Implementation
Announcements
Dialogue/debate
Presentations begin November 28
Volunteers?
Observation
Complaint is that public policy analysis
used to be based on case studies with
no generalizable theories (all data, no
theory)
Much of this weeks readings was in
the form of theory with little or no
empirical support (all theory, no data)
Why study implementation?
Policies fail, or appear to fail
We can presumably learn how to make
policies more successful by studying
implementation
Policies can be redesigned
But policies are always being redesigned
anyway, so how do we study implementation?
Can implementation be separated from
policy making?
A Policy-Implementation
Dichotomy?
Step 1: Make Policy
Step 2: Implement Policy….
The traditional distinction between
policy-making and implementation
parallels the politics-administration
dichotomy. Palumbo and Maynard-Moody p.305
“When we act to implement a policy,
we change it.” Majone and Wildavsky p. 150
Perfectly performing Expression of
policy principles and
aspirations
Is there an “Ideal Type” of
Implementation?
At one extreme we have the ideal type of the
perfectly performing policy idea: it only requires
execution, and the only problem it raises are those
of control.
At the other extreme, the policy ideal is only an
expression of basic principles and aspirations,
a matter for philosophical reflection and political
debate. In between, where we live, is a set of more
or less developed potentialities embedded in pieces
of legislation, court decisions, and bureaucratic
plans.” Majone and Wildavsky p.149-150
“The essential constituents of any policy are
objectives and resources. In most policies
of interest, objectives are characteristically:
multiple (because we want many things, not
just one),
conflicting (because we want different things),
vague (because that is how we can agree to
proceed without having to agree also on exactly
what to do).” Majone and Wildavsky p.144
Prior Experiences and
Assumptions Matter…
“Implementation begins neither with words
nor deeds, but with multiple dispositions
to act or to treat certain situations in certain
ways.” Majone and Wildavsky p.144
Disposition: Tendency for something to act in a certain manner under given
circumstances
Perception of effectiveness of
implementation is likely to be predicated on
an actor’s initial evaluation of the statute.
Sabatier and Mazmanian p.170
The Place of Politics in
Implementation:
loyalists
Complete supporters of what they think the directors want
deviants
put their own spin on policy.
those who knowingly undermine or counteract the policy
those who are passive and indifferent and for whom
inaction secures their stake against those seeking
changes.
“There are those who exploit a particular
interpretation of policy goals as a way of attaining
power.” Palumbo and Maynard-Moody p.306-307
Implementers tend to be participants in
policy networks (Heclo), and “play a major
role in interpreting policy directives.” Palumbo and
Maynard-Moody p.306
“Policy content shapes implementation”
Defines the arena in which the process takes
place
Defines the identity and role of the principal
actors
Defines range of permissible tools for action
Supplies resources Majone and Wildavsky p.148
Implementation as Evolution
“Why is it reasonable to assume that
the final results will be genetically
related, however indirectly, to the
original policy idea?” Majone and Wildavsky p.147
“When social security changes from
insurance to income redistribution, the
same name conveys very different
realities.” Majone and Wildavsky p.145
The Relevance of
the Chain of Causality
“The longer the chain of causality,
the more numerous the reciprocal
relationships among the links and
the more complex implementation
becomes.” Pressman and Wildavsky [Link]
“The study of implementation requires
understanding that apparently simple
sequences of events depends on complex
chains of reciprocal interactions. Hence,
each part of the chain must be built with the
others in view.” Pressman and Wildavsky [Link]
Questions Concerning Organizational
Structure and Program of Delivery:
How centralized is the agency that delivers
the program?
Is a top-down or bottom-up management
approach being taken?
How much do lower-level administrators
participate in decisions about the program?
How many agencies, groups, and levels of
government [and other third parties] must be
involved in implementing the program?”
