THE FIGHT OVER DANISH NATURE: EXPLAINING POLICY NETWORK CHANGE AND POLICY CHANGE

The policy network approach is widely recognized for its ability to describe different networks. Adding the concepts ‘policy image’ and ‘cleavage in the party system’ makes it possible to explain policy network change as well as policy change. This argument is supported by a comparison of the Danish decision in 1960 to straighten Denmark's largest river, the Skjern River, to gain farmland, and the 1987 decision to restore the river and recreate the wild nature of the river valley. The fight over Danish nature has historically been a fight between a land reclamation network and a nature protection network – two networks trying to promote different policy images. Coupled with a new (environmental) cleavage in the party system, new policy images connected to the Skjern River decisions led to radical policy changes.     

THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL POLICY TRANSFER WITHIN THE MULTIPLE STREAMS APPROACH: THE CASE OF SMART ELECTRICITY METERING IN AUSTRALIA

This article draws on Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) to consider international, not just domestic, flows of policy. It is argued that using the MSA in conjunction with international policy transfer and mobility theories allows for a fuller explanation of the development of smart electricity metering policy in Australia. The MSA is based originally on empirical research within a single country – the USA – in the late 1970s, and all three of the ‘streams’ identified as important to policy change – problems, politics and policy – are conceptualized as domestic. While recent scholarship has broadened the application of the MSA beyond nation state boundaries, it is argued that there is scope to further develop such ideas. In particular, the notion of policy mobility is introduced to capture issues about the globalization of policy, the role of non‐state actors and the material substance of policy.     

POLICY CHANGE AND SOFT EUROPEANIZATION: THE TRANSFER OF THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION TO GREECE,CYPRUS AND MALTA

The paper adopts a historical institutionalist approach to Europeanization and argues that policy change is facilitated by three factors. First, it is driven by ‘soft’ mechanisms of Europeanization such as policy transfer. The EU provides the framework for reform and functions as a platform of best practices. Policy transfer mechanisms are implemented in order for member states to pick and choose institutions. Second, domestic mediating factors such as policy preferences are as important as EU obligations. The introduction of the Ombudsman to Greece, Cyprus and Malta demonstrates that hard mechanisms of Europeanization (for example, directives) are not always necessary for change to occur. Soft mechanisms can be equally effective, as long as the political leadership prioritizes the reform. Third, policy change depends on time. Member states adjust their policies and institutions over time. The most common outcome of this adjustment is inertia or incremental change rather than convergence.     

CHANGING THE DECISION SPACE: EUROPEAN POLICY INFLUENCES ON ENERGY POLICY AND SYSTEMS CHANGE IN SWEDEN

The EU takes a growing interest in governing the energy sector in its member states. Competing with national institutions, policies and organizational structures, it is however not clear whether the EU exerts a strong influence compared to other factors, and if there is such an influence, the mechanisms are not well understood. This paper examines strategic reorientation towards electricity investment in the Swedish energy sector, a ‘frontrunner case’ of Europeanization, and discusses how this change can be attributed to EU policy change, national policy change and organizational field developments respectively. It finds that EU energy policy influence has been notable, and that governance mechanisms that shape beliefs and expectations are strongly at play. However, despite growing EU clout on energy policy, field level and national policy change remain key drivers of the changing decision space in the examined time period.     

NEW GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOREST POLICY: INSTITUTIONAL,POLITICAL AND REGULATORY DIMENSIONS

This article investigates emerging governance arrangements at the intersection between forest management and climate policy. The authors deploy the symposium's three‐dimensional framework to describe and evaluate developments within two distinct policy sectors (forestry/climate change adaptation and mitigation) at several levels of governance (bi‐national, national, and sub‐national) to explore the nature and operation of the emerging governance arrangements, and assessing and measuring change within these arrangements over time. Drawing on four contemporary case studies from the US and Canada, New Zealand, British Columbia and Alaska, the authors discern little evidence of a generalized, linear trend from ‘government to governance’. Instead, they conclude, across institutional, political and regulatory dimensions of governance, a more variegated and diverse picture emerges. Their analysis also lends support for the Trubek and Trubek (2007) hypothesis that emerging governance arrangements typically interact with extant ones through modalities of rivalry, complementarity and transformation.     

