarity philosophers, it seeks to transcend the identification of their thought with policy proposals for the North American context, although the latter will provide illustrations. Process thought is developed here as a resource for sorting, linking, and balancing competing policy components and networks, jurisdictions, institutions, and disciplinary perspectives on policy.

Policy roles for Whiteheadian thought are perhaps threefold. (1) Its general polarity method indicates a potential to develop a policy methodof depolarization of ideologized concepts and polarized communities, facilitating coalescence of policy networks in various issue areas. This method of polarity and balance enables it to become a resource for policymakers—in any context—interested in truly public policies. (2) Its trans-disciplinary nature helps explain the Right-Left expanding manifold of policy interests as generated by looking beyond proximate to root causes^[1] of public problems, and to distant consequences of policy decisions, lending credence to attempts to enfold movements of under-represented stakeholders within mainstream policy networks. (3) The method of balance is context-sensitive, generating results that vary with the paradigm in which it is applied. Thus, Whitehead’s cosmological framework can be employed to facilitate expanding levels of awareness (from ego to community to ecology to cosmos to ultimacy), generating policy proposals viewed as progressive from mainstream policy standpoints.

This process policy model seeks integration of “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions of policy factors. Here “vertical” means levels of participation within policy networksand levels of jurisdiction (municipal to global). “Horizontal” denotes lateral relations between domestic ideological policy networks and between makers of international and globalpolicy. A major focus is on vertical levels of participation within policy networks^[2]—government, interest groups and social movements, institutional elites, and political culture—and horizontal policy creativity between networks. Also noted is the scale of some policy issues (e.g., environmental, business, labor) indicating need for networks to link all levels of jurisdiction—local to global, nation to nation. Here, the potential for cross-ideological and international surveillance and communication necessary for truly public policy development has been aided by the forced transparency of internet-linked computers and websites.^[3]

Whiteheadian thought can be shown to seek reframing of policy issues, levels, and networks in terms of multiple disciplinary perspectivesby employing a method of polarity and balance. If social problems can be viewed as personal and group imbalance, injustice, extremes, or polarization, policy solutions can be seen to begin with depolarization and creative transformation of internal and external factors. It is suggested that a policy method consistent with the scope of process thought might be political culture transformation and balance for policy network coalescence—domestic, foreign, international, and global. Mutual transformation could be sought between polarized networks (conservative/progressive), levels (elite/popular, global/local), and regions (West/East, North/South). Also, a process view could reinforce an evolutionary view of political cultures, their transformation presupposing a time dimension—e.g. long- vs. short-range. Lastly, appreciation of policy dimensions and factors anticipates a diversity of actual Whitehead-influenced policy writing, socially located at different levels of participation and jurisdiction and within different political subcultures and networks. Members of the International Process Network, for example, could facilitate indigenized policy applications relevant to any government-in-power seeking the coalescence necessary for truly public policies.

Public policy forms a foundation for public law before it is fully enunciated. Major policy issue areas are security, criminal justice, environment, agriculture, economics and business, government operations, civil infrastructure, social, family and privacy, health, culture, and education. I wish to focus, however, not on policy debates over proposals in these areas, but on policy models that discuss components of policy and levels of participation. Some policy models discuss components outside government as well as inside; unofficial actors as well as official, macro factors as well as micro. The policy components are not only government agencies, but also policy networks, and their political subculture frameworks. Policymaking, I suggest, involves not only the levels of agenda-setting, alternative-shaping, and implementing, but also the balancing of political subcultures and cultures within which policy debates are constrained. The alternative policy models are government-autonomy, pluralist, and power elite. The levels of jurisdiction of policymaking are global and international as well as local and national.

It seems that competing public policy networks express ideologically-shaped political subcultures within a given political culture.^[4] Policy networks link policymakers at all levels of governance with lobbyists for overlappingcoalitionsof interest or advocacy groups, movement constituencies, mass media opinion-makers and front groups,^[5] think-tank policy-shapers, policy-discussion groupagenda-setters,^[6]andfoundation and corporate funders.^[7] These subculture-based networks may be considered conservative, liberal or centrist, and progressive, although the content of these ideological labels varies with political culture (nation to nation) and with insider/outsider perspective. Presumably, with some exceptions, counterparts to the components of the Right-Left U.S. policy networks portrayed here can be identified and scrutinized in other national contexts.^[8]

My portrait of policymaking synthesizes policy models of increasing scope—from government autonomy to pluralism and elitism—in the context of political cultures. Government-or state-autonomy models focus on policy contributions of government officials—executive, legislative, judicial, and administrative.^[9] Pluralist models, of which postmodernism is a type, include attention to policy factors outside government: interest groups and social movements; researchers, experts, and consultants; media and public opinion; and elections-related participants.^[10] Power elite thinking suggests that a model of three levels is needed to understand public affairs: (a) the policy agenda-setting function of elites in economic, legal, political, educational, cultural, scientific, and civic institutions; (b) the public’s endorsement of policy proposals by politicians; and (c) implementation of policy by governments.^[11] I have suggested, however, that political cultures constitute a broader or higher first level or stage—the historic social construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of the subculture frameworks presupposed by policy networks. At this level, perhaps, is where political philosophies and theologies are evolving their contribution to policy theory.^[12]

2. Overview of Policy Studies

In what sense is policymaking truly public? Is it of and by, or mostly for, the public? Does policy pluralism obtain in Western democracies, or is elitism a better description of policy making? Do we really have polyarchy,^[13] or is oligarchy a more accurate label? Do a few interests dominate? Are there no longer iron triangles, but subgovernments consisting of legislative subcommittees, executive agencies, and special interests?^[14] Is policy just politics by other means? Do policy networks function as countervailing powers to each other? Could a Whiteheadian process policy model be developed to explain and perhaps facilitate the shifting equilibrium of competing subcultures, institutions, interest groups, and politicians?^[15]

Is there any way of judging the comparative impact of socialization, education, opinion-shaping, advocacy group membership, contributing, campaigning, and voting, by contrast with the influence of lobbying, caucusing, budgeting, and other government-related functions? Are there not also indirectinfluences on policy, up-stream from governments, so to speak—the making and reshaping of political cultures, theories of political economy, philosophies of security, and ideologies—the paradigms and concepts that shape constitutions?^[16] Must not radicals of Left and Right recognize their policy influence as mostly indirect—rather than direct—in democratic regimes? Or are there ways of accelerating policy transformation?

Governance at all levels, local to global, is influenced by policy directives. A vast spectrum of private interests funnels into public policy. Policy Studies seeks to understand “the funnel,” as I call it—the complex transformation of private money, power, interest, and opinion into concepts of public opinion, interest, policy and government action. Because enormous amounts of money are channeled into government programs and the making of regulations and laws purportedly in the public interest, networks of institutions and political actors seek to manage and monitor the policymaking process in order to better justify expenditures.

Policies are plans or principles adopted to guide group decisions and actions. Public policy agendas—foreign and domestic—are made and reshaped by non-governmental as well as governmental processes and institutions. The policy development process funnels input from primary and secondary stakeholders across the ideological spectrum to government and other public authorities. Corporate and union leaders, foundations and other funders, think tanks and the academy, mass media, voters, single-interest advocacy groups and other civil society actors, political parties, and private individuals—all aspire to credible partnership with government. They seek to impact public policy as well as government in all its forms—legislative, judicial, and executive, and bureaucratic. But some are more influential than others. One incentive in the study of policy thinking might be to discover ways to make it more just, by increasing the influence of underrepresented stakeholders.

Thus, policy studies is not just for professional policymakers but also for educators, journalists, and citizens.^[17] Successful public policies proceed through a policy cycle. Policy studies can help groups and individual citizens understand and structure a cycle appropriate for their concerns. Factors in policymaking are the designing and managing of public forums, coalition-building, creating consensus, communication of complex issues to citizens and leaders, managing feedback from citizens, and working with elected officials in the design of appropriate policies, ultimately managing the decision-making process.

In general a human need not met by current policies is perceived. This initial perception can be cultivated to create an environment for change. A small group of leaders characterizes the status quo as unsatisfactory. To articulate new policy, a coalition of groups is formed—the broader the better—to characterize the urgency of action. Consensus may be achieved in the struggle to set aside differences. It is critical to have elected officials as partners. They need to be informed and involved. Proposed solutions need to be acceptable to the parties affected, and viewed as workable by elected officials and the public. The style of policymaking rhetoric is, perhaps, maximum self-consciousness in the interest of transparency.

3. Policy Models: Government-Autonomy, Pluralist, Elite Institutions

Models of the policy process can focus on non-governmentalas well as governmental components, deriving from policy studies and public administration or political science and sociology. Policy models vary in scope, focusing either on ends or means, agenda-setters or policy-makers, policy trustee elites or government officials. At one end of the spectrum, a model that focuses on proximate government policymaking can be a flow chart documenting the path by which legislative bills become laws. At the other end of the spectrum, a model can picture the plurality of institutions, groups, interests, and values involved in the identification of issues and the setting of policy agendas.

Again, diverse models of policy formation emphasize different factors. These include policy history, participation, background institutions, ideology, elite preference, governmental systems output, econometrics, processes, compromise, group equilibrium, collective decision-making by self-interested individuals, bureaucratic structure, maximizing social gain, incremental improvement of existing policies, rational choice in competitive situations, normative decisions, and muddling through.^[18] Seeking to comprehend this diversity are policy models typically classified in terms of increasing scope: government, pluralist, and elite.

Some public policy models assume government-autonomy or focus on government institutions. These include systems theory which takes an input/output perspective. Generic process theories seek to identify stages of policy development within government agencies. Pluralist theories^[19] emphasize the networks of interest groups that shape governance. In addition to the dominant rational choice and game theories, pluralism includes the public choice focus on self-interested individuals, and the rationalism of utilitarian calculation of the greatest good for the greatest number. They also include postmodern theory and group theory—the checking, balancing, and shifting equilibrium of groups in competition. Employing the spider-web symbol, I suggest that the radii can represent interests, and the rings can represent ideological networks, radiating outward from government. The ring closest to the center represents the party in power (eg., conservative, liberal, or progressive) and its ideological prioritizing of core values (eg., order, liberty, equality).

A third set of theories investigates such non-governmental factorsas economics, class, and institutional leadership.^[20] This power elite perspective^[21] presents evidence for oligarchy in the interlocking leadership of institutions—economic, governmental, cultural. This becomes a class-domination theory when G. William Domhoff^[22] presents evidence for the upper-class backgrounds of a majority of U.S. institutional elites. A traditional Marxist perspective would emphasize the “two-interest” struggle of labor and capital to shape policy. This view trades on the distinction between agenda-setting and policy shaping/implementing. It does not necessarily imply that outside interests control politicians. But although “the buck stops” on the president’s desk, it starts somewhere outside government. Also, the hundreds of policies may follow different paths from agenda-setting to implementation, some paths longer than others.

Thomas Dye holds that each of the models of public policymaking provides a useful perspective and none is complete or best,^[23] yet he develops a version of the elite institutionalist model. Presumably all actual policy decisions are made by elites. But different policy models might reflect disciplinary and sub-disciplinary interests. Or they might single out ideological differences in the weighting of various institutional inputs. Finally they might reflect different judgments as to the extent of popular representation and influence.

Postmodern policy theorists Charles Fox and Hugh Miller^[24] indicate a spectrum of policy talk: anarchic, pluralist, and elitist—”many talk,” “some talk,” and “few talk.” They strategize and illustrate pluralism (“some-talk”). But I wish to employ these distinctions also to suggest stages of development of public policy consciousness, thus combining the three families of policy models. Anybody can talk politics or act out in protest (anarchic), but discipline and moderation are required to unite interest groups (pluralism) and (elite) funding around an issue for successful translation into public policy.

A policy proposal emerges, initially, from the partial array of prioritized values or ideals within a perspective, political theory, political philosophy, or ideology. While the latter three terms can be given distinct meanings, they at least overlap, and can be shown to refer to the same phenomena—varieties of conservatism, liberalism, and progressivism.^[25] Within the constraints of a political culture or subculture, to the extent that the policy-making milieu is truly public, truly democratic, these private policy ideals, I suggest, will be exposed to “the full circle” (Whitehead) of competing ideals and policy proposals that incorporate them. Public policy thinking requires realism, presumably, to imagine modifications of the alleged implications of private policies in the context of this wider array of ideals and alternative priorities.

