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International Review of Public Policy

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InternationalReview of

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Editorial BoardEditors in ChiefClaudio M. Radaelli, School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute (Italy)

Laura Chaques Bonafont, University of Barcelona – IBEI (Spain)

B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh (USA)

Jale Tosun, Heidelberg University (Germany)

Nikolaos Zahariadis, Rhodes College (USA)

Forum EditorsFrank Fischer, Humboldt University (Germany)

Philippe Zittoun, LAET-ENTPE, University of Lyon (France)

Innovations ProjectsJonathan Kamkhaji, Politecnico di Milano (Italy)

DirectorPhilippe Zittoun, LAET-ENTPE, University of Lyon (France)

Journal ManagerSofiane Ailane

Scientific CommitteeFrank Baumgartner, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)

Susana Borrás, Copenhagen Business School (Denmark)

Christina Boswell, University of Edinburgh (Scotland)

Rosana Boullosa, Federal University of Bahia (Brazil)

Marleen Brans, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium)

Giliberto Capano, University of Bologna (Italy)

Benjamin Cashore, Yale University (USA)

Jennifer Dodge, University at Albany, State University of New York (USA)

Wolfgang Drechsler, Tallin University of Technology (Estonia)

Anna Durnova, Institute of Advanced Studies (Austria)

Guillaume Fontaine, FLACSO Ecuador (Ecuador)

Paulo R. Graziano, Università di Padova (Italy)

Patrick Hassenteufel, University of Versailles Saint-Quentin (France)

Brian Head, University of Queensland (Australia)

Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University (Canada)

Bryan Jones, University of Texas at Austin (USA)

Jacint Jordana, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (Spain)

Christoph Knill, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (Germany)

Mark Lubell, University of California, Davis (USA)

Ciqi Mai, Tsinghua University (China)

Jose Luis Mendez, El Colegio de México (Mexico)

M. Jae Moon, Yonsei University (South Korea)

Leslie Pal, Carleton University (Canada)

Jon Pierre, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)

M. Ramesh, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (Singapore)

Christine Rothmayr, University of Montreal (Canada)

Fritz Sager, University of Bern (Switzerland)

Grace Skogstad, University of Toronto (Canada)

Toddi Steelman, Duke University (USA)

Helen Sullivan, Crawford School of Public Policy (Australia)

Katrien Termeer, Wageningen University and Research (Netherlands)

Chris Weible, University of Colorado, Denver (USA)

Table of contents

In Memoriam, Peter deLeon (1943-2020)Peter De Leon’s Commitment to DemocracyHelen Ingram 129

Policy, Politics and Beer: A 30-Year Conversation with Peter deLeonHank C. Jenkins-Smith 131

A True Scholar, Teacher and FriendSpiros Protopsaltis 133

Tribute to Peter deLeonEdella Schlager 135

In memoriam Peter deLeonHellmut Wollmann 138

ArticlesLegitimising EU Governance through Performance Assessment InstrumentsEuropean Indicators for a Judicial Administration PolicyBartolomeo Cappellina

141

Bringing Governance Back into Education ReformsThe Case of the PhilippinesKidjie Ian Saguin / M. Ramesh

159

The Spread of Vouchers among French Local Government: When Private Companies Reshape the Meaning of a ToolArnaud Lacheret

178

Putting the Peter Parker Principle into PracticeVertical Policy (Non-)Coordination on CO2 emissions reduction in Germany and SwedenMaximilian Lennart Nagel / Jon Pierre

192

Bandwagons and Quiet Corners in Regulatory GovernanceOn regulation-specific and institutional drivers of stakeholder engagementCaelesta Braun / Adrià Albareda / Bert Fraussen / Moritz Müller

209

ForumThe Epistemics of Policymaking: from Technocracy to Critical Pragmatism in the UN Sustainable Development GoalsKris Hartley

233

I n t e rnat i onal R ev i ew o f Pub l i c Po l i cyV o l . 2 — n u m b e r 2 — 2 0 2 0

ISSN: 2679-3873

Online ISSN: 2706-6274

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review of public policy

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In m e mo r ia m Pe te r d e L eon (1943-2020) 129

Peter De Leon’s Commitment to Democracy

Helen IngramUniversity of Arizona and the University of California in Irvine

I first encountered the work of policy scholar Peter de Leon in the late 1970s when the inter-disciplinary field of public policy was just emerging. As a beginning professor I read his chapter on policy termination, in the 1979 book on the policy cycle edited by May and Wildavsky. A few years later, I joined a packed audience to hear him speak about his ideas of the policy stages and cycle analyses, where he described the policy process as occurring through a sequence of stages: agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, implementation, evaluation, and termina-tion (Brewer and de Leon 1983; de Leon 1999). These ideas, which departed radically from a prevailing focus on means/ends reasoning, influenced me greatly, leading me to call myself a policy scholar for the rest of my career.

Profesor de Leon built an illustrious record of research in public policy. Indeed, he was one of a handful of intellectual founders of the sub-field of public policy studies within political science, and his work has had national and international impact. A principle element in this legacy is his insistence that students of public policy concentrate on democracy, a criterion that transcended the field’s early focus on efficiency and effectiveness. Interpretive analysis is often the most appropriate methodology for value-centered policy studies, and de Leon’s work helped legitimize its use. Peter de Leon displayed a life-long commitment to new ideas, constantly learning new things and contributing a broad body of work. Although dubious when they first emerged, Peter de Leon eventually embraced social construction approaches. I am forever grateful for my opportunities to collaborate, which included most recently (2016) a chapter entitled “Public Policy Theory: The Elephant in the Corner.” I also appreciate the many scholarly lessons he taught generations of graduate students and fellow researchers.

Every student of public policy should be familiar with Peter de Leon’s work. In my fifty years of teaching, something by de Leon was always on my syllabus. Among the publications that I most loved to assign was “Democratic Values in the Policy Sciences,” which appeared in the Ameri-can Journal of Political Science in 1995. In that article, de Leon argued that the policy sciences were excessively technocratic and neglected the Tocqueville notion of participatory democracy. Policy sciences, he wrote, have served a Madisonian idea of pluralist democracy that removes the people from policy making, and assigns governance to elites as a matter of a “balancing of interests.” This pluralist democracy is thin and often unfair. In the course of his argument, Professor de Leon drew upon a wide variety of classical and contemporary political theorists and policy analysts. In a 2002 article authored with his wife Linda de Leon, he argued that im-plementation theory requires a sound understanding of the contingencies that govern a choice of strategies. These articles are part of an encompassing democracy and public policy research agenda that spans decades and includes books and dozens of articles and book chapters.

Peter de Leon documented the history of public policy as an area of study and was the foremost student of the writings of Harold Lasswell, its founder. It is gratifying that in 2000, the Policy Studies Organization presented him with the Harold D. Lasswell Award, for being “an out-

In te r n a t ion a l R e v ie w o f P ubl i c Pol i c y, 2 :2130

standing scholar in contributing to our understanding of the substance and process of public policy.” His presentation of policy history was always evenhanded and thorough, never privi-leging certain research templates or models including those to which he associated himself.

More rare than diamonds among policy scholars, Peter de Leon was a wonderful writer, em-ploying just the right simile and turn of phrase. The colorful and engaging scholarship of Peter de Leon drew talent to the field. He left so many of us grateful for what he gave us but wishing for more.