INDIVIDUALS AND THE DYNAMICS OF POLICY LEARNING: THE CASE OF THE THIRD BATTLE OF NEWBURY

In recent years, the phenomenon whereby key individuals introduce effective ideas into policy processes has been identified as a vital agent in the redefinition of policy issues. In turn, this raises the basic question of how these individuals themselves undergo processes of learning and change. The article examines three models of policy learning in order to analyse what they may tell us about the dynamics of individual learning: the advocacy coalition framework; the process of learning by means of ‘development’; and issue redefinition through processes of punctuated equilibria. The models are examined in the context of the learning dynamics of three key individuals within the salient anti‐bypass group the ‘Third Battle of Newbury’. The article’s conclusion identifies three apparent paradoxes in individual learning dynamics and attempts to answer these with particular reference to the concepts of frame reflection and regulation by means of norm setting.     

Policy entrepreneurship in the development of public sector strategy: the case of London health reform

The development of health policy is recognized as complex; however, there has been little development of the role of agency in this process. Kingdon developed the concept of policy entrepreneur (PE) within his ‘windows’ model. He argued inter-related ‘policy streams' must coincide for important issues to become addressed. The conjoining of these streams may be aided by a policy entrepreneur. We contribute by clarifying the role of the policy entrepreneur and highlighting the translational processes of key actors in creating and aligning policy windows. We analyse the work in London of Professor Sir Ara Darzi as a policy entrepreneur. An important aspect of Darzi's approach was to align a number of important institutional networks to conjoin related problems. Our findings highlight how a policy entrepreneur not only opens policy windows but also yokes together a network to make policy agendas happen. Our contribution reveals the role of clinical leadership in health reform.     

CHARACTERIZING NEW LABOUR: THE CASE OF THE CHILD TRUST FUND

The UK Child Trust Fund (CTF), which came into effect in January 2005, appears to be an exemplary instance of ‘asset‐based welfare’, of the redistribution of wealth rather than simply income. However, this article shows that over the course of its development, and in its final implementation, CTF policy became ever more focused on generating a ‘savings culture’ and enhancing financial literacy. In explaining this outcome, it is argued that it may be characteristic of New Labour for which, it is further argued, welfare policy should seek to push individual aspirations and outlooks in certain directions. The article takes an interpretive approach to the study of policy and politics, arguing that we should look carefully at the processes of argument and selection by which ‘objects’ of policy are specified. This can help us characterize the approach of varying administrations, their ‘governmentality’.     

CENTRAL GRANTS AND LOCAL POLICY VARIATION

This paper estimates the impact of central grants on local spending decisions in England in the 19%. The analysis is based on a more explicit conceptual framework and a more appropriate methodology than conventionally used to measure grant effects in 'output' studies' of local policy variation. A set of six hypotheses is derived from political and economic theories of grant impact. The relationship between grants and expenditure change is estimated through a TSLS (Two Stage Least Squares) regression model. The main empirical results are that grants are an important constraint on spending decisions and that different types of grants have different effects: lump sum grants are substitutive and matching grants are stimulative. The evidence also indicates that spending is influenced by party politics, service needs and the local tax base.     

THE REFORM OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT IN THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION: A PUBLIC MANAGEMENT POLICY CYCLE CASE STUDY

Since the mid‐1990s during the Santer, Prodi, and Barroso presidencies, the European Commission has experienced several public management policy cycles. Included on the Barroso Commission's (2004–2008) policy agenda was the reform of internal financial control, prompted by significant irregularities in budget execution signalled repeatedly by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in its annual Declaration of Assurance (DAS) and Annual Reports. This led to a declared Barroso Commission strategic objective of achieving a ‘positive DAS' by 2009. The proposed solution was ‘integrated internal control’ based on an international reference point within the accounting and auditing professions. The result was a centrally co‐ordinated Commission project aiming to reform management and audit practices within both the Commission and EU member states. This article reports on the ‘positive DAS' and ‘integrated internal control’ policy cycle and explains its agenda‐setting, alternative‐specification, and decisional processes.     

THE DYNAMICS OF POLICY CHANGE: WBBYING AND WATER PRIVATIZATION

The privatization of the water industry was one of the most controversial and turbulent privatizations of the 1980s. The government undertook the project somewhat reluctantly, then the first plans had to be withdrawn, but eventually, the privatization of the industry was successfully completed in 1989. In this article, we first set out to provide a thorough account of the process of privatizing water, based on primary sources and exhaustive interviews. In doing so, we identity some major problems of established theories of British policy making: the process of water privatization clearly does not conform to any single model of policy making. Instead, individual 'episodes' of the policy process conform to different models. Arguing that existing theories of British policy making may have focused too narrowly on routine decision-making processes, we propose that a theory of the transformation of policy communities is required to understand the dynamics of radical policy change in Britain.     

