The policy adoption-implementation spiral

The “Policy Adoption-Implementation Spiral” is an exploration of the policy-making process that begins at the national level and proceeds through the labyrinth of administrative interpretations, court decisions, and judicial decrees before it is finally implemented at the state level. This analysis is based on the premise that policy adoption and policy implementation are not two separate steps in the policy-making process. The adoption/implementation process may be more clearly thought of as a continually narrowing spiral with each inward band of the spiral representing a further specification, refine- ment, clarification, or interpretation of a piece of public policy.

Equal Employment Opportunity policy is the content area used in this analysis. A case study is used which follows EEO policy from the National level down to its implementation in the area of employment opportunities for state jobs in the State of Alabama.     

JUDICIAL REVIEW OF ADMINISTRIATIVE DECISIONS – A BACKGROUND PAPER

Judicial review is now the normal route for anyone seeking to challenge an administrative decision, unless there is a separate statutory right of appeal as for example in town planning matters. Grounds for challenge have been variously described by the courts but include (a) that the decision was wrong in law, (b) that it was unreasonable or irrational and (c) that there was procedural unfairness. Those who seek review must understand that the court will not substitute its own view for that of the decision taker. The adequacy of the remedy of judicial review has been challenged by some on the grounds that leave to proceed has to be sought from the court within three months. There is too the difficulty in some cases of establishing that the plaintiff has a sufficient interest to sue. Whilst it is too early to talk of a distinct body of public as opposed to private law, recent decisions have widened the concept of public law and have interpreted the circumstances in which a private right may be pursued against a public authority.     

Duopoly,court politics and the Danish core executive

This article applies the ideas of the core executive and court politics to Danish coalition and minority governments. It asks two questions. Do these ideas travel beyond their Westminster origins? What are the dilemmas confronting the Danish executive and its court politics? The analysis is based on documentary sources and 22 elite interviews with cabinet ministers and permanent secretaries. It identifies a duopoly of Prime Minister and Minister of Finance as a distinctive variety of court politics. It identifies the key dilemmas confronted by the Danish executive; namely trust, political support and politicization. It concludes that court politics provides unique insights into the workings of Danish government. The article is a contribution to the comparative analysis of the court politics of governing elites. It shows that the focus on court politics is not only useful for majoritarian Westminster systems but also for the analysis of consensual parliamentary democracies.     

The Politics of Infrastructural Projects: A Case for Evidence-Based Policymaking

Many developing countries currently face tightening fiscal constraints as a result of the global financial crisis and associated reduction in both credit and demand. Policymarkers therefore have less fiscal space within which to undertake projects, so the opportunity cost of any misallocation of resources will be correspondingly higher. There is therefore an increasing need to rely more on evidence-based policymaking (EBPM). The is particularly so for large infrastructural projects, as these tend to be costly, and especially for transportation projects as these are particularly prone to result in sub-optimal outcomes. This paper examines the policy process for the implementation of the Jamaican Highway 2000, one of the largest and most costly infrastructure projects in Jamaica in recent years. A number of primary and secondary data sources were explored to ascertain the extent to which the decision to implement the project reflects a case for evidence-based decision-making in practice. This made it clear that the decision was taken at least partly on political grounds, largely in the absence of any supportive evidence, and on the basis of over-optimistic and unrealistic assumptions, and that this has created a number of serious, long-term challenges for Jamaica.     

Taking Stock of Drug Courts: Do They Work?

ABSTRACT

Although researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike have long known about the established link between substance abuse and criminal behavior, criminal justice agencies in the United States are still tasked with managing an influx of individuals who display symptoms of abuse and dependence. By the late 1980s, the drug court model emerged as an innovative response to this problem, and this reform has since proliferated to such an extent that it is the most common type of problem-solving court in America. Still, there remains much variation in how drug courts are implemented across jurisdictions, which can have strong implications for the outcomes among the courts’ participants. In this review, we summarize the key research on drug court implementation, followed by an assessment of whether they can be said to “work” in terms of reducing criminal behavior and relapse among adults. We conclude that the model remains an evidence-based practice and suggest some directions for future work, including increased emphasis on theory and causal dynamics and key measurement issues.     

