How Do I Know I Am Making a Difference?

What motivates many people who work in public policy is wanting to make a difference. This chapter invites thoughtfulness about the difference you want to make, how you might know you have made it in contexts of uncertainty, complexity, and unpredictability, and the different roles and responsibilities of elected and appointed officials in defining the goals and objectives of public policy. In a democracy, the use of public authority has to be justifiable and accountable to the public. In seeking to create public value, public officials can play a facilitative, caretaking role but should avoid acting as platonic guardians or a rational-technocratic elite. And because we can never know the outcome of a policy intervention with sufficient confidence to justify the use of public authority, there are good reasons to adopt a precautionary, least-harm approach to policy-making, exercising humility and restraint, and taking care to operate by “democracy rules”.