Palumbo and Maynard-Moody p.303
Top-down approach
assumptions:
Policies contain clearly defined goals against which
performance can be measured
Policies contain clearly defined policy tools
Policy characterized by a single statute or other
authoritative statement of policy
There is an ‘implementation chain’ that ‘starts with a
policy message at the top and sees implementation
as occurring in a chain
Policy designers have a good knowledge of the
capacity and commitment of the implementers
Birkland p.179
A Top-Down Conceptual Framework
of the Implementation Process:
The Role of the Statute:
A statute “has the capacity to ‘structure’ the
entire implementation process:
through its selection of implementing institutions;
through providing legal and financial resources
to those institutions;
through biasing the probable policy orientations
of agency officials; and
through regulating the opportunities for
participation by nonagency actors in the
implementation process.” Sabatier and Mazmanian p.157
Bottom-Up
Elmore’s ‘backward planning’ process, “in
which the implementation process and the
relevant relationships are mapped
backwards from the ultimate implementer to
the topmost policy designers.” Birkland P.182
Bottom-up approach recognizes that goals
are ambiguous rather than explicit and may
conflict not only with other goals in the same
policy area, but also with the norms and
motivations of the street-level bureaucrats.”
Birkland P.182
Bottom-Up
Bottom-up “makes sense when there is no one
dominant program and when one is more interested
in the local dynamics of implementation than in the
broad sweep design.” Birkland P.184
“Although they are normally regarded as low-level
employees, the actions of most public service
workers actually constitute the services
‘delivered’ by government. Moreover, when
taken together the individual decisions of these
workers become, or add up to, agency policy.”
P.401 Lipsky
Writing about the administrative process in
the regulatory commission of the New Deal
era, James Landis recalls how ‘one of the
ablest administrators that it was my good
fortune to know, I believe, never read, at
least more than casually, the statutes that
he translated into reality. He assumed that
they gave him power to deal with the broad
problems of an industry and, upon that
understanding, he sought his own
solutions.’” Majone and Wildavsky p.142
Third Generation Models
Models that recognize both top-down
and bottom up elements
What accounts for the differential success of
public policies in the implementation process?
Kline p.551
A problem of organizational
management
or
A conflict of interest (over values)
A problem of organizational
management…
Goal ambiguity
Control over subordinates
Communications between policy
makers and subordinates
(principal/agent issues)
Technical incompetence
Inappropriate agent (political)
discretion
Implementation Regime
Framework (Stoker 1991)
“An implementation regime ‘can be an
arrangement among implementation
participants that identifies the values to be
served during the implementation process
and provides an organizational framework to
promote values…” Cline p.556
“The primary task of implementation is to
create a context that will induce the
participants to cooperate in the presence of
conflict of interest.” Cline P.556
“The IRF suggests that over time, regimes
tend to move along a predictable dynamic
toward cooperation.” Cline P.561
Stoker: “Cooperation is more likely when
participants are engaged in an ongoing
relationship that creates a record of
constructive interaction and expectations for
the future…
“When these conditions are absent,
implementation regime participants may use
such mechanisms as side payments, issue
linkage, and norms of reciprocity in order to
build trust and cooperation.” Cline P.566
“The views of individual actors and
their organizational frames of
reference shape their interaction in the
implementation network or
structure.” Cline P.566
Conflict is legitimate. Cline P.563
Each actor’s relationship to a program may
be characterized along three dimensions:
What is the direction of his preference on
the matter at issue?
Is he for or against?
What is the intensity of preference?
Does he care a lot about it, or is he
relatively indifferent?
What resources can he bring to bear to
affect the outcome?
Is he weak or strong?
Pressman and Wildavsky p.116-117
Reasons why participants may agree with the substantive
ends of a proposal and still oppose (or merely fail to
facilitate) the means for effectuating it:
Direct incompatibility with other commitments or
organizational goals.
No direct incompatibility, but a preference for other
programs.
Simultaneous commitments to others projects.
Dependence on others who lack a sense of urgency
in the project.
Differences of opinion on leadership and proper
organizational roles.
Legal and procedural differences.
Agreement coupled with lack of power or resources.
Pressman and Wildavsky pp. 99-101
Solution: more top-down
approaches?