Explaining the unexpected success of the smoking ban in Italy: political strategy and transition to practice, 2000–2005

The approval (2003) and enforcement (2005) of a smoking ban in Italy have been viewed by many as an unexpectedly successful example of policy change. The present paper, by applying a processualist approach, concentrates on two policy cycles between 2000 and 2005. These had opposing outcomes: an incomplete decisional stage and an authoritative decision, enforced two years later. Through the analysis of the different phases of agenda setting, alternative specification and decision making, we have compared the quality of participation of policy entrepreneurs in the two cycles, their political strategies and, in these, the relevance of issue image. The case allows us to direct the attention of scholars and practitioners to an early phase of the policy implementation process – which we have named "transition to practice". This, managed with political strategy, might have strongly contributed to the final successful policy outcome.     

A Power Horizontal. The Public–Private Enforcement of Judicial Decisions in Russia

Based on fieldwork done in Ekaterinburg, this article deals with the enforcement of legal decisions about economic disputes in the late 2000s in Russia. As state employees, bailiffs are responsible for the implementation of court decisions but their efficiency depends on the cases they deal with. In the most successful cases, they are backed by private enforcers, hired by the claimant and often coming from the law enforcement agencies. This common work reflects an informal public–private partnership from below in which bailiffs and private enforcers co-execute judicial decisions. Such autonomous public–private power configurations at local level challenge the governmental claim to build a ‘power vertical’ in Russia from the top.     

Do consistent government policies lead to greater meaningfulness and legitimacy on the front line?

We investigate the impact of policy consistency on frontline workers’ perceptions of policy meaningfulness and legitimacy. The results from an experiment involving 779 teachers indicate that policy consistency does have a positive effect on legitimacy and to a lesser extent on meaningfulness. However, the extent depends on policy content and the degree of autonomy. Overall, our findings emphasize the potential positive impact of policy consistency. Although this, to some extent, conflicts with the nature of political decision‐ and policy‐making (i.e., democratically elected governments have been mandated to change policy), our study suggests that policy consistency could be a valuable strategy for governments to strengthen successful policy implementation. This adds a new perspective to the continuing debate within policy implementation and street‐level bureaucracy research on how to account for the complex, messy and sometimes contradictory implementation of public policies.     

The Anti-Politics of Development: donor agencies and the political economy of governance

This article discusses the attempt undertaken by several development aid agencies since the turn of the century to integrate political economy assessments into their decision making on development assistance. The article discusses three such attempts: the Drivers of Change adopted by the UK's Department for International Development, the Strategic Governance and Corruption Analysis (sgaca) developed by the Dutch Directorate General for International Cooperation and the new thinking on political economy analysis, policy reform and political risk advanced by the World Bank. On the basis of a political-economic interpretation of development agencies, two main factors are found to hinder the successful application of political economy assessment. In the first place, the agencies' professional outlook leads them to see development in primarily technical terms. In the second place, the nature of incentives for development professionals leads them to resist the implementation of political economy analyses.     

The Growing Litigiousness of Czech Elections

The 2006 Czech elections produced a record number of lawsuits, more than all previous elections to the Chamber of Deputies combined. This article explains the rise as due primarily to the introduction of a new administrative court with special responsibility for electoral disputes. Although the law makes a successful challenge to a result almost impossible, low-cost litigation is attractive to minor political parties as a form of campaigning. The article focuses on the two aspects of the 2006 election that generated the most complaints, media coverage and disproportionality between seats and votes.     

Reconciling Privacy and Access Interests in E-Government

Abstract

Privacy is both the most often cited and the least understood rationale for information policy aimed at protecting the disclosure of governmental information. The use of privacy as a means of limiting governmental information sharing has expanded rapidly in recent years, as a variety of interests—all seemingly concerned with informational privacy—have emerged in the policy making arena. Governments increasingly turning to e-government solutions must confront privacy issues while maintaining access to governmental information.