Policy issues can be entertained by almost anyone anywhere, but the study of policy-making, nation-specific or comparative, is interested, perhaps, in identifying the levers of power needed for establishing government mandates—regulative and de-regulative, distributive and redistributive. If domestic policy-making occurs within the context of a political culture or subculture,^[26] foreign policies are similarly constrainedby global conditions, structural theories in international relations would say. Each nation, small or large, seeks to maximize security and wealth by identifying its role in a uni-polar, bi-polar, or multi-polar configuration of global power blocs and their ideological values.^[27] Different policies are all designed to achieve the same goals.

Policy proposals by representatives of competing ideologies and political subcultures will be advanced within the constraints of a given political culture. Presumably, the political culture of each nation is a unique mix of values and interests—conservative, liberal, and progressive. A range of policy-making variables would presumably exist within totalitarian and autocratic regimes as well, though narrower.

While proximate policy thinking presupposes the value mix of a given political culture, policy issues are also addressed from the perspectives of philosophies, religions, theologies, and ethics. These wider paradigms may introduce questions about alternative mixes of values. Resources are thus available for reshaping political cultures in terms of alternative paradigms of political discourse, realigned institutional policy networks, ranges of acceptable policy proposals, and thus actual policy mandates.

4. Four Levels of Policy Components

A representative of the pluralist policy model states that “Policymaking is a messy business. It entails more than the traditional policy cycle discussed in most textbooks. And it involves more than presidents and members of Congress. Judges, bureaucrats, corporate leaders, journalists, and voters all influence and participate in the process, and at all levels of government. Each group practices a different kind of politics, which very often results in different policies and outcomes.”^[28] So while the most intensive focus of policy studies is on governmental processes, some scholarship and some research institutes include macro-factors that shape political culture. Policy studies can focus on minute details of policy-making at the end of the long policy process in democratic regimes. But a range of wider-gauged factors is acknowledged to contribute to the transformation of private opinion and prejudice into public-minded opinion suitable for policy-consideration. Thus we can conclude that policy-talk occurs at a number of levels: from (level 1) political philosophy and theology, social and political science, and studies of ideology, to (level 2) corporate and private foundations, policy-discussion groups, and think tanks, to (level 3) mass media, public opinion, interest groups and social movements, and politics; and finally to (level 4) government.

Various images can be used to picture the policy process. Elite theory has been pictured with a pyramid and a tree. In the pyramid image, the elite is at the top, government is in the middle, and the masses are at the bottom. With the tree image, the trunk represents the elite, the branches stand for the power of government, and the twigs are the masses.^[29]

I wish to employ the images of an hourglassand afunnel to picture the diversity of policy inputs and the inevitable narrowingandfocusing of thought necessary for public policies, regulations, laws, and actions. As sand in an hourglass is forced into and through a narrow passage, so a vast array of private assumptions and opinions is narrowed into public opinion, or else ignored, as policy is shaped by selected strands of opinion. Then, just as the hourglass is inverted to continue the flow of sand, so policy is tested in practice in the conflict of groups, reexamined, revised, reshaped, perhaps replaced by an incoming regime. But does the analogy hold? Does all policy-talk factor into action, as all grains of sand pass through the hourglass?

The various levels at which policy thinking occurs can also be symbolized as a funnelsin four sections. The sections represent, from the top, (level 1) the historic making and reshaping of political cultures, (level 2) elite policy agenda setting, (level 3) the pluralist focus on a diversity of policy interests, and (level 4) governmental policy making.^[30]

In the bottom fourth of the funnel (level 4) are pictured the inter-governmental and governmental policy components (executive, legislative, judiciary, and bureaucracy; local, state, national, international, and global). Above that, reaching toward the middle of the funnel (level 3) are pictured political parties, party-funders, interest groups and social movements, nongovernmental organizations, public opinion, and mass media that shape policy agendas. Above that (level 2), are the institutions that, according to elite theory, set policy agendas—think tanks, policy-planning groups, foundations and corporations. In the top fourth of the funnel (level 1) are pictured the policy experts, “epistemic communities,”^[31] and the components that shape political culture.

I do not wish to imply that educationis the most powerful institution, just that education contains a symbolic representation of the broadest array of factors that form and transform political culture: political science, management theory, public and private organization theory, economics, political ideologies, international relations, social theory, sociology, world history and historiography, social and political philosophy, philosophy of social science, natural sciences and technology. Vertical dotted lines running through the funnel (top to bottom) portray the channeling and narrowing of issues through the policy networks of the ideological subcultures.

A note about the relevance of social movements to public policy is warranted. A relationship between social movements and public policy has long been assumed but is “under-studied” and “under-theorized,” a “process involving multiple stakeholders in policy making […] acknowledging the very different organizational cultures of activists and public policy makers.”^[32] Mutual influence between activist efforts and the policy process, between protest and policy, has been postulated,^[33] in which “[s]tate policies are […] both the cause and the consequence of citizen politics.”^[34] Though scholars have assumed that social movements play a role in policy agenda setting, movements’ influence in shaping policy alternatives and effect on the implementation process is also being studied.^[35] A recent publication states that “equitable public policies have been typically created as a result of the political pressure brought to bear by social movements.”^[36]

Social movements have been defined as “collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents and authorities,” but they need to be distinguished from interest groups and political parties.^[37] The domain of social movements may be local, national, or transnational.^[38] The scope of social movements may be reformist (e.g. abortion-rights) or radical (e.g. civil rights, Polish Solidarity). The type of changesought has been innovative (technological) or conservative. U.S. conservatism, for example, has been viewed as a movement that took about fifty years to triumph.^[39] The focusmay be individual life change (e.g. religious) or social change (e.g. heading toward political party status). Methods may be peaceful (Gandhi, King) or violent (Irish Republican Army, Irgun, PLO^[40]). Typically an initiating event or sequence provides a catalyst for change (Rosa Parks). “There must also be polarizing differences between groups of people.”^[41] Lastly, movements have a life cycle—creation, growth, success, or failure and dissolution.

5. Policy Networks

Public policy-talk is interdisciplinary and occurs at many levels and in all types of regimes. Policy-talk occurs in the contexts of philosophy, ethics, theology, and social science, as well as policy studies and government policy making. It occurs in authoritarian as well as democratic regimes and at all levels—local, state, national, international, and global. The question is always to what extent policy is truly public and not one-sidedly private. The policy process funnels input from various institutions and individuals linked by ideological networks into proximate governmental policymaking contexts. I take it that most policy proposals will be self-interested or public in name only, some will be public in intent, perhaps some will genuinely approximate public interest and the common good. Policy agendas, I take it, are decided, debated, and enacted mostly by institutional elites, but truly popular, truly public input is possible, though difficult. The public dimension of policy may be elastic, reflecting variability in opportunities to mobilize pluralist, populist alternatives to oligarchic solutions.

Philosophy, ethics, and public policy are studied by a number of centers and programs.^[42] The relation of religious and theological interests to public policy is studied by another set of centers and programs.^[43] Ideological shaping of political culture and policy has been measured.^[44] Studies relating public policy to the wider world of political theory and the concerns of political sciencecan be found.^[45] Questions about the foundation fundingof policy think tanks are addressed.^[46] The impact of think tankson policy is now quite heavily researched.^[47] Also the role of mass media in shaping public opinion relevant to policy matters is studied,^[48] as is the diversity of public opinion.^[49]

Policy Studies can investigate the political culture contexts that transform public opinion into policy.^[50] Evidence for and against pluralist and elite policy theory can be examined.^[51] Policy proposals are discussed continuously in political magazines.^[52] Interest or advocacy groups lobby on behalf of numerous “subpublics” and around many issues.^[53] The direct study of government policy processes is a major preoccupation of proximate policy studies.^[54]

Though my examples come mostly from the U.S. policy context, comparative policy studies are available to test the extent to which the U.S. model is being imported or modified by other countries. International policy thinking can be explored using the World Directory of Think Tanks hosted by the National Institute for Research Advancement.^[55] To the extent that other nations replicate the U.S. model, power elite research can be encouraged for other national contexts following, for example, William Domhoff’s method of power structure analysis.^[56]

It is said that the dominant, mainstream, U.S. policy power structure had long been liberal, centrist, center-left—now calling itself neo-progressive; but has been surpassed in recent decades by a rapidly-developing center-right, conservative, neoconservative, libertarian policy coalition.^[57] Conservatives say that because of inhospitality to conservative ideas in mainstream institutions, they had to forge a new counter-establishment infrastructure,^[58] “changing the climate of opinion” through think tanks and media, and by organizing students, faculty, citizens, politicians, and persons of faith.^[59] Fusionism is a term that conservatives use to explain their powerful coalition with libertarians in the U.S. and U.K.^[60] Also, a progressive, left-of-center, liberal-labornetwork of policy interests parallels the mainstream institutions, but is vastly smaller, perhaps 2-5% of the population, and the nature of its influence on proximate policy making is debatable. A 2003 report on media citations of think tanks, for example, found “an increasing focus on centrist to conservative voices, leaving progressives out of the debate.”^[61] Are progressives left out, or did they long ago excuse themselves from the policy process? To what extent, if at all, or at what level do they interact with the liberal and conservative policy networks? Political economic truth is one thing, but “actionable” policy is another.

In the U.S. public policy system, for example, arguably fewer than 10,000 elites in overlapping institutional positions set policy agendas that are later shaped in public debate and enacted by government officials. A portrait of the mainstream power structure, identifying representative organizations in each ideologically-shaped policy network can be quite easily sketched. Just supplement the progressive power elite research of Thomas Dye^[62] and William Domhoff^[63] with conservative Derk Wilcox’s Right Guide^[64] and Left Guide,^[65] interest group research, a media watch magazine’s comparative survey of think tank citations, a history of neoconservatism, and a conservative-watcher’s website.^[66]

Again, perhaps the dominant U.S. policy network, historically, has been centrist, center-left, liberal, welfare liberal, now neoliberal or “neoprogressive.” Perhaps the dominant U.S. policy influence now is conservative, center-right, neoconservative, and libertarian (or classical liberal). An older progressive, left-of-center, liberal-labor subculture in the U.S. sustains many small organizations whose leadership publishes policy statements on social and environmental responsibility, economic and social justice, multiculturalism and civil rights, education and freedom of expression, and nonviolence.

6. Political Culture and Public Policy

Are philosophy and theology impossibly distant from the give-and-take of policy lobbying and negotiation? Not if a discussion of political culture is relevant to public policy. If sociologist Peter Berger is right about the historically-constructed nature of all things social,^[67] can history and political science tell us anything about the pace of transformation of political cultures? When might it be practical to reconsider the concepts of ultimate realty and value presupposed by a political culture? Is this not what the conservative movement did in the U.S. in the last half of the twentieth century? They eventually reset the agenda—to private sector solutions and family and faith-based values. Either they reshaped the political culture, or tipped the balance to one subculture within it. Did they get it right, or only half right? Can the reshaping continue? Might a better balance include nature, science, other cultures, and other religions?

Public policies reflect political cultures and subcultures, says political scientist James Q. Wilson.^[68] The polarization of political subcultures and ideological policy networks are related. I suggest that policy-relevant thought might include analyses of political cultures as well as policy theory and proposals. A function of political philosophers and theologians might be seen as analyzing and reframing concepts presupposed within political cultures and subcultures in addition to proposing and shaping specific policies.

Political culture is said to be “the inherited set of beliefs, attitudes, and opinions [people] have about how their government ought to operate.”^[69] Sources of political culture, at least in the U.S., “include the family, schools, religious and civic organizations, the mass media, and political activities.”^[70] Or, more broadly, political culture is a nation’s political philosophy, consisting of beliefs about “how governmental, political, and economic life should be carried out.”^[71] “Political cultures create a framework for political change and are unique to nations, states, and other groups.”^[72] But a distinction is drawn between political culture and ideology, in that “people can disagree on an ideology (what government should do) but still share a common political culture.”^[73] “Some ideologies”, however, “are so critical of the status quo that they require a fundamental change in the way government is operated, and therefore embody a different political culture as well.”^[74] Perhaps liberal regimes tolerate so much diversity that some radicals of Left and Right live in very different political subcultures from those that shape and implement policy.

