| Abstract: | ‘Presidents are more likely to be punished for not making promises of administrative reform than for not implementing them.’ (March & Olsen 1983, 291) Policy-making and implementation have usually been treated as two distinct disciplines. In this article it is argued that implementation is affected by the prior policy-making process. Hypotheses regarding such impacts are derived from the policy-making theories resting on a) the rational decision-making model. b) the conflict-bargaining model, and c) the garbage-can model: Implementation failures are more likely 1) if goals are absent or vague and if alternatives and their consequences have not been considered; 2) if the policy-making process involves participants with conflicting interests and compromising; 3) if there are many and changing participants with limited attention and if symbols are important in the poky-making process. These hypotheses are tested and discussed in relation to a reorganization case, the decentralization of the disablement pension administration in Denmark in 1976. |
