Book reviews

This interesting and important book is a valuable contribution to what Fischer and Forester (1993) have called the argumentative turn in policy analysis. Like other authors in this emerging perspective, Sch6n and Rein are uncomfortable with the practice of mainstream policy analysis. But unlike many other authors of the argumentative school, they do not exhaust them-selves in political and methodological criticism (cf. Durning, 1995; Sabatier, 1995). On the contrary, the merit of this book is that the authors eriously try to sketch the contours of a coherent alternative. To the decisionism and instrumental rationality of analysis as science, Rein and Sch6n oppose the Deweyan pragmatism and design rationality of analysis as frame-refecfive argument. In their view, prominently expressed in the book's subtitle, design-rational policy analysis is the way the policy science community can respond effectively to '...the need to develop acapability for reflective conversation i policy design in order to effectively deal with policy controversy ' (p. 204). The practical orientation in Frame Reflection clearly derives from it