Analyses of the policy process investigate institutional decision-making and behavior. Governments and other institutions make decisions and take actions based on policies that presuppose constitutions, mission statements, ideological assumptions, or other regime-legitimating factors. Policies are shaped autocratically or democratically by elites who may represent public opinion and the public interest selectively or broadly, thinly or deeply, wisely or foolishly. Policy studies in a comparative government context could, in principle, compare and contrast policy processes in a variety of regimes—autocratic as well as democratic, collectivist as well as individualist, developing as well as developed, Asian and Middle Eastern as well as Western; Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic as well as Marxist and neoliberal.

Public policy thinking, perhaps, can be characterized as the attempt to coalesce competing expressions of the interests of political cultures and subcultures.^[75] Perhaps we can do no other than express what we believe is for the common good, based on the values of our communities and the perspectives of our disciplines and professions. But some political cultures are dominant and others are marginal. For example, security policies that are thinkable in Oslo, Stockholm, or Bonn are perhaps not possible in Washington, Moscow, or Baghdad; or perhaps environmental policies that are thinkable in cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Monica, Arcata, Santa Fe, or Burlington, are not possible in Los Angeles, nor at state, national, and international levels.

7. Global Policymaking

Piecemeal global policy making^[76] seems to fill the void left by the realist veto on global government, and modifications of traditional positions in international relations (IR) theory are being made. If classical realism denies the possibility of transnational government, neorealism is modified to account for the effects of a real international structure on the security calculations of states. If liberalism inspired international institutions like the U.N. and its global policy-making, neoliberalism stresses policies for economic and technological globalization. Againstthe focus on nation-states and security issues in the “realism/neorealism orthodoxy,” neoliberalism stresses mixed-actor models that include inter- and trans-national organizations, NGOs, MNCs, and other non-state actors. Critical Theory and Postmodernism in IR theory critique both the “closure” of the realist “anarchy problematique” and the Enlightenment remedies of the liberalisms. They seek “new possibilities of socio-political transformations” by situating IR in the broader context of social, political, cultural, philosophical, and literary studies.^[77]

So what can be said about policymaking at the global level? The questions might be: global governance or global government? de facto or de jure? centralized, decentralized, or virtual? Governance is “the complex set of values, norms, processes, and institutions by which society manages its development and resolves conflict, formally and informally. It involves the state, but also the civil society at the local, national, regional and global levels.”^[78] A British realist school of international relations pioneered the study of “international society” as consisting of laws, diplomacy, organizations, and balance of power arrangements. The study of global governance, it seems, is the investigation of ways in which international society elites make policies that address transnational issues.

De facto global governance has long existed, despite the “sidelining” of proposals for de jure world government. Whether or not the U.N. is ever reformed, strengthened, or superceded, policies effecting persons and communities in every nation have been and are being made—technological, economic, financial, corporate, military, medical, environmental, cultural, linguistic, educational, religious, and philosophical. The patchwork of efforts at global governance, actual and theoretical, has been chronicled.^[79] It includes the following: World Bank and I.M.F. (Bretton Woods), U.N. Charter, World Federalist Association, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, World Conference on Religion and Peace, James Tobin’s global tax concept, World Resources Institute, Brandt Commission, Montreal Protocol, Commission on Global Governance, Agenda 21, W.T.O., BIONET, Green Cross, consensus statements like Our Common Future and Our Global Neighborhood, International Criminal Court, Charter for Global Democracy (Charter 99), Earth Charter, Kyoto Protocol, and other landmarks.

Also, the related notion of virtual global government^[80]has been approached, in both senses of “virtual” (1) in actual effect though not in name and (2) electronic global communications and transportation. Might each interest area be said to generate its own global governance network, its own “coalition of the willing?” Internet communications make feasible the rapid coordination of policy proposals at all levels of governance: rural and urban, state or provincial, national, international, and global. In the derived meaning of “virtual,” global policies—international, cross-cultural, inter-faith, and inter-ideological—can now be studied, developed, and communicated with increasing ease. Information about many policy conflicts can now be accessed on the Web and coalitions mobilized by email: for example, issues relating to global public goods, international relations, clash of civilizations, terrorism, interfaith conflict, and comparative criminal justice systems. If the internet is “a massive network of networks,” might it not be said to enhance the possibility of coordinating the affairs of a massive “community of communities of communities”?

Global policy institutes have developed the concepts of “global public policy networks” and “global governance.” The Global Public Policy Institute develops Wolfgang Reinicke’s concept of “global public policy networks.” This notion involves “a mixed approach to global management in which states, corporations, NGOs, regional and international organizations, and coalitions cooperate.”^[81] This is similar to the concept of “global civil society” developed at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance^[82] of the London School of Economics. Global civil society involves the coordination of “transnational civil society actors,” meaning international organizations and multinational companies.

The GPPI facilitates the creation of “strategic communities” through the development of “networks and partnerships” that address “trans-national, public policy problems that defy single-actor solutions.” It involves advising many types of organizational stakeholders—private, public, and non-profit—on a given issue, for example, labor, health, environment, etc. The work involves consulting, workshops, conferences, and publications addressing the concerns of government agencies, international organizations, foundations, NGOs, corporations, other civil society organizations, and the broader public. Attempts are made to provide “strategies for operating in the new governance environment.”

The Institute for Global Policy develops the “global governance” ideas of the World Federalist Movement. Its statement of purpose advances the notion of subsidiarity as a basic federalist principle. If federalism originally promoted a balance of local and national levels, world federalism extends the context to include a balance between national and global levels, between national self-determination and common humanity (i.e., global). Subsidiarity affirms the wisdom of the “solving of problems at the level at which they occur, in general at the most local level possible.” But this implies the need for “institutions to deal with problems which can only be treated adequately at the global level.” World institutions need to be created, or existing ones invested with legal and political authority.^[83]

8. Whiteheadian Process Thought Contributions to Levels of Public Policy Thinking

What might be the relation of Whiteheadian thinking to the world of public policymaking? Can anything be said to explain the congruity of the polarity/balance method of process thought with the policy proposals process thinkers actually generate? If public policy-making is constrained by political culture and subculture, as James Q. Wilson suggests, policy proposals will differ from nation to nation. If Randall Morris is right to see Whitehead and Hartshorne as products of an Anglo-American liberal tradition, is the policy relevance of process thought limited to this tradition, this nation, or nations shaped by this tradition? If the Whiteheadian bibliographies^[84] relevant to public policy indicate a tendency to support Western liberal and progressive movements, is there nothing in Whitehead for the conservative majority?

If we look at the dipolar method employed by Whitehead and theorized by Hartshorne, do we not find an insight that, in principle, could be applied in all cultures, integrating issues and information across ideological and national as well as disciplinary lines? We can suggest that Whitehead represents an alternative Western tradition with counterparts in other cultures and traditions—Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Jewish, and Islamic. There is a growing reception of Whitehead in political cultures anciently shaped by Yin-Yang thinking and/or reshaped by the Hegelian dialectics of Marx. Consider, for example, the enthusiastic embrace of Whitehead by a current Chinese government policymaker^[85] and others positioned to remake Chinese education policy.

Observers might be forgiven if they presumed that Whiteheadian thought lies outside the domains of public policy. However, A. H. Johnson analyzes Whitehead’s social thought as combining themes from metaphysics of civilization, philosophy of history and religion, social philosophy, and philosophy of education. Whiteheadian thought has influenced political philosophy, political theology, sociological theory, social ethics, philosophy of law and international relations, ecological economics, and philosophy of technology. If Process political and economic work is mostly theoretical, perhaps realism can be encouraged by considering its relevance to the policy process.

Whitehead’s influence on public policy is, thus far, perhaps largely indirect. A few Whitehead-influenced scholars have been close to government (Charles Malik, Samuel Beer and Warren Copeland). But undoubtedly, much Whiteheadian scholarship has remained in the background, influencing the shape of liberal and progressive opinion, coalescing with other philosophical and theological shapers of themes, debates, options, and priorities on a wide range of domestic and international issues. Increasingly, process themes have been identified and developed in a wide range of disciplines, bringing process thought closer to policy areas in political science, economics, sociology, psychology, law, and environmental science. If process thought could be identified as containing a method of third-way mediation of polarized positions, it could perhaps play a role in policy-making. For example, it could reinforce a paradigm alternative to the individualist/collectivist polarization that many presume has been settled in terms of individualism.

The milieu of Whiteheadians is academic—transdisciplinary, philosophical and theological. Only a few process writings thus far have been self-consciously policy-oriented. These have appropriately argued the Whiteheadian alternative to the metaphysics of the dominant political culture and applied Whiteheadian insights to selected policy issues. But they have not established a policy theory. Nevertheless, many issue areas of public policy have been addressed from the process perspective and could be tailored for entry into the give-and-take of public policy debate. Existing institutes of philosophy-and-policy and theology-and-policy^[86] might provide models for extending the policy relevance of the International Process Network and the new “Distributed Whitehead Network.”^[87]

9. Process Polarity Method and Public Policy

The vast breadth and diversity of positions in the academy and popular opinionare narrowed and refined by the realism of the policymaking process. The question is whether the narrowing is just—truly representative of public interests and the relative importance of each issue. As an aid to appreciating and reinforcing the policy process, I wish to discuss the polarity method employed by Whitehead and theorized by Hartshorne to entail a praxis of moderation.^[88] I will then note correlations in policy studies.

That is, if polarity is the deep structure of the cosmos and polarization is historically the tendency of the human condition, depolarization and balance can be a method of process thought, applicable to normative corrections. Polarity positions in metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics are fairly well documented in process literature. Perhaps the polar aspect of positions in process political thought are less apparent—though the availability of versions of communitarianism illustrate the potential.^[89]

Whiteheadian thought could be employed to reframe policy issues, levels, and networks grounded in a method of descriptive polarity [ employing its concepts of “dipolarity,” “ultimate contrasts,” “ideal opposites,” and “asymmetry;”and prescriptive depolarization, employing such concepts as “balance” and “moderation.” As relevant to policy network coalescence, I point to the views of Paul Kuntz, Austin Lewis, and Wilmon Sheldon who reaffirmed what Whitehead said about civilization’s need for both order and change, which I take to be core values of conservatism and progressivism, respectively.

In Process and Reality, Whitehead writes that “the process of becoming is dipolar” (PR 45). He employs such notions as ideal opposites (PR, V, Ch. 1), mental/physical dipolarity (PR 277), divine dipolarity (PR 342-51), bipolarity (PR, 108), poles, sides, balance (PR 278), and contrasts (PR 24). In Adventures of Ideas he writes the universe is dual, “[t]hroughout the universe there reigns the union of opposites” (190). Harmony and mathematical relations are exemplifications of an interconnectedness that “transforms the manifoldness of the many into the unity of the one” (AI 150). The policy process, I suggest, funnels manifold interests and perspectives into one position temporarily. Immediately, the evaluation of policy begins the policy cycle all over again.

Connecting West and East, process theologian John B. Cobb, Jr. has discussed parallels between Whiteheadian and traditional Chinese philosophies.^[90] “They share a style of thinking in terms of polarities as over against the dualistic model of thought so common in the West.”^[91] Instead of dualism, these traditions hold that “The world is full of opposites, but these opposites are co-present in all things or events” (1984, 45). Cobb says, “Chinese perceptions of Yin and Yang and Whitehead’s description of the dipolarity of all events can be seen as complementary ways of grasping and expressing the deepest rhythm of the universe as process” (1984, 46). Cobb adds that “Each species of event can be seen as a particular unity of Yin and Yang or of physicality and mentality” (1984, 46-47). “These particular polarities,” he writes, “reflect in distinguishable ways the deeper polarity within all events” (1984, 45-46).

In Creative Synthesis and Philosophical Method Hartshorne said, “polarities are ultimate” (99). He wrote the following: “[T]he general rule I call the principle of inclusive contrast” (90); “This pattern, symmetry within an overall asymmetry, we meet again and again” (210); “the philosopher’s ultimate calling […]is to transcend […]warring exaggerations […]. Half-truths treated as truths yield stunning paradoxes and arouse vigorous opposition (coming especially from those wedded to contrary half-truths)”(96). Hartshorne characterizes philosophy as a middle way in Wisdom as Moderation.^[92] Here the family of working principles includes polarity and contrast (6), unity of contraries (x), balance (3), harmony (2), moderation and middle way (iii), moderation as judiciousness (4), avoiding extremes (6), good as a mean (1), golden mean as where truth lies (5), and beauty as a mean (1). “The idea of the judicious mean is applicable not only in ethics and aesthetics but also in […] metaphysics” (22-23) and other areas of philosophy (15), political philosophy (30, 44), environmental ethics (48), economics (35), everyday life (29), marriage (2), diet (39), etc. He discusses failures of “political moderation” (44-47).

