‘First We Kill All the Policy Wonks’
22nd January 2011
Banfield turned upside down the commonplace notion that wonks were politically neutral problem-solvers. Rather, he wrote, wonks tend to contribute problems not solutions to the political process. From their perches in academia and the upper echelons of government, social scientists and policy analysts identify “problems” in need of government attention. Regrettably, wonks’ solutions tend to be politically infeasible. The presidency and the Congress are contentious political institutions that rarely translate wonk ideas into neat policy solutions.
Banfield viewed this situation as a recipe for the endless growth of government and public cynicism as “problems” were declared but never got solved. He encouraged a healthy skepticism toward the wonk-problem-government-solution complex. Government, he thought, needed fewer wonks and more statesmen who would “foster a public opinion that is reasonable about what can and cannot be done to make the society better.” He was right.
Whenever you hear on TV reference to the phrase ‘our X policy’, X refers to an issue into which the government ought not to stick its nose, but will nevertheless, at the prompting of some official who want to get re-elected and figures this is the horse that will carry him (or her) there.