[John Fenwick, Janice Mcmillan] Public Management 2010

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Public Management in the Postmodern Era


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NEW HORIZONS IN PUBLIC POLICY

Series Editor: Wayne ParsonsProessor o Public Policy, Queen Mary, University o London, UK

This series aims to explore the major issues acing academics and practitionersworking in the ield o public policy at the dawn o a new millennium. It seeks torelect on where public policy has been, in both theoretical and practical terms,and to prompt debate on where it is going. The series emphasizes the need tounderstand public policy in the context o international developments and globalchange. New Horizons in Public Policy publishes the latest research on the studyo the policymaking process and public management, and presents original andcritical thinking on the policy issues and problems acing modern and post-modern societies.

Titles in the series include:

Success and Failure in Public GovernanceA Comparative AnalysisEdited by Mark Bovens, Paul tHart and B. Guy Peters

Consensus, Cooperation and ConlictThe Policy Making Process in DenmarkHenning Jrgensen

Public Policy in Knowledge-Based EconomiesFoundations and FrameworksDavid Rooney, Greg Hearn, Thomas Mandeville and Richard Joseph

Modernizing Civil ServicesEdited by Tony Butcher and Andrew Massey

Public Policy and the New European AgendasEdited by Fergus Carr and Andrew Massey

The Dynamics o Public Policy

Theory and EvidenceAdrian Kay

Ethics and Integrity o GovernancePerspectives Across FrontiersEdited by Leo W.J.C. Huberts, Jeroen Maesschalck and Carole L. Jurkiewicz

Public Management in the Postmodern EraChallenges and ProspectsEdited by John Fenwick and Janice McMillan


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Public Management inthe Postmodern EraChallenges and Prospects

Edited by

John Fenwick

Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK

Janice McMillan

Edinburgh Napier University Business School, UK

NEW HORIZONS IN PUBLIC POLICY

Edward ElgarCheltenham, UK Northampton, MA, USA


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John Fenwick and Janice McMillan 2010

All rights reserved. No part o this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system or transmitted in any orm or by any means, electronic,mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the priorpermission o the publisher.

Published byEdward Elgar Publishing Limited

The Lypiatts15 Lansdown RoadCheltenhamGlos GL50 2JAUK

Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.William Pratt House9 Dewey CourtNorthamptonMassachusetts 01060USA

A catalogue record or this bookis available rom the British Library

Library o Congress Control Number: 2010922133

ISBN 978 1 84720 978 8 (cased)Printed and bound by MPG Books Group, UK


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viii

Contributors

Henrik P. Bang is Associate Proessor, Senior Lecturer and Coordinatoro the Comparative Politics group in the Department o Political Scienceat the University o Copenhagen. His main elds o research are networkgovernance and political participation, within which he has publishedextensively. Recent publications include articles in the journals Urban

Research and Practice, British Politics and Administrative Theory andPraxis. He has also edited, with Anders Esmark, New Publics With/OutDemocracy (2007), a critical analysis o the public sphere in an era onetworks.

Mark Evans is Proessor o Governance and Director o the AustraliaNew Zealand School o Governments Institute o Governance at theUniversity o Canberra. His published research ocuses on our key areas:public administration and public policy; policy analysis; evaluating the

impact o processes o globalisation on domestic policy ormation; andpost-war reconstruction and development. The research theme bindingthese together is the interest in institution-building and processes o gov-ernance. His books include: Constitution-making and the Labour Party(2004), Policy Transer in Global Perspective (2005), New Directions in theStudy o Policy Transer (2009) and Understanding Competition States,with Neil Lunt (2009). He is also editor o the international journal PolicyStudies.

David Farnham is Proessor Emeritus at the University o Portsmouthand Visiting Proessor at the University o Greenwich. He is ormerSenior Visiting Research Fellow at the Catholic University Leuven,Visiting Proessor at the University o East London and Visiting Fellowat Glamorgan Business School. Specialising in human resources man-agement and public sector employment, he is a board member o severalpublic bodies and co-chair o the Public Personnel Policy study groupo the European Group o Public Administration. Publications includeStaf Participation and Public Management Reorm: Some InternationalComparisons (with A. Hondehem and S. Horton) (2005) and EmploymentRelations in Europe: A Comparative and Critical Review, in E. De Weert andJ. Enders, The Academic Proession: International Comparisons (2009).


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Contributors ix

John Fenwick is Proessor o Leadership and Public Management atNewcastle Business School, Northumbria University. He teaches in theareas o public management, local government and organisational studies

and has long-established research interests in public participation andpolicy research. He has completed a study o political management in localgovernment and the role o executive mayors, and his current researchrelates to theoretical developments in public management, leadershipstructures in local government and cooperative models in secondary edu-cation. He has published Managing Local Government (1995) and a rangeo papers in journals such as Local Government Studies, Public Money andManagement and Public Policy and Administration.

Paul H.A. Frissen is Proessor o Public Administration at TilburgUniversity and member o the Council or Societal Development, an advi-sory body or the cabinet and parliament. He is also Dean and Chairmano the Board o the Netherlands School o Public Administration, a train-ing institution or higher o cials in government and the public sector,and a think-tank in The Hague. He has published De Versplinterde Staat(The Fragmented State, 1991); De Virtuele Staat (The Virtual State, 1996)(translated as Politics, Governance, Technology: A Postmodern Narrativeon the Virtual State,1996); De Lege Staat (The Empty State, 1999); De

Staat. Een Drieluik(The State. A Tryptich, 2002); De Staat van Verschil.Een Kritiek van de Gelijkheid (The State o Diference. A Critique oEquality, 2007), and Gevaar verplicht. Over de noodzaak van aristocra-tische politiek(The Obligation o Danger. On the Necessity o AristocraticPolitics, 2009).

Andrew Massey is Proessor o Public Administration, Department oPolitics at the University o Exeter. Prior to this he was Associate Dean atthe University o Portsmouth and has taught at Queen Mary, University

o London and Salord University. He is the Director o the Masters inPublic Administration (MPA) degree at Exeter and researches on publicsector reorm and modernisation. He is the author o numerous books andarticles on these subjects. He has also produced reports or and advisedthe British Cabinet O ce and HM Treasury as well as the National AuditO ce. He regularly contributes to the work o the Public Management andPolicy Association (part o the Chartered Institute o Public Accountants)and has been the Chair o the UKs Joint University Council.

Janice McMillan isLecturer in Public Management and Human ResourceDevelopment at Edinburgh Napier University. She has held previous postsat Northumbria University, Robert Gordon University and Nottingham


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xi

Preace

This new collection o original essays is intended as a challenging explora-tion o public management and public policy in a postmodern era. Writtenby a group o leading international scholars, the book addresses keyissues o theory and practice. Its central concern is with a public serviceand public policy environment that has now moved irreversibly beyond

the historical moment o the New Public Management (NPM). In a post-NPM world, the old ways o working and making practical sense, and thesupercial changes associated with the period o modernisation, haveceased to have any utility or public sector practitioners. Correspondingly,on a theoretical level, the old assumptions o modernism and ounda-tionalism have ceased to have explanatory or heuristic value. We are, asresearchers and as practical people, in a state o constant change. Themaps we previously used to chart our course have become aded and indis-tinct, describing a country we no longer recognise.

The contributors to this book each, in their own way, seek to make senseo this changed environment. We are condent that these collected essayswill prompt urther research and urther thought around the sometimesdi cult ideas within. In particular, we hope that challenging theoreticalwork can be made relevant to the day-to-day work o public sector man-agers and practitioners. Just as empirical work without theory can only be,at best, descriptive, we believe that theoretical work without reerence topractice will be judged irrelevant. In di cult postmodern times, the task oaddressing both theory and practice is more important than ever.

A number o audiences academic researchers, students and prac-titioners alike will nd diferent parts o this book relevant to theirparticular needs, and we hope, above all, that the book as a whole willstimulate urther research in these demanding areas o enquiry.