My own way of putting it^[93] is that six metaphysical hypotheses in world philosophy seek to conceptualize all experience. The experience each conceptualizes makes each very powerful, tempting, and thus perennial. But two pairs of views I wish to interpret as extreme and two as mediating. As nihilism and pluralism are forms of anti-realismit is difficult to live them out consistently. Being reductionistic, the two monistic substance theories of materialism and idealism have a hard time accounting for each other’s evidence. Dualism juxtaposes these distorted and polarized monisms. Polarity event theories depolarize and creatively integrate the experience-bases absolutized in the four extreme conceptualities. Ultimate reality likely cannot be contained in human conceptuality, but perhaps some of the triple-aspect ultimate concepts of the polarity tradition, East and West, come closer. Among these are Tai-chi (Tao-Yin-Yang), Being-Nothing-Becoming, and Being/Supreme Being/Beings. Whitehead’s “Category of the Ultimate” (PR, 21) includes Creativity-One-Many, or Creativity-God-World.

Process thought can be conceived, then, as a third-way method of mediation applicable to polarized issues in philosophy, theology, and other disciplines. Additional terms characterizing the method of process thinkers in the global canon might be relationality, evolution, coincidence-of-opposites, paradox, self-reference, Zen Prajna logic, qualified non-dualism, perspectivism, mutual transformation, creative advance, dialectic, and justice.^[94]

As applied to public policy, I am developing Hartshorne’s interpretation of process philosophy as the wisdom of the middle way—moderation. To reinforce this interpretation, I appeal to Paul Kuntz who saw Whitehead’s thought as reconciling the liberal/conservative antithesis, as a middle course between individualism and collectivism, as diverging from Burke and Marx, and as primarily liberal insofar as it is too conservative for radicals, too radical for conservatives.^[95] Austin Lewis, likewise, views Whitehead’s social philosophy as embodying both conservative and progressive aims in mutually-transforming ways.^[96] This view is reinforced by Wilmon Sheldon who said “order-process are polar opposites,”^[97] and the process metaphysic “introduces […] harmony between the old and the new, between conservatism and progress.^[98] I have tried to reinforce this observation about the complementarity of conservatism, liberalism, and progressivism at the level of their combined core values, not, of course, their perspectival policies.^[99] I would suggest that the presupposition that polarity underlies polarization might lead to different conclusions about where and how to restore the balance—by emphasizing progressive or liberal, or conservative solutions.

Many of us are tempted to rush to single-concept reductive explanations in science, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and ideology. We inherit a spectrum of alternatives pre-shaped by the history of world thought, polarized into the following competing views: idealism vs. materialism, theism vs. naturalism, faith vs. reason, rationalism vs. empiricism, deontology vs. consequentialism, conservatism vs. progressivism. While dualism creates uneasy combinations of these seemingly opposed views, polarity thinking seeks to show their organic relatedness to each other.

Process political theory has understood a number of contrasts as polarized elements of structural asymmetries: metaphysical realism/idealism, order/change, coercive/persuasive power (hard/soft), individualism/collectivism, and premodernism/modernism. By accepting the Hartshorne-Sheldon-Kuntz-Lewis interpretation, it can perhaps be extended to mediate other polarizations of the conservative/progressive type, such as privatization/nationalization, globalism/localism, libertarianism/egalitarianism, economism/statism, and economy first!/Earth first!

The polarity method of Hartshorne and Whitehead, it seems to me, can help explain one of the functions of public policy, namely, depolarization. Kenneth Dolbeare identifies three constraints on U.S. policymaking—value priorities or ideologies, economic and social structures, and world problems of the day. Policy derives partly from the competition between “two polar-opposite sets of conflicting positions” (Dolbeare 1982, 14). The “two poles of opinion” in the U.S. context involve “contrasting versions of the values of freedom and equality” (1982, 31). For selected policy issues, Dolbeare portrays a “continuum of conflict” (1982, 95). For example, on the issue of inflation, he identifies three categories of analysis (government, economy, external forces). “Three schools of thought,” he says, “take consistent positions in each category, reflecting positions on the right, center, and left of the ‘continuum of conflict’” (1982, 94). James Lester and Joseph Stewart portray the policy system as generating policy outputs derived by “Policy Brokers” from the strategies of two competing policy coalitions. This pictures “the interaction of competing ‘advocacy coalitions’ within a policy subsystem/community” in the theory of policy change and learning of Paul Sabatier (1996, 140-41).

My suggestion is that if the vision of dipolarity in Whitehead supports the method of harmony and balance theorized by Hartshorne, these can be said to lend support to group equilibrium and generic process models of policymaking at any level of society, local to global. In principle, they could be employed within any policy network in any nation to encourage the coalition-building, compromise, and consensus necessary for policy that is truly public. I take it that there are many levels of the public and many “subpublics”—from each individual, to families, neighborhoods, cities, counties, states, nations, international regions, and the global level. Process polarity thought allows us to see that the concept of the public lures persons and groups beyond themselves, transforming identities into a larger “self” or community. In principle this public lure draws all together into one life sustained by one earth. “The many become one and are increased by one” within each person and group. Realistically we know the inertia of varieties of false ultimates that limit the vision, but internationalism, ecological thinking, and spirituality lure us beyond group egoisms of gender, class, ethnicity, tribe, nation, and civilization.

10. Process Thought Inside and Outside the Box: Process and Political Culture

The dilemma, as I see it, is that direct influence on public policy requires that one play by the rules. Otherwise one is consigned to “the remote margins of political debate,” as Noam Chomsky writes (The Chomsky Reader, 1987, 136), or dismissed as operating “outside the spectrum of thinkable thought” (131). Chomsky asserts what textbook authors Dye and Domhoff document, that “the design and formulation of political programs—candidate selection, the requisite material support, educational efforts or propaganda—are the domain of relatively narrow privileged elites” (132). Apparently the only option to conceding that “elite groups can act without popular constraints” (124) is to agitate for an “aroused public” (126) in opposition to educational institutions that “serve power and privilege” (126).

Whiteheadian thought, it seems to me, is relevant to both sides of this dilemma. On the one hand, process thought gives us concepts to discuss ways of re-balancing the framework of political cultures and ideological systems (Chomsky, 1987, 127). On the other hand, it can encourage balance in policy making within any given public policy system, within the range of the thinkable, “within the ideological mainstream” (130). By the same token it can be employed also to propose balanced policies within competing policy networks. Thus, it seems, a Whiteheadian policy method could be free to be employed on both sides of all issues. The outcomes we seek require balancing of forces on both sides of polarized issues.

Think again about the Anglo-American liberal tradition of philosophers Whitehead and Hartshorne, and the current identification of their thought with a type of postmodernism. Is it possible or not to think beyond one’s socialization, culture, and history; outside the box as well as in, objectively as well as subjectively, realistically as well as idealistically? Are political philosophy, science, and policy slaves of ideology, or is critical thinking genuinely possible? Also, how easy is it to decipher a political culture? Scholarship indicates, says James Q. Wilson, that, for example, the political culture consensus of the U.S. includes such values as individualism, liberty, equal opportunity, rule of law, and civic duty. G. William Domhoff adds laissez-faire liberalism, free enterprise, competition, and minimum reliance on government, indicating their philosophical origins in Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith.^[100]

But then how, for example, do we understand the rise of conservatism in the U.S. in the last fifty years? Have conservatives changed the political culture, or just shifted the balance? Before the conservative reaction to the 1960s, historian Clinton Rossiter had argued that the U.S. tradition is both deeply conservative and deeply liberal, “progressive and traditional, idealistic and realistic, experimental and conventional, anxious to see the future and concerned to honor the past.”^[101] U.S. political thought is predominantly liberal, but U.S. political practice is conservative (78), he said. Though its dominant political tradition has been liberal, conservatism has been “gaining strength slowly over the long haul” (96). U.S. liberalism rests on a foundation of conservatism (96). “The American ideal exalts equality and decries class; American reality sacrifices equality to liberty and assumes the natural existence of class,” but perhaps a “fluid, flexible, and open-ended class” (81).

The possibility of a healthy competition and cooperation between conservative and liberal values is, I believe, captured by Deborah Stone in the concept of policy paradox (Stone 1997, 8-15). I believe she represents this vision in a way that is compatible with the polarity method of process thought. Stone writes:

Equity, efficiency, liberty, security, democracy, justice, and other such goals are only aspirations for a community, into which people read contradictory interpretations. But while the interpretations divide people, the aspirations unite us. The process of trying to imagine the meaning of a common goal and fitting one’s own interpretation to that image is a centripetal [unifying] force (1997, 380).

In clashes of fundamental paradigms and goals Stone proposes a balance that includes both elements. She contrasts this paradox “model of reasoning” with the monistic either/or “rationality model,” generating a “polis” alternative to the market model of society and its “production” model of policy making. In the polis model of society, for example, public interest can be served as well as self-interest (33). “Is there a Liberty-Equality Trade-Off? […] Liberty itself can be equalized” (129). “Is There a Liberty-Security Trade-Off? […] Security creates true liberty” (127). “Is There a Security-Efficiency Trade-Off? […] Human productivity increases with increased security” (107). “Is There an Equality-Efficiency Trade-Off? Redistribution does not stifle experimentation and innovation […]” (84).

My own way of putting it is that the differing core values of conservatism, liberalism, and progressivism can be integrated and are not incompatible,^[102] but policies derived exclusively from one ideology’s value priorities will conflict with others. Alternatively, the ideologies within the common political culture might be said to have common values, though setting different priorities on them. Policy conflict reflects the conflicting priorities. To simplify, suppose we single out the values of liberty, equality, and order. The conservative ranking is said to be order, liberty, and equality. Perhaps then the liberal ranking would be liberty, equality, and order, and the progressive ranking would be equality, liberty, and order. Communist priorities might have ended up as order, equality, liberty. Thus, a process policy method might picture the constant regaining of balance between core values that is regularly lost when policy is overtaken by the priorities of one ideological subculture—conservative, liberal, or progressive.

I would contend that the polarity method of Hartshorne and Whitehead could be employed to model the encouragement of policy coalescence by integrating core values of the competing ideologies. From the polarity perspective, justice is a mediating value, working to balance the competing values of liberty, equality, and order. To each its due. It would lend support to the mediation of liberty and equality by justice so clearly stated, for example, by Mortimer Adler.^[103] The temptation to absolutize liberty or equality requires justice to temper them. Also needed is ongoing transformation of old orders of approximate balance of liberty and equality into new orders of balance. On this view, libertarianism and egalitarianism are extremes. Justice is needed to limit both liberty and equality in the interest of each other.

11. Process Policy Making

In any governmental system, the creation of policies and laws can be described in terms of a policy cycle, a model describing the types of behavior found in the political process. Policy-creation is incremental, each stage building on prior actions and decisions. Issues recur over different periods of time, enabling review and revision. Each stage may take weeks or years depending on the complexity. Whereas budgets are reviewed yearly, environmental policy might require a decade before review is useful.

Different versions of the process policy model emphasize, expand, and supplement different stages of the policy cycle to clarify the inputs. A simple model is Agenda>Formulate>Implement>Budget>Evaluate. To this might be added an emphasis on clarification of method, decision aids, specifying the client receiving the analysis, determination of objectives, modeling, forecasting or predicting consequences, establishing evaluation criteria, calculating the cost of each policy alternative, and identification of constraints.

A generic “process” model of policy making can be indicated. It identifies such factors as agenda-setting, evaluation criteria, policy formulation and alternatives, assessment of your policy and its alternatives, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. An issue is ushered into the political arena by historic events, interest groups, individuals, or different government institutions. The process begins with problem definition or agenda setting (“verify, define and detail the problem”). Methodological thinking is required to bring maximum focus to the issue.