“An appreciation of the length and unpredictability of
necessary decision sequences in implementation
should lead the designers of policy to consider more
direct means for accomplishing their desired ends.
Since each required clearance point adds to the
probability of stoppage or delay, the number of
these points should be minimized wherever
possible.” Pressman and Wildavsky p.143
“… pay as much attention to the creation of
organizational machinery for executing a program
as for launching one…” Pressman and Wildavsky p.144-145
Reasons for a gap between promise
and performance in a policy:
Much legislation passed at the national, state, and
local levels is symbolic, it is usually a promise that
something can be done about an intractable social
problem that has lingered on the public agenda for
years;
Legislation is often not based on a sound program
theory that correctly identifies the conditions that will
convince the target groups to behave in the desired
fashion;
Socioeconomic and political conditions change so
that the solution promised in the legislation may not
be appropriate a few years later;
Administrators discover during
implementation that a different kind of
program would work better than the one
envisioned in the legislation;
Insufficient resources are committed to the
program;
Implementers don’t have the know-how to
make the policy work.
Special interest groups block
implementation via the courts, appeals, and
procedural rules disputes;
The (high) number of decision-points
increases the likelihood of delay
Adapted from Palumbo and Maynard-Moody
p.304 and Pressmen and Wildavsky
“…the very interrelatedness of policy areas in any
complex society enormously increases the monitoring
responsibility of the protectors of any particular
statute and thus the probability that the statute will
gradually be undermined through subsequent
tangential legislation.” Sabatier and Mazmanian p.166
Opponents can generally intervene more actively over a
longer period of time than proponents. “It has long been
noted that most regulatory agencies eventually recognize that
survival in an unbalanced political environment necessitates
some accommodation with the interests of target groups and
thus less departure from the status quo than envisaged by the
original statutory mandate.” Sabatier and Mazmanian p.164
“While some slippage is almost inevitable (if for no
other reason than legitimate disagreements about
how general rules apply to specific cases), it is our
contention that such slippage can be minimized if
the statute stipulates unambiguous objectives;
assigns implementation to sympathetic agencies
who will give it high priority; minimizes the number
of veto points and provides sufficient financial
resources to conduct the technical analyses and
process individual cases; and biases the decision-
rules and access points in favor of statutory
objectives.” Sabatier and Mazmanian p.168
Intergovernmental
Interrelations:
“One major difficulty in implementing
intergovernmental programs is that implementing
agencies are responsible to different sovereigns
who wish to pursue different policies. In such
situations, we would suggest that when an
intergovernmental subordinate is faced with
conflicting directives from its intergovernmental
superiors and its coordinate sovereigns, it will
ultimately lean toward the directives of the
sovereign who will most affect its legal and financial
resources over the longest period of time….
For example, when a state agency is faced with
conflicting directives from a federal agency and the
state legislature, institutional survival requires that it
gives its primary loyalty to the sovereign most likely
to affect its resources, which in almost any
conceivable case, will be the state legislature. In
relations between a local agency and its state
superiors, however, the situation is not nearly so
predictable, in large part because local
governments generally have less constitutional
autonomy vis-à-vis states than do states vis-à-vis
the federal government.” Sabatier and Mazmanian p.163
“State-level implementers receive policy messages from the
national, state, and local levels. National-level inducements
and constraints are used to incorporate top-down influences.
The bottom-up influence of state and local actors is
represented in the model by state and local inducements and
constraints. Thus state implementers are at the nexus of
communication in the federal system.” Cline P.558
“Instead of a hierarchical relationship between the
federal government and its agents… what
frequently exists in practice is a far more complex
bargaining relationship in which the federal
agency often has the weaker hand…” Palumbo and Maynard-
Moody p.313
“Goggin and his colleagues found, in
certain policy areas, that states that
‘strategically delayed’ implementation—in
order to seek clarification of a policy, raise
more funds, ensure support of affected
groups, and so on—often had better
success in implementing a policy than did
states which immediately implemented a
policy.” Birkland P.186