Technology assessment and political decision-making

Often technology assessments (TA) performed in the public sector serve two very different masters. As a policy assessment tool employed in a political environment, TA must make allowance for the norms, values and sources of legitimacy for bureaucratic policy-making. At the same time, TA is evaluated and legitimated according to many of the same logical and methodological criteria as the sciences and other modes of systematic inquiry. This essay considers the sometimes conflicting values of rationality, political interests, and organizational routines that come into play in public sector TA. Allison's decision-making typology is employed to facilitate analysis of the conflicting values.