The extent and magnitude of the problem needs to be determined. Accepted thinking about the problem needs to be questioned. Initial formulations of the problem can be revised. Similar policy analyses can be researched. “Say it with data” is a slogan pointing to the need of relevant and reliable information. Critical thinking, above all, is required—to eliminate irrelevancies and ambiguities. Objectives need to be clarified, resolving conflicting goals. Identify the stakeholders in this issue and their power. What parts of the problem can be realistically solved? What resources will be needed? Then, evaluation criteria need to be determined. Identify the criteria relevant to the problem and each stakeholder: costs, benefits, effectiveness, equity, legality, political acceptability, administrative ease, etc. Can these criteria be ranked in order of importance? How will the policy goals be measured? Are there rules for comparing alternatives? What are the desirable and undesirable outcomes?

One risk in proposing a policy method of balance is that both sides of policy debates will be tempted to claim that their own policiesare balancedwhile those of their opponents are extreme. If so, discussion needs to shift to assumptions about scales and levels of relevant consideration and the breadth of theideological spectrum of thinkable solutions. By the same token, if the global political economic system is distorted and polarized, policies influenced by polarity/balance thinking might be expected to be marginalized for seeming to be radical, i.e., off the spectrum of the thinkable viewed from opposite ends. This may stem from translating the perspective of policies for global public goods into policies for the domestic common good in any political culture.

Process thought, I suggest, can clarify the ideological competition of public policy inputs as polarization in need of creative transformation. From the perspective of polarity method, the now-dominant paradigm shaping global policy appears monistic and extreme (i.e., individualist, libertarian, economistic, unipolar, Western, Northern, techno-utopian, globalist, and anthropocentric). If so, how might new balances be drawn by absorbing, as well, the countervailing, polarized perspectives and values (i.e., socialist, egalitarian, statist, anarchist, East, South, techno-skeptical, localist, and eco-centric)? The reframing of political cultures to counter-balance these polarized tendencies might be a long-range policy strategy of process thinkers, requiring coalescence with groups seeking third-way policy values—multi-polarity, subsidiarity, communitarianism, social justice, techno-realism, stakeholder democracy, re-embedded national economies, fair trade, and eco-social responsibility in business.

A systematic effort could be organized to develop policy proposals from Whiteheadian reflections in each issue area. These could eventually be entered into the foreign and domestic policy processes of the respective governments. An achievable goal might be, initially, to edit a handbook of Whiteheadian or Process “Policies for the Common Good” based on materials listed in Center for Process Studies bibliographies. One model might be “The Cato Handbook for Congress” which summarizes issues and lists suggested readings in such areas as fiscal, domestic, international economy, foreign and defense policy, regulation, and ecology.^[104]

Another stage might involve polling the process membership in selected policy issue areas. Teams could draft statements and circulate them for revision. They could be tailored for local consumption in each nation that has an IPN membership. Or IPN members could create fresh policy statements reflecting the actual views of their own Whiteheadian communities. Here a model might be Faith Voices for the Common Good, an internet consensus-building organization founded by Whiteheadian Rita Nakashima Brock and Brian Sarrazin.^[105] Its “Synanim” internet technology enables geographically separated individuals to create consensus statements online to be brought into “dialogue with policy experts and activists.” Recent campaigns have generated statements embodying such values as democratic diversity, equal human dignity, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, non-violent conflict resolution, reverence and care for life and earth, love of community, hospitality to strangers, and justice for all, especially the underprivileged and disenfranchised.^[106]

Another strategy to demonstrate the relevance of process thought to political science and public policy might be to identify and perhaps support polarity positions in process-compatible interest groups. In each issue area of foreign and domestic policy, the complete ideological spectrum of positions could be clarified and polarized concepts identified. At each level or stage of the policy process, positions that combine polarized phenomena or groups understood as truly polar could be recommended for careful consideration. This would funnel attention from education (legal studies, history, political science and political theology, philosophy and ethics) to public policymaking, legislation, and enforcement.

The next stage might be for Whiteheadian opinion to be brought closer to the policy milieu of each country. For each issue area and at each stage of the policy process, relevant actors shaping a position that approximates the polarity perspective could be identified and supported. Whiteheadian policy shaping could be encouraged through networking at all levels: political culture review, foundations and think tanks, media and public opinion, interest groups, social movements, and other non-governmental organizations. Care would need to be taken in finding appropriate criteria for identifying polarity candidates, initiatives and referenda, and lobbyists at all levels: bureaucratic, legislative, executive, and judiciary. Resources for this stage are funding directories,^[107] directories of public interest groups,^[108] directories of interest group ratings of legislator voting records,^[109] and directories of lobbyists.^[110]

12. Process Policy Proposals

Policy proposals by Whitehead-influenced thinkers have been developed at different levels of participation in the policy system and in diverse issue areas. Postmodernism and Public Policy (2002) by John B. Cobb, Jr. challenges the dominant U.S. political subcultures and depicts the alternative polarity worldview of Whitehead, identified as a constructive integration of premodern and modern ideas. He derives policy implications in various social and interpersonal issue areas such as governance and economy, race and class, gender and sexuality, culture and education, ethics and religion. The latter components indicate its intent to be a public theology “directly relevant to matters of public policy” (vii). The Whiteheadian outlook employed proposes that the complexity of reality lends itself to diverse patterns of description in different communities. But, seemingly contradictory and mutually exclusive patterns, if interpreted as “hypotheses with varying degrees of warrant” (172), can sometimes be shown to be compatible, complementary, or even polar (130) in nature. An affiliated pattern of normative reasoning is balancing interests and rights (188). Policy relevance will require compromise and coalitions to win majority support (190).

The polarity-balance outlook differs metaphysically from outlooks presupposed by the world’s dominant policy systems in recent generations. The latter involve monism and dualisms. The monistic explanations of science conflict with religion, generating atheism or dualistic theism. Related dualisms are matter vs. mind, nature vs. humanity, object vs. subject. The dualism of individualism vs. collectivism dominated public policy in the twentieth century, perhaps also the related dualisms of statism vs. economism, and globalism vs. localism. It is also possible to discern polarization or dualism in matters of gender, race, class, education, religion and elsewhere.

The problem with dualisms is that they juxtapose monistic distortions of reality based on perceived external relations from the standpoint of objectivity severed from subjectivity. By contrast, the polarity-balance alternative calls for reintegration or “creative transformation” of mutually-alienated dimensions of reality and interest, on the basis of postulated “internal relations” of all things.

What can be said about global public policy and the orientation of process policy thought? The first challenge for a process public policy of moderation is to facilitate dialogue between those who support policies to shapeglobalization and those who deny international society in the name of state sovereignty or localization.^[111] Among those who acknowledge international society, the challenge is to mediate between supporters of nationalist globalism (U.S. neoliberal unipolarism) and various forms of pluralist globalism—global governance and global government.

Cobb reframes governance in terms of a postmodern, relational ontology, which in turn is an expression of the polarity/balance method of process thought. For Cobb, policy proposals are derived from the basic model of “person-in-community.” His proposal of policy supporting global governance of the global economy is based on a model of “community of communities” with a “subsidiarity” of levels. The “bottom-up” notion of subsidiarity supports federalism, but counterbalances its nationalizing tendency. “Federalism as a balance between centripetal [unifying] and centrifugal [diversifying] forces […and] as a theory of regional or even global integration” operates in terms of “the ‘unity through diversity’ dialectic.”^[112] The levels of governance—local to global—are contextualized like Russian Dolls, and embedded in ecology, Earth, nature, and ultimate reality—God and Buddha-nature—viewed as having complementary attributes. Overall there is a kind of cosmic subsidiarity.^[113] At least to the extent that the economy remains global, global governance is thought to be needed to protect the ecological context of societies at the local level.

In Cobb’s bottom-up governance model, higher levels of governance, including the global level, emerge to represent the interests of the preceding level, either by direct vote at the base or by representative vote at each subsidiary level (2002, 141). The level of global governance would be a reformed United Nations, or a successor to the UN representing international regions (e.g., NAFTA, EU, OAS, ASEAN) instead of nations (2002, 142).^[114]

In support of a view similar to Cobb’s, David Ray Griffin^[115] discusses scholarship on the imperialist nature of U.S. foreign policy. Given significant global oppostion^[116] to the foreign policy of the G. W. Bush second administration for its apparent assumption of de facto world government status, Griffin wonders if there is not by now a considerable global constituency ready to take steps in the direction of representative global government—global democracy. He points to scholarship on a common ethic among world religions that could reinforce the work of selected, morally-engaged NGOs as a stage on the way to democratic global government.^[117]

My suggestion is that global public policy networks like those facilitated by the Global Public Policy Institute might, though neoliberal, provide a realistic model for the type of mobilizing needed in Griffin’s scenario of the meansto global democracy. Similarly, the Institute for Global Policy mobilizes the intial constituency for Cobb’s subsidiarity federalist alternative for global governance.

Third-way global policy alternatives are developed by an international relations expert and three scholars of theology and social ethics in American Empire and the Commonwealth of God.^[118] They evaluate accounts of the origins, nature, legitimacy, and dangers of empire, focusing on recent scholarship about imperialist themes in U.S. foreign and economic policy. Contributions by Richard A. Falk, Catherine Keller, John B. Cobb, Jr., and David Ray Griffin indicate that justifications and critiques of American policies employ polarized understandings of history, power, terror, governance, realism, idealism, democracy, reform, security, economics, ecology, religion, God, and Jesus. The authors conceive of a third way between empire and anarchy. They develop the following views: balancing global with local dimensions of world order; global democratic governance with a relation of subsidiarity to nations and cultures; resumption of multi-polar relations and the balancing of international power blocs (U.S., E.U., Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia, East Asia); strengthened regional, national, and local economies; coalitions of moral NGOs and progressive religious movements; and a two-nation state solution for Palestinians and Israelis.

Economist Herman E. Daly and theologian John Cobb develop implications of the process worldview for economic and political policy in For the Common Good.^[119] Economic and political issues are reframed in terms of “community,” or “persons-in-community,” rather than individualism. When “the growth system” is seen to be unsustainable, balanced trade with tariffs for self-sufficiency (232, 290) will begin to make sense. Dealing with over-population in poor countries must be matched by reversal of over-consumption in rich countries (242). Land policy sees humanity as one community among biospheric communities (252), hence land is a community resource (256). Taxes should be raised on land and lowered on improvements, à la Henry George (258). Agriculture policy should avoid bothextremes of subsistence and industrialized monoculture agribusiness totally subservient to the global market (268). This would encourage self-sufficient family farms (271) and the rebuilding of rural culture (274). Industrial policy would aim at national self-sufficiency (285); decentralized, regionalized, small business (291, 294), and buying locally (294). Labor policy would involve worker participation in management and ownership (298), and full employment (309). Income policy and taxes aim at limited inequality—between complete equality and unlimited inequality (33); negative and positive income tax (315, 318), pollution tax and depletion quotas (324), and taxes to shift power to states and localities (326).

A model of Whiteheadian analysis from the ethos of proximate policymakers in “think tank town”^[120] is Warren Copeland’s And the Poor Get Welfare.^[121] He critically analyzes a spectrum of currently influential approaches to poverty and welfare. He identifies theological parallels to each position, focusing on their handling of the concepts of individuality, community, worth, motivation, and hope. He then proposes principles for reform deriving from his own public theology rooted in process theology. Poverty is increased by four empirical factors: economic downturn; lack of education for a changing economy; concentration of poverty in urban neighborhoods; and punitive welfare policy. Copeland’s recommendations are (1) a federal negative income tax to achieve a national minimum benefit needed for active participation while preserving self-determination; (2) economic full employment policy, basic education, job training and re-training (employer-based); (3) supportive human services (day care, scholarships, community mental health, national health insurance; and (4) positive incentives for employment and child-support.