One of the most contentious privacy–access issues concerns the digitization of court records. Historically open to the public in paper form with limited exceptions, electronic court filings raise novel privacy issues unimagined by keepers of paper-based records systems. This paper looks at the rules that a number of municipal and state governments have adopted in order to move court records online. It examines the new court rules in light of the origins of informational privacy law, offering an avenue for comparing modern conceptualizations of data privacy with the legal principles created in seminal privacy decisions related to informational privacy. Using the rules themselves, the paper explores the dominant strands of privacy doctrine, illustrating the divide between privacy law and privacy policy regarding data protection statutes, freedom of information law exemptions, and other data controls.     

SOME ADVANTAGES OF AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTATION ANALYSIS: A STUDY OF AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY POLICY

Models of policy implementation have been characterized by a tension between 'bottom' and 'top-down' approaches to public sector management. In recent years, this literature moved into 'third generation' in attempting to unify implementation analysis. One recent approach at consolidating key elements of 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' literature has been provided by Soren Winter. This article applies Winter's model to two longitudinal studies of industry programmes in Australia. This analysis suggests that Winter's integrated approach to implementation addresses some of the weaknesses of commonly used rational-comprehensive models such as the Mazmanian and Sabatier framework. However, there are also some weaknesses in Winter's integrated model which implies an agenda for future implementation analysis.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Acceptance of E-Procurement in the German Public Sector

The increasing governmental spending and simultaneously declining income of municipality are two of the most significant challenges of the 21^st century. The introduction of the Internet and innovative information and communication tools over the last few decades have led to a cost saving and efficiency advantage in many areas. By far, public administration has not fully profited from these opportunities and advantages. This article seeks to understand the underlying barriers of technology implementation, namely e-procurement, within the public administration area by analyzing the key barriers of central decision makers within the organization. The empirical findings of 289 respondents from the German public administration show that the barrier typologies are identified and that they have a strong impact on the resistance of implementation. However, the collected data could not verify the theoretically postulated relationship between high resistance and low implementation of the new technology.     

The need for international cooperation in combating terrorism

Abstract

As this paper briefly notes, an elaborate international legal system has been established to combat terrorism. But this system has two primary deficiencies: There are serious gaps in the current law and the law already on the books is not being implemented vigorously. The paper examines the specific nature of the gaps and recommends the establishment, under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, of a committee to oversee implementation of the antiterrorist conventions. The paper also examines some recent work of a less well‐known branch of the United Nations, the Committee on Crime Prevention and Control. Finally, the paper considers the possibility of establishing an international criminal court with jurisdiction over drug trafficking and related acts of terrorism, a proposal that is currently on the agenda of the United Nations International Law Commission.     

The geopolitical economy of social policy in the Philippines: securitisation,emerging powers and multilateral policies

Recent geopolitical and economic changes have altered global social policy formation. The Bretton Woods multilateral development agencies (MDAs) have selectively incorporated ideas emerging from developing country states and decision makers, with a recent increased acceptance of social transfers as part of renewed efforts at poverty alleviation based on social risk management. There has been an instance in the use and promotion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) policies by MDAs. CCTs were a product of the emergence of a neo-structuralist welfare regime (understood as an ideal type) in Latin America – an attempt to reconcile neoliberal strategies of development with aspirations for guaranteed minimum incomes. The Bretton Woods and regional development bank MDAs have facilitated the adoption of CCTs in other developing countries, including the Phillipines. Here, a combination of actions by national political actors and MDAs has resulted in the implementation of a securitised and compliance-focused version of CCTs derived from the Colombian security state. Although poor Philippine households welcome income assistance, CCTs have acted to enforce further state monitoring without altering the national-based political and economic processes that replicate poverty.     

Women’s Participation in Communal Activities in Rural Bangladesh

This article seeks to examine the extent of women’s participation in communal activities in rural Bangladesh, based on an analysis of a development programme, namely REFLECT (Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques). This article evaluates the REFLECT programme with regard to its stated goal of enhancing female participation in local community affairs. Using Michael Mann’s classification of sources of power, the study emphasises the importance of participation as a contribution to political as well as ideological power in the community of Monsurabad Island in rural Bangladesh. To that end, this article aims at analysing women’s participation in community decision-making processes through voting behaviour, traditional village court (Salish) involvement and other civic activities. This study also reviews the views of village elders (matabars) on women’s participation at the communal level and the resulting empowerment. Based on the views of participant women themselves, the study concludes that the implementation of the REFLECT project in the local community under investigation has indeed resulted in empowering women, but this effect remains confined to their families and the handling of women’s issues. As the effect of the REFLECT project has not reached out to the realm of community politics, its impact on women’s participation in the community has been limited. This study argues that without any change in the existing social fabric of Monsurabad, women’s ideological power in that community could not be transformed into political power in accordance with Michael Mann’s theory.     