POLICY TRANSFER IN PRACTICE: IMPLEMENTING SUPPLIER DIVERSITY IN THE UK

This article draws on the policy transfer literature to examine a UK‐based initiative to promote supplier diversity and provides insights into three areas neglected in current research, namely: the dynamics of non‐governmental policy transfer; the factors that mediate policy transfer in different jurisdictions; and the integration of research and practice in small business related policy transfer. To this end, an innovative action research approach is deployed with the dual purpose of effecting practical change and advancing knowledge. This comprises two phases: first, a realist analysis of the US National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), an exemplar intermediary; and second, the implementation and concurrent realist evaluation of a supplier diversity initiative modelled on NMSDC, referred to as ‘Supplier Development East Midlands’ (SDEM). The findings provide lessons for academics and practitioners dealing with small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) policy transfer in general and supplier diversity intermediaries in particular.     

THE CONDITIONS FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE POLICY: ROUTINES AND INSTITUTIONS IN THE DUTCH CASE OF NEED ASSESSMENT

By focusing on institutions (rules for action) and routines (patterned behaviour) our intention is to contribute to the understanding of government policy and its outcomes in health and social care. We analysed data to show how the relationship between a new idea for a routine and new rules from the government on the one hand, and existing rules and routines in society on the other, as well as the interaction between rule makers and rule takers (i.e. those who are governed by those rules), have an impact on the change or maintenance of routines. The data concern the case of government policy for need assessment (that is, assessment of needs) in The Netherlands. As our discussion will show, even a national government, however, is not able to completely impose its will on other agents in order to change existing routines. The concept of ‘negotiated order’ helps us to understand why. In the case reported here, the Dutch government and the home care agencies had to exercise give and take, the outcome being a suboptimal result for both.     

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC DILEMMAS: UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THINK TANKS IN THE GOVERNANCE OF REGIONAL POLICY

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of think tanks in the governance of regional policy. The paper critically reviews a series of reports by United Kingdom (UK) based think tanks, published between 2002 and 2008, a period of interest on the part of national government in the most appropriate configuration of subnational governance. Policy transfer and the role of ideas in regional policy provide the framework for analysis. The interpretation of the findings suggests that the think tanks considered are largely products of national policy debate and party politics in the United Kingdom, despite efforts to devolve power. This is surprising given debates about the influence of European Union regional funding on UK regional policy, seen as a prime example of multi‐level governance.     

POLITICS BY HEURISTICS: POLICY NETWORKS WITH A FOCUS ON ACTOR RESOURCES,AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE CASE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY POLICY UNDER NEW LABOUR

Policy network analysis is criticized for being a ‘heuristic’ device, yet ‘heuristic’ methods may be essential to achieve detailed understandings of specific policy outcomes. Rational choice modelling alone cannot perform a similar function. This paper develops a ‘heuristic’ policy network approach that focuses on the analysis of actor resources. Changing contexts can alter the resource distributions of actors within a policy community. This can lead to new policy outcomes. Policy networks can therefore be rescued from criticisms made by, for example, Dowding, by re‐visiting Rhodes's earlier emphasis on analysis of actor resources. This approach is illustrated in the case of UK renewable energy policy under the UK government of New Labour. Changing contexts have strengthened the resources of the main renewable energy interest groups to achieve higher targets and more technology‐specific means of financial incentives. The Renewable Energy Association has achieved legislation favouring feed‐in tariffs as is the practice elsewhere in Europe for small renewable generators.     

The challenge of locating land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation politics within a social justice perspective: towards an idea of agrarian climate justice

Abstract

The global land rush and mainstream climate change narratives have broadened the ranks of state and social actors concerned about land issues, while strengthening those opposed to social justice-oriented land policies. This emerging configuration of social forces makes the need for deep social reforms through redistribution, recognition, restitution, regeneration and resistance – book-ended by the twin principles of ‘maximum land size’ (‘size ceiling’) and a ‘guaranteed minimum land access’ (‘size floor’) – both more compelling and urgent, and, at the same time, more difficult than ever before. The five deep social reforms of socially just land policy are necessarily intertwined. But the global land rush amidst deepening climate change calls attention to the linkages, especially between the pursuit of agrarian justice on the one hand and climate justice on the other. Here, the relationship is not without contradictions, and warrants increased attention as both unit of analysis and object of political action. Understanding and deepening agrarian justice imperatives in climate politics, and understanding and deepening climate justice imperatives in agrarian politics, is needed more than ever in the ongoing pursuit of alternatives.     