Models for the pursuit of a third-way space between polarized conservative and liberal opinion can be found in the Process & Faith Hard Issues booklet series.^[122] Traditional and modern approaches to controversial issues are reviewed, followed by a process alternative that transforms the polarized options. Designed for lay theological education, they could be revised as policy statements. They cover such policy-relevant issues as parenting, teen sexuality, homosexuality, suicide, abortion, civil disobedience, economic theory, and science-and-religion.^[123] A proclamation on American Empire^[124] was also published by the Process & Faith Program, and a Whiteheadian statement on the foreign policy challenge of Iran’s nuclear technology program is available.^[125] The Center for Process Studies conference on end-of-life issues published a statement on the right to die.^[126]

Chinese government officials from departments of foreign and religious affairs have been brought to Claremont by the China Project of the Center for Process Studies. Influential Chinese scholars and leaders in education have also come. The China Project has opened eighteen process centers in China to absorb Whiteheadian process thought in the areas of philosophy, education, urbanization, psychology, and theology. Affiliated centers deal with social responsibility in business, science and faith, and the concept of an Ecozoic Age. Chinese policy has been addressed in the areas of land-use, education, religion, sustainable cities, ecological civilization, management, and constructive postmodern transformation of Marxism.^[127]

Lastly, the Earth Charter is a policy statement to which the Center for Process Studies lent support by co-sponsoring a series of conferences with one of the Charter’s major developers—the Center for Respect of Life and Environment, an affiliate of the Humane Society of the U.S.^[128] Also an Environmental Ethics^[129] paper challenges environmental policies derived from self-interest. It invokes the Whiteheadian metaphysic which sees reality as interrelated events, rather than substantial things and selves. Self-aggrandizing behavior is evidently inappropriate in a world of interrelated processes. Policies fitting this picture include (1) preservation of natural habitat, (2) preservation of species diversity, (3) minimizing harm to natural processes (e.g., pollution), (4) minimizing damage to the upper atmosphere, (5) scientifically determining the welfare of other forms of life, (6) harmonizing human cultures with natural processes (i.e., agriculture, architecture, consumption), and (7) reversing human population growth. But, perhaps this set of policies is mislabeled “minimalism.” A process depolarizing perspective might, rather seek a mean between maximalism and minimalism.

13. Concluding Summary

I suggest that Whiteheadian thought might seek to absorb elite-oligarchic theory factors within a pluralist model (postmodern, group equilibrium), utilizing generic process policy theory, as well, to sharpen specific policy suggestions for the attention of government officials within given political cultures and subcultures. It seems that Whiteheadian thought could provide a framework to (1) explain the shifting center of policy debates as diverse perspectives expand or contract the spectrum of the thinkable; (2) examine and shape the transforming balance of ideological core-value priorities in any given political culture; (3) examine and shape the transforming balance of value priorities within each ideological policy network that funnels into a public policy milieu; (4) encourage, if not facilitate, the horizontal, issue-by-issue, cross-network dialogue necessary for public policy coalescence, that is, encourage balance within the range of the thinkable in mainstream policy making;^[130] (5) encourage a balanced global perspective for policy on global public goods and international relations; (6) encourage vertical multi-level communication—local to global—to enhance integrated applications; (7) reinforce the generic process model of policy; and (8) contribute policy proposals within given policy networks that are thought to provide counterbalance within a political culture, or are perceived to embody the best balance of values.

On the one hand, the full policy relevance of Whitehead could be missed if his ideas are identified with one end of, or one position along, the polarized ideological spectrum.^[131] By the same token, his relevance might be increased if his thought can be shown to embody a method applicable in all policy networks. The polarity-balance method,employed by Whitehead and Hartshorne, might be shown to be relevant to attempts at truly public policymaking by explaining the need to creatively transformallpolarized concepts, including progressive and conservative paradigms. Individual process thinkers might differ on strategies for approaching balanced representation for truly public policy and differ over which policy network (conservative, liberal, progressive) most needs to be balanced.

On the other hand, the same polarity method that could reinforce mediating policies within any given political culture might also be capable of introducing progressive thought at the levels ofpolitical culture reform and political economic philosophy by theoretically bridging many polarizations—ultimately between realism and idealism: between individuals and groups (gender, ethnicity, and class), between liberty and equality, economics and government, West and East, North and South, humans and ecology, religion and science. It could then explain how the policy center shifts as the spectrum of the thinkable enlarges. The spectrum expands perhaps from right to left as additional factors are considered—self, society, economy, government, world, ecology, nature, ultimate meaning. These factors are introduced by the pressure of interest groups, social movements, and academic disciplines.

Thus, a third-way process polarity policy model provides a way of deriving policies from depolarized policy networks. It starts by offering a standpoint for considering the possibility that the policies now shaping the global political economic system are based on a philosophy that expresses one side of polarized factors. That is, policies currently promoted by the U.S. might be judged extreme (i.e. one-sided) for being individualistic, economistic, libertarian, oligarchic, patriarchal, Western, Northern, anthropocentric, theocratic, etc. An alternative public philosophy—like process thought—might be capable of facilitating the political culture’s correction of such imbalance by re-framing and re-integrating these partial perspectives with their similarly-partial polar opposites: socialist, statist, egalitarian, anarchic, feminist, Eastern, Southern, eco-centric, and naturalistic. This begins to make room for the surfacing of depolarized perspectives—communitarianism, fair trade, social justice, democracy, partnership, multi-polarity, sustainability, panentheism, etc. As philosophy is now disciplinarily distanced from policy studies, trans-disciplinary process thought can be employed to re-integrate the polarized philosophies with their polarized political subcultures and policy networks.

Notes

[1] Michael E. Kraft and Scott R. Furlong. Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives (Washington DC, CQ Press, 2004), p. 109.

[2] I am referring to the horizontal integration of three ideologically-shaped policy networks—conservative, liberal, progressive—each of which vertically integrates elite institutions, public opinion, and government. This differs from the horizontal linkage of ideological, economic, military, and political networks in the “Four Networks Theory of Power” (attributed to Michael Mann), but is likely related. [shttp://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/theory/four_networks.html]

[3] Without indulging in “etopian” fantasies. http://www.caslon.com.au/digitalguide2.htm: The Australia-based Caslon Analytics Digital Environment Guide.

[4] See Kraft and Furlong, pp. 17-19. I further develop this notion by combining the ideas of progressives Thomas Dye and William Domhoff (see below) and conservative James Q. Wilson, American Government: Institutions and Policies, 2^nd Ed (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1983), pp. 72-73.

[5] SourceWatch is a program of The Center for Media and Democracy: http://www.prwatch.org/. It is “a wiki-based investigative journalism resource […] documenting the activities of public relations firms and public relations professionals. Sourcewatch also includes specific case studies of deceptive PR campaigns, corporate PR campaigns, the activities of front groups, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts […]. building profiles on public relations associations, specific criticisms of PR, common propaganda techniques, war propaganda […]”. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch

[6] Joseph G. Peschek, Policy-Planning Organizations: Elite Agendas and America’s Rightward Turn (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1987). “Within the elite policy network, five key groups are shown to represent a spectrum of opinion in ruling circles: the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Institute for Contemporary Studies, and the Trilateral Commission.” http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/413_reg.html

[7] I build on John Kingdon’s classic Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies [Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1984] which differentiates between inside and outside participants in policymaking. Inside participants include administration officials, civil servants, and congressional delegations and staff on Capitol Hill; Outside participants include interest groups, academics-researchers-consultants, media, public opinion makers, and elections-related groups. T. A. Birkland differentiates between official and unofficial actors.

[8] Donald E. Abelson. Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes (Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002).

[9] Eugene Bardach. A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving (Washington, DC, C Q Press, 2005).

[10] See John Kingdon, Chapter 3 (“Outside of Government, But Not Just Looking In”).

[11] H. T. Reynolds, summary of Power Elite literature at the Social Studies Help Center http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/APGOV_Power_Elite.htm.

[12] See Deborah Stone. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (New York, W. W. Norton, 1997 [1988]).

[13] Robert Dahl’s term.

[14] Kraft and Furlong, pp. 50-51.

[15] Thomas R. Dye. Politics in America (Englewood Cliffs NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1994), 24-25.

[16] Dye, 1994, p. 3.

[17] Kraft and Furlong, pp. 10-13, 359-362.

[18] James Lester and Joseph Stewart. Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach (Minneapolis MN, West Publishing, 1996), pp. 34-42.

[19] Dahl, Kingdon, Van Horn, Kernell/Jacobson, Fox/Miller.

[20] See “Sources of Information on Policy Formation” at “Who Rules? An Internet Guide to Power Structure Research” http://www.uoregon.edu/~vburris/whorules/policy.htm.

[21] Thomas Dye, Who’s Running America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1995).

[22] G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? Power and Politics, 4^th Ed. (Boston, McGraw Hill, 2002) See also the Who Rules America? website http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/

[23] Dye, Understanding Public Policy, p. 18.

[24] Charles J. Fox and Hugh T. Miller. Postmodern Public Administration: Toward Discourse (Thousand Oaks CA, SAGE Publications, 1995), pp. 128-159. See also Hugh Miller, Postmodern Public Policy (Albany, State University of New York Press, 2002)

[25] The Handbook of Political Theory, ed, Gerald Gaus and Chandran Kukathas (Thousand Oaks CA, SAGE, 2004) includes Straussian Approaches, Premodern Chinese Political Thought, Medieval Political Theory, Conservative Theories, Communitarianism and Republicanism, Modern Islamic Political Thought, Liberalisms, Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism, Democratic Political Theory, Nationalism and Multiculturalism, Discourse Theory, Feminism and Gender Theory, Green Political Theory, and “A Future for Marxism?”

Political Philosophy: Theories, Thinkers, and Concepts, ed., S. M. Lipset (Washington DC, CQ Press, 2002) includes Authoritarianism, Buddhism, Capitalism, Classical Greece and Rome, Communism, Communitarianism, Confucianism, Democracy, Environmentalism, Existentialism, Fascism, Fundamentalism, Hinduism, Liberalism, Marxism, Postmodernism, Pragmatism, Progressivism, Civil Religion, Republicanism, and Socialism.

Political Ideologies, by Andrew Heywood (New York, Worth, 1998) includes Classical Liberalism, Modern Liberalism, Neoliberalism, Conservatism, Neoconservatism, Socialism, Communism, Social Democracy, Nationalism, Anarchism, Fascism, Feminism, Ecologism, and Religious Fundamentalism.

[26] James Q Wilson, American Government, 72-73.

[27] Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Principles of International Politics (Washington DC, Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006), p. 125.

[28] Politics and Public Policy, http://www.cqpress.com/product/Politics-and-Public-Policy-3d-edition.html.

[29] From H. T. Reynolds’ summary of Power Elite literature at the Social Studies Help Center http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/APGOV_Power_Elite.htm.

[30] I adapted a funnel diagram from Charles Kegley and Eugene Wittkopf, World Politics—Trend and Transformation,8^th Ed. (Belmont CA, Wadsworth, 2001), p. 56.

[31] The Carnegie Endowment’s Global Policy Program notes five sets of actors: experts and transnational groups of experts (epistemic communities), in addition to NGO’s and civil society, business and the private sector, international organizations, and states. P. J. Simmons and Chantal de Jonge Ourdraat, ed., Managing Global Issues (Washington DC, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2001), pp. 11-12.

[32] “Social Movements, Public Policy, and Democracy.” U. C. Irvine School of Social Ecology Conference January 11-13, 2002, Laguna Beach, California: http://www.seweb.uci.edu/users/jenness/conference.html.

[33] David S. Meyer, “Social Movements and Public Policy: Eggs, Chicken, and Theory” (January 15, 2003). Center for the Study of Democracy. http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/03-02/

[34] “Social Movements, Public Policy, and Democracy.”

[35] “Social Movements, Public Policy, and Democracy.”

[36] Jean Anyon Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and A New Social Movement (Routledge, 2005) www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415950996/104-0135650-1715144?v=glance&n=283155.

[37] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_movement.

[38] Sanjeev Khagram, Kathryn Sikkink, and James V. Riker, ed, Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 2002).

[39]Lee Edwards. “The Origins of the Modern American Conservative Movement.”
Heritage Lecture #811 heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL811.cfm.

[40] Jonathan R White. Terrorism: An Introduction (Belmont CA, Wadsworth, 2002), p. 100.

[41] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_movement, Emphasis added.

[42] Philosophical factors in policy are investigated by the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. It publishes the Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly. The Social Philosophy and Policy Center publishes the journal, Social Philosophy and Policy. London School of Economics has a Philosophy and Public Policy lecture series. Cambridge University Press publishes Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy. Philosopher Rosemarie Tong published Ethics in Policy Analysis.

[43] Religious and Theological thinking about public policy also occurs, and religious interests have been increasingly developed for their policy relevance. The Ethics and Public Policy Center develops Conservative Evangelical and Roman Catholic interests. The Churches’ Center on Theology and Public Policy develops mainline, liberal leaning policy perspectives; The Roman Catholic Woodstock Theological Center has an Ethics in Public Policy Program. See also the Institute on Religion and Public Policy and the booklet, Religion and Public Life-The Role of Religious Bodies in Shaping Public Policy. In this context should be considered Postmodernism and Public Policy by John B Cobb, Jr. It addresses a range of public policy issues from the perspective of liberal Protestant Christian theology shaped by the polarity method and process metaphysic of Whitehead and Hartshorne.

