Analysing Local Policy Agendas: How Dutch Municipal Executive Coalitions Allocate Attention

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of the allocation of attention to policy problems on the local level, focusing on the executive agenda of six municipalities in the Netherlands over a 25-year period. It reveals that there is specifically a local politics of attention, showing differences between national and local policy agendas in specific policy areas. We did not find evidence that the political composition of the local executive coalitions leads to agenda differences, revealing the more problem-oriented and pragmatic nature of local politics. We did find evidence of an effect of institutional arrangements between national and local government on shifting patterns of attention, such as due to decentralisation. This shows that the local politics of attention is limited in scope and conditioned by the functions of local government and the institutional arrangements of policy making in the Dutch decentralised unitary state and that rearrangements affect these patterns of attention.     

The democratizing impact of governance networks: From pluralization,via democratic anchorage,to interactive political leadership

Initially, governance networks were intended as tools for making public governance more effective. Yet, scholars have argued that governance networks also have the potential to democratize public governance. This article provides an overview of theoretical arguments pertaining to the democratizing impact of governance networks. It claims that the initial celebration of the pluralization of public governance and the subsequent call for a democratic anchorage of governance networks should give way to a new concern for how governance networks can strengthen and democratize political leadership. Tying political leadership to networked processes of collaborative governance fosters ‘interactive political leadership’. The article presents theoretical arguments in support of interactive political leadership, and provides an illustrative case study of a recent attempt to strengthen political leadership through the systematic involvement of elected politicians in local governance networks. The article concludes by reflecting on how interactive political leadership could transform our thinking about democracy.     

Urban Governance And Policy Networks: On The Urban Political Boundedness of Policy Networks. A French Case Study

The paper analyses the changes within two policy domains in one French city. The aim is not so much to demonstrate the role of policy networks but to stress the importance of their articulation within a given political space. The paper does not conclude on the emergence of a new type of network governance but rather shows how urban political élites have deliberately encouraged the formation of policy net-works in Rennes. That strategy makes sense in their attempt to strengthen an urban collective actor. Policy networks therefore should not be analysed autonomously as their impact is largely shaped by the interest and collective goals of the existing regime of governance in Rennes.     

THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SPECIAL EDUCATION POLICY: WHERE DID THE 1981 ACT FIT IN?

The passage of legislation is just one point in the process of negotiation and bargaining which formed the will to legislate and continues throughout the period of policy implementation. Using the 1981 Education Act as a case study, this paper develops a conceptual framework which sees education legislation as a significant reference point, a statement of government intent, but implementation as a political process involving negotiation, bargaining and compromise between different sectors of government, between central and local government, between education, health and social services, between administrators and professionals, and with parents.     

PUBLIC SECTOR PAY BARGAINING: COMPARABILITY, DECENTRALIZATION AND CONTROL

Public sector pay, as a key component of public expenditure, has been a major issue for government since the mid-1970s. This article analyses public services pay bargaining since 1979 and examines the continuing tension between the control of public sector pay levels on the one hand and the wish to make pay levels more responsive to external market forces on the other.
The article concentrates on the changes in pay bargaining in the public services. It does not purport to provide a detailed economic analysis of the outcomes of the various phases in public sector pay policy, but does attempt to explain the process implications of the political contingencies and rationale driving government policy on pay determination. In particular it notes the resilience of national pay-setting arrangements and pay comparability throughout most of the period under review, despite the political rhetoric, emphasizing the pragmatism of government policy. The latter section of the article reviews the current policy, with its emphasis on decentralized pay determination, and considers these new developments within the context of private sector collective bargaining theory.
The evidence from the private sector suggests that pay determination in the private sector is complex and that levels of bargaining relate to various factors. Decentralization is neither a panacea for poor performance nor necessarily problem free. Devolved pay determination can lead to problems of control over costs and, in the context of high levels of trade union organization, to pay'leapfrogging'. The article concludes that there is a continuing contradiction between the role of the government as an employer, keen to devolve pay decisions to local level, and that of economic regulator with responsibility for the wider economy. This continuing tension indicates that decentralized pay bargaining in the public sector will be limited in its scope by some form of central government control.     

Conceptualizing the Tools of Government in Urban Network Governance

The alleged increase in new governance arrangements is often understood as a challenge, since public leaders are considered to be less able to influence and govern when government is only one out of several stakeholders. Some scholars argue that steering in such settings is fundamentally different from steering in a hierarchical context. This article aims to assess how a classic and generic analytical framework to tools of government, the NATO-scheme developed by Christopher Hood, fits in a setting where local governments attempt to influence networks. Based on in-depth studies of nine urban networks in Norway, we have assessed the toolbox and the use of different tools. The article demonstrates that the suggested generic framework makes sense in a network context. Thus, to bridge the classic literature on policy instruments and the growing discourse on meta-governance would probably be beneficial.     

Agrarian reform and structural change in Latin America: The Chilean case

Agrarian reform has been a central political issue in Chile during the last decade although less than 30 per cent of the country's population is agricultural. The Christian Democratic government elected in 1964 in tiated a land reform over rightist opposition with the pirmary objective of eliminating the traditional latifundia and granting land to some 100,000 peasant families. Only one‐fourth of this goal had been met in 1970 when a coalition of socialists, communists and other leftist parties elected socialist Salvador Allende president. The new government's programme promises a ‘transition to socialism’ including a far more profound and sweeping agrarian reform than the one begun by the previous administration. Realization of such an agrarian reform poses difficult political, social and economic problems. In this article we attempt to define the major issues and to analyse policy alternatives facing the new government.     

The politics of HIV/AIDS in South Africa: government action and public response

A decade ago it seemed likely that African governments would be destabilised by the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This article tests some of the presumptions in such forecasting with an examination of the South African case. It begins with an assessment of the effects on the public health system of the South African government’s efforts to cope with the illness. Efforts to implement universal treatment of people who are HIV-positive appear to have strengthened government, while the costs have been affordable. The efforts have extended the embrace of the public health system and prompted the engagement of civil society in policy formation and implementation. Survey evidence suggests that the government has gained public approval and that its health service delivery has become more socially accountable. Civil protest to engender political reforms in the treatment of AIDS patients has enhanced the role of constitutional checks on executive authority.     

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.     

Policy Network Transformation: The Implementation Of The Ec Directive On Packaging And Packaging Waste

Policy network analysis has been criticized for failing to adopt a sufficiently dynamic approach to the study of policy-making processes. There have been, however, a number of studies illustrating how policy networks change, recognizing that they are not static entities but respond to changes in the policy environment. This article applies policy network analysis to the negotiation of plans to implement the 1994 EC Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive in the UK and provides a further contribution to the literature on the formation and transformation of policy networks. The analysis reveals significant changes in the structure and operation of the policy network during the period studied. The reasons for such changes confirm those put forward by other policy network analysts, such as the power of the actors involved and conflicts between them. Other reasons include the role of the government and the tight schedule laid out by the directive.     

TAMING THE ‘AWKWARD STATE’? THE CHANGING FACE OF EUROPEAN POLICY‐MAKING UNDER BLAIR

This paper analyses the important changes to the European Union (EU) policy-making process within the UK core executive introduced by the Blair government between 1997 and 2007. Employing a strategic-relational network framework, it sets out to map the changing face of policy-making within the Whitehall EU network, and to evaluate and explain the impact of adaptation. The article argues that Labour's reform strategy has been double-edged: day-to-day coordination of EU policy has become increasingly informal, ad hoc and delegated downwards to departmental players while the role of the centre has been greatly strengthened in order to provide more effective strategic direction and political leadership. Despite these seemingly coherent reforms, however, many critical features of the process have been potentially detrimental to the projection of a more constructive European policy.     

CORE EXECUTIVE STUDIES IN BRITAIN

Discussions of core executive operations in Britain have focused on a limited controversy about whether monocratic control is exercised by the premier or whether more collegial decision making persists in Cabinet. An extended typology of institutionalist views is examined, including the prime ministerial clique interpretation, models of ministerial government, segmented decision making, and bureaucratic coordination. This restricted debate reflects normative anxieties about Britain's unbalanced constitution, party-structured legislature and an inadequate rational policy process inside the executive. New directions for core executive research are examined, including the analysis of decisional studies, more disaggregated and differentiated accounts of the core executive, coalition politics in the core executive, and the analysis of leadership influences.     

The Maintenance of Executive Capacity in Germany: Revisiting the Annual Budget of the European Union

This article considers the executive capacity of the German government to coordinate the annual budget of the European Union in the post-Maastricht period. It identifies and elaborates two broad sets of factors essential to the development of this routinized policy process: internal executive coordination through specialized administrative techniques and coordination with external actors through multi-level institutional adjustments. The emergent picture shows the success of the Federal government in maintaining its executive capacity within an Europeanized policy sector.     

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.     

NARRATIVES AND DILEMMAS OF LOCAL BUREAUCRATIC ELITES: WHITEHALL AT THE COAL FACE?