Brewer, G. D., & deLeon, P. (1983). The foundations of Policy Analysis. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

DeLeon, P., & DeLeon, L. (2002). What Ever Happened to Policy Implementation? An Al-ternative Approach. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 12(4), 467-492. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a003544

De Leon, P. (1999). The Stages Approach to the Policy Process: What has it Done? Where is it Go-ing?. In P. A. Sabatier (Ed.), Theories of the policy process (pp. 19-34). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Ingram, H, deLeon, P., & Schneider, A.L. (2016). Conclusion: Public Policy Theory: the Elephant in the Corner. In B.G Peters & P. Zittoun (Eds.), Contemporary Policy Approaches, Theories, Controversies, and Perspectives (pp. 175-200). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

May, J.V., & Wildavsky, A.B, (1978). The Policy cycle. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.


Policy, Politics and Beer: A 30-Year Conversation with Peter deLeon

Hank C. Jenkins-SmithUniversity of Oklahoma

Peter deLeon will be remembered and greatly missed for many reasons - for his accomplish-ments, his commitments, and the quality of his personal engagements. With Peter, it was pos-sible to have a “conversation” that spanned decades. I had the good fortune to engage in such a conversation (and I know from colleagues that this was not an uncommon practice for Peter) that lasted for over 30 years. This conversation was at times serious but often laced with Pe-ter’s hilarious (and sharp!) wit, engaging his extraordinarily broad knowledge and deep intel-ligence. In our case, the conversation initially focused the role of policy analysis in democracy, and gradually broadened to consider the possibility of sustainable democratic governance. It spanned arguments over the philosophy, methodology, and practice of public policy analysis1. But the heart and soul of this decades-long conversation concerned the relationship between policy analysis and democracy.

One of Peter’s most widely read works focused on the “policy sciences”, expanding on Harold Laswell’s agenda to bring interdisciplinary scholarship to bear on improving the human condi-tion. Peter argued that the policy sciences were vital for democracies. For him, as for Harold Lasswell, this was an urgent task because democracy and human progress are far from inevi-table. Building sustainable democratic norms requires a deep and systematic understanding of people and institutions, and translating that understanding (via policy analysis tools) to policy makers. In Advice and Consent (1989), Peter argued that the (then) increasingly prominent role of policy scientists had resulted from the advancement of systematic analytical tools (chiefly from operations research) and the growth of institutional norms among decision makers that such advice should be sought and – at least occasionally – relied upon. But it had become clear that the provision of advice based on some set of criteria for an optimal solution was not read-ily employed by decision-makers, and dispassionate “optimization” had failed to garner broad public support. For that reason, Peter sought to better understand and promote a form of “democratic policy analysis” that would rely heavily on processes that enable input from the af-fected publics (deLeon 1992, 1997). He recognized that deep public engagement could be (and in some cases should be) slow (like the cumbersome and bureaucratic Environmental Impact Assessment process in the US), but argued that judicious application of participatory forms of policy analysis could lead to a deepening and broadening of both public engagement and democratic legitimacy in policy making. In Peter’s view, hope for both the legitimacy of the policy sciences and (maybe most importantly) robust and sustainable democratic governance depended on making the transition from dispassionate, top-down policy analysis to a more bottom-up, stakeholder-infused form of policy analysis.

Peter’s wit was irrepressible. At one point we devised2 a game in which we took turns offering a word or phrase that the other was challenged to include in a peer-reviewed, published work

1 — We agreed (by my calculation) approximately 61.6% of the time – but that is beside the point.2 — Or perhaps we re-invented it. Surely someone else had previously played this or a similar game, and if so I’d dearly love to hear about it.


within the next year. The clock began ticking as soon as the word was conveyed. The game re-quired that the use of the word make sense and fit into the context of the published work. The game lasted about 5 years, and it ended in a draw. The last challenge he gave me was to include “auto-da-fay” in a paper. I used the phrase in reference to the public defeat of an attempt to site a nuclear power plant. My last challenge to him – given his decidedly non-mechanistic way of looking at the world – was “sprocket”. And I challenge the reader to find Peter’s published use of that word (It exists. Let me know if you find it and we will lift a glass together in Peter’s honor.). Other forays of Peter’s humor, woven through decades of conversation, concerned the name of the beer I was attempting to perfect (“Skin of the Lizard” brew, circa late 1990s) and a deeply philosophical discussion and non-quantitative analysis of the names of the cows in the film “Cold Comfort Farm”.

Peter’s keen wit was also evident in his genial skepticism of quantification and formalism in policy analysis. I recall his delight in criticizing methods-heavy pieces as tending to “produce very little after enormous [methodological] exertion”. Since my own work is (sometimes) of a quantitative nature, this involved quite a lot of friendly jousting over the years – and through it all Peter engaged with a kind of dogged joy3 and relish that made it impossible to take offense. And in his criticisms he was all too often right on the mark.

Over the last few decades, as norms for reliance on analytically sound advice (and on science-based decision-making more generally) among American policy makers and large segments the public have eroded, my conversation with Peter more frequently took on an ominous tone. In the near term, at least, the as yet unrealized promise of the policy sciences increasingly seemed remote. In the American political context, the looming threat of climate change and polarized partisan beliefs seemed to deeply challenge the prospects for democratic policy analysis. Yet Peter remained optimistic about the long haul, irreverent about current leaders and trends, and convinced that the democratic policy sciences would play a key role in addressing the grow-ing challenges to the human prospect.

My 30-year conversation Peter will continue to echo in my thoughts and influence my work for as long as I am able to work. That conversation, and his friendship, are among my most valuable professional experiences. Throughout our exchanges Peter was erudite, thoughtful, humorous, careful, sharp, and courageous. He was, above all, consistently decent and kind. I will miss him.

Carlson, D., Haeder, S., Jenkins-Smith, H., Ripberger, J., Silva, C., & Weimer, D. (2019). Monetizing Bowser: A Contingent Valuation of the Statistical Value of Dog Life. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 11(1), 131-149.

DeLeon, P. (1989). Advice and Consent: The Development of the Policy Sciences. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

DeLeon, P. (1992). The Democratization of the Policy Sciences. Public Administration Review, 52, 125-129.

DeLeon, P. (1997). Democracy and the Policy Sciences. New York, NY: SUNY Press.

3 — I cannot resist, in Peter’s honor, referencing a recent paper (of which I am a co-author) that estimates the statisti-cal value of a dog’s life (Carlson et al, 2019). Really. Peter would have loved it!


A True Scholar, Teacher and Friend

Spiros ProtopsaltisGovernor, OAED Manpower Employment Organization, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Greece / First Vice Chair, European Public Employment Services Network

There are certain people who have a special aura about them, who have a light that shines brighter, who know a lot about a lot of things, but are also humble and work for the success of others, not just their own. Peter was clearly one of those people. He was a wonderful person in all respects, with a warm spirit and endless generosity, who left his mark on everyone who had the good fortune of meeting him. While I have several great memories that I cherish deeply, I will never forget how welcome I felt when I received his letter informing me about my accept-ance to the doctoral program he directed at the University of Colorado of Denver. It was so different from all the other offer letters, as it was written by someone who truly cared about my academic and professional development. But I was not alone. That’s how he came across to all his students – as someone who was not only smart and accomplished, but who had a genuine interest in others’ potential, growth and achievement. And that’s what made him special. He was a true scholar and teacher. An educator with a passion of leading his students to their own discovery of truth.

