Policy Implementation in a Postmodern

Context: Partnering to Succeed

Candidate #: 60802

Word Count: 3, 108.

It is quite common for those opposed to the current

austerity climate to look fondly back at the decades

immediately following the Second World War. In theory, this

was a time of prosperity, middle class stability and an

optimistic belief that persistent social issues could be

solved by direct government intervention. Programs led by the

central state such as the ‘great society’ initiatives in the

US along with simultaneous rebuilding of war ravaged city

centres and construction of so called new towns in the UK were

designed to mitigate, if not end, poverty, urban social

exclusion and other such ‘wicked issues’. As has become

apparent, the expected result did not materialize. The

implementation process of such programs was subject to a fair

amount of academic critique throughout the 1970’s, the

substance of which being that the state had overreached itself

and the projects themselves had involved a confusing number of

actors, sometimes working at cross purposes. Furthermore, the

increasing complexity and multiplicity of demands placed upon

the post-war state were conceptualized in this literature as

negative. The solution to these problems was supposed to be

for the state to limit complication in program delivery and

strive to come as close to so called ‘perfect’ implementation

as possible.

This paper will take issue with the concept of perfect

implementation; not only is it impossible in practice, to even

strive in that direction is excessively oriented towards top

down control and unsuited for the pluralist society that

exists today. Instead, the concepts of implementation

structures, partnerships and incrementalism will be elevated

from a descriptive narrative to a prescriptive model of how

policy should be implemented in the future. Urban regeneration

programs under New Labour will be studied in more depth to

illustrate how these concepts did gain some limited traction

among high ranking policymakers and some recommendations for

the future will be made.

The 25 years following the conclusion of the Second World

War have been mythologized as the golden age of benevolent

state intervention to correct the ills of society (Judt,

2006). Naturally enough with the Great Depression still in

living memory, public goodwill existed to enable and support

initiatives of the central state towards the eradication of

deeply rooted problems; a path made possible by the faith in

science and rational progress which still retained relative

currency at the time (Fischer, 2003). Nevertheless, in spite

of the myriad programs, studies and public money thrown about,

noticeable improvement in conditions of social exclusion,

poverty and urban blight had not materialized on either side

of the Atlantic by the 1970’s (Klemek, 2011). Inevitably,

sustained academic criticism of these initiatives took place,

focusing on a number of supposed key deficiencies. Firstly,

the state apparatus was presented as far too exposed to the

complexity and competing demands of society (King, 1975, p.

288) with an added propensity to try and please as many as

possible, leaving many programs incomplete (King, 1975,

p.288). Furthermore, the lack of one single agenda with a

clear goal in mind was theoretically an ingredient in the

lacklustre performance of central government programs (Hood,

1976, p. 17). Those initiatives aiming towards some form of

wealth redistribution, such as welfare regimes or the

regeneration of blighted cities, were presented as being

highly likely to be subject to influences outside traditional

bureaucracy; thus breaking what can be described as the

implementation chain between policy formulation and eventual

success (Hogwood and Gunn, 1997, p. 220). Using these issues

as a starting point, proponents of what has come to be called

the top-down theory of policy implementation insist that in

order to avoid failure, future dependency relationships should

be minimized (King, 1975, p. 290). Here, dependency

relationships are defined as situations where the state is

dependent on the performance of other actors in society in

order to successfully put a given program into place (King,

1975, p. 290). As top-down theorists understand it, such

relationships tend to build upon one another, leaving the

state simply one weak actor among many (King, 1975, p. 292;

Hood, 1976, p. 18). Thus, perfect implementation is

conceptualized as a process whereby central state bureaucrats

maintain tight control over processes and do their utmost to

limit any damaging linkages that could distract from the ideal

of linear policy delivery (Hogwood and Gunn, 1997, p. 220).

Urban regeneration schemes have been flagship attempts in

the United States and Britain to dramatically reduce endemic

poverty and exclusion in certain sectors of post-war society

(Klemek, 2011). According to policy scholars adhering to a

broad top-down framework, their failure to substantially do so

is the result of straying too far from perfect implementation

(Hogwood and Gunn, 1997, p. 221). The case of East Glasgow,

subject to urban renewal in the 1970’s, can be used to

demonstrate this line of argument (Booth et. al., 1982, p. 59-61).

Essentially multiple levels of government, the business

community, tenants and voluntary groupings were all involved;

causing complexity and confusion (Booth et. al., 1982, p. 66).

Specifically in this case, national government changed course

midway through the plan and began to act at cross purposes

with other actors in the project following the introduction of

austerity in the early 1980’s (Booth et. al., 1982, p. 64). Thus,

the renewal goals for East Glasgow were only met in part. In

theory, had those involved attempted to act as closely to top-

down perfection as possible, the project may have achieved

much more (Booth et. al., 1982, p. 66; Hood, 1976, p. 18).

All of this does seem to present a compelling argument.

What sort of person would disagree with striving for

perfection? Nevertheless, as social scientists or policymakers

we cannot simply accept theory on its own merits; it must be

placed into context. By doing so, we can see quite clearly the

entire concept of perfect implementation is fundamentally

flawed; unsuited to handle the changes from a modern to a

postmodern, pluralist society. First and foremost it should be

mentioned that some of those who advocate for perfect

implementation fully admit that it is quite impossible to

practically achieve (Hogwood and Gunn, 1997). Regardless,

although such theorists may support trying to come as close as

possible to perfection, attempting to do so in the UK has

resulted in a number of spectacular failures (Dunleavy, 1995,

p. 58). A number of these failures took place when British

government, already among the most centralized worldwide

(Dunleavy, 1995, pp. 57-58), explicitly sought to limit ideas

emanating from outside Whitehall and acted with extremely

centralized procedures (Dunleavy, 1995, p. 58). This is

particularly apparent with the failed poll tax imposition and

some unwieldy defence procurement initiatives that finished

highly over budget. A lack of consultation with civil society

in part led to a series of avoidable mistakes compounding

towards failure (Dunleavy, 1995, pp. 52-60). The UK government

acted as if directly taking advice from top-down theorists.

How then, are we to explain the persistent state of

failure? King (1975) has spoken of government overload, where

attempts to solve intractable wicked issues lead to a

stretching of public resources. Much top-down theory has also

emphasized the limiting of public involvement to paternalistic

notions of ‘stakeholder’ engagement (Head, 2007). However,

what if this itself was the cause of failure rather than the

solution? Top-down, perfect implementation has been rooted

deeply in a corporatist view of society, through which

citizens can be grouped into broad occupational categories

such as the working or middle classes; indeed they often self-

identify as such. This made it simpler to manage the community

in a hierarchical manner (Metcalfe, 1978, p. 38-39; Bogason,

2009, p. 13) as including labour and business leaders in a

pact could deliver large segments of the population passively

into the post-war consensus. This situation was ultimately the

culmination of several previous decades’ progress towards a

modernist society which can be defined broadly as one bounded

by a clear hierarchical division of labour, bureaucracy and

centralization (Bogason, 2000, p. 13-18). Without starting a

needless ‘chicken and egg’ argument, it can be said that

corporatism, modernism and the era of big government were

mutually supportive (Richards and Smith, 2002, p. 3; Bogason,

2009, p. 13-18; Metcalfe, 1978, p. 40). Such mutual support

will naturally collapse if one of its constituent parts were

to become obsolete and the modes of social organization that

enabled the post-war consensus are rapidly shifting into

something new with power no longer emanating from the top

(Richards and Smith, 2002, p. 5).

The subject of how this came about would naturally be a

full length discussion itself. For this space it should be

sufficient to say that there is no clear end date to the

corporatist, industrialized society based upon modernism but

in many ways society has moved towards postmodernism; the

clear lines that anchored post-war life have given way to a

state of fragmentation and individualism in which many

worldviews vie for attention (Bogason, 2000, p. 19).

Crucially, we can see a professed disdain emerging for

hierarchical structures; membership in political parties and

formal unions is dwindling in the developed world. Instead,

people try to mix and match their identities by choosing which

causes to support and one can see how class awareness from any

segment of the community seems to be lacking (Bogason, 2000,

p. 20). The era of big government is not so much outdated as

utterly obsolete and unable to come to grips with these

realities; it follows that we should move beyond the term

‘government’ to describe public sector operations in a

postmodern context: the term ‘governance’ is far more

appropriate (Richards and Smith, 2002, p. 5). Furthermore, the

concept of corporatism is problematic when governance is the

norm. Thus, pluralism is the theoretical framework to which we

must turn, as it aptly describes a society of loose

organizations and individuals both competing and cooperating

in the public sphere (Metcalfe, 1978, p. 40-41). In a sense,

citizens tend to act more like consumers as the expectation is

that services be tailored to suit self-identified lifestyles

(Simmons, 2009, p. 58). Thus, a one size fits all approach

would be viewed as highly unresponsive (Simmons, 2009, pp. 58-

59).

While pluralism is the theoretical foundation upon which

this paper is built, it becomes necessary to mar the rosy

picture presented so far. It is important to recognize that

for those not equipped to navigate the brave new postmodern

world due to structural poverty, lack of education etc. the

demise of old certainties and social solidarity in favour of

insecurity, coupled with the need to market and constantly

reinvent oneself, can be debilitating (Clarke 2010, p. 21).

The hope is that by recognizing the weaknesses and failures of

top-down attempts at administration, the public authority can

embrace a new way of operation befitting the era of

governance.

If this is the case and even trying to reach a state of

perfect implementation in a pluralist, postmodern context is a

recipe for spectacular failure, what is the public sector to

do in order to achieve anything substantive at all? What is

necessary now is to take a fresh look at the idea of

incrementalism so as to update it for the postmodern era and

position it as a true model for 21st century governing as

opposed to a resigned description of a reality that the top

down approach should try to eliminate. Originally defined by

Lindblom (1959) as the “science of muddling through”, the

theory of incrementalism has a long history as the main

counterpoint to ‘rational’ top down conceptions of

implementation. Unfortunately, it was largely seen by its

proponents as only an honest appraisal of how public servants

work on a day to day basis (Lindblom, 1959, p. 80). That

method of working boils down to a coping strategy of

“successive limited comparisons” through which public workers

distil sometimes lofty and often impossible directives from

above (Lindblom, 1959, p. 81). Furthermore, it is through such

modifying that simplistic, politically motivated policies can

make some difference to citizen’s everyday lives and avoid

becoming costly failures (Lindblom, 1959, p. 85). Still, this

analysis is hampered by emanating from the height of the era

of big government in administration and the academic study

thereof. So it suffers from a focus on the workers employed

directly by the government and lacks major discussion of wider

forces in society and the broader public sector. That being

said, the concept itself is sound and it is possible for us to

update it for the postmodern era.

Instead of trying to graft an outdated model of

implementation perfection onto the increasingly pluralist

reality of policy, the use of partnerships is a way that the

public sector can come to grips with the new understanding of

power as an exchange process (Richards and Smith, 2002, p. 5).

Not to mention that the fragmented nature of the body politic

may make cooperation necessary in order for the public sector

to achieve anything concrete (Balloch and Taylor, 2001, p. 1-

2). However, partnerships in implementation need not only be a

reaction to the demands of fractured postmodernism, they can

often amplify the efforts of the public sector by accessing

skills and ideas present in the voluntary or business areas to

create more comprehensive solutions (Skelcher and Lowndes,

1998, p. 314; Balloch and Taylor, 2001, p. 2). This can be

especially useful when dealing with an intractable issue such

as urban poverty, still with us despite years of action.

Moreover, by recognizing that implementation through

partnership may be slow moving, but far more attuned to shifts

in public opinion and community cohesion (Skelcher and

Lowndes, 1998, p. 314), we can essentially broaden the scope

of Lindblom’s “mudding through” thesis and use its conclusions

as the methodological lens through which we understand

partnership working.

There are, of course, many kinds of partnership that can be

employed in policy implementation but the most successful will

take the form of implementation structures; clusters of

public, private and voluntary actors that coalesce around a

specific policy issue (Hjern and Porter, 1997, p. 227). These

structures are often guided towards a goal by the relevant

government body, but their very strength lies in their ad hoc

nature. The informality that characterizes the clusters means

that they possess the flexibility to deal with problems as

they arise (Hjern and Porter, 1997, p. 231). Using this

approach, it is possible to finally liberate the notions of

incrementalism and partnerships from the rhetorical prison of

being seen as unfortunate realities that perfect

implementation must try to eradicate.

Through an examination of British urban regeneration

programs under New Labour, the benefits of fully embracing

partnerships become clear. Previously, this paper has detailed

how supposed failure in the East Glasgow renewal program was

due to a lack of central guidance and control. However, in a

postmodern context, such a situation is necessary if the aims

of regenerating depressed city centres are to be achieved.

After 1997, there has been some willingness, at least

rhetorically, to challenge the top-down model and introduce

true partnership working into urban regeneration processes

(DETR, 1998; Liddle, 2001, p. 314). In fact, funding from the

UK and European Union was dependent on projects demonstrating

meaningful attempts to craft partnerships with local community

and business sectors (Mayo, 1997, p. 8). This is recognition

from national and supranational levels of government that

partnerships are empowering for localities long used to some

form of democratic deficit (Mayo, 1997, p. 6). Also, they can

ensure that renewal projects are able to access resources and

talent from the wider community; theoretically solving the

problem of public sector overload and implementation gaps

identified in the top-down literature (Lowndes, 1997, p. 334).

Thus, if set up properly, relatively slow moving partnerships

can avoid the pitfalls associated with the centralized

approach.

Nevertheless, regeneration initiatives undertaken

throughout the tenure of New Labour display many of the

characteristics of failure (Liddle, 2001). Unfortunately,

years of top down thinking are still being reflected in the

cultures of local authorities and related regeneration actors

(Diamond and Liddle, 2005, p. 93). The persistence of that

idea has led to shallow attempts at consultation, involving a

paternalistic treatment of organizations trying to become part

of the long term urban renewal process (Lowndes, 1997, p. 339-

341). Additionally, when consultation does take place it often

is performed in a rather half-hearted way without

incorporating alternate viewpoints or identifying improvements

to be made over the course of the program (Liddle, 2001, p.

321). Finally, actors who are a part of the community sector

find it difficult to compete against business or even larger

charities with an international support base, which do not

include the majority of UK voluntary sector members (Chanan,

1996, p. 100). Little real effort has been made to challenge

that sort of power imbalance (Mayo, 1997, p. 13). If we add

these deficiencies together, it is possible to see how the

top-down approach has continued to be influential even when

the national government was formally committed to using

partnerships in urban regeneration. What this means is that

the lacklustre performance of these endeavours is not due to a

failure of partnerships or moving slowly, rather it is because

top down thinking has maintained its supremacy and the path to

failure illustrated by Dunleavy (1995) is being trod again.

Bearing in mind the shift from modernism to postmodernism and

pluralism previously discussed, utilizing the partnership

strategy is the way to definitively banish the quest for

perfect implementation from the minds of policymakers and the

academy.

The legacy of post-war attitudes to policymaking remains

with us still. The very fact that top-down approaches to

implementation are termed “perfect” goes a long way towards

showing why the concept has remained quite powerful. Its

academic champions will admit that it is impossible to reach,

yet this paper has detailed how they would prefer

implementation to get as close to perfection as possible.

Still, striving for perfection has produced a long list of

failures. Most importantly, that approach to perfection

theoretically requires a mode of social organization which is

fading with the advent of postmodern society. With some

reservations, we can best describe the postmodern era through

a judicious use of pluralist theory. To navigate this changed

reality and avoid the pitfalls that arise from attempting

perfect implementation the use of Lindblom’s “Muddling

Through” thesis, updated for postmodernism with a discussion

of partnerships and implementation structures, is essential as

a starting point. Putting the spotlight on UK urban

regeneration has illuminated the need for such an

understanding to ensure success in future. The sooner that

public sector agencies can embrace these sorts of

partnerships, the sooner a more flexible, successful

relationship between all participants in the policy process

can emerge.

Works Cited

Bogason, P. (2000) Public Policy and Local Governance: Institutions in

Postmodern Society. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Booth, S.A.S., Pitt, D.C. and Money, W.J. (1982)

‘Organizational Redundancy: A Critical Appraisal of the

GEAR Project’, Public Administration, 60(1), p. 56-72.

Chanan, G. ‘Regeneration: Plugging the Gaps or Pushing

Frontiers?’, Local Economy, 11(2), p. 98-103.

Clarke, J. (2010) Challenging Choices. Bristol: The Policy

Press.

Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions

(1998) New Deal for Communities: Phase 1 Proposals; Guidance for

Pathfinder Applicants. London: DETR.

Diamond, J. and Liddle, J. (2005) Management of Regeneration:

Choices, Challenges and Dilemmas. Abingdon: Routledge.

Head, B. (2007) ‘Community Engagement: Participation on

Whose Terms?’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 42(3), p.

441-454.

Hjern, B. and Porter, D. (1997) ‘Implementation

Structures: A New Unit of Administrative Analysis’, in

Hill, M. (ed.) The Policy Process: A Reader. Hemel Hempstead:

Prentice Hall. p. 226-240.

Hogwood, B and Gunn, L. (1997) ‘Why Perfect

Implementation is Unattainable’, in Hill, M. (ed.) The

Policy Process: A Reader. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. p.

217-225.

Hood, C. (1976) The Limits of Administration. Chichester: John

Wiley and Sons.

John, P. (2011) Making Policy Work. Abingdon: Routledge.

Judt, T. (2005) Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York:

Penguin Books.

King, A. (1975) ‘Overload: Problems of Governing in the

1970’s’, Political Studies, 23(2-3), p. 284-296.

Klemek, C. (2011) The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal:

Postwar Urbanism from New York to Berlin. Chicago, University of

Chicago Press.

Liddle, J. (2001) ‘RDA’s, Sub-Regional Partnerships and

Local Regeneration’, Local Economy, 16(4), p. 312-323.

Lindblom, C. (1959) ‘The Science of Muddling Through’,

Public Administration Review, 19(2), p. 79-88.

Lowndes, V., Nanton, P., McCabe, A. and Skelcher, C.

(1997) ‘Networks, Partnerships and Urban Regeneration’,

Local Economy, 11(4), p. 333-343.

Lowndes, V. and Skelcher, C. (1998) ‘The Dynamics of

Multi Organizational Partnerships: An Analysis of

Changing Modes of Governance’, Public Administration, 76(2), p.

313-333.

Mayo, M. (1997) ‘Partnerships for Regeneration and

Community Development’, Critical Social Policy, 17(3), p. 3-26.

Metcalfe, L. (1978) ‘Policy Making in Turbulent

Environments’, in Hanf, K. and Scharpf, F. (eds.)

Interorganizational Policy Making: Limits to Coordination and Central

Control. London: Sage. p. 37-55.

Richards, D. and Smith, M. (2002) Governance and Public Policy in

the UK. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Simmons, R. (2009) ‘Understanding the Differentiated

Consumer in Public Services’, in Simmons, R., Powell, M.

and Greener, I. (eds.) The Consumer in Public Services: Choice,

Values and Difference. Bristol: The Policy Press. p. 57-76.

Taylor, D. and Balloch, S. (2001) Partnership Working: Policy

and Practice. Bristol: The Policy Press.