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6 Public management in the postmodern era

core executive has the capacity to act efectively. This, along with otherinuencing governance eatures, has resulted in a diferentiated polity,outlined by Bache and Flinders (2004) as being characterised by, among

other aspects, heterarchy; central government steering; multiple lineso accountability; ragmented civil service; multi-level bargaining, andshared sovereignty. In this conception o governance the centre still retainssome pivotal control through, or example, greater control o resourcescompared with other actors in the system (Bache, 2003). Several chaptersin this book develop these themes, and indeed we would go urther: wewould propose that the diferentiated polity has itsel reached a postmod-ern condition where the eatures indentied by Rhodes and others stillexist but are pushed to the extremes o sense-making in public service pro-

vision. Sense-making goes on at the periphery o conventional discourse,at the edges o the o cial lie o the public services.

The developments and debates explored in the collection are inter-national in their scope, but we do not intend that this is conned tothe United States and the United Kingdom. Comparable choices anduncertainties are conronted in societies that have passed through theirown modernisation phases (such as New Zealand, discussed by AndrewMassey in Chapter 5), or have avoided conronting the choices in exactlythe same way (such as Ireland or France), or in transitional societies (such

as those in Eastern Europe or China) who are learning rom experienceelsewhere. Thus the key concerns o the book are global and draw theirexamples widely, or instance in the international comparisons ofered byDavid Farnham in Chapter 6. Taken as a whole, the collection assesses theimpact on both theory and practice o the prevailing postmodern con-dition in public policy and management. Thus the era with which thisbook is concerned is dened theoretically, politically and managerially.

The collection is about postmodernity the time and place we nd our-selves in, the state we are in, a condition beyond modernity and about

postmodernism the (multiple) ways o conceiving o postmodernity,beyond existing theoretical positions, especially oundational theories,and certainly beyond NPM. The book is theoretically inormed but is notaimed toward elaboration o theory or its own sake. It is about how publicpolicy and public management can be conceived o in postmodern times.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK AND KEY THEMES

The chapters are grouped into three parts, dealing with concepts andtheories, applications and practice, and, nally, overall resolution andconclusions.


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The section on conceptualising and theorising concludes with a lucid

discussion by Mark Evans o policy transer within the competition

state. Here we fnd a critical and analytical review o what policy transer

has meant within a rational model o policy-making. Defning the UKas a competition state, Evans considers policy transer as both cross-

disciplinary and cross-national in its scope, ocusing upon the globalising

impact o policy actors search or new ways to cope with the perceived

reality around them. On one level Evans presents a comprehensive

account o what policy transer is and the ways in which it can ail or

succeed. This is valuable in identiying, or instance, the coercive policy

transer relationship between the West and some other societies. More

important, in the context o the themes o the book as a whole, the chapter

is about governance, globalisation and learning. It links the theoreticaldebates back to an empirical base, one o our concerns throughout. The

chapter by Mark Evans poses some signifcant questions or us. In the

UK, the principal tenets o public service modernisation that already

dated political incarnation o NPM drew (in)amously rom experi-

ence in other countries, whether it was borrowing local elected mayors

rom continental Europe or the Child Support Agency rationale rom the

United States. The United States remains an exemplar to some transitional

countries in Asia and Eastern Europe, while other societies in the South

actively pursue an alternative paradigm. In which direction and with whatconsequences is the process o policy transer now travelling? This chapter

defnes the current state-o-the-art in relation to policy transer under con-

ditions o rapid change.

Having established some challenging theoretical dimensions or the

collection as a whole, the next part o the book shits attention to applica-

tions and actors.

Applications and Actors

Inormed bytheoretical debates, the intention in this section is to reect

directly on practice in a postmodern public service environment. Thus

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 explore the lived world o public sector practitioners.

This part o the book begins with Andrew Masseys discussion o pro-

essions and proessionalism. The implications o changes prompted by

NPM are considered or the work o public service proessionals. Massey

fnds that debates about the power o proessionals have moved on in the

postmodern era, as we have increasingly had to take account o how pro-

essionals operate within globalised systems o governance. This embraces

issues such as regulation o proessional behaviour, ethics, the application

o codes o conduct and proessional power. Within a dierentiated polity,


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Introduction 11

discursive review, addressing both theory and practice, predicated upondissatisaction with the received wisdoms o public policy and publicmanagement. The ollowing essays are diverse in their approach and are

united by a concern with making sense o an uncertain public sector worldwhere theory has been let behind by hyper-rapid change and practice hasbeen cast adrit by inadequate theory. The book places itsel rmly withinan anti-oundational ramework where the conventions o a new publicmanagement and the critique once posed by modernisation are nowredundant. This leaves public policy and management in uncharted terri-tory. The collection aims to map this terrain or the rst time.

REFERENCES

Bache, I. (2003), Europeanization: a governance approach, paper presented tothe EUSA 8th International Biennial Conerence, Nashville, 2729 March.

Bache, I. and M. Flinders (2004), Multi-level governance and the study o Britishpolitics, in I. Bache and M. Flinders (eds), Multi-Level Governance, Oxord:Oxord University Press.

Fenwick, J. and J. McMillan (2005), Organisational learning and public sectormanagement: an alternative view, Public Policy and Administration, 20(3),4255.

Rhodes, R.A.W., P. Carmichael, J. McMillan and A. Massey (2003), Decentralizingthe Civil Service: From Unitary State to Diferentiated Polity in the UnitedKingdom, Buckingham: Open University Press.


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Modernism redux 17

themselves in over-estimating the capacity o human beings to solveproblems by intellectual cogitation. Wildavsky emphasized that publicproblems were undamentally about how human beings interacted, and

that this social interaction was a key aspect o human problem solving.Because public problems were ar more complex than putting a man onthe moon, progress was not to be about making government smarter, andrening rational techniques, but understanding the role o error correc-tion in problem solving activities. Wildavsky was against the growth obig government because the bigger government gets in terms o morepolicies and bigger programmes the more di cult becomes the task olearning rom errors. Although disagreeing with Lindblom on some points(especially as to the role o markets and business), Wildavsky believed that

we had to build on his insights. This was the truth that had to be spokento the powerul: knowledge is not power, it is corrosive and i those withpower believe that problem solving is their monopoly then policy makerscould do more harm than good. Good public policy is consequently notabout knowledge or instrumental rationality, so much as the capacityand willingness to learn rom error. Although his personal preerence wasor the use o markets as ways o learning through error, Wildavsky alsoargued that policy analysts should endeavour to put themselves out o a

job: he was a great advocate o citizen participation in policy analysis,

as well as o decentralized orms o politics as ways o acilitating moreparticipation and better error correction. But, o course, this was not themainstream message: progress was about harnessing knowledge to solveproblems rather than using error as the engine o policy making. Theghost o rationality had to be exorcised rom the house o public policy(Wildavsky, 1987: 25). It was this ghost which embodied the modernistspirit o the public policy project, and it had to be dealt with i there wereto be progress in theory and practice. In many ways, the emergence o apostmodern public policy is the continuing response to this dangerous

spook that haunts the halls o the mighty. And, or all the postmodernisttalk in the halls o the non-mighty (in academe), the ghost o rationality isstill an ever-present shadow in the corridors o power.