When I made the decision after my master’s studies to move from New York to Denver 20 years ago, I had doubts but also secret hopes about what I would find. It only took a few days working with Peter to dispel the former and confirm the latter – it clearly was one of the best decisions I ever made. After meeting him, I realized that not only had I gained access to an amazing schol-ar with a beautiful mind, but I had also finally found a mentor and a lifelong friend. Someone who looked out for me, invested in my development and progress, provided invaluable advice, pushed me to think differently, and all of this always in a selfless and genuine manner.

Although I was not very familiar with his work prior to arriving in Denver, I soon became enthralled by his ideas, his deep belief in the democratic ethos and process, his wide-ranging knowledge and unique perspective, the volume and quality of his work, his deep insights and sharp sense of humor. In class, he pushed students to examine problems through different lenses, using the dialectic method to promote critical and independent thinking. He was tough, but fair. The red markings on the returned paper often posed questions that led to new path-ways of inquiry and new opportunities for investigating all aspects of the policy issue and process.

Looking back, I am most grateful for having the opportunity to learn from him and his wife Linda and to complete my thesis under his guidance and direction. For all doctoral students, the most important decision is selecting (and securing) a supportive and collaborative chair who will help you navigate the long and challenging process. Thankfully, I was among the nu-merous students he took under his wing during his career as a professor. At each and every step, he was there to help, to nudge, to get you to the finish line, without compromising his high standards and expectations for his students.


Moreover, as a European student in the US, I was always impressed by his knowledge of world history and deep appreciation of Western political thought, as well as his constant and close monitoring of global affairs. While I did not share his interest in baseball, America’s favorite pastime, our conversations would often veer towards the latest news in other countries, which was always a refreshing and rewarding experience.

Peter was a special guy, a great human being, who will be missed dearly by everyone who knew him. He left his mark on his field, on his colleagues, on his friends and certainly on his stu-dents, in a way that few professors ever do.

Always your student and friend.


Tribute to Peter deLeon

Edella SchlagerDirector, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona

Peter deLeon stood on the shoulders of a giant, Harold Lasswell, one of the truly great politi-cal scientists of the 20th century. In turn, Peter was a giant, and supported the work of many graduate students and scholars, not to mention making major conceptual and theoretical con-tributions to a discipline. Thus, I thought it appropriate to begin this tribute with Harold Lass-well, who argued for a science of policy whereby its practitioners would provide sound knowl-edge in and of policy making. He grounded this vision in the norms and values of democracy, most especially, as Peter repeatedly noted, in human dignity (deLeon 1994). The policy sciences were to have a problem solving orientation, a sensitivity to context, and the application of multiple types of empirical methods, or more broadly, multiple ways of knowing. As Lasswell (1971:13) explained, “the policy scientist is concerned with mastering the skills appropriate to enlightened decision in the context of public and civic order”. The policy sciences of democracy, according to Lasswell, was to be sweeping in scope, encompassing overlapping and interact-ing decision settings, from intelligence to termination (Lasswell 1971:28). In these decision settings, goal oriented actors pursued multiple values, not only efficiency or power, but also respect, rectitude, and affection (Lasswell 1971).

Peter deLeon, along with Gary Brewer, developed and extended Lasswell’s vision in a very pop-ular text, the Foundations of Policy Analysis, making the vision accessible and valuable to genera-tions of policy analysts and scholars. The textbook brought together an in-depth exploration of processes surrounding public policies, staying true to Laswell’s vision of problem solving and multiple methods, but also set the standard for textbooks on public policy making. To this day, it is common for textbooks to be organized around the six stages of the policy process: initia-tion, estimation, selection, implementation, evaluation, and termination (Brewer and deLeon 1983; Sapru 2019). The stages are an intuitive way of organizing and making sense of policy making activities, and they have provided a road map for large swaths of the policy sciences. The individual stages continue to provide the context for rich theorizing, such as agenda set-ting (Kingdon 1996; Baumgartner and Jones 2009), or implementation (Matland 1995, Cline 2000, O’Toole 2004).

Even so, the Foundations of Policy Analysis was subject to critique from the beginning. Early on, Reuss (1988) warns historians of becoming too enamored with interdisciplinary approaches, such as embracing the policy stages, as presented by Brewer and deLeon (1983), which are ahistorical, and where structure dominates substance (Reuss 1988). He asks, “to what ex-tent can the social sciences, many of which have shown little sensitivity to the dimension of time (sociology is probably the best example), contribute to our understanding of the policy process?”(Reuss 1988:45). But Peter was well ahead of Reuss. In Advice and Consent, he laid out the history and defining events that shaped the development of the policy sciences, especially the policy stages, providing deep insight into knowledge in and of policy making processes. As deLeon and Gallagher (2011) point out, Peter found no reason to revise his assessment of the forces shaping the policy sciences and the policy stages until that article. The rise and prolifera-


tion of non-profits as key policy process actors and the emergence of governance, deLeon and Gallagher (2011:45) suggest, “have had a significant effect on the structure of the policy cycle.” The platform for exploring the ongoing transformation of the policy stages/cycle might have been the highly respected and popular edited volume, Theories of the Policy Process (Sabatier 1999, 2007), however, the policy stages chapter was removed after the first edition to make room for additional policy process theories, with the emphasis on theory (Sabatier 2007). It was a painful decision for both Peter and Paul.

There was virtually no dimension of policy making processes that Peter did not theorize about, or encourage scholars to further investigate and explore. Whether it was policy termination (deLeon 1978; Frantz 1992; Greenwood 2007), or implementation (deLeon and deLeon 2002), his influence can be found across the policy sciences. But one of the most enduring and treas-ured aspects of Peter’s work was his undying commitment to core democratic values and his call to policy sciences scholars to use democracy as their north star. How to best accomplish that? Hew more closely to Lasswell’s original vision of a problem solving orientation, which requires multiple disciplines (not only economics), and multiple methods, with positivist ap-proaches taking up less room to allow for a more prominent role for post-positivist methods (deLeon 1994). And, engage with and support a participatory policy analysis. “The crux of par-ticipatory policy analysis is that its purpose is to better inform the policy process and, through direct citizen involvement, concomitantly give the citizens a greater voice in and allegiance to the political system and its processes.”(deLeon 1994:88).

Great scholars are not only innovative and groundbreaking in their research, but are also pow-erful mentors. I met a number of Peter’s former students at different professional conferences, and their love and respect for him was palpable. While I was not a student of Peter’s, he does have a place in my pantheon of mentors, who in critical ways supported me at key junctures in my career. For me, Peter mentored me in his role as editor of Policy Sciences. He published my first single authored article after closely working with me to further develop and sharpen the manuscript’s arguments. That experience spoiled me. I assumed all editors were like Peter. And, as the recent editor of the Policy Studies Journal, I worked hard to be the type of editor Peter modeled for me.

In reflecting on Peter’s career, I realize how much Elinor Ostrom, my dissertation advisor and friend, and Peter had in common. An openness to diverse approaches, a respect for multiple disciplines, and a knack for making everyone around them better, and better off from the ex-perience.

Baumgartner, F., & Jones, B. (2009). Agendas and Instability in American Politics (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Brewer, G.& deLeon, P. (1983). The Foundations of Policy Analysis. Homewood, IL: The Dorcey Press.

Cline, K. (2000). Defining the Implementation Problem: Organizational Management versus Coop-eration. Journal of Public Administration Theory and Research, 10(3), 551-571

deLeon, P. (1978). Public Policy Termination: An End and a Beginning. Policy Analysis 4(3):183-184.

deLeon, P.(1988). Advice and Consent: the Development of the Policy Sciences. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

deLeon, Peter. (1994). Reinventing the Policy Sciences: Three Steps Back to the Future. Policy Sci-


ences, 27, 77-95.

deLeon, P. & deLeon, L. (2002). Whatever Happened to Policy Implementation? An Alternative Ap-proach. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 12(4), 467-492.

deLeon, P. & Gallagher, B.K. (2011). A Contemporary Reading of Advice and Consent. Policy Studies Journal, 39(S1), 27-39.

