The contributors to this symposium have skillfully impartedtheoretical content to a work that did not have much, as criticsobserved when Policymaking for Social Security waspublished. By family background and childhood experience, I havealways been more journalist than social scientist, and what I did inthe book was try to construct the reality of policymaking inresponse to a central question: how did so formidable an institutionarise and develop with so little contention?