The German designer Horst Rittel also attacked the spectre o ration-ality which haunted the house o public policy on the same issue: theconcept o problem which was the centre o the modernist project (Ritteland Webber, 1973). Rittel argued that the design o public policies was avery diferent matter rom that o designing or a moon landing. Indeed,the problem o poverty was an entirely diferent class o problem rom theproblem o how to enable a man to play gol on the moon. The great expo-nent o the rational model, Herbert Simon, had argued that it is well to dis-tinguish between well structured problems, such as chess, and ill structured


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problems like child poverty. However, Simon argued that through theapplication o rational methods o problem solving, human beings could,despite the bounded nature o their rationality, actually transorm prob-

lems that were ill structured into more well structured problems. This wasthe role o analysis: to create more and more well structured problems(Simon, 1973). Rittel, however, argued a very diferent case. WhereasSimons approach to the structure o problems (and bounded rational-ity) serves to underpin the oundational structures o modernist policyanalysis, Rittels approach directly undermines these oundations. UnlikeSimon, Rittel argued that ill structured problems or what he termedwicked problems cannot be solved using the same methods used tosolve well structured problems (or tame problems). This idea that public

policy problems were o another order and thereore could not be solvedby the application o rational methods was wholly subversive o the claimsand aspirations o mainstream policy analysis. For Rittel, as a designer, itsuggested a radically diferent approach to wicked problems: i humanbeings were to design solutions to their public problems, then they hadto design ways o acilitating dialogue and communication rather thanHouston-like command and control centres.

HIGH-MODERNISM IN PRACTICEFor the most part, these critical seeds scattered by Lindblom, Wildavskyand Rittel (and others in the 1970s) ell on stony ground. Indeed, i any-thing public policy in theory and practice took an even higher road to real-izing the dreams o modernism: the quest or a grand narrative. Publicpolicy in theory and practice became possessed by an urge to nd onetheory, one model to rule them all. In the 1980s the position o economicsin the house o public policy became even more dominant, i not down-

right imperialistic. In its rst incarnation, economics had maniested itselin two orms: welare economics and macro-economics. The ormer pro-vided the logic and methods or the core technique o policy analysis: costbenet analysis. This provided or the ultimate modernist antasy world:what could be counted (and everythingcould be counted) could be control-led, and what could be measured could be managed. Macro-economics,on the other hand, provided the tools which empowered governments tomodel the economy and regulate and manage the economic cycle. In duecourse, when stagation was loosed in the late 1970s, the Keynesian erawhich was associated with the growth o big government and the welarestate came to a close. It was to be replaced by another even more virulentvariant o economic rationality: the rationality o the market. Meanwhile,


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Modernism redux 25

absence o political or ideological grand narratives, the high-modernismo policy analysis became a kind o deault setting: a we dont have anideological agenda, we are just interested in what works, sharing knowl-

edge and policy skills training grand narrative. In this case, we might readthe high-modernism maniested in the 1990s as the product o the endo ideology and a world without grand narratives. The big idea was thatthere was no big idea: evidence should drive policy, and techniques andtools and models would improve the problem solving capacity o both thedeveloped and developing world. Indeed, the 1990s remix was in manyways ar more technocratic than discussed in Trevor Smiths account othe 1960s and early 1970s. To govern was to design targets and speciy out-comes and results and to manage, monitor and evaluate (even risk) so as

to realize these targets. Thus it came to pass that a postmodern world wasto give rise to high-modern modes o policy making and analysis. High-modernism in public policy was just another postmodern remix o a sort:an exercise in sel-reerencing and technocratic bricolage.

Perhaps the whole concept o postmodern, however, is not helpulwhen we come to think about alternatives to the kind o modernism wehave experienced since the 1990s. It is possible to say that postmodernistdescribes the present human condition, but it does not take us ar whenwe have to think in terms o what to do about health, housing, education,

the economy, and so on. It may provide us with an account o the policyprocess, but it hardly seems relevant or thinking about how can we designpolicies. A postmodern policy as a theory o a problem and, heavenorbid, a grand narrative seems a contradiction in terms. Postmodernismcan do a good job o deconstructing the world but appears to rule outconstructing an alternative. The postmodern rejection o theory logicallyalso rules out the idea o a policy and analysis. I there is no privilegedreading o a text and voice, and uncertainty is all in all, what then? It is agrand narrative that prohibits any other grand narrative.

Do postmodern tools, thereore, have any place in the proessionalpolicy makers toolbox? On the ace o it, no: but that may be the proes-sional policy makers loss. What is lacking in the existing box o delightsprovided by the BWIs and others is a critical disposition: a way o lookingat problems as constructed discourses, which serve to lock todays prob-lems in yesterdays language. Deconstruction can challenge the assump-tions and the mindset embedded in a policy language (Schram, 1993). Assuch it can be used, so it is argued, to help practitioners better understandthe arguments they use and the alternatives to existing policy designs(Gillroy, 1997; Miller, 2002).

Postmodern approaches have much to ofer modern policy designers:above all they bring to the ore the importance o playulnessin the design


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Modernism redux 31

or example, contains no reerence to postmodernism (Keen, 2004).Keynes himsel has been portrayed as someone who anticipated a post-modern turn: ater all, Keynes is all about uncertainty (Klaes, 2006). For

McCloskey (2001: 122), postmodernism is simply an adults way o beinga scientist! But then her idea o postmodern economics is something postSamuelsonism circa 1948: so that is quite a broad church. Even someMarxist economists are also busy reinventing themselves and Keynes

as postmodernists (Ruccio and Amariglio, 2003). So, although we candiscern some signs o interest, the postmodern turn in economics is still waydown the road. It is unlikely, ceteris paribus, that economics will be overlyinuenced by postmodernism however broadly dened. Economics willremain in all essentials a prooundly modernist enterprise. But it may well

have its postmodern moments (Ruccio and Amariglio, 2003).Far more signicant rom the standpoint o policy analysis is the way in

which economic modernism has become increasingly inuenced by devel-opments in other more empirically and experimentally orientated research.This new economics draws on various sources such as behavioural eco-nomics, evolutionary economics, neuroeconomics and experimental eco-nomics.6 The eld o public economics that is, the study o the economicissues rom the point o view o public policy has been dominated bythe neo-classical model and in particular by public choice approaches.

However, in recent years we have seen the emergence o behaviouralpublic economics, which incorporates ideas rom behavioural econom-ics, psychology and neuroscience in the analysis and design o publicpolicies stimulated by the accumulating evidence that the neoclassicalmodel o consumer decision making provides an inadequate descriptiono human behaviour in many economic situations and which in turn givesrise to non-standard policy implications (Bernheim and Rangel, 2008).I so many policies have been designed in accordance with the supposedmotivations o homo economicus, the shit to a much thicker and more

empirically grounded account o human behaviour has the potential tostimulate a radically diferent approach to the design o public policies(Dawnay and Shah, 2005). This new behavioural economics may in timeshape a new policy analysis which takes a broader and thicker viewo human rationality and problem solving. The research agenda at theWorkshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University,or example, is an excellent example o what happens when such ideasare taken on board.7 And the award o the Nobel Prize or Economics toElinor Ostrom in 2009 is a sign that such a research agenda is now seenas having a growing relevance to the uture o the theory and practice opolicy analysis.

Complexity also has a key part to play in the development o a


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Wilson, E.O. (1998), Consilience: The Unity o Knowledge, London: Little Brownand Company.

World Bank (2003a), The Lograme Handbook: A Logical Framework Approach to

Project Cycle Management, Washington: World Bank.World Bank (2003b), Poverty and Social Impact Analysis, Washington: World Bank,http://web.worldbank.org / WBSITE / EXTERNAL / TOPICS / EXTPOVERTY/EXTPSIA / 0,,contentMDK:20466271~menuPK:1108016~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:490130,00.html.

World Bank (2007), Tools or Institutional, Political and Social Analysis o PolicyReorm, Washington: World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTTOPPSISOU / Resources / 1424002-1185304794278 / TIPs_Sourcebook_English.pd.


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means is extremely widespread in this state. The opinion that the state isa problem-solving machine appears to be dominant amongst politiciansand bureaucrats. The goal-oriented state can be seen as an organization

or as an enterprise dedicated to the pursuit o some substantive end or seto ends such as the salvation o human souls, economic development, oreconomic and social justice (Spicer, 2001: 31).

The idea o the society that can be created and managed is closely linkedto the goal-oriented state. Problem-solving assumes that something can becreated and managed. The modern state is the ultimate expression o theidea, which has dominated since the Enlightenment, that humans are themasters o their ate and thereore o themselves (Chevallier, 2004: 12).

The goal-oriented problem-solving machine that the modern state has

become, and to which public administration makes an important contri-bution with research and advice, is a state o command and control. Suchcommand and control reers to the policies that are enacted, to the knowl-edge and research that are necessary, to the organizations and people whoare the subjects o policy and to the societal conditions that, on the onehand, inuence policy and, on the other hand, are inuenced by it. Thecommand takes shape in diferent ways: discursive strategies o words andmeanings, the use o disciplining technologies, the development o instru-ments that dene and orm nomalization, and the institutionalization o

policy-panoptica that make any escape impossible.When conronted with multiplicity (Deleuze, 1968), which is perma-nent and omnipresent, goal-orientedness must produce great numberso rules and an intensive condensation o rules. I, ater all, the subjectso policy excel in diference and inequality, the instrumentation must bevery intricate. Given a specic goal, a rule must be constructed or eachspecic case and or each exception. Given a specic goal, this must beanticipated in advance, and aterwards every unintended undesirableresult must be compensated or. As the ambitions o policies are oten

coloured by the ideal o equality, diference is even more o a burden. Notonly does the goal have to apply equally to everyone, the goal as such isoten equality.

The goal-orientedness o the modern welare state maniests itsel intru-sively when it comes to prevention. The aim o prevention is always oneor the other normality: health, saety, durability. The ultimate realizationo this goal is the internalization o it by the subjects o policy, meaningthat repression does not have to take place. Health as the goal o policyis realized when everyone lives healthily according to the ideal o healthpropagated by the state and its proessional executors o this policy.Slama calls this dream totalitarian: langlisme exterminateur (Slama,1993: 233).


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Democracy without a centre 41

Functional rationality that has gone of the rails is the nal result(Frissen, 1999). Functional rationality gets bogged down in its own inten-tions (Beck, Giddens and Lasch, 1994). Goal-orientedness and instrumen-

tality can no longer guarantee the legitimacy o the welare state preciselybecause they undermine its own legitimacy. As a result o having to allowor diference, they must try to get a grip on this panoptically.

THE NECESSITY OF IRONY

The world o diference is unknowable. That is to say, we know that theworld is diference, but we do not know this in all its depth and size and

multiplicity (Van Gunsteren and Ruyven, 1993). The unknown societydemands an ironic stance. This is linked, amongst others, to the tragedyo unintended results. We must be ironic because history is: Weltironie(Ankersmit, 1996). It is impossible to maintain a teleocratic relationshipo goal-orientedness with society i society is unknown. The ambitions opolicy analysts who want to come up with policy theories are hopeless: wecan never completely know the causal relationships in complex areas opolicy; we can know even less what the efects o our policy interventionsin this unknown society are; in addition, we are prooundly divided about

our goals.We must be ironic because we are unknowing. Our knowledge iscontinuously inadequate because experimenting is impossible in socialscience. The social science universe talks back, to put it inormally. Ourunknowing is, in other words, tragic. The more we know, the better we areable to document this unknowing; the more we intervene on the basis othis knowledge, the more unintended efects and contrary knowledge wegenerate and mobilize. Every statement I make reaches, i all goes well,the object o my knowledge and thereore changes it. I I do not want to

lie I must remain silent. The irony that is necessary in the world o politicsand public administration is an irony omodesty and temporality (Rorty,1992: 1656).

Modesty applies to a number o aspects: the ambitions o those workingin politics and public administration, the points o reerence, the instru-mentation and the intended aimed results. When it comes to ambitions,modest views o society and people should prevail. Diferent opinionsabout the good lie should stay beyond the reach o politics and publicadministration. The good lie is a matter or those who live it. Modesty istting or the state.

This also applies to the points o reerence o political and public admin-istration interventions. The intentions or opinions o the citizens are not


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the object o these but rather their behaviour, or even better: the contextsor contingencies o this. There must always be room or diference, wherethe boundaries o this room are determined by the diference itsel. The

citizen may also not enorce the total and the uniorm on others. In thechoice o instruments, the modesty required is expressed by treadinggently. Heavy instruments that restrict and sometimes destroy diferenceand inequality require extreme restraint. The negative reedom (Berlin,1996) and the basic rights linked to this are a high price to pay. For therest, the instrumentation should serve multiplicity. Diference and inequal-ity should not be afected.

Finally there is the modesty o the results. These should always be or-mulated in such a way that pragmatism and incrementalism are evident. In

addition, the results o the policy should not be worded in totalizing terms.Unintended results must be accepted or sure. Only that which is strictlyunwanted merits exclusion.

Ambitious modesty is accompanied by temporality. Irony and tem-porality are inextricably bound together. This temporality relates to thepolicy itsel, the parties who develop and carry it out, and the results o it.The most important notion that should be inherent in each policy is thepossibility o error. I society is unknown, the possibility o error mustbe undamentally accepted. The only reliable actors involved in develop-

ing and efecting policy are those that allow or uncertainty, chance andunprecedentedness, and thereore are pragmatic, employing only perorm-ativity. Parties who have a clear and unambiguous vision, who want toshow strong leadership and who have no doubts, are as naive as they aredangerous in an ironic view.

Then there are the intended results o policy. These should be ormu-lated in such a way that they are always temporary and thereore revers-ible. The results are only justiable i they are ormulated in such a waythat diference does not disappear so that everyone is allowed to sing rom

a diferent hymn sheet. Results that are totalizing always carry the risk onon-temporality.Postmodern politicians are, thereore, ironic in the sense o temporality

and modesty. They are actors without a will in an institution without awill.

CONTEXTUALISM

The ironic view is aperspectivistic view. This applies in three ways: ironyis a perspective on the world, irony is a perspectivistic view o the worldand irony recognizes the world as perspectivist. Authors oten use glasses


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AESTHETICS

Irony and contextualism reer to an aesthetic view o politics, which I have

already advocated (Frissen, 1999). The most important inspirations orthis were societal developments, which I denoted as postmodernization.On the other hand, there is the work o Ankersmit (1996), which is a veryintelligent deence o aesthetics as an alternative to political theory basedon morals or on purely positivistic empiricism. Politics is rst conict anddissensus and secondly orm and power.

Aesthetical political theory is a theory o the political and public ormsand contents, o representation as orm in order to give shape to its con-tents, and o the autonomous meaning o politics as power ormation.

There are diferent views but they agree upon the conviction that it is notup to politics to realize a moral view o the good lie. These views belongin society and are by denition diferent and conicting. The aestheticalinterpretation o politics states that multiplicity must continue to existwithout degenerating into civil war or the state losing its sovereignty.Political power serves the stability o the state and the conditions o exist-ence o a vital society. In a democratic Rechtstaat, both stability and itsconditions o existence are based upon and bounded by the rule o law.

My aesthetical view is that o diference. In multiplicity thinking the

world is not just a world o diference ontologically, and there is, thereore,an eternal return o singularity. Historically, we are also currently goingthrough an aestheticization o the real experience, the dominant char-acteristic o which is the multiplicity o perspectives (Oosterling, 1996:504). Societal diference means that there are only unequal cases and thateveryone wants to make a social, cultural and economic diference. Thisis why many observers o the postmodern network society give identity aprominent position (Castells, 1997).

The design o our institutions private and public does not corre-

spond with the transormations that, more and more, are the realizationo multiplicity. Legal inequality is increasing because the subjects o laware less and less equal. Social-economic inequalities are increasing becauselabour markets, production relationships and patterns o consumptionare changing dramatically. Classic class categorizations are becomingobsolete. Liestyles and identities are continually changing in unpredict-able combinations.

The olds o the institutions scrape against the content o the societalrealities causing ruptures and incompatibilities to develop. The robustnesso institutions has always been an important condition or their vitalityand stability (Zijderveld, 2000). I, however, orms and contents in institu-tions become alien to and obsolete or each other they lose their legitimacy.


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that multiplicity as such, or its own sake. A politics o diference can onlymake that choice i it does not choose between the diferences butor thediferences. A politics o diference is a politics that recognizes multiplicity

by making a diference. That is an aesthetical and not a moral position.A third reason or an amoral view o the state is that multiplicity pro-

vides protection and guarantees. Multiplicity provides protection againsttotality and is, thereore, in a true sense o the word, anti-totalitarian. Inaddition, multiplicity provides the guarantee that moral choice alwaysstays private, even i it comes about in public contexts. Multiplicity pre-vents the state rom usurping this choice. Amoral politics thereore pro-tects the plurality o the citizens and their connections and provides thecitizen with the guarantee that plurality is not just able to continue but

that it can also continually change.A politics o diference ocuses rom rst to last not on realizing the

primacy o politics relating to content but on realizing negative reedom.Negative reedom (Berlin, 1996) is undamental in a politics o difer-ence because it protects and allows or multiplicity and at the same timerestrains politics and the state. This restraint is necessary because o thestate monopolies. The value o negative reedom is that this takes the di-erence o and between people as a basis and thereore protects humanbeings rom any encroachment on that diference. The term negative

reedom could thereore be called a term o equality because it considersall people equally diferent. In addition, negative reedom is most impor-tant in political theory because it does not want to connect the state withone or the other view o positive reedom. The state should be rooted innegative reedom so as to enable the most pluralistic possible articulationand realization o positive reedom in private and public domains. Thisis what Leort (1992) means by the empty space o power. This is why apolitics o diference is also not utopic it is not messianic. This also makesit, in Ciorans (2002) terms, benevolent.

DISREGULATION

Letting go and leaving are thekey terms o the steering that is intendedhere. Letting go and leaving mean that reality remains unknowable anduncontrollable. There are always unintended consequences. This is theWeltironie that plays a role in the largeness o geopolitical relationshipsand equally in the smallness o micropolitical domains.

Letting go and leaving mean something other than deregulation. Withthe best intentions, extensive and radical deregulation operations havebeen undertaken in the last decades. These have requently produced


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PLURAL ARRANGEMENTS

This calls or plural arrangements, rst, in the mutual relationship o the

private, the public and the political, and, secondly, in the ormation ochecks and balances.

The rst order o plurality is that o the relationship between theprivate, the public and the political. I politics has primacy, this is becauseo the undamentally political character o the question or this order. ForSchmitt, the crucial diference (brokenness to quote Ankersmit) betweenthe world and the political lies here. The political world is a pluriversumand not a political unity. Only politics itsel is unity. I the world was oneand there could be no more civil war, there would be no more politics

and no more state (Schmitt, 2001: 867). As the state is in control o themonopoly o violence and constraint, the political order, according toSchmitt, is thereore a higher order. The undamental idea o politics isbased on the declaration o war and, nally, in the declaration o enemies.The enemy is outside the state and thereore outside society.

A less raw view o this order o plurality can be ound in constitutionalthinking. The constitutional state lays down the relationships between theprivate, public and political domains in their plurality. The constitutionis an answer to the key question o politics: namely, how it relates to the

citizens and their associations (Kinneging, 2005: 1819, 30431). This isalso why the classic constitutional rights that protect negative reedomtake such a prominent position in the constitution o many states and alsowhy social constitutional rights are included in these constitutions as thewelare state develops.

In my opinion, the relationship between the private, the public and thepolitical is not just a relationship between plural domains, but this rela-tionship itsel is also plural. This is, ater all, intrinsic in the essentiallypolitical character o this relationship.

Some writers contend that politics has received another position in thisrelationship. Politics has moved into private and public domains (Bovenset al., 1995). In Ater Politics (1994), Huyse talks about a silent mutation.In the theory o hybrid organizations, it is convincingly demonstratedthat the public domain is pluralistic because o its hybridity (Brandsen,Van de Donk and Kenis, 2006; Int Veld, 1997). As the plurality o therelationship between private, public and political is denoted as historical,empirical and normative, there is little point in recording this relationshipdenitorically. Economists oten seem to do this when they attempt toprovide an economic oundation or the room or political interventions.The economy thus gains the position o a tertium in regard to politics(Teulings, Bovenberg and Van Dalen, 2005). I do not see the relationship


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powers. The separation o powers o the Trias Politica is central here. AsMadison stated in the Federalist Papers o 1788, Ambition must be madeto counteract ambition (Hamilton, 2008: 289).

Checks and balances are not based on the naive utopia o a powerlesssociety. They place power against power in the recognition that the power-hungry can keep each other in check. The aim is not in the least to weakenpower and to temper the exercise o power. It is much more about connect-ing power and multiplicity. In addition, as ar as the desire or the exerciseo power is concerned, radical plurality can be used to counter oppressionand dictatorship. Diference is not deployed against power, but the multi-plicity o power is the basis.

This means that the design o checks and balances is equal to the orma-

tion o diference in the political and the public domain. Diference can beseen as a permanent orm o subversity in the public and political. Checksand balances are a ragmentation o power. This means that powerlessnessdoes not arise. On the contrary, multiplicity is a vital perormative power.Subversity is, in other words, an important political value: it thereoredoes not deserve to be ought but should actually be supported. In addi-tion, the subversity o multiplicity keeps the political domain pluralisticand thereore prevents the uniormization and totalization o public andprivate domains.

Checks and balances are thereore active and necessary at diferentlevels. First, they are constitutionally anchored in the organization o thestate and in the constitutional rights, primarily the classic ones. The div-ision o powers means that power is set against power, preerably in theplural, in order to counter it. The classic constitutional rights protect thenegative reedom o the citizens by declaring that their right to autonomyand subversity is undamental. Secondly, checks and balances workbetween the political domain and the public and private domains. Theyrestrain the states power by pluralizing power. Not just the citizens, but

primarily their private and public associations as well, receive autonomousrights and powers to resist, to arm and to deend themselves. Thirdly,checks and balances work in private and public domains where theyprotect and promote diference. Monopolies and concentrations o powerthat lead to totalizing tendencies are actively ought and discouraged.There is still a great urgency or this in a time o large-scale mergers andconglomeration-orming in private markets, between private organiza-tions and in public domains. This is why a plea or state disregulationalso does not automatically lead to a substantial decrease in regulations.Private domains can take over the regulation. Private reedom and publicdiference also still require extensive regulation. The desire or disregula-tion should not cherish any all too naive expectations.


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Fighting monopolies and concentrations in private and public domainshas taken of in Europe, primarily in the last two decades. A number oregulatory agencies and authorities, in a more or less independent pos-

ition, try to promote level playing elds and to counteract monopolies andconcentrations. Slaughter calls these regulators at an international levela new diplomacy that, together with international judges, is creating anew world order (Slaughter, 2004: 36 f.). These regulators are currentlymainly active in private domains and in commercial markets, but withthe advancement o the ree market system in public domains they willundoubtedly also become active in these too: utilities, health care, educa-tion, housing, insurance.

HORIZONTALITY

In the plurality o arrangements that I advocate there is no room or goal-orientedness and the accompanying notions o linearity and hierarchy.The necessity o checks and balances can also be legitimated on the basiso their horizontality. This horizontal character o checks and balanceshas nothing to do with equality or a radical direct democracy. Checks andbalances work horizontally because they temper the desire to rule between

domains and within domains. Without sharing his preerence or equality,there is a relationship here with Walzers idea o autonomous spheres that,precisely because o their autonomy, are justied in their criterion or dis-tributive justice, without denying the efect o power within each o thesespheres (Walzer, 1983).

As a horizontal principle o organization, checks and balances mustprevent the public, the private and the political rom oppressing eachother. Not everything is market, not everything is politics and not every-thing is voluntary care. Hybridity is possible within this, but subordina-

tion is not. There is no hierarchical relationship between the domains. Theprimacy o politics when dening these relationships is, ater all, princi-pally based on temporality and modesty irony. The very legitimacy othis primacy is connected with a radical horizontal interpretation o theprinciple o checks and balances. The political primacy is, in other words,a orm o sel-binding and ultimate sel-restriction. That is the noblesseo the political o ce, and thereore the most important political o ce isthat o the citizen.

The horizontal character o checks and balances is relevant between

but also in the diferent domains. Checks and balances must be deployed

against oppression, monopoly ormation, concentration o power,

exploitation o weak interests. In so ar as domains are not able or


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prepared to do this, a political task is applicable. This political task

is principally anchored in a primacy that, or its part, is constitution-

ally restricted and to which provisos are attached. This means that the

horizontal character o checks and balances is deepened urther. Thehorizontality does not just reer to the ordering o relationships between

the private, the public and the political, but there is also a horizontality

o relationships within these domains. Here too, power is set against

power, the citizens gain the power o disposal and decision, there is the

right o opposition and resistance, and weak interests can protect them-

selves or be protected.

With regard to goal-orientedness in which the means are always a deriv-ative and in which in extremis the reasonable justiability o the goal

justies the means, a politicization o the means leads naturally to temper-ing and constraint. There is no goal that can justiy all means. Many goalsare problematic because o the severity o the necessary means. The meansare always normatively bound in notions o citizenship and diference.These, ater all, should not be threatened. In addition, because the meansin a democracy, just as the goals, are pluralistic, there is horizontality. Themeans keep the goal-orientedness in check, temper and restrain it, andmake temporality and modesty o ambitions undamental.

With respect to the means, checks and balances also apply, o course.

The means should not just promote the restraint, temporality and modestyo the goals and the goal-orientedness; they themselves should also be anexpression o this. The means are not just a tempering o the goal, theyshould also be characterized themselves by tempering. That checks andbalances also apply with respect to the means is clear at rst sight as aras the most severe means o the state are concerned the monopolies oviolence and taxation. That is why the position o, or example, prisoninmates is so delicate and should be equipped with all sorts o orms oprotection. That is why the death penalty is intolerable with respect to a

states own citizens. That is why taxes must not be too excessive.However, checks and balances also apply with respect to the relation-ship between goals and means in private and public domains. A decisionabout the end o lie can thereore only be the legitimate result o a processthat provides many strong checks and balances. Proessionals conducttowards clients must thereore provide guarantees.

Everywhere checks and balances hinder e cacy and the power oenorcement when these are employed or totalizing aims. Checksand balances work in a ragmenting way. They are based on the neo-republican idea o citizenship and on the insight that the republic onlyknows minorities. They serve to strengthen and balance the power o allminorities.


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MINORITIES

There is an obvious connection between democracy and multiplic-

ity. Democracy is the only political order that can honour diference.Democracy is a symbolic order because it is more than an electoralcontest, the creation o a majority, concrete political decision-making andcontrolling the political leaders. The symbolic order o democracy is con-stitutional, not in the sense o a real constitution but in the sense o institu-tional design and care. Democracy is a mentality because it is more than aconcrete political ideology. It is a mentality that is connected with respector minorities, or the Other and the Diferent. Democracy as a sym-bolic order and as a mentality has no exclusive owners and no aims and

content that can be urther dened. Our societies have become acephal,as Enzensberger (1990: 215) calls it. This must have consequences or con-crete political institutions.

Democracy is division o powers, checks and balances and countervail-ing powers. In addition, democracy is constitutional rule o law: the stateis bounded by and to the law and the citizen has a great extent o negativereedom. In my view, the citizen is the most important o cial in the repub-lic. In a democracy the main thing is, maybe, protecting minorities. In astrict sense there are, ater all, only minorities.

Such a democratic order honours diference in diferent ways. In termso elections, democracy guarantees each citizen an active and passiveright to vote. This means that each specic opinion and each positioncan, in principle, be articulated or present itsel. It is clear that, rom theperspective o multiplicity, no limits can be set to this right: as completeas possible proportional representation suits it best; electoral thresholds,constituency voting systems and high quotas suit it much less. Limiting theeasy ormation o a majority is an advantage.

Constitutional statehood also serves multiplicity, at least i we under-

stand this as binding the state to the law and giving this binding a oun-dation in negative reedom. The act that the constitutional state in ourworld has become a welare state that includes an extensive and materialdenition o positive reedom is thereore a threat to multiplicity.

The most important reason why democracy and multiplicity are inex-tricably bound is the position o minorities. Democracy cannot and maynot be a dictatorship o the majority. Majority rule is the most literaltranslation o popular sovereignty and is ultimately based on the principleo equality. The rule o unanimity would, thereore, better apply to theprinciple o multiplicity. In any way, there must be a qualied majority orimportant matters. The deliberative side o democracy is at least as impor-tant as decision-making. Democracy does not have to lead to collective


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Schmitt, C. (2001), Het begrip politiek. (The Concept o Politics), Amsterdam:Boom/Parrsia.

Scott, J.C. (1998), Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human

Condition Have Failed, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Slama, A.-G. (1993), Langlisme exterminateur. Essai sur lordre moral contempo-rain, Paris: Bernard Grasset.

Slaughter, A.-M. (2004), A New World Order,Princeton and Oxord: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Spicer, M.W. (2001), Public Administration and the State. A Postmodern Perspective,Tuscaloosa and London: University o Alabama Press.

Teubner, G. (1983), Substantive and reexive elements in modern law, Law andSociety Review, 17(2), 23986.

Teulings, C., L. Bovenberg and H. van Dalen (2005), De cirkel van goede inten-ties. De economie van het publieke belang. (The Circle o Good Intentions. The

Economy o the Public Interest), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Twist, M.J.W. van (1995), Verbale vernieuwing. Aantekeningen over de kunst vanbestuurskunde. (Verbal Innovation. Notes on the Art o Public Administration),s-Gravenhage: VUGA.

Veld, R.J. int (1997), Noorderlicht. Over scheiding en samenballing. (NorthernLight. On Division and Contraction), Den Haag: Vuga Uitgeverij.

Walzer, M. (1983), Spheres o Justice: A Deense o Pluralism & Equality, Oxord:Basil Blackwell.

Witteveen, W. (2000), De denkbeeldige staat. Voorstellingen van democratischevernieuwing. (The Imaginary State. Imaginations o Democratic Renewal),Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

WRR (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid) (2006), Lerende over-heid. Een pleidooi voor probleemgerichte politiek. (Learning Government. A Pleaor Problem-Oriented Politics), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Zijderveld, A.C. (2000), The Institutional Imperative. The Interace o Institutionsand Networks, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

iek, S. (2004), Organs without Bodies: Deleuze and Consequences, New York andLondon: Routledge.


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Understanding policy transer in the competition state 67

processes and the key actors which shape policy-making; programmemanagement and enhancement; policy implementation and the causes opolicy ailure; issues involved in researching and studying policy change,

and enhancing the capacity o public administrators to ormulate andimplement policy decisions. Policy transer analysis thereore ocuseson three areas o study that are commonplace in normal policy analysis:description how policy transer is made; explanation why policy trans-er occurs; and prescription how policy transer should be made.

It needs to be noted here, however, that most political scientists,particularly in Britain, deliberately avoid the third area o study in theaspiration o maintaining social scientic impartiality. As we will see later,this may be identied as a signicant deciency in the approach and one

which this chapter seeks to bridge.

Agents of Policy Transfer

The study o policy transer analysis should be restricted to action-orientedintentional learning that which takes place consciously and results inpolicy action. This denition locates policy transer as a potential causalphenomenon a actor leading to policy convergence. However, I distin-guish policy transer rom policy convergence in that the latter may occur

unintentionally or example due to harmonizing macroeconomic orcesor common processes. The element o intentionality in this denition opolicy transer makes an agent essential to both voluntary and coerciveprocesses. Intentionality may be ascribed to the originating state/institu-tion/actor, to the transeree state/institution/actor, to both, or to a thirdparty state/institution/actor. For example, i the agent o a particulartranser is the state which rst developed the policy, or a third party state(Country C) seeking to make Country B adopt an approach by CountryA, it is likely that there are coercive processes at work. Alternatively, there

may be a series o agents at work, either simultaneously or at diferentpoints in the process. Necessary but insu cient criteria or identiyingpolicy transer are thereore: (a) identiy the agent(s) o transer and thepolicy belie systems that they advocate; (b) distinguish the resources thatthey bring to the process o policy-oriented learning; (c) speciy the rolethey play in the transer; and (d) determine the nature o the transer thatthe agent(s) is/are seeking to make. At least seven main categories o agentso transer can be identied in the literature on policy transer: politicians;bureaucrats; policy entrepreneurs (including think-tanks, knowledge insti-tutions, academicians and other experts); pressure groups; global nancialinstitutions; international organizations; and supra-national institutions(see Stone, 2000b).


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Forms of Policy Transfer

Policy analysts deploy the policy transer approach as a generic concept

that encompasses quite diferent claims about why public organizationsengage in policy learning. Typically policy transer analysts reer to threediferent processes o transer: voluntary transer or lesson-drawing, nego-tiated transer and direct coercive transer. The rst is a rational, action-oriented approach to dealing with public policy problems that emerge romone or more o the ollowing: the identication o public or proessionaldissatisaction with existing policy as a consequence o poor perormance;a new policy agenda that is introduced due to a change in government,minister or the management o a public organization; a political strategy

aimed at legitimating conclusions that have already been reached; or anattempt by a political manager to upgrade items o the policy agenda topromote political allies and neutralize political enemies.

The second and third processes o transer involve varying degrees ocoercion and are common in developing countries. Negotiated policytranser reers to a process in which governments are compelled by,or example, inuential donor countries, global nancial institutions,supra-national institutions, international organizations or transnationalcorporations, to introduce policy change in order to secure grants, loans

or other orms o inward investment. Although an exchange process doesoccur it remains a coercive activity because the recipient country is deniedreedom o choice. The political economies o most developing countriesthroughout the 1980s and 1990s have been characterized by the implemen-tation o structural adjustment programmes in return or investment romthe International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank (WB). Thisis a reection o the pervasiveness o negotiated orms o policy transerto developing countries. Another orm o indirect policy transer can beidentied when governments introduce institutional or policy changes due

to a ear o alling behind neighbouring countries. For example, Japanseconomic miracle in East Asia proved inspirational to neighbouring coun-tries such as Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia. John Ikenberry (1990:102) terms this process band-wagoning.

Direct coercive policy transer occurs when a government is compelledby another government to introduce constitutional, social and politicalchanges against its will and the will o its people. This orm o policy trans-er was widespread in periods o ormal imperialism and its implicationscan still be seen today in contemporary Mexico, Kenya, India, Pakistan,Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and South Arica, to name but a ew examples.

In Britain, however, policy transer activity tends to ocus on volun-tary transer or lesson-drawing. Negotiated processes o transer can be


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identied with regard to majority decision-making in the European Union(see Wincott, 1999; Padgett, 2003) but such orms o transer tend to be theexception rather than the rule.

Processes of Policy-Oriented Learning

The literature identies our diferent processes o policy-oriented learn-ing emerging rom the process o transer (Evans, 2004a).The rst andrarest orm o policy-oriented learning is copying where a governmentalorganization adopts a policy, programme or institution without modica-tion. For example, Gordon Browns working amily tax credit system isa direct copy o the American earned income tax credit system (Evans,

2004b). Secondly, there is emulation where a governmental organiza-tion accepts that a policy, programme or institution overseas providesthe best standard or designing a policy, programme or institution athome. For example, US policy once again proved the standard againstwhich English crime control policy was made under New Labour (Tonry,2004). Hybridization is the third and most typical orm o policy-orientedlearning. This is where a governmental organization combines elementso programmes ound in several settings to develop a policy that is cultur-ally sensitive to the needs o the recipient. For example, New Labours

welare programme New Deal or Young People was a product olessons drawn rom initiatives in Australia (Lone Parents and Partners,Working Nation and single gateway/one stop shops programmes),Sweden (Working Nation), the Netherlands (single gateway/one stopshop programmes), Canada (the Making Work Pay scheme) and over 50Welare to Work schemes in the US. In addition, institutional memory(e.g. Job Seekers Allowance and Restart schemes rom 1988 and 1996)was inuential (Evans, 2004b). And, ourthly, there is inspiration wherean idea rom an unexpected source inspires resh thinking about a policy

problem and helps to acilitate policy change (Common, 2001).Obstacles to Policy-Oriented Learning

The proo o policy transer lies in its implementation. In other wordsit is not possible to identiy the content o a transer or, by implication,whether transer has occurred without adopting an implementation per-spective. So what actors can constrain policy transer and policy-orientedlearning? As Figure 4.1 illustrates, three broad sets o variables havebeen identied in the British case study literature: cognitive obstacles inthe pre-decision phase, environmental obstacles in the implementationphase and, increasingly, domestic public opinion. These variables interact


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in complex and oten unexpected ways and inorm the process o policytranser. Cognitive obstacles reer to the process by which public policyproblems are recognized and dened in the pre-decision phase, the breadthand detail o the search conducted or ideas, the receptivity o existingpolicy actors and systems to policy alternatives, and the complexity ochoosing an alternative. The most signicant cognitive barriers or agentso policy transer to overcome at this stage o policy development arenormally issues arising rom the prevailing organizational culture and theneed or efective cultural assimilation o policy alternatives.

Environmental obstacles reer to the absence o efective cognitiveand elite mobilization strategies deployed by agents o policy transer, theneed or the development o cohesive policy transer networks to ensure

Cognitive obstacles in the pre-decision phase

Limited search activity Cultural assimilation through commensurable

problem recognition and definition The degree of complexity involved in the process of transfer

Environmental

obstacles during the

process of transfer

Ineffective cognitiveand elite mobilizationstrategies by agentsof transfer

The absence of acohesive policytransfer network

Structuralconstraints socio-economic, political,

institutional

Normal technicalimplementationconstraints arisingfrom limited policy

design, resourcesand technicalsupport

Public opinion

Elite opinion political, bureaucratic,

economic

Media opinion The attitudes and

resources ofconstituency groups

Process of transfer

Figure 4.1 Mapping potential obstacles to processes o policy transer


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successul policy-oriented learning, the broader structural constraints(institutional, political, economic and social) that impact and shape theprocess o lesson-drawing, and the normal technical implementation con-

straints that inhibit or acilitate the process o lesson-drawing. The latterwould include: coherent and consistent objectives; the incorporation oan adequate causal theory o policy development; the sensible allocationo nancial resources; hierarchical integration within and among imple-menting organizations; clear decision rules underpinning the operationo implementing agencies; the recruitment o programme o cers with ad-equate skills/training; su cient technical support; and the use o efectivemonitoring and evaluation systems including ormal access by outsiders.

Outputs from the Process of Transfer

Using Peter Halls (1993) terminology, the outputs rom processes opolicy transer can include: rst order change in the precise settings o thepolicy instruments used to attain policy goals (marginal adjustments tothe status quo); second order change to the policy instruments themselves,such as the development o new institutions and delivery systems; andthird order change to the actual goals that guide policy in a particulareld (negative ideology, ideas, attitudes and concepts). O course, negative

lessons can be drawn in each orm o policy change.

HOW IS POLICY TRANSFER STUDIED?

The British literature on policy transer analysis may be organized intotwo discernible schools: one which does not use the label policy trans-er directly but deals with diferent aspects o the process using diferentnomenclature; and one which uses the concept directly. This amorphous

literature can be organized into ve main approaches: process-centredapproaches; practice-based approaches; ideational approaches; compara-tive approaches; and multi-level approaches. While there is inevitablysome overlap between these approaches (or instance, all o them engagein some orm o comparison) they are all distinctive with regard to theircentral ocus o enquiry.

Process-Centred Approaches

Process-centred approaches, unremarkably, ocus on the process o policytranser directly in order to explain the voluntary or coercively negoti-ated importation o ideas, policies or institutions. They argue that policy


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sector learning rom the private sector. Indeed, it has superseded TotalQuality Management as the key strategy or improving public sectorperormance (Tushman and Nadler, 1996). It is based on the proposi-

tion that the quality o an organization rests on its ability to demonstratethat it can learn collectively through the application o new knowledge tothe policy process or innovation in policy implementation. As Olsen andPeters (1996: 4) note, organizational learning involves the development ostructures and procedures that improve the problem-solving capacity oan organization and make it better prepared or the uture. The literaturedistinguishes between the notions o organizational learning and the learn-ing organization. The ormer is based on observing learning processeswithin organizations while the latter provides an action-oriented perspec-

tive or improving the perormance o public organizations. This approachhas only recently been introduced in the study o policy transer throughRichard Commons (2004) study o the British governments attempt tobecome a learning organization. It is particularly useul in helping policyanalysts to identiy potential obstacles to policy transer and in providinginsights to practitioners on how to develop the type o learning organiza-tion conducive to the acilitation o successul policy transer (see Pedler,Burgoyne and Boydell 1991).

The second prescriptive avenue or policy transer analysts was largely

a response to new political dynamics. The British governments 1999Modernising Government White Paper represented an acknowledgemento the need to modernize policy and management at the centre o govern-ment. It argued that government must produce policies that really dealwith problems; that are orward-looking and shaped by evidence ratherthan a response to short-term pressures; that tackle causes not symptoms(Cabinet O ce, 1999: 15). The Blair governments aspiration was giveninstitutional expression through the creation o the Centre or Managementand Policy Studies (CMPs), which had a clear mandate both to establish

more productive relations between government and academia, in orderto generate high-quality evidence-based research to inorm practice, andto consider the broader training needs o the civil service (Cabinet O ce(CMPS), 2002). The Cabinet O ces (2001) Better Policy-Makingmappedout an evidence-based approach to policy or achieving the ormer basedon: reviewing existing research, commissioning new research, consultingrelevant experts and/or using internal and external consultants, and con-sidering a range o properly costed and appraised options. The CabinetO ces (2005) Proessional Skills or Government programme dealt withthe skills and training requirements o the civil service (see http://psg.civilservice.gov.uk/). There has subsequently been an explosion o intellectualand discursive activity around the evidence-based practice approach, the


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establishment o the ESRC UK Centre or Evidence-Based Policy-Makingand Practice at Queen Mary, University o London, and even an academic

journal (Evidence and Policy) but limited evidence as yet o improvements

in government policy and operational delivery (Davies, Nutley and Smith,2000; Burton, 2006).

The third prescriptive avenue has emerged rom within the compara-tive public policy literature on lesson- drawing. Richard Roses (2005)Learning rom Comparative Public Policy: A Practical Guide conronts,though perhaps unwittingly, two o the central problems with much othe present academic literature on public administration in general andlesson-drawing or voluntary policy transer in particular. First, there is therelative absence o enterprising prescription to help public organizations

solve public policy problems and, secondly, a stark ailure to engage withpractice, reected in the reluctance to make social scientic enquiry rel-evant to practice. This has made it all too easy or practitioners to dismisssocial scientic enquiry as abstract and impractical at a time whenacademics should be helping to set the public policy agenda. The integralrelationship between evidence-based practice, rational lesson-drawingand good policy-making has created a political space or comparativepublic policy specialists to provide a unique contribution to public policydiscourses.

Learning rom Comparative Public Policy combines social scienticreection on the domain and utility o the concept o lesson-drawing witha prescriptive enterprise aimed at providing a practical guide to learning.As Rose (2005: xi) asserts, it is not a book about explanation, or theoriesthat specialize in explanation, such as rational choice, do not tell you howto do what is rational. This book is addressed to readers who want to learnhow to draw lessons. He denes a lesson and its domain o utility as a:distinctive type o programme, because it draws on oreign experience topropose a programme that can deal with a problem conronting national

policymakers in their home environment . . . It is a practical, nuts and boltsoutline o the means as well as the ends o policy (2005: 22). The chap-ters that ollow in his account are organized around a detailed sequentialdiscussion o ten steps that Rose recommends to practitioners in order toevaluate whether or not a non-indigenous programme should be applieddomestically:

1. Learn the key concepts: what a programme is, and what a lesson isand is not.

2. Catch the attention o policy-makers.3. Scan alternatives and decide where to look or lessons.4. Learn by going abroad.


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5. Abstract rom what you observe a generalized model o how aoreign programme works.

6. Turn the model into a lesson tting your own national context.

7. Decide whether the lesson should be adopted.8. Decide whether the lesson can be applied.9. Simpliy the means and ends o a lesson to increase its chances o

success.10. Evaluate a lessons outcome prospectively and, i it is adopted, as it

evolves over time. (Rose, 2005: 9)

Each chapter draws on selective empirical, personal anecdotal evidenceand assertions rom secondary literature, culminating in the observation,

As time goes by, the ultimate achievement is that the oreign origins o aprogramme are orgotten. It then becomes described as no more and noless than the way we do things here (Rose, 2005: 139).

A critique o Roses work would rest on the identication o three sins oomission. The rst would be the lack o a discussion about the relationshipbetween the concept o lesson-drawing and the broader literature on policytranser. Given the salience o this literature in British political science inparticular it is important or Rose to clariy his terms within this context tolend clarity to the debate or students and scholars alike. The second is that

it is di cult to discern between the concept o lesson-drawing and normalorms o policy-making in general (Evans and Davies, 1999) and rationalapproaches to policy-making in particular (James and Lodge, 2003), andthereore it has no distinctive domain o enquiry. Thirdly, Rose can also beaccused o not providing rigorous tools or evaluating whether a lesson hasbeen drawn or not (Evans and Davies, 1999). Moreover, nding the evidencethat a lesson has been drawn demands excellent access to key inormants ininormal decision-making processes. Such access is not oten possible.

From the perspective o practice two main shortcomings are evident.

The rst is that the study would have beneted rom a reection o howtraditional organizations can become learning organizations. Rose (2005:1045) himsel argues that the strategic directions o public organizationsare path dependent and characterized by inheritance rather than choicein the sense that past commitments limit current choices. Hence a set orecommendations on how to break rom the wicked context problemwould have been extremely useul (see Common, 2004). Secondly, a moredetailed identication o potential obstacles to successul lesson-drawingwould have provided important insights or practitioners into how todevelop both the type o learning organization conducive to the acilita-tion o successul lesson-drawing and a model o prospective evaluation toguide efective lesson-drawing.


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Ideational Approaches

There are two main accounts o policy development using ideational-

based studies that are worthy o brie discussion here the social learningapproach and the epistemic community approach. These approaches areunited in arguing that it is systems o ideas which inuence how politiciansand policy-makers learn, how to learn and they all address the problem owhen and how politicians, other policy-makers and societies learn how tolearn.

Social learning approaches do not make explicit reerence to the concepto policy transer but rather seek to provide a general theory o policychange. The relationship between the two literatures, however, is sel-

evident as policy transer is an intentional activity involving the movemento ideas between systems o governance in the aspiration o orging policychange. Peter Halls (1993) social learning approach disaggregates thepolicy-making process into three dimensions: the overarching goals thatguide policy in a particular eld (third order change); the techniques orpolicy instruments used to attain these goals (second order change); andthe precise settings o these instruments (rst order change). Hall arguesthat in order to make sense o how policy learning takes place we need atheory o the policy process that takes into account the role o ideas. For

Hall, public policy deliberation takes place within a broader system oideas that is understood and accepted by the policy-making community.This system o ideas species not only th

[John Fenwick, Janice Mcmillan] Public Management 2010

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