Frantz, J. (1992). Reviving and Revising a Termination Model. Policy Sciences, 25(2), 175- 189.

Greenwood, J. (2007). The Succession of Policy Termination. International Journal of Public Adminis-tration, 20(12), 2121-2150.

Kingdon, J. (1995). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (2nd ed.).New York, NY: Longman.

Lasswell, H. (1971). A Preview of the Policy Sciences. New York, NY: American Elsevier Publishing Co., Inc.

Matland, R. (1995). Synthesizing the Implementation Literature: The Ambiguity-Conflict Model of Policy Implementation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 5(2), 145-174.

O’Toole, L. (2004). The Theory Practice Issue in Policy Implementation Research. Public Administra-tion, 82(2), 309-329.

Reuss, M. (1988). The Myth and Reality of Policy History: A Response to Robert Kelly. The Public Historian, 10(1), 41-49.

Sabatier, P. (Ed.) (1999). Theories of the Policy Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Sabatier, P. (Ed.) (2007). Theories of the Policy Process (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Sapru, R. (2019). Public Policy: A Contemporary Perspective. New Delhi: Sage Press.


In memoriam Peter deLeon

Hellmut WollmannEmeritus, Humboldt University, Berlin

In commemorating Peter deLeon and in paying homage to him as a brilliant scholar, great hu-man being and good friend, I wish, in this brief note, to thankfully recall and acknowledge the cordial encounters with him, the insights and inspirations he gave me as well as the valuable contribution he made to the field of public policy research and policy sciences worldwide, not least in Germany.

I met Peter de Leon while he was in Germany on several occasions during the 1980s. Our communication and interaction intensified when he got involved in an international research network which, initiated and coordinated by Peter Wagner, Björn Wittrock and myself, was formed in the late 1980s at the Science Centre Berlin (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin). Guided by a common interest in the “history of science” and “sociology of knowledge”, the research consor-tium aimed at exploring the development of applied social science from an international com-parison angle. The group comprised, among other eminent scholars in the field, Carol Weiss, Martin Rein, Martin Bulmer and, last but not least, Peter deLeon. The collective undertaking resulted in a volume entitled “Social Sciences and Modern States” that was co-edited by Pe-ter Wagner, Carole Weiss, Björn Wittrock and myself and was published in 1991 by Cambridge University Press. Peter wrote a valuable chapter entitled “political events and policy sciences” in which he analysed, in line with the common “history of science” track, the emergence and phases of policy research, including the development of “policy sciences”, essentially tracing back to the seminal volume published by Harold Lasswell and David Lerner in 1951 under the programmatic title “policy sciences”. Peter’s profound erudition grounded in the Lasswellian tradition and enriched by his work at the RAND Corporation, as well as his amicable and com-municative personal style, contributed greatly to the lively and productive discussions in the international community and bore splendid fruit in his chapter in the collective volume.

The interest that Peter de Leon and I shared in the comparative study of the “history of science” and “history of the discipline” drew our attention to the intriguing example and phenomenon of a mutual fertilisation that occurred, in a temporally “staggered” and historically phased way, between the German and US American social science communities, hinting at a peculiar “spe-cial linkage” between them over time. This seems worth spelling out a little further in this brief commemorative note.

In Germany, the emergence of historical and comparative research in academic teaching and investigation in public affairs and policies dates back to the 18th century, when the Prussian king established professorships in so-called Cameralism (Kameralwissenschaften) at the newly created universities in 1723 in Halle and Frankfurt/Oder. The aim was to educate and train a new breed of public administrators and, for this purpose, to draw comprehensively on the then available (still elementary) administrative, economic technical etc. knowledge deemed relevant for running the (mercantilist) State. Another contemporary label of this emergent academic track was Policeywissenschaften which, as the term “Policey” at the time, denoting “public policy


matters” at large, may be translated, nota bene, as “policy science”. Small wonder that the Kam-eralwissensschaften, as well as the Policeywissenschaften, have, not least because of their “quasi -interdisciplinary” and “applied” orientation, sometimes been identified as an early version and forerunner of today’s “policy sciences”. From this, in the further course of the 19th century, the concept of Staatswissenschaften (sciences of the State) evolved, for which new professor-ships (“chairs”) were established at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. A leading protagonist was Lorenz von Stein who, drawing on the notion of the “working state” (arbeitender Staat), conceived Staatswissenchaften as an “integrative” science which combines legal, economic and social science knowledge for practical purposes. Further, around the 1860s, gathering around the Association of Social Policy (Verein für Socialpolitik), a group of reform-minded histori-an-economists, among whom Gustav Schmoller stood out, initiated and conducted empirical research on the (dismal) living, especially housing, conditions of the working class. As they explicitly targeted their empirical research at calling for and at underpinning social policy re-forms, they came to be nicknamed “lectern socialists” (Kathedersozialisten).

Against this historical background, between the mid-19th and the end of the 19th century, a great number of US American students came to study at German universities, which at the time enjoyed an esteemed international reputation and attraction for the quality of academic teaching and research based on the Humboldtian principle of the “unity of teaching and re-search”. When returning to the US, many of them, such as, for instance, Albion Woodbury Small and Charles E. Merriam, embarked upon academic careers and went on to play a leading role in shaping the emergent academic landscape in the US. Thus, it can plausibly be assumed that the acquaintance this cohort of US American students made at German universities with Staatswissenschaften and with applied social policy research entailed a “knowledge transfer” and “travel” that bore fruit in the burgeoning academic scene in the US.

After 1945, following the liberation from the Nazi regime, in (West) Germany the build-up of university teaching and research in sociology and political science was decisively influenced by a massive “knowledge transfer” from the US. This was transmitted significantly by German scholars who were, under the Nazi regime, forced to leave the country and then began or con-tinued their academic career in the US. When returning to Germany after 1945, they played a key role in the country’s academic revival, scholars such as Carl Joachim Friedrich, Ernst Fraen-kel, Richard Löwenthal, Sigmund Neumann, Fritz Morstein-Marx, to name but a few.

I myself spent a year, in 1957/58, as a Fulbright exchange student at Wesleyan University, Conn, and another year, in 1970/71, as Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard. In the social science and political science research that has unfolded since the 1950s, the subject matters, approaches and concepts have considerably drawn on and reflected phases and currents in the US academic development, which Peter de Leon aptly identified and explained in his contri-bution to the afore-mentioned collective volume. This applies, not least, to implementation research as pioneered by Aaron Wildavsky, to evaluation research as promoted by Carol Weiss or to public policy research, which received pivotal clues from the “policy sciences” as designed and promulgated by Harold Lasswell and David Lerner in 1951.

In the “history of science” and a comparative perspective, it can plausibly be argued that, par-ticularly with regard to its key concepts of interdisciplinarity and application orientation, “pol-icy science” has peculiarly “travelled” well over time between the German and the US American social science communities. After emerging, in an early format, in 19th century Germany’s Policeywissenschaften and Staatswissenschaften and making its way, via cohorts of US American students, into the emergent US academic world, it thence returned in the elaborate and pro-


grammatic stance of the Lasswellian “policy sciences” to the European, particularly German shores, to advance the post-war rise and evolution of public policy research. Here Peter made important contributions.

