Chapter 1: Thinking About the Future — Prospective Policy Analysis
May 29, 2026 • 20:13
This episode was generated using Google NotebookLM based on the course reading and is designed to help you engage with and review the material. In it, we explore Chapter 1 of Peter Linquiti’s Rebooting Policy Analysis, diving into the classical model of prospective policy analysis. Unlike retrospective evaluation, prospective analysis requires social workers to think carefully about futures that haven’t happened yet — comparing what a policy would produce against what would happen without it. The episode walks through the core steps of the classical model: characterizing the problem by identifying the gap between current and ideal conditions, specifying realistic policy alternatives (always including the status quo), applying evaluation criteria like cost, efficacy, equity, and administrability, and organizing trade-offs using a criteria-alternatives matrix. Throughout, the hosts connect these analytical tools to the real demands of macro social work practice — including the uncomfortable reality that effective policy advocacy means wielding the coercive power of government, and reckoning with what that means for social work values like self-determination and empowerment.