The Effect of Formal and Informal Contracting Mechanisms on Implementation Performance in the U.S. Federalist System

The relationship between contract management capacity and implementation success in local government contracting is well established. However, less is known about how specific contract mechanisms are linked to this success. This study uses implementation of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program to examine the use of formal and informal contract management techniques in the implementation of energy projects. The use of formal contract mechanisms, such as full and open competitive bidding, contact rescission and outcome-based performance measures, exhibits a statistically significant effect on implementation performance. The findings advance contracting theory and have practical implications for local government contracting and implementation success in fiscal federalism.     

Policy analysis: past,present, and future

This article reviews three themes in the past, present and future of policy analysis—policy analysis as a paradigm for policy advice, the fragility of public policy analysis organizations, and the emergence of ideologically based policy analysis organizations. The policy sciences have evolved from the rational model and the efficiency emphasis to an increased sensitivity to political factors in policy settings and to softer forms of analysis as legitimate ways of understanding policy issues. The article traces the growth of policy analysis staff in both the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government. The article closes with a consideration of the implications for policy analysis education of the trends described above.

Commenting on the state of policy analysis is like trying to describe Southern California. Continuing claims and counter claims have been made about the area's demise. Yet, people from many backgrounds continue to flock to it and proclaim native status. Observers agree there is something important there but they warn that its future is potentially imperiled.

This is a selective roadmap to the past and present of policy analysis with some added perspectives on its future.⁽¹⁾ Three themes are developed in the discussion. One is the durability of policy analysis as a paradigm for policy advice. The second is that, despite this durability, government policy analysis organizations are fragile entities. The third is the challenge to policy analysis brought about by ideologically oriented policy movements. Rather than drawing a tight boundary around policy analysis, this discussion defines the field as those activities which are undertaken, ostensibly at least, in support of decision making about prospective actions for addressing public problems. The key distinguishing points are that the activities—whether labeled policy analysis, policy research, policy design, implementation analysis, program analysis, regulatory analysis, or something else—are: (1) decision oriented, (2) problem driven, and (3) forward 10oking.⁽²⁾ Specifically excluded from this categorization are both retrospective evaluations and traditional academic research. As the diverse set of labels listed above suggests, policy analysis presently comes in many forms and is produced in a variety of institutional settings.     

The economic impact on Colusa county of a cut in the supply of water to the glenn Colusa irrigation district

This study estimates the economic impact of a court ordered cut in water supply resulting from environmental regulations. The objective of the court order was to save the Chinook Salmon which get caught in the pump that is used to distribute the water to farm land. Since the cut would cause major decreases in agriculture production, we used IMPLAN, an input-output model, to measure the multiplier effects on one county's economy due to resulting crop losses. The study estimates total losses in income and jobs when no irrigation water is available from July 15 through November 30 during a typical year.     

HOW POLICY NETWORKS CAN DAMAGE DEMOCRATIC HEALTH: A CASE STUDY IN THE GOVERNMENT OF GOVERNANCE

This article examines a detailed case study of implementation networks in England using the example of the relocation of the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, which became a flagship PFI project for the Labour government after 1997. The case study illustrates the workings of the new order of multi‐layered governance with both local and national networks from different policy areas interacting. However, it also sheds light on the governance debate and illustrates how in the world of new public management, powerful actors, or policy entrepreneurs, with their own agenda, still have the facility, by exercising power and authority, to shape and determine the policy outputs through implementation networks. It is argued that, whereas policy networks are normally portrayed as enriching and promoting pluralist democratic processes, implementation networks in multi‐layered government can also undermine democratic accountability. Four aspects here are pertinent: (1) the degree of central government power; (2) local elite domination; (3) the fragmentation of responsibility; and (4) the dynamics of decision making which facilitates the work of policy entrepreneurs. All these factors illustrate the importance of ‘the government of governance’ in the British state.