In 1984, Peter gracefully gave me an opportunity to explain these developments in an arti-cle on the subsequent development of policy analysis in Germany. Essential to these develop-ments was Peter’s own efforts to usher in this transfer and “travel” of concepts. In all ways, Pe-ter DeLeon played an outstanding role as a dignified heir and eloquent advocate of the “policy sciences” legacy and message.

deLeon, P. (1991). Political Events and the Policy Sciences. In P. Wagner, C. Hirschon Weiss, B. Wittrock & H. Wollmann (Eds.), Social Sciences and Modern States (pp. 86-109). Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

Wagner, P., & Wollmann, H. (1991). Beyond Serving State and Bureaucacy: Problem Oriented Social Science in Germany. Knowledge and Policy, 4(1-2), 56-88.

Wittrock, B., Wagner, P., & Wollmann, H. (1991). The Policy Orientation: Legacy and Promise. In P. Wagner, C. Hirschon Weiss, B. Wittrock & H. Wollmann (Eds.), Social Sciences and Modern States (pp. 2-27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wittrock, B., Wagner, P., & Wollmann, H. (1991). Social Science and the Modern State: Policy Knowl-edge and Political Institutions in Western Europe and the United States. In P. Wagner, C. Hirschon Weiss, B. Wittrock & H. Wollmann (Eds.), Social Sciences and Modern States (pp. 28-85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wollmann, H. (1984), Policy Analysis: Some observations on the West German Scene. Policy Sci-ences, 17, 27-47.

Wollmann, H. (2010). Soziologie Zwischen Kaiserreich, Weimarer Republik und NS- Regime. In H-E. Tenorth (Ed.), Geschichte der Universität unter den Linden Berlin, vol. 3, Akademie-Verlag, in Spanish translation: Wollmann, H. (2014). Surgimiento y Ruptura de la Sociología Alemana. Entre el Imperio, la República y el régimen Nazi. Revista Barataria, 18, 29-43.

Legitimising EU Governance through Performance Assessment InstrumentsEuropean Indicators for a Judicial Administration Policy

Bartolomeo CappellinaPost-doc researcher at Sciences Po Grenoble, CESICE-Pacte (France)

AbstractThe article addresses the production of indicators as policy instruments in European public policy. It discusses the relevant literature on sociology of quantification and European public policy and applies this theoretical framework to the case of European judicial administration policy. Presenting the historical and institutional premises to the creation of two projects of judicial performance assessment by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, as well as their methodology, the article argues that the selection of indicators is a litmus test of debates over the strategies and institutional goals of the organisations proposing them. Con-necting the previous analysis with the use of these instruments in the policy-making sphere, the article points out that evaluation tools in European policy, rather than serving merely as informative tools, produce empowerment side-effects in the policy arena for the organisations that developed them. In European judicial policy, indicators provide a sufficiently loose frame-work to solve vertical and horizontal cooperation problems at the international level, deter-mine policy goals through the selection of areas of measurement and evaluation, and provide proof to influence local and national policy-makers over reforms either through lesson-draw-ing, persuasion or conditionality.

Keywordspolicy instruments, justice, policy change, indicators, European Commission, blame avoidance

International Review of Public Policy,Vol. 2, N°2, 141-158, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1023

142 In te r n a t ion a l R e v ie w o f P ubl i c Pol i c y, 2 :2

IntroductionSince the 1980s, the previously sector-specific and economically related use of indicators has become a widespread phenomenon in almost every aspect of public governance (Espeland & Sauder, 2007; Merry, Davis, & Kingsbury, 2015). This article discusses the role of indicators in European public policy, depicting how they influence the balance of power between European institutions and Member States, informing from above and on certain conditions inducing policy change. It questions the case of European indicators measuring the activity of judicial systems, positing their development by the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Union (EU) as strategically oriented to reinforce their standing in the field of judicial policy and un-derpin their capacity to drive change in member states.

The article is relevant for scholars in International and European public policy in at least three ways. First, following a flow of research in development studies and international relations (Davis, Fisher, Kingsbury, & Merry, 2012; Dixon, Hood, & Jones, 2008; Kelley & Simmons, 2015), the article links the diffusion of indicators with the development in European states of what has been called a Neo-Liberal governmentality, or New Public Management reforms (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011; Desrosières, 2011; Hood, 1991). The justice sector has been in-cluded in this flow and some scholars have even inferred a turn in the focus of its activity from the normativity of law to the performativity of procedures (Piana, 2014; Luhmann, 1995). Therefore, justice – a sovereign power in the classical Montesquieu’s theory of check and bal-ances, characterised by a high level of independence from the politics of its professionals – is particularly fit as a case study to show how the “quiet power of indicators” (Merry et al., 2015) operates to drive change in public policy.

Secondly, the article contributes to the discussion on the evolving nature of European public policy and the place of policy instruments therein (Howlett, 2019; Graziano & Halpern, 2016; Dehousse, 2016). The literature on European public policy shows that executive, legislative and judicial powers, both nationally and at the European level, increasingly share their author-ity with regulatory agencies, where political action is blended with technical and epistemic knowledge to deal with the rising complexity of international public policy (Maggetti & Gilardi, 2014; Dunlop, Maggetti, Radaelli, & Russel, 2012; Radaelli, 1999). On the international scale, indicators have been linked to the framework of the evidence-based policy paradigm, which promotes the evaluation and the impact assessment of public policy through the measure-ment of public-sector activity and other forms of experimentation that spread in government agencies and departments all over Europe and integrated the European level itself through the “new” modes of governance (Radaelli, 2009; Sanderson, 2002).

Finally, the article is relevant to scholars focusing on the role of soft law in International and European public policy (Abbott & Snidal, 2000; Cini, 2001; Quaglia, 2019; Terpan, 2015; Trubek & Trubek, 2005). It suggests that international indicators as instruments of soft law can have hard and durable effects on policy strategies in the European policy-making sphere and policy change in general, especially in areas of policy in which the European institutions cannot rely on the use of hard law instruments.

Methodology and Empirical Analysis

The article is built on research that uses an atheoretical type of process tracing (George & Ben-nett, 2005, p. 508), which presents the necessary steps to build a more formal explanatory model of the influence of European institutions on civil justice reforms in European countries since 2014. This article does not present the process tracing framework of the effects of dif-

143C a p p el l in a | L e g i t imi s in g EU G ove r n a nce throu g h Pe r fo r m a nce A s s e s sme n t In s t r ume n t s

ferent policy strategies on national and local policy change, but deals with the first part of the story. The article shows how the European Commission put itself in the position of exerting influence on Member States in a field of policy that was previously beyond its remit. It does so presenting how the indicators on the performance of national judicial systems initially devel-oped in the context of the Council of Europe (CoE) started to play an important role in shaping policy once they have been integrated in a new toolkit by the European Commission. Timing the post-crisis policy narrative focused on competitiveness with the Rule of Law crisis nar-rative which developed in the early 2010s over some Eastern European countries (Romania, Poland, Hungary), the Commission has been able to expand its competence on a new field of policy focusing on the previously very marginal judicial administration policy. We argue that the European judicial indicators not only helped the Commission to expand the field of Euro-pean public policy in the sector of judicial administration, but also empowered the Commission position towards the Member States, altering the previously intergovernmental and national frameworks of judicial policy (Lavenex, 2015; Trauner & Ripoll Servant, 2016).