[44] Political culture and ideology are shaping factors in policy. If the public intent of policy-thinking is thought to transcend narrow interests, the study of Ideology and Policy reminds us that ideology shapes all claims about what is good for everyone. Kenneth Dolbeare defines ideology in terms of policy: “A coherent set of values and Beliefs about public policy is a political ideology.” Also the nature of conservative and liberal shaping of policy can be reviewed in The Behavioral Study of Political Ideology and Public Policy Formation.

[45] Political Theory and Political Science perspectives on public policy are available. Robert Goodin has authored Political Theory and Public Policy. A comparative government perspective on policy exists in Policy and Politics in Six Nations. Yale University’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies has a number of programs including the Politics of Public Policy. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Government and Politics has a section on “Policy Making and Policies.” “Public Policy in State and Local Government” can be investigated in State and Local Politics. Citizens’ guides to policy processes are available in American Public Policy: A Citizen’s Guide; and Ralph Nader Presents A Citizen’s Guide to Lobbying.

[46] The funding of Policy think tanks comes largely from foundations. The role of Foundations and Public Policy can be studied in Private Foundations and Public Policy; The Culture of Philanthropy: Foundations and Public Policy; Giving for Social Change: Foundations, Public Policy and the American Political Agenda. For example, the Open Society Institute of founded by financier George Soros distributes grants to Eastern European public policy centers that focus on human rights and governance.

[47] Think Tanks and Policy Research institutes designed to study and advance public policy thinking on various issues evolved in US political culture early in the 20th Century and proliferated in the second half of the century. A variety of studies have examined the role and power of these “think tanks”: Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes; Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise; The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite; Advice and Consent: The Development of the Policy Sciences; Policy-Planning Organizations: Elite Agendas and America’s Rightward Turn; “How Think Tanks Improve Public Policy.” A guide to think tank websites is found on http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/ infousa/politics/ thnktank.htm. Links to progressive organizations on the electronic policy network is at http://www.movingideas.org.

Does the network of policy-relevant inputs extend far and wide, or is public policymaking exclusively a matter of relations between capital cities and corporate headquarters? Worse, is public interest marginalized and public policy privatized in “iron triangles” where special interests capture government agencies and legislators? [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle]

Is the multi-disciplinary intellectual sophistication of think tanks merely at the service of ideology, or does it generate fresh alternatives to the mainstream? Are policy institutes just ideological propaganda tools, lobbying for special private interests [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank]? For example, it was recently reported that in the U.S. “80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades.”

[washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/06/AR2005080600848.html]

Or does the diversity of think tanks provide a counter-balancing, and perhaps mutually-transforming effect? I would like to illustrate the latter possibility. Each major German political party is linked to a foundation. American Enterprise Institute and Project for a New American Century are neoconservative U.S. think tanks, Heritage is conservative. CATO and Reason Foundation are libertarian. Left of Center think tanks are Institute for Policy Studies, Progressive Policy Institute, and Center for American Progress. Brookings perhaps thinks of itself as centrist, but conservatives, it is said, founded the AEI to promote market solutions instead of Brookings’ government solutions. Many claim to be independent, non-partisan. Then think of the diverse interests of the following: The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, The Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, Focus on the Global South, Human Rights Watch, Korea Institute for National Unification, Social Market Foundation, World Resources Institute, Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, and Open Society Institute.

[48] The role of mass media in shaping public policy is studied by a number of research institutes. These include the Center for Media and Public Policy of the Heritage Foundation, and the Observatory for Media and Public Policy at McGill University. Perhaps the most influential is Annenberg Public Policy Center whose program on political communication, led by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, studies media use, campaigns, speeches, political knowledge. The need for fact-checking in advocacy advertising, issue ads, political talk radio, and congressional discourse is stressed. See also the Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.prwatch.org/) which reports on government propaganda, spinning the news, public relations industry, and industry manipulation of science, and fake news.

[49] Political Culture and public opinion http://www.pollingreport.com/; An independent, Nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion http://www.pewtrusts.org. The Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University has a program on The Dynamics of Public Opinion.

[50] Introductions to the insights of this research area can be seen in the Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation; The Public Policy Dictionary; A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis; Understanding Public Policy; Theories of the Policy Process; The Public Policy Cycle.

[51] How much influence does “the public” actually have on policy formation? Is policymaking the exclusive domain of think tanks, lobbyists, and legislative aides? Alternative policy theories can be reviewed. Studies of “The Public’s Influence on National Policy” can be reviewed as evidence for Pluralist model, as opposed to Elite Institution analyses. Pluralist theories can be considered by investigating studies of the policy impact of news media, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, campaigns, elections, and voting. “You are the policymaker” sections of an American Government text encourage you to develop your own conclusions about issues faced by policy makers. Similarly, John Rourke’s International Relations text says “You are the Policy Maker: Who Should be in Charge of Peacekeeping? The UN or NATO?” [http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072890363/student_view0/chapter2/interactive_exercise_2.html]

[52] Politics and public Policy magazine websites include American Enterprise, American Outlook, American Prospect, American Spectator, Atlantic Monthly, Campaigns and Elections, Commentary, Economist, Governing, Harpers, Harvard Political Review, Mother Jones, Nation, National Journal, National Review, New Republic, New Yorker, Newsweek, Reason, Time, US News Washington Monthly, Weekly Standard.

http://www.policyalmanac.org/directory/General-Media-Magazines.shtml

[53] The study of these groups and their power can be advanced with “Interests and Interest Groups in the Public Policy Process,” “Interest Groups, Congress, and Public Policy” and How Groups Try to Shape Policy. Questions about policy gridlock and Iron Triangles-alleged ‘capture’ of legislators and bureaucracies by interest groups-are part of this segment of policy studies. Political advocacy groups are listed on http://www.csuchico.edu/~kcfount/index.html. They include the following areas: abortion and reproduction, African-Americans, aged population, alcohol, tobacco and drugs, animal rights, Arab-Americans, Business, labor and economics, Catholic, Christian, children, civil rights, consumer advocacy, corporate accountability, criminal justice, disabled, education, environment, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender, government reform, gun control, immigration, inter-religious affairs, Jewish, land resources, Latinos, local government, media, men and women, multiethnic Americans, Muslim, Native Americans, peace and war, political parties, public Interest law, religion, social security and medicare, tax reform, and term limits.

[54] It can be examined in “Interest Groups, Congress, and Public Policy;” Legislative Strategy: Shaping Public Policy; Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process. Websites tracking the courses of policy and legislation are Public Policy Matrix and Public Policy Process. Briefings on global Issues for legislators are made available by the US Congressional Quarterly Press and the website CQ Researcher). Particular studies of policy-making by legislative, judicial, executive and bureaucratic branches of government need to be consulted in relevant chapters of the following books.

[55] 500 institutions from 100 countries is available on-line:

[www.nira.go.jp/ice/nwdtt/2005/index.html]. [“Since 1993, NIRA’s Center for Policy Research has published NIRA’s World Directory of Think Tanks (NWDTT), which provides a systematic introduction to the world’s most prominent and innovative public policy research institutes, better known as think tanks. NWDTT provides details of the organizational structures of these think tanks and research activities in which they engage, functioning as the “soft infrastructure” for a global network of think tanks”].

[56] G. William Domhoff. Who Rules America? (1995) Appendix A.

[57] “Conservative Foundations” and Conservative Think Tanks.” In American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (ISI Books, 2006), pp. 851-854 and 318-320; Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado. No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America’s Social Agenda (Temple UP, 1996). “Since the sixties, the Left has had little to do with setting the country’s agenda and […] conservative think tanks and foundations have been systematically abetting a conservative revolution by funding a variety of issue-oriented studies and programs.” [http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1316_reg.html]

[58] Sidney Blumenthal, The Rise of the Counter-Establishment: From Conservative Ideology to Political Power (New York: Times Books, 1986).

[59] American Conservatism entries on conservative foundations and conservative think tanks.

[60] American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia. See also A Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought, ed., Nigel Ashford and Stephen Davies (Blackwell).

[61] FAIR (July/August 2003).

[62] Thomas R. Dye. Who’s Running America?

[63] Domhoff. Who Rules America?

[64] Wilcox, Derk Arend, Joshua Shackman, and Penelope Naas, eds. The Right Guide: A Guide to Conservative and Right-of-Center Organizations (Ann Arbor MI, Economics America, 1993).

[65] Wilcox, Derk Arend. The Left Guide: A Guide to Left-of-Center Organizations. Ann Arbor, MI: Economics America, 1996. With 516 pages, this book “includes a substantial number of centrist and establishment organizations, in addition to organizations that would identify themselves as progressive or leftist. Almost every profile is admirably objective, but occasionally the rightist editor cannot resist a gratuitous slur […] ”). http://www.namebase.org/sources/aJ.html.

[66] “The Right’s Architecture of Power,” by Tom Barry, Policy Director of the Interhemispheric Resource Center, rightweb.irc-online.org.

[67] Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy.

[68] James Q Wilson, American Government, 72-73.

[69] http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/APGOV_Notes_WeekFour.htm. See also Political Culture by Walter Rosenbaum (New York: Praeger, 1975) [JA 75-76]

[70] http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_burns_govbrief_5/0,7874,770150-,00.html.

[71] “Political Culture” in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_culture.

[72] Ibid.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Ibid.

[75] James Q Wilson, American Government.

[76] The Public Administration and Public Policy publication program, edited by Jack Rabin (New York: Marcel Dekker) includes Handbook of Global Environmental Policy and Adminstration, ed., Dennis Soden and Brent Steel; Handbook of Global Legal Policy, ed., Stuart Nagel; Handbook of Global Economic Policy, ed., Stuart Nagel; Handbook of Global International Policy, ed., Stuart Nagel; Handbook of Global Political Policy, ed., Stuart Nagel; Handbook of Global Technology Policy, ed., Stuart Nagel; Handbook of Global Social Policy, ed., Stuart Nagel and Amy Robb.

[77] Graham Evans, ed., Penguin Dictionary of International Relations (New York, Penguin, 1998), pp. 106-8, 361-2, 364-5, 465-7.

[78] So says the Global Development Research Center http://www.gdrc.org/u-gov/index.html.

[79] See the “Timeline to Global Governance”at sovereignty.net/p/gov/timeline.html.

[80] Reinicke, Wolfgang H.: “The Other World Wide Web: Global Public Policy Networks,” Foreign Policy 117 (1999), and Jean-François Thibault “As if the world were a virtual global polity: the political philosophy of global governance.”

http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/108thibault.htm#Concluding%20Conjectures%20on%20the%20Virtual%20Global%20Polity.

[81] globalpublicpolicy.net/index.php?id=10.

[82] lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/.

[83] wfm.org/site/index.php/articles/9.

[84] https://www.ctr4process.org/publications/Biblio/bibindex_a-z.shtml.

[85] Yong Pei. “Why China?” Center for Process Studies Library.

[86] To develop its policy relevance, CPS might look, for example, to the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, The Churches’ Center on Theology and Public Policy, Woodstock Theological Center’s Ethics in Public Policy program, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. For examples in policy writing the Philosophy and Public Policy lecture series of the London School of Economics, and the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy could be consulted.

[87] The IPN (International Process Network) links Whiteheadian groups from 10 countries. The new DWN (Distributed Whitehead Network) <jhfc.duke.edu/jenkins/whitehead/> is cosponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center, the Jenkins Collaboratory at Duke University, the Humanities Institute at State University of New York Press Buffalo, and HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaborative).

[88] See J. Quiring, “Community College Philosophy, Polarity/Balance Method, and the Whitehead Tradition,” paper at the 5^th International Whitehead Conference in Seoul, Korea (June, 2004), which offered independent support for a polarity/balance philosophy. Available at the Center for Process Studies, Claremont, CA [ctr4process.org].

