--- Charles Lindblom, The Science of “Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review, 19(2), 79–88, 1959. https://doi.org/10.2307/973677 (h/t Dale Hatfield)
In context
Agreement on policy thus becomes the only practicable test of the policy's correctness. And for one administrator to seek to win the other over to agreement on ends as well would accomplish nothing and create quite unnecessary controversy.If agreement directly on policy as a test for "best" policy seems a poor substitute for testing the policy against its objectives, it ought to be remembered that objectives themselves have no ultimate validity other than they are agreed upon. Hence agreement is the test of "best" policy in both methods. But where the root method requires agreement on what elements in the decision constitute objectives and on which of these objectives should be sought, the branch method falls back on agreement wherever it can be found.In an important sense, therefore, it is not irrational for an administrator to defend a policy as good without being able to specify what it is good for.