For what concerns the triggering of actual policy change at national level, we can for the time being only rely on previous work that successfully rose to the challenge of establishing causal relations between non-binding EU stimuli and domestic change (Moumoutzis & Zartaloudis, 2016). The results presented in this article suggest that the EU turned the CoE instruments, developed to trigger social learning among national judiciaries and governments, into a per-formative naming and shaming strategy, using conditionality and persuasion as mechanisms of change. However, a thorough analysis of the national policy changes is beyond the scope of this article, and we can only conclude on these European mechanisms as prominent hypoth-eses to guide future research dealing with the role of indicators in triggering national policy change in the judicial sector.

The analysis relies on the archives of documents produced by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice of the CoE (CEPEJ) and the European Commission, as well as on fieldwork undertaken at the working sessions of the CEPEJ and on interviews with members, experts and officers of the two organisations1. Survey data on the careers and commitment of these transnational experts in the field integrates the analysis to generate deeper insights into the working methods and the different backgrounds integrating these forums charged with the elaboration of the indicators under scrutiny.

The article starts by discussing the relevant literature to theoretically address the production of indicators on the European sphere and their use in European public policy. Then, the sec-ond and third sections provide insights into the historical and institutional premises to the creation of the two projects of judicial performance measurement by the CoE and the EU, as well as the methodology adopted by the two institutions to produce their judicial evaluation tools. This section shows that the selection of data and indicators is a litmus test of debates over the strategies and institutional goals of the organisations proposing them. The fourth sec-tion, connecting the previous analysis with the use of these instruments in the policy-making sphere, points out that evaluation tools in the European sphere, rather than serving merely as informative tools for policy (as the evidence-based governance paradigm proposes), produce

1 — 15 interviews lasting one to two hours were realised with CEPEJ experts and members of the secretariat, 5 in-terviews with officers of the European Commission, and 5 interviews with National Correspondents charged with the statistical collaboration with the CEPEJ and the European Commission. Moreover, a total of 15 days of observation at CEPEJ meetings were realised between 2014 and 2016. 32 current and former CEPEJ experts answered a survey on their career and experience as international experts. Only one European Commission official replied to the question-naire, the others considering it inappropriate for their status of civil servants to express opinions on their work.


secondary empowerment side-effects in the policy arena for the organisations that developed them. Even though the study of the impact of this empowerment is beyond the scope of this article, we conclude in the fifth section on the ways in which this legitimising role played by indicators on the transnational scale helps to produce change in European member states’ jus-tice systems. The development of European judicial indicators contributes consistently to the recognition of the CoE (and particularly of the CEPEJ) and the European Commission as legiti-mate actors in the field of judicial administration, especially for civil justice, and opens venues for actively intervening on policy change for these organisations, both within and outside EU boundaries, given the right conditions for European institutions to exercise pressure on the national authorities and professionals. This relates to similar conclusions highlighted by the European governance literature on the use of international indicators in the education policy sector (Normand, 2016; Papadimitriou, Gornitzka, & Stensaker, 2015).

Findings1. Judicial indicators and European policy

The sociology of quantification and technology of governance is a prism through which the elaboration of indicators on judicial systems as instruments serving the production of specific visions of the functioning, goals and rules of justice can be envisaged. A fundamental step in this perspective is to analyse the contexts and actors involved in their development in order to clarify the linkage between the knowledge that informed the production of indicators (Penissat & Rowell, 2014) and the knowledge that is to be produced through them. The latter influences political decision making and frames problems as well as solutions of policy that are not social-ly or politically neutral (Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2007), as they derive from a specific construc-tion of reality that actors perform through statistics (Desrosières, 2011). On the other hand, we consider indicators in the light of the innovative public policy settings that produced them, notably taking into account the literature on ‘new’ European governance (Diedrichs, Reiners, & Wessels, 2011; Eberlein & Kerwer, 2004; Tömmel & Verdun, 2009). Part of the literature on new modes of governance in the EU posits them on one side as a solution to the problem of decision-making in fields where one-for-all agreements are impossible, and on the other as a structure that grants the EU (and notably the European Commission) the opportunity to trigger mechanisms through which its action in policy domains that were previously out of its reach can be incorporated and legitimised (Dehousse, 2016; Tholoniat, 2010; Trubek, Cottrell, & Nance, 2006).

The starting point of our analysis is that the necessity to ‘better govern’ societies through in-formed public policies justified a wide-spreading process of quantification of the social world (Diaz-Bone & Didier, 2016; Muniesa & Linhardt, 2011; Saetnan, Lomell, & Hammer, 2011). This prism of reform, deepened by the Neo-liberal governments of the 1980s, implied in the last 30 years the construction and exploitation for policy ends of significant amounts of sta-tistical information, allegedly easing the decision-making process through the construction of objective ‘best practices’ and regulatory frameworks locally, nationally or at the European level. Some authors pinpointed the facilitation of learning processes and policy adjustments that the benchmarking of these supposedly objective policy solutions enable in European public policy (Arrowsmith, Sisson, & Marginson, 2004; Lodge, 2005). In this view, indicators – part of the toolkit of soft law instruments – contribute actively to the production of specific visions of the social world that they measure, while driving some sort of compliance from the measured towards the attributes that they measure.


Justice, while not new to the statistical measurement of its activity (Lomell, 2011; Williams, 2011), has followed this new focus in the production of data, indexes, and indicators for public governance, becoming one of the main domains of measurement in a society of ‘risks’ (Beck, 1992; Saetnan et al., 2011). A societal and political pressure for higher transparency of public services driven and reinforced by New Public Management (NPM) reforms invested justice since the 1980s in the US and the 1990s in Europe. The four key processes characterising NPM – managerialisation, marketisation, privatisation and corporatisation (Galetto, Marginson, & Spieser, 2014) – showed their effects in various reforms, from new forms of evaluation of the work of judicial professionals, to the diffusion of alternative dispute resolution methods. In this article we focus on managerialisation, defining it as that process that changed the organi-sational practices of justice towards the quest for higher efficiency, to be obtained through the optimisation of human and material means and the use of private-sector management tools and practices, such as the user/client approach to service processes, a market-driven control of costs and the measurement of performance to assess actions by result (Hood, 1991; Vigour, 2015).

Moreover, the initial national cross-time comparisons of performance realised in statistics de-partments of ministries have been followed in the 2000s by international comparisons trying to evaluate the performance of countries over various dimensions of legal systems, as their capacity to enforce human rights and the rule of law2 or their capacity to foster economic development3. A number of authors link this diffusion of managerial modes of performance measurement on the micro scale with a global turn in the relationship between knowledge and power in law and justice, which enables the “transformation of social facts of legal relevance (e.g. ordered empirical data about the rule of law) into standards of behaviour (i.e. rule of law benchmarks)” (Restrepo Amariles 2015, 12).

In the next paragraph, we highlight this link existing between the managerial turn in public policy and the production of legal indicators at the International and European level focusing on two projects of quantification of judicial systems that assess the efficiency and quality of their functioning: the ‘Evaluation Report of European judicial systems’ developed by the CE-PEJ, and the ‘EU Justice Scoreboard’ of the European Commission. An emphasis on the evolu-tion of the legal indicators included in these European projects shows how these instruments of quantification of judicial activity assumed a precise role in the governance structure of Euro-pean judicial systems that goes beyond the supposedly neutral measurement of their activity, and that is of central relevance for the debate over the choice of tools and policy designs in European public policy (Howlett, 2019; Jordan, Wurzel, & Zito, 2005).

2. Premises for European judicial indicators: the Council of Europe at the core of the European judicial policyCourt efficiency became a central issue in the European agenda after the opening of the ju-risdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to individual procedures coming from citizens denouncing a violation of their rights. In 1999, an immediate increase in the amount of appeals to the ECtHR followed this opening. Composed in great part of complaints related to supposed violations of Article 6 on fair trial, the largest category were violations of the right to a trial “within reasonable time”. This immense caseload was creating a paradoxical

2 — For example, the World Justice’s Project Rule of Law Index, the Freedom House Freedom in the World indicator, or the Transparency International Corruption perceptions Index.3 — For example, World Bank Doing Business index, or the OECD’s Government at a Glance report.


situation whereby the court supposed to decide over violations of the reasonable length of tri-als was itself at risk of not complying with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) principle (Johnsen, 2012). Contextually, in 2000, the EU adopted the Charter of Fundamental Rights4, in which Article 47 stipulates the right to a fair trial and an effective remedy. However, the appeal framework to the Court of Justice of the EU has substantially excluded the issue of length of proceeding from its review, leaving the substantial burden of the application of fair trial principles on the shoulders of the CoE. The Committee of Ministers, its steering organ, re-flected over the creation of a committee charged with the development of solutions that could help member countries to comply with Article 6 of the ECHR. Creating in 2002 the CEPEJ, the Strasbourg organisation proposed the adoption of a systemic and informative approach to guide the future judicial policies of member countries, focused on the analysis of the function-ing of judicial systems, of judicial procedures’ time management, and on the promotion of the quality of judicial services for the citizens (Boillat & Leyenberger, 2008).

The first task of the CEPEJ was to collect reliable and comparable data from all CoE Member States to compare their characteristics, give insights and help reflections on the factors in-fluencing the length of proceedings and the quality of judicial systems. To do so, in 2003, a sub-committee was created which was composed of six experts. Each member was selected by the CEPEJ Secretariat following a proposition by the Member State of the expert, its domain of specialisation, and the criteria of equal representation of gender and of regional models of judicial systems. Following the instructions of the Resolution creating the CEPEJ, the group of experts first concentrated its action on the “[examination of] results achieved by the different judicial systems by using common statistical and evaluation methods5”, i.e. on the creation of an area of equivalence for statistical comparison (Desrosières, 2011). A Dutch court manage-ment expert and member of the group produced a study of the existing frameworks of evalu-ation of judicial activity. The Dutch and English frameworks of court evaluation, created with the NPM reforms during the late 1990s, and the framework used by the World Bank to compile its justice sector database, were used for proposing a set of indicators. However, part of the group considered this first project “too bureaucratic and detailed for member countries to be filled6”. Though, rather than the intergovernmental bargaining pointed out as a topical ten-sion of international committees, it was the deliberative equilibrium between conceptions of judicial systems that was at stake in the group (Joerges & Neyer, 1997). The law professionals in the group were willing to take back control of the set of indicators to avoid it being labelled a managerial tool by their national fellows, a label that would have undermined its legitimacy among judicial professionals.

Chaired by the President of the group, a French magistrate very keen to consider the reception by member countries as an important element to guide the selection of indicators, the group composed a list of 108 indicators. The indicators included many of those initially proposed by the Dutch expert and were organised around five main themes descriptively covering the organisation of tribunals as a whole7, and excluding some advanced synthetic performance in-

4 — Jointly proclaimed in 2000 by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission. 5 — Res(2002) 12 of the Committee of Ministers, Appendix 1, Article 1.6 — Interview with a judge, member of the expert group, November 2014.7 — The five themes are: (1) the public expenditure on courts and legal aid, measuring the budget allowed to courts and access to justice; (2) the judiciary and the courts, giving data on court staff numbers and on the responsibilities over their management; (3) court performance, including only data related to the number of cases and their timeframe; (4) public prosecutors, presenting numbers and differences in the organisation of prosecutor’s offices around Europe; (5) legal professionals, looking at status and numbers of actors working with the courts, such as lawyers, bailiffs and mediators.


dicators such as the ratio between incoming cases and resolved cases. The first report collected answers from 40 national Ministries of Justice or Councils for the Judiciary, consulted during the process in a network of national correspondents composed of civil servants from statistics and international relations departments. The report was then made permanent at a biennial rate ameliorating its methodology and its standing among stakeholders at every new edition, through a process of addition and modification of indicators that is far from being neutral or technical, confronting traditional models of justice administration with new managerial and organisational knowledge (Cappellina, 2017a; 2017b). Notably, synthetic performance indica-tors were included in the third edition of the report (2008) following a switch within the mem-bers of the group that reaffirmed the mission of the CEPEJ in the following terms:

We are the Commission for the Efficiency of Justice and efficiency means the relation be-tween input and output, efficiency means simply that. So, let us ask for the input, which means budget plus personnel. But then you have also interest in what goes out, what they are doing with these resources, what are they producing, how many cases and in which ways. It took almost one day and a night to discuss this and to persuade that methods like clearance rate and disposition time8 are not only of use, but will be politically accepted. (Interview with Central European magistrate, CEPEJ expert, December 2014).

3. Indicators as instruments for horizontal policy learning: the seizing of European judicial indicators by the EU

An escalating turn in the integration of judicial systems as a sector of European policy derives from two contextual targets of the European Commission. In the late 2000s, in the framework of EU enlargement and neighbouring countries’ programmes, the Commission became inter-ested in indicators to assess the progress of countries in the institutional reforms for which the EU was providing financial support and policy advice, relying on a networked approach associ-ating multiple actors of the field of Rule of Law promotion, such as the CoE itself and a variety of NGOs (Coman, 2014). The expertise of CEPEJ was particularly mobilised in the context of judicial administration reforms in candidate countries (Dallara & Piana, 2015).

Secondly, Economic Adjustment Programmes activated in 2010 to tackle the economic crisis in some EU countries showed some evidence that shortcomings in the functioning of justice in-creased the negative growth spiral and undermined the confidence of citizens and enterprises in the justice institutions (European Commission, 2013b). For this reason, in 2011, national judicial reforms became an integral part of these programmes. Moreover, in 2012, in a debate at the European Parliament, Viviane Reding – the Directorate General Justice Commissioner – announced that because of serious situations concerning the rule of law in the EU countries, it was noticed that the EU was lacking ‘effective mechanisms […] to enforce respect for the rule of law more generally and more systematically9’. This statement had been at the centre of internal discussions in the European Commission towards possible solutions that could be effective in killing two birds with one stone: ensuring the respect of the rule of law in the EU and, in the context of the economic crisis, fostering economic growth through effective justice systems. Admitting that infringement procedures are too technical and too slow to react to high-risk situations concerning the rule of law, and considering the Article 7 TEU procedure as a nuclear

8 — The first can be used to see if the courts are keeping up with the number of incoming cases without increasing the backlog, the second calculates the hypothetical number of days that are necessary for a new incoming case to be treated considering the backlog of cases.9 — Viviane Reding, DG Justice Commissioner intervention at the European Parliament debates on 12 September 2012, Strasbourg.


option10, the Commissioner Reding proposed to ‘add to the economic and social benchmark in the European Semester a new mechanism for measuring, comparing and benchmarking the strength, efficiency and reliability of the justice systems in all Member States11’.

