Policy Theory, Policy Theory Everywhere: Ravings of a Deranged Policy Scholar Kenneth J. Meier The field of policy theory abounds with numerous theories, with each theory having a set of practitioners that are working independently of the others. Resolving conflicts among policy theories as a result is difficult. This essay has a more modest goal of posing some questions and suggesting some avenues for future research. Key points include defining the purpose of policy theory, incorporating manage- ment into our theories, making strategic choices about areas of study, addressing the parsimony- comprehensiveness tradeoff, and providing a more nuanced role for institutions. Participating in a “Policy Theory Shootout” is a daunting task. The field is populated by multiple theories that have relatively well-developed research agendas associated with them. To expect that any one theory will demonstrate its superiority in such a meeting is to be wildly optimistic. It is not optimistic, however, to expect that advocates of one theory or another will be able to make a case for the superiority of their theory, or at least the superiority of their theory, given certain types of conditions. Given that such arguments were not presented at the Policy Theory Shootout, it is incumbent to ask why they were not. My own thoughts on this issue reflect personal experiences as a policy scholar and teacher in the field of public policy. Every two years like clockwork, I have taught a graduate seminar in policy theory that features work by virtually all of the policy shootout participants. More and more during that course I feel like my sister-in-law, an expert in Sumerian folklore, must feel when approaching her subject, that a lot of this happened long ago and in another country, and besides everyone is dead. My first reaction to this conference was to send a sympathy card, but then I agreed to come and decided the most appropriate thing to do is to throw out a few half-baked ideas and deranged thoughts to see if the field is interested in a serious discussion about policy theory. My pontifications will include pondering the purpose of policy theory, suggesting a key missing variable in policy theory, criticizing the failure to be strategic in selecting areas of study, asking why we have yet to solve the parsimony-comprehensiveness problem, and contending that most of what we know about institutions and struc- tures is probably wrong. The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2009 5 0190-292X © 2009 Policy Studies Organization Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ.