Arenas without Rules and the Policy Change Process: Outsider Groups and British Roads Policy

A key task of governments is to construct and manage systems of consultation whereby the vast array of interest groups seeking to influence public policy can be accommodated. Conventional wisdom holds that key insider groups secure for themselves special privileges, not least of which is an ability to prevent radical policy change. A concomitant view is that public policy emerges from relatively stable networks of actors who have some mutual resource dependencies. One reason why this paradigm is showing signs of intellectual fatigue is that it seems weak in explaining policy change. Yet, policy change does take place. Indeed, it is one of the characteristics of the 1980s and 1990s. This article examines an example of the traditional modalities of consultation failing to accommodate new interests, knowledge and ideas. This breakdown appears to have occurred by the use of alternative policy 'arenas without rules' by outsider groups, leading to a radical new 'framing' of transport policy. Moreover, government has failed to constrain the new policy issues in predictable and stable systems of consultation.     

C. Reviews and notes bibliographies and works of reference

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Book reviews

Realism, Idealism and International Politics: A Reinterpretation

By M. Griffiths, Routledge: London, 1992, 206pp(hbk), £35.00

International Conflict Resolution: The US‐USSR and Middle East Cases

By Louis Kriesberg, Yale University Press: 1992.

Deterring Democracy

By Noam Chomsky, Vintage Press, 1992, 439pp £7.99(pbk) ISBN 0–09–913501–9.

Arab Military Industry: Capability, Performance, and Impact

By Yezid Sayigh. Brassey's, London, £38.00/$49.50. ISBN 0–08–041777–9.

The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia 1988–91

By Bernard Wheaton and Zdenek Kavan, Westview Press, 1992.

Peace Without Hiroshima: Secret Action at the Vatican in the Spring of 1945

By Martin S. Quigley. Madison Books: Lanham, Maryland, 1991. 169pp.

Historical Discord in the Nile Valley

By Gabriel R. Warburg, London: Hurst & Company Ltd, 1992, £27.50.

To Loose the Bands of Wickedness: International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights

Nigel Rodley (Ed). Brassey's (UK), 1992. 287pp(HBk). ISBN l‐85753‐()47‐().     

Network Structures: Working Differently and Changing Expectations

There is a growing need for innovative methods of dealing with complex, social problems. New types of collaborative efforts have emerged as a result of the inability of more traditional bureaucratic hierarchical arrangements such as departmental programs to resolve these problems. Network structures are one such arrangement that is at the forefront of this movement. Although collaboration through network structures establishes an innovative response to dealing with social issues, there remains an expectation that outcomes and processes are based on traditional ways of working. It is necessary for practitioners and policy makers alike to begin to understand the realities of what can be expected from network structures in order to maximize the benefits of these unique mechanisms.     

Overlapping jurisdictions: Substitutes or complements?

This paper presents a simple model of the demand relationship between the activities undertaken by overlapping governments and uses the framework to estimate the relationship between municipal and county expenditures. The empirical results reveal a complementary relationship between county and city general expenditures; any public sector expansion effects of monopoly power at the county level will therefore be reinforced by greater municipal spending, further expanding the total size of the local public sector. On the other hand, changes in county police and roads expenditures appear to have no strong stable impact on municipal police and roads expenditures, respectively, providing no reinforcing or offsetting municipal spending responses to decisions at the county level.     

Expanding the opportunity for partisan activity among government employees: potential effects on federal executives’ political involvement

Almost half the respondents to a 1990 survey of federal Senior Executive Service personnel said their political activity would increase if Hatch Act constraints on partisan political involvement were removed. More than one-third predicted that if the law permitted, they would distribute partisan campaign literature, organize political meetings, and publicly endorse candidates—activities the Hatch Act now prohibits. Scaling techniques reveal respondents’ present political activity level is 2.58 (on a 1-10 scale), increasing to an estimated 4.07 with Hatch Act liberalization. The potential for expanded political activity is dispersed widely through the SES, but it appears greatest among females, non-whites, youths, newcomers, those with less than a doctorate degree, non-career executives, and respondents supervised by political executives. These findings do not measure the effect of a weakened Hatch Act on the character of the public service. However, if respondents act on their predilections and expand their political involvement, these data have implications for public sector professionalism, nonpartisan administration, and public confidence in government.