The worlds of local bureaucrats are under researched and under theorized compared with those of civil servants in core executives. Yet local bureaucratic elites, sitting as they do between central states and localities, are key actors in governance networks. In England, the role and responsibilities of local bureaucratic elites has been transformed since the days of professionalized officers heading departmental structures reporting to committees, firstly by NPM and politicization in the 1980s and 1990s and, more recently, by political management reform introducing a separation of powers. Drawing on interviews in 15 local authorities, this paper examines the changing narratives and dilemmas of local government elites. In particular it explores, but argues against, early expectations that the creation of an elected executive, with considerable devolution of decision-making responsibilities to individual cabinet member councillors, has meant a move closer to the logics of the 'Whitehall mandarin' tradition by local government chief officers.     

BY VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT: THE POLITICS OF INSTRUMENT SELECTION

There are many ways in which policies can be sanctioned, and legislation is only one of a number of alternatives. This article examines one such alternative: voluntary agreements. After outlining the major characteristics of this policy instrument there is an examination of the various factors which appear to influence their selection in favour of legislation. This is followed by an attempt to trace a pattern of policy succession by examining three particular cases where there has been a change in the principal policy instrument. Finally, the discussion as a whole is set in the context of the executive domination of Parliament. The implications of the use of non-statutory instruments, such as voluntary agreements, for this relationship are noted.     

The Maintenance of Executive Capacity in Germany: Revisiting the Annual Budget of the European Union

This article considers the executive capacity of the German government to coordinate the annual budget of the European Union in the post‐Maastricht period. It identifies and elaborates two broad sets of factors essential to the development of this routinized policy process: internal executive coordination through specialized administrative techniques and coordination with external actors through multi‐level institutional adjustments. The emergent picture shows the success of the Federal government in maintaining its executive capacity within an Europeanized policy sector.     

Public administration and policymaking: The political/career executive environment

Federal government policymaking is improved by the partici-pation of career executives. As a minimum, contributions based on their professional expertise and institutional experience can serve as an early warning system for helping political executives to avoid mistakes in new policy ventures. However, a number of political, structural, and attitudinal factors cause the political/career executive relationship environment to be characteristically stressful, tense, and frequently not conducive to joint involvement in policymaking. Historic factors producing this environment include basic constitutional and democratic values regarding the exercise of unitary power, the ambiguous roles of political and career executives, the controversial executive workforce structure, and the differing orientations of career and non-career executives. More recent obstacles to developing a cooperative state of political/career relations consist of the rise of the administrative presidency accompanied by bureaucrat-bashing, an increased politicization of management, and the trend toward ideological administration. What has been termed the “quiet crisis” in public service has led to calls for change in presidential rhetoric, development of orientation and communication opportunities in the political/career relationship, and proposals of structural alternatives to the present executive workforce system established in 1978. The Bush administration has implemented several measures leading to a renewed recognition of the benefits to policymaking output of career executive involvement.     

'Arm's Length but Hands On'. Mapping the New Governance: The Department of National Heritage and Cultural Politics in Britain

This article uses the Department of National Heritage (DNH) founded in 1992 to illustrate the current debate over changing governance in Britain (such as the hollow core and self-steering networks) given the development of small, central policy-oriented ministries supervising a penumbra of policy networks. The article argues that the DNH has at its disposal a number of power resources – ministerial activism, policy review and guidance, systematic review, and finance – which enable it to give a determined steer to its autonomous networks. The implication of this is that real structural change should not obscure the resources at the disposal of the centre in their relationship with their policy networks: government is not just another organization.     

The chief administrative officer in urban administration

One cause of the urban crisis in America id ineffectual executive leadership and administration. Charter reorganization often fails to improve the city' condition because objectives are not clear. As such authorities as Lineberry and Fowler, and Adrian have noticed, larger cities often seek better executive andds administrative performance through the strong mayor-council form of government, thereby leaving the reform tradition's model council-manager form. But close observation of several large cities reveals the position of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) as a close asociate of the mayor and a substitute for a City Manager (CM). Although more than 2000 cities have a CAO, the city management professional literature has created an ambiguous, somewhat critical view of the position. Criticisms expressed are that a CAO is only the personal assistant of the mayor, lacks full appointive and budget powers, and is not as profesional as a CM. However, study of the charters of several cities such as San Francisco, Albuqerque, and New Orleans, and results of analyses by Hogan, Sayre, Nolting, and others indicate that CAOs possess significant appointive, policy and budget authority and are highly successful professionals. The need for strong executive political leadership in larger cities is often more than the CM institution can acomodate. The city management profession has not fully recognized the mayor-CAO combination as a valuable alternative to the council-manager government. However, the succes of the CAO position in numerous cities, and the close working realtion acheived betwen mayors and CAOs uncovered by Hogan, indicate that the CAO is here to stay, and merits a place alongside the venerable CM Institution in the constant effort to improve American city management.