MANAGING NETWORKS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: A THEORETICAL STUDY OF MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN POLICY NETWORKS

Public policy usually develops in complex networks of public, quasi-public and private organizations. It is now generally accepted that these networks set limits to the governance capability of the administration. A good deal less is known about the opportunities which policy networks offer for tackling social and administrative problems. This article deals with the way network management enables government organizations to benefit from networks. Building on the theoretical concepts of‘networks’and‘games’, two forms of network management are identified: game management and network structuring. Four key aspects can be identified for both of these management forms: actors and their relations, resources, rules and perceptions. At the same time, criteria for the assessment and improvement of network management are examined. The article concludes with a consideration of the limits of network management.     

POLICY AS NARRATIVE: NEW LABOUR’S REFORM OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

Beginning with a brief review of the governance literature, a definition of governance in the National Health Service of England and Wales (NHS) is offered. This introduces an analysis of NHS reform, as presented in the recent policy literature. Using narrative theory, I critique this literature with reference to three key actors: the new organizational form of the ‘Foundation Trust’, NHS staff, and NHS patients. For each actor, a motif is identified and examined: ‘freedom’ for Foundation Trusts, ‘clinical governance’ for staff, and ‘choice’ for patients. Each of these motifs is instrumental in the narrative on NHS reform, whose main themes are emancipation, progress and duty. These are common to other political projects. This critique makes the rhetoric underpinning the recent policy literature more explicit, and underlines the created, contingent nature of New Labour’s account of NHS reform.     

Know thy enemy: Hizbullah, ‘terrorism’ and the politics of perception

The labelling career of the Lebanese armed group and political party Hizbullah is an interesting case with which to investigate the epistemological consequences of the politics of naming. Having found itself since its inception in the mid-1980s on the receiving end of mainly US and Israeli policy makers' and analysts' scorn for being an archetypical terrorist organisation, Hizbullah has been surprisingly successful in achieving its stated aims and in enduring the verbal and military onslaught against it. Although it is not the intention here to reduce explanations for Hizbullah's durability to discursive politics, this article suggests that both the labelling of Hizbullah as terrorist and, conversely, its identification as a ‘lebanonised’ political force that is about to make its conversion into an unarmed political party are misleading and incapable of grasping this organisation's complexities. In fact, both ‘terrorist’ and ‘lebanonised’ labels produce a quality of knowledge inferior to that produced by Hizbullah's own conceptualisation of its enemies. But most importantly, the debate on Hizbullah's alleged terrorist nature has obscured several of its traits that many should register before passing judgement on it. Our analysis shows that the variety of institutions Hizbullah has been carefully elaborating and readapting over the past two decades in Lebanon operate today as a holistic and integrated network which produce sets of values and meanings embedded in an interrelated religious and political framework—that of the wilayat al-faqih. These meanings are disseminated on a daily basis among Shi'a constituencies through the party's institutionalised networks and serve to mobilise them into ‘the society of the Resistance’ (mujtamaa’ al-muqawama), which is the foundation of the hala al-islamiyya (Islamic sphere) in Lebanon. Accordingly, any prospect of Hizbullah's transformation away from armed ‘resistance’ should be firmly placed in an analysis of its hegemony among the Shi'a of Lebanon and of the tools it uses to acquire and sustain this status.     

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE CASE OF COMMUNITY CARE

This article explores the contention that the conventions of public expenditure accounting conceal, rather than reveal, the real nature and implications of resource trends. A benchmark — a constant level of service output — is established as a basis for examining the relationship between trends in expenditure inputs and service outputs. Changes in unit costs are identified as the major source of deviation between expenditure and output trends. The impact of resource constraint on policy and policy-implementation is then examined in relation to one, essentially stable, area of policy in the personal social services: community care.
The meaning of the term'policy' is far from straightforward and community care is best understood as the interaction of relatively independent streams of policy, towards service outputs and resource inputs, extant in both central and local government. Mechanisms by which policy streams could be reconciled are of particular interest and an innovative example — joint finance — is examined in some detail.