The Commissioner proposal referred to the creation of a document in the form of an annual scoreboard resuming data on judicial systems in the EU to pinpoint malfunctions in their or-ganisation and design concrete reform venues with member countries under the European Semester recommendations programme. In late 2012, DG Justice, as chef de file of the project, was charged with the coordination of the drafting of the ‘EU Justice Scoreboard’ within the Commission. A newly set unit created in January 2013 and composed of a dozen legal experts hired from other departments of the Commission was charged with the coordination of all Commission activities related to judicial organisation reforms, i.e. monitoring of judicial re-forms in the European Semester, and the new-born EU Justice Scoreboard. Most of them are lawyers with no experience in the specific field of socio-legal measuring and evaluation12. The modus operandi for the Scoreboard involves substantial contributions from other departments of the Commission, notably from DG ECFIN for statistical assistance13. Moreover, data used to compile the Scoreboard comes mainly from external sources such as CEPEJ, the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and the World Justice Project.

The institutional setting and policy venue that gave birth to the EU Justice Scoreboard also has an impact on the choice of its indicators. The Commission considers the effectiveness of justice systems as one of the cornerstones of the rule of law principle14. The three macro-indicators defining this concept in the framework of the EU internal and external action are quality, in-dependence, and efficiency of justice (European Commission, 2014b). However, each of these principles can be defined in various ways as the long discussions inside the CoE and in other European and international networks of justice professionals confirm (Dallara & Piana, 2015). In the Scoreboard, quality of justice indicators are structured around the monitoring and evalu-ation of court activities, the information technology systems for courts, the alternative dispute resolution methods and the training of judges. These elements are stipulated as central by previous work of CoE advisory bodies15. Independence of justice is divided between perception and structural elements (councils for the judiciary, role of ministries…). Independence was a mandatory dimension to consider in relation to the problems seen in some Eastern European countries, and was instrumental to include justice professionals in the Scoreboard, through the collection of data on structural independence furnished by national Councils for the Ju-diciary. Efficiency of justice is considered as judicial procedures’ input-output performance as provided by the CEPEJ. Moreover, the Scoreboard includes some sectorial data on the length of proceedings for cases relevant for the economic environment, such as insolvency and competi-tion law, derived from other sources such as the World Bank’s Doing Business and some field studies produced by private consultants and financed by the Commission. This choice has been influenced by internal and external work that linked the efficiency of civil justice institutions

10 — This article depicts the possibility for the Council of the EU to suspend the rights of a Member State as conse-quence of repeated breaches of the values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, enforced under art. 2 of the TEU.11 — Viviane Reding, DG Justice Commissioner intervention at the European Parliament debates on 12 September 2012, Strasbourg.12 — Interview with DG Justice policy officer, 25/01/15.13 — Interview with DG ECFIN policy officer, 21/05/16.14 — For a discussion of this central but volatile concept, see Carothers 2006; Coman 2016; Dallara and Piana 2015. 15 — See in particular, CCJE opinion n. 6 (2004) on fair trial within a reasonable time.


to economic growth indicators (Bianco, Giacomelli, Giorgiantonio, Palumbo, & Szego, 2007; Lorenzani & Lucidi, 2014; Palumbo, Giupponi, Nunziata, & Mora Sanguinetti, 2013).

4. Indicators as policy change drivers: from information to influence

The traditional guiding principles of judicial activity (independence and impartiality) and the modernist principles derived from the affirmation of a market-driven logic in public policy (organisational performance, quality management) are present both in the CEPEJ and the EU Commission indicators. However, the synthesis has been realised in distinct ways by the two organisations because of the different institutional settings, goals pursued and stakeholders targeted. In CEPEJ, starting from Article 6 ECHR, the confrontation between actors support-ing one or the other view of how judicial systems effectively accomplish their mission for socie-ty shaped a detailed and didactic instrument co-produced by judicial actors themselves to spur social learning. Otherwise, the Commission searches for a difficult balance between the inter-est of market actors and the interest of judicial professionals. As we have shown, the result is a Janus Bifrons which on one hand follows the CEPEJ approach, proposing a picture to guide the reflection of policy-makers at all levels of the governance of judicial systems, including the tra-ditional ones, but on the other looks at investors pointing implicitly to those systems that are more attractive for their activities. The internal and sectorial (justice) perspective of the CEPEJ is then associated with an external and transversal (economy) approach by the Commission.

In both cases, we argue that the use of indicators serves a two-fold objective: (1) Defining an in-dicator translates a theoretical concept in measurable dimensions. This operational definition is conceived as an aid to enforce the concept on the field through the definition of a benchmark that can guide the relationship between the measuring and the measured. (2) In this relation-ship, indicators reinforce the capacity of the measuring institution, which can use them to legitimise demands and decisions or to put emphasis on specific sides of policy problems (e.g. using the concept of fair trial and effective remedy to focus on issues of case management in the judicial administration).

The two judicial performance assessment reports differ in many ways in their content as they share only a limited number of indicators related to the efficiency of the justice systems (such as the number of judges, the clearance rate and disposition time), which are moreover present-ed in a different light in the two performance assessment instruments (Mohr & Contini, 2014). A precise analysis of all the indicators included in them or an evaluation of their statistical reli-ability have been already presented by other scholars and are beyond the scope of this article16. Here, we complement these previous analyses arguing that these performance assessment in-struments can be distinguished over two main aspects from a policy process perspective: the institutional goals and the type of policy arena that produced them.

Increasing the self-awareness of the Member States over judicial quality is the main objective of the CEPEJ, while the EU Commission pursues its overarching economic objectives reflecting the idea that the rule of law is a constitutive element of a business-attractive country. Concern-ing arenas, the CEPEJ closely resembles an epistemic community, where in a bottom-up per-spective different ideas and conceptualisations of judicial systems are confronted one to anoth-er to produce shared knowledge (Haas, 1992). The Commission activities on judicial systems match the framework of an open method of coordination (OMC) in disguise (Arrowsmith et al., 2004; Radaelli, 2003). While the benchmarking and social learning objectives are displayed,

16 — For an analysis of the content of these European data collections and the difficulties related to the comparisons they make, see Boillat & Leyenberger, 2008; Dori, 2015; Fabri, 2017.


the participatory governance model of OMC is nuanced. If an arena for open discussion with Member States exists in the form of annual meetings with national correspondents, where technical issues and best practices are shared, the control over the tool is firmly in the hands of the Commission. Through it, the Commission nourishes a discourse about what constitutes an effective judicial system and exercises control over the conformity of Member States to this erratic standard.

The differences in the evaluation of judicial systems between the CEPEJ and the Commission emerge as well in the influence towards national and local policy. The CEPEJ report and the EU Justice Scoreboard helped to create a transnational network governance structure between national judicial systems, international (and supranational) organisations and transnational networks of professionals. This system of governance on one side participated in the shaping and developing of the two reports, and on the other it has been the channel through which the other activities of the two organisations may reach interested stakeholders. In this sense, indicators perform a catalyser effect as they help the recognition of the organisation producing them in the field of policy through their mediatisation. The identification of the organisation producing the indicators as a trustable expert in the field of policy concerned makes easier the circulation of other instruments such as best practices and other forms of benchmarks.

Table 1. Goals, stakeholders and policy scope of the CEPEJ Report and the EU Justice Score-board as policy instruments

Instrument Main goals Targeted stakeholders

Policy influence

Policy change mechanism

CEPEJ Report

Comparability

Base for problem identification

Justice professionals

Councils and Schools for the judiciary

Policy makers

Horizontal Performance assessment convergence

Performance feedbacks learning

Lesson-drawing

EU Justice Scoreboard

Justify policy pressure

Classify RoL performance

Member States’ governments

Economic actors

Councils for the judiciary

Vertical Blame avoidance

Economic disincentives/ conditionality

Persuasion