01156pab a2200133 454500008004000000100001400040245008800054260000900142300001300151362000800164520080200172650002100974773002700995180718b2003   xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aKay, W.D.  aProblem definitions and policy contradictions: John F. Kennedy and the "Space Race"  c2003  ap.53-69.  aFeb  aUsually, when governments appear to be pursuing contgradictory or mutually exclusive goals, the response of the scholarly community has been to look for evidence of bureaucratic error, a lack of leadership, or some other type of administrative malfunction. This essay argues that the concept of problem (or issue) definition, which has been widely applied in the study of public policy, may in some cases also help explain the occurrence of this phenomenon as well. Using as an example a major (and, atg the time, quite startling) policy "reversal" in President Kennedy's approach to the U.S. space program, the essay shows how the appearance of a "contradiction" within the administration may well have been the result of a disagreement over how U.s. space policy was to be defined. - Reproduced.  aSpace technology  aPolicy Studies Journal