[89] Douglas Sturm, Community and Alienation: Essays on Process Thought and Public Life (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1988; Richard A. Falk, Catherine Keller, David Ray Griffin, and John B. Cobb, Jr. American Empire and the Commonwealth of God (Louisville KY, Westminster John Knox, 2006), pp. 101, 116. John Quiring, “Ideological Polarization, Communitarianism, and Process Thought” (unpublished paper, Society for the Study of Process Philosophies, APA Pacific, 1996).

[90] Also the connection between Whitehead, Pragmatism, the I-Ching, and Hua-yan Buddhism was the focus of the 2007 Creativity and Process Conference in Taiwan. Its publicity states, “The concepts of ‘creativity’ and ‘process’ are prominent in the traditional Chinese schools of thought: Confucianism, Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, and specifically in the philosophy of the Book of Changes(I-Ching)and Hua-yan Buddhism. They are also the key notions of Process Philosophy […].” Chair, Professor Yih-hsien Yu.

[91] John B. Cobb, Jr. “Process View on Yin and Yang,” in Hanism as Korean Mind, ed., Sang Yil Kim and Young Chan Ro (Los Angeles, Eastern Academy of Human Sciences, 1984), pp. 45-50; reprinted from the Journal of Chinese Philosophy 6 (1977): 421-426.

[92] Charles Hartshorne, Wisdom as Moderation: A Philosophy of the Middle Way (Albany, State University of New York Press, 1987).

[93] My view is inspired by Sheldon who argued for “the polarity of the perennial types of metaphysical system […].” (Wilmon Sheldon, Process and Polarity (New York, Columbia University Press, 1944), p. 87.)

[94] One problem is that only two Whiteheadians appear in even the broadest canon of Political Studies/IR/Political Economics—Samuel Beer and Muhammad Iqbal. May we include Richard Falk? But by combining the larger canons of process philosophy (developed by Hartshorne, Nicholas Rescher, George Lucas, Douglas Browning, David Griffin) with the canons of panentheism (developed by Hartshorne and John W. Cooper, I suggest that it may be fruitful to view Whitehead within the contexts of pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead) and continental philosophy (Heraclitus, Nicholas of Cusa, Eckhart, Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Bergson, Teilhard, Nietzsche, Berdyaev, Heidegger, Deleuze, Badiou), not to mention Eastern philosophies (Yin-Yang, Middle-Way, and Qualified Non-dualism).

[95] In Alfred North Whitehead (Boston, Twayne, 1984), Paul Kuntz wrote: “One of Whitehead’s applications of reconciliation is to the great social and political antithesis called “liberal” and “conservative.” Whitehead’s philosophy is in principle a middle course between individualism and collectivism, and the avoidance of the extremes of anarchy and dictatorship […]. The object to be obtained has two aspects; one is the subordination of the community to the individuals composing it, and the other is the subordination of the individuals to the community” (p. 10). “There are conservative ideologies that stress continuity of custom, such as Edmund Burke’s. Whitehead agrees with this as ensuring order, yet not with the implication drawn, that society can survive only by “the negation of progressive reform” (S 73). His dominant stress is liberal, on the maximizing of freedom of each individual (p. 83). The conservative will find Whitehead too radical. And the radical will find him too conservative. It is not lack of sympathy with the oppressed that leads Whitehead to appreciate the necessity of strong institutions. His defense of custom, traditions, and moderation in policy is based on an appreciation of order. We began by defining progress as the achievement of freedom. But there is a necessary complementary truth: “civilization is the maintenance of social order.” Only within an order can there be “the victory of persuasion over force” (AI 105). Thus, “Whitehead diverges from such a radical philosophy as Marx’s or such a conservative ideology as Burke’s (p. 87).

[96] In “Whitehead’s Social Philosophy” (unpublished MS, Center for Process Studies Library), Austin Lewis discussed Whitehead’s organic paradigm, theory of social order, concept of society, and notions of social progress and social justice says in Lewis wrote, “For Whitehead […], a society must simultaneously maintain a system of stable social customs and institutions in order ‘to be’ a society, and yet continually reform those same social systems in order to avoid the alternative of decay. The questions therefore arises as to […] what measures it must take to creatively adapt the forces of conservation and forces of change to its advantage. Formulating social agendas which embody both conservative and progressive aims would seem to be the solution to this inexorable problem” (pp. 12-13).

[97] Sheldon, p. 87.

[98] Ibid, p. 145.

[99] See John Quiring, “Conservative, Liberal, Progressive Dialogue” mistitled in The Republic of Faith: The Search for Agreement Amid Diversity in American Religion, ed., Carl Raschke and William Dean (Aurora CO, Davies Group Publishers, 2003), pp. 97-127.

[100] Who Rules America Now?, 98.

[101] Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism in America, 96.

[102] J. Quiring, “Conservative, Liberal, Progressive Dialogue.”

[103] Mortimer Adler. Six Great Ideas (New York: Touchstone, 1981), Part Three (liberty, equality, justice).

[104] The Cato Handbook for Congress: 104^th Congress (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1995).

[105] http://www.faithvoices.org/about.html.

[106] http://www.faithvoices.org/about.html.

[107] Follow the Money and Open Secrets: The Encyclopedia of Congressional Money are published by the Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/index.asp

[108] Public Interest Group Profiles 2004-2005 (Washington, DC, 2004) [Animal/Wildlife, Business/Economic, Civil/Constitutional Rights, Community/Grassroots Organizing, Consumer/Health, Corporate Accountability/Responsibility, Environmental, Families/Children, International Affairs, Media/Technology, Political/Governmental Process, Public Interest Law, Religious, Research Institutes and Think Tanks].

[109] J. Michael Sharp, Directory of Congressional Voting Scores and Interest Group Ratings (Washington DC, CQ Press, 2006) [conservative, liberal, civil liberties, national security, commerce, consumer, labor, conservation, education, taxpayers].

[110] Washington Representatives 2005 (Washington, DC: Columbia Books) has listings for 18,000 lobbyists and government relations personnel, 3400 organizations, 1500 law and lobbying firms, and 500 individuals doing legislative affairs work.

[111] Penguin Dictionary of International Relations, 309-10.

[112] Penguin Dictionary of International Relations, 169.

[113] One could go on to suggest the following: The human vs. nature dualism is countered with ecological economics embedding economy in community and community in ecology. The dualism of global and local is overcome with the idea of subsidiarity. A proposal for overcoming statism vs. economism is that the WTO be supervised by the UN’s General Assembly. Class and elite dominance of policy making is counterbalanced by postmodern pluralism recognizing the foundational nature of communities.

[114] Further contributions to pluralist globalism are theories of world society (John Burton), world law (P.E. Corbett), and World Order Models (Falk).

[115] David Ray Griffin, “Global Imperialism or Global Democracy: The Present Alternatives,” pp. 25 and 35. users.drew.edu/mnausner/Hc3griffinpaper.pdf.

[116] InAmerica Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked (New York: Times Books, 2006) Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes report on “The precipitous rise in anti-Americanism” based on Pew Research Center surveys of more than 91,000 respondents in fifty nations. TheKirkus Reviewsstates that “in the wake of 9/11, and particularly since the invasion of Iraq, anti-Americanism has become the majority view in most of the world […].” They find that “once considered the champion of democracy, America is now seen as a self-absorbed, militant hyperpower. More than seventy percent of non-Americans say that the world would be improved if America faced a rival military power” (Publisher’s blurb). The Library Journal notes that “America is seen as a monster military power-70 percent said we need a superpower rival to get us under control.” http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/ isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0805077219&itm=1

[117] See also A Global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, ed., Hans Kung and Karl-Josepf Kuschel (New York, Continuum, 1993) and policy statements in A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics, by Hans Kung (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998).

[118] The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God: A Political, Economic, Religious Statement by Richard A. Falk, Catherine Keller, David Ray Griffin, and John B. Cobb, Jr. (Louisville/London, Westminster John Knox, 2006), p. 125.

[119] It seems that dialogue between makers of the ecological economic policies in For the Common Good and those who use the environmental economic paradigm would be useful. See Tom Tietenberg, Environmental Economics and Policy, 2^nd ed. (Reading MA, Addison-Wesley, 1998).

[120] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2006/04/03/LI2006040301493.html.

[121] Warren R. Copeland, And the Poor Get Welfare (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, and Washington, DC: The Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy, 1994), pp. 180-185.

[122]http://www.processandfaith.org/bookstore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=5&zenid=3a2f983c996c67222dde643e830cd97e.

[123] David Polk, ed., What’s A Christian to Do? (St. Louis MO, Chalice, 1991) [abortion, evolution, civil disobedience, evolution/creation] and Now What’s a Christian to Do? (St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 1994) [homosexuality, teen sexuality, parenting, suicide].

[124] http://www.ctr4process.org/pandf/proclamation.htm.

[125] A Google search for “Whiteheadian Public Policy” turned up “Whiteheadian Reflections on a Probable Nuclear Strike on Iran“: ctr4process.org/publications/Articles/nuclear_iran.shtml

[126] “It’s No Longer Human Life, at a point; It’s Metabolism.” Los Angeles Times (December 11, 1989): B7.

[127] See Wenyu Xie, Zhihe Wang, and George Derfer (eds). Whitehead and China: Relevance and Relationships (Frankfurt, Ontos, 2005)

[128] http://www.earthcharter.org/innerpg.cfm?id_menu=19. See also “Process Metaphysics and Minimalism: Implications for Public Policy,” by Steven Keffer, Sallie King, and Steven Kraft. Environmental Ethics 13:1 (Spring 1991): 23-47. It criticizes the philosophy currently underlying public policy. I suggest that proposals for Whiteheadian environmental policy consider a document like the Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy, ed., Natalia Mirovitskaya and William Ascher (Durham NC, Duke University Press, 2001).

[129] Steven Keffer, Sallie King, and Steven Kraft. “Process Philosophy and Minimalism: Implications for Public Policy.” Environmental Ethics 13:1 (Spring 1991): 23-47.

[130] I have attempted to characterize ideological divisions as polarizations to be mediated in “Conservative, Liberal, Progressive Dialogue” in The Republic of Faith, edited by Bill Dean and Carl Raschke.

[131] Randall Morris, Process Philosophy and Political Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne (Albany, State University of New York Press Press, 1991).

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Adler, Mortimer . Six Great Ideas (New York: Touchstone, 1981), Part Three (liberty, equality, justice).

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Barry, Tom. 2004. “The Right’s Architecture of Power,” IRC Right Web (Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric Resource Center).

Berger, Peter. 1990 The Sacred Canopy. (Anchor; Reprint edition).

Blumenthal, Sidney. 1986. The Rise of the Counter-Establishment: From Conservative Ideology to Political Power (New York: Times Books).

Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 2006. Principles of International Politics (Washington DC, Congressional Quarterly Press).

Cobb, John B., Jr. 1984. Jr. “Process View on Yin and Yang,” in Hanism as Korean Mind, edited by Sang Yil Kim and Young Chan Ro (Los Angeles, Eastern Academy of Human Sciences), 45-50. Reprinted from the Journal of Chinese Philosophy 6 (1977), 421-26.

Cobb, John B., Jr. 2002. Postmodernism and Public Policy: Reframing Religion, Culture, Education, Sexuality, Class, Race, Politics, and the Economy (Albany, State University of New York Press).

Copeland, Warren. 1994. And the Poor Get Welfare: The Ethics of Poverty in the United States (Nashville, TN, Abingdon/Washington, DC, The Churches’ Center for Public Policy).

Dolbeare, Kenneth M. 1982. American Public Policy: A Citizen’s Guide (New York, McGraw-Hill).

Domhoff, G. William, Who Rules America? Power and Politics, 4^th Ed. 2002. (Boston, McGraw Hill).

Dye, Thomas R. 1994. Politics in America (Englewood Cliffs NJ, Prentice-Hall).

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Dye, Thomas. Domhoff, William and Wilson, James Q. 1983. American Government: Institutions and Policies, 2^nd Ed (Lexington, MA: Heath).

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Author Information

John Quiring
Philosophy Department, Victor Valley College, Victorville, CA 92392
www.vvc.edu
johnq@ctr4process.org

How to Cite this Article

Quiring, John, “Whiteheadian Public Policy: Depolarization for Network Coalescence”, last modified 2008, The Whitehead Encyclopedia, Brian G. Henning and Joseph Petek (eds.), originally edited by Michel Weber and Will Desmond, URL = <http://encyclopedia.whiteheadresearch.org/entries/thematic/public-policy-natural-law/whiteheadian-public-policy/>.