Public Policy Implementation

1. Introduction
3 facts to be recognised about implementation
i.

ii.

iii.

The word implementation became a matter of concern

and
study
only
after
the
phenomenon
of
implementation.
Implementation continues to be a matter of concern
not only to the administration specialists but also to
those who dont talk of implementation per se.
implementation takes different shapes and forms in
different cultures and institutional settings.

The last stated fact is very important in the present context

when the societies are moving from government to
governance.
Examination of implementation holds a dual character a
concern to explain what happens and a concern to affect
what happens.
Look at the efforts to explain what happens and issues
about studying and researching implementation, but also to
study how the people behind implementation can be assisted
in the process.
Issues about understanding (and controlling) the process.
Contents of the book are divided into chapters1. Key conceptual issues what we mean by
implementation and terms associated with it.
2. Existence of implementation (as a practice) even before
the word was coined. Implementation theory before
and beyond modern study.
3. Theoretical
framework
around
Pressman
and
Wildavskys Implementation (1973) Top down and
Bottom up approaches.
4. Synthesizes the two approaches.
Study as a
disciplinary field approach, schools, concepts, etc.
5. Development of sub-discipline in societal context,
exploring its relevance in PA, in changing nature of
governance, etc.

6. Actual research on implementation. Questions

regarding how to study implementation?
7. Methodological and pragmatic issues, implementation
research its pitfalls and how to avoid them.
8. Linking implementation with practice.
9. Summary of all the perspectives, insights offered on
research and practice.
Some matters of definitions:
Public Policy:
Implementation means to carry out, accomplish, fulfil, produce,
complete (Webster and Roger). What is being implemented?
Naturally, a policy. A verb like implementation should have an
object like policy (to implement). Policies normally contain both
the goals and the means to achieve them. Then, how to
distinguish between a policy and its implementation?
Pressman and Wildavsky (1984) state We can work neither
with a definition of policy that excludes any implementation nor
one that includes all implementation. There must be a starting
point. If no action is begun, implementation cannot take place.
There must be also an end point. Implementation cannot
succeed or fail without a goal against which to judge it.
The act of implementation presupposes a prior act of
formulating and deciding what needs to be done. Then two
further questions follow: who is the formulator/ decision maker
and who is the implementer? If they are not one and the same,
we need to identify the actors involved. The second question is
whether the formulator/ decision maker has more power, or a
role that is more legitimised than the implementer? The first
set of questions is empirical whereas the later ones is
normative.
The logical connotation of the original question
implementation follows formulation and decision theorem.

is

If implementation pre-supposes policy, what is policy then? And

particularly Public policy?
Hogwood and Gunn identify the following elements in the term
public policy.
Policy is to distinguished from decisions,

though it can less readily be distinguishable from

administration.
Policy involves behaviour as well as
intentions, and action as well as inaction. Policy has outcomes
which may or may not be foreseen. Policy refers to a purposive
course of action, however, purposes may be defined
retrospectively. Policy arises from process over time, involving
intra and inter-organisational relationships.
Public policy
involves a key role for public agencies, but not exclusive. Policy
is subjectively defined. (Hogwood and Gunn, 1984: 19-23)
Any Public Policy is subjectively defined by an observer as
being such and is usually perceived as comprising a series of
patterns of related decisions to which many circumstances and
personal,
group,
and
organisational
influences
have
contributed (pp. 23-4)
What is policy and certainly what is the policy depends on
the observer (Helco 1972: 83)
A purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of
actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern. Public
policies are those policies developed by governmental bodies
or officials. (Anderson 1975:3)
Public policies are about means and ends, which have to have a
relationship to each other. Where the political functionaries
provide the objectives, it is the task of administrators to
develop the appropriate instruments.
Public policy focuses on the public and the problems (Dewey
1927).
What Lasswell (1970) called the policy orientation is problem
focussed, multi-disciplinary, uses multiple methods and is
contextual.
Parsons sees the policy focus as most closely associated with
the contributions of four people Harold Lasswell, Herbert
Simon, Charles Lindblom and David Easton. Lindblom stresses
non-rational aspects of policy that have to do with power, social
interactions and connections between phases and stages.
Purposive character of the Policies and the way in which
policies are expected to be related to the societal problems.

For implementation, it implies that the contextualisation is

important. Implementation is always connected to specific
policies as particular responses to specific problems in society.
The Policy Cycle:
In Lasswells phase or stage model of public policy
processes, we can observe distinct stages, from thinking to
action. Many writers have set out models of stages of policy
process agenda setting, initiation (Jenkins) or deciding to
decide (Hogwood and Gunn), considering options, precise
formulation, application and implementation, feedback and
evaluation.
Like the means-end definition of public policy, the stages
framework is widely used in textbooks on the subject.
Nakamura (1987) declares it to be a textbook approach
portraying it to be unrealistic. It ignores the blurred distinction
between the stages and is judged as rationalistic. However,
this model is useful, both analytically and heuristically.
The idea of stages must be expanded to include a wider
contextualisation of different frameworks and methods or
approaches. There can be no one definition of policy analysis
(Wildavsky, 1979: 15), and no one theory or model can capture
or explain the complexity involved in what Easton once termed
the web of decisions (Easton, 1953: 130) which comprise
public policy. (Parsons, 1995 : xvii)
The stages framework provides a systematic approach to
capture the multiplicity of reality. Each stage relates to a
specific part of the context in which public policy is being made.
Implementation:
The public policy is formulated in the early stages of the policy
process, which needs to be implemented.
However, the
content of the policy and its impact on the target population
may be substantially modified, elaborated or negated during
implementation. Policy is made as it is administered and
administered as it is being made (Anderson, 1975: 79). Yet,
implementation is something separated from policy formation.
Rarely decisions are self-executing, i.e. there is a separate

implementation stage for most decisions. Much that occurs at

this (implementation) stage may seem at first glance to be
tedious or mundane, yet its consequences for the substance of
policy may be quite profound (Anderson, 1975: 78-9).
Implementation is carrying out of a basic policy decision,
usually incorporated in a statute but which can also take the
form of important executive orders or court decisions. Ideally,
that decision identifies the problems to be addressed, stipulates
the objectives to be pursued, and in a variety of ways,
structures the implementation process. The process normally
runs through a number of stages beginning with passage of the
basic statute, followed by the policy outputs (decisions) of the
implementing agencies, the compliance of the target groups
with those decisions, the actual impacts both intended and
unintended of those outputs, the perceived impacts of agency
decisions, and finally, important revisions (or attempted
revisions) in the basic statute (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983:
20-1).
Seen from the bottom, the implementation perspective is
fundamentally different. For those who are at the end of policy
implementation chain, there is not much of a concern for
transmission of policy into a series of consequential actions,
but a policy-action relationship, which is nothing but a process
of interaction and negotiation between those who seek to put
policy in place and those upon whom action depends (Barrett
and Fudge, 1981a: 4).
This is called Policy-action continuum.
Implementation as post-legislative stages of decision making
(John, 1998: 27), which is also a stage in the policy process
concerned with turning policy intentions into action (John, 1998:
204).
Policy implementation as what develops between the
establishment of an apparent intention on the part of
government to do something, or stop doing something, and the
ultimate impact in the world of action (OToole, 2000a: 266). It
refers to the connection between the expression of
governmental intention and actual results (1995: 43). Study of

implementation is little more than a comparison of the

expected versus the achieved (DeLeon, 1999a: 330).
Implementation and policy formation:
The policy-action continuum implies that in the implementation
stage the process of policy making continues. Though classic
theory of bureaucracy of Max Weber and Woodrow Wilson
suggests that administration starts where the politics (policy)
ends, the policy-action continuum negates this idea and
explores the possibility that there could be interaction between
the decision makers and the implementers. The combining of
various stages of policy process can better be conceived as
the process of policy formation rather than policy making,
which distinguishes it in implementation process within which
the policy continues to be shaped. Combined character of
thought and action as policy making.
Policy making = Policy formation + Implementation
= early and late sub-processes.
Alison (1971), first to study the synchronic relevance of
intellectual cognition and social interaction in sub-process of
policy formation, and expressed in the combination of
formulation and decision making to explain the ambiguous
character of policy to be implemented. However, he failed to
synthesize them while analysing the Cuban missile crisis.
Outputs and Outcomes:
In one of the most influential models of relationship between
politics and administration Eastons political system (1953)
inputs go into the system and what comes out is the output
and the outcome. Implementation can be seen as a part of
the throughput taking place in the system.
Outputs and outcomes are sometimes confused. In output
analysis the issues of defining and operationalising various
categories at stake are sometimes muddled.
Outcome analysis in evaluation research came to include all
kinds of results that were relevant to the understanding of
policies, including outcomes that had no link whatsoever with a

policy but affected the evaluation of whether a policy had

succeeded or not. (Ersson, 2000: 62). Hence, a need for clear
distinction between outputs and outcomes.
Outcomes are the things that are actually achieved, whatever
the objectives of policy may have been. Outcomes are the real
results, whether intended or unintended, at the same time as
outcomes are not governmental action (Ersson).
Making judgements about implementation:
Comparing what is achieved with what was expected (DeLeon,
1999a) can often lead to the observation of an implementation
gap (Dunshire, 1978a).
The judgment on policy
implementation is always a normative one.
Parsons applies Morgans metaphorical models of organisation
(1986, 1993) to explore the value of adopting alternative
perspectives on implementation failure. Implementation failure
can be seen as a result of a poor chain of command and of
problems with structures and roles (machine metaphor); as a
result of difficult human relations or the environment
(organism metaphor); as a result of poor information flows or
learning problems (brain metaphor); as a result of labour/
management conflict (domination metaphor); as a result of
culture of an organisation (culture metaphor); as a result of
subconscious forces, group think, ego defences or repressed
sexual instincts (psychic metaphor); as a result of selfreferencing system (autopoietic metaphor); or as a result of
power in and around the implementation process (power
metaphor) (Parsons, 1995: 489). No one metaphor a priori
provides a better picture; what one portrays as empirical reality
depends upon what kind of metaphor is used.
Implementation and evaluation:
Implementation failure or implementation deficit means
giving a normative qualification as a result of comparison
between what is observed and what is expected.
The
expectations are defined by the observer or one or more of the
actors involved in the process.

Fischer defines policy evaluation as the activity of applied

social science typically referred to as policy analysis or
policy science (1995: 2).
Policy analysis as an applied endeavour which uses multiple
methods of inquiry and argument to produce and transform
policy-relevant information that may be utilised in political
settings to resolve policy problems (Dunn, 1981: 35)
Evaluation examines how public policy and the people who
deliver it may be appraised, audited, valued and controlled,
while the study of implementation is about how policy is put
into action and practice (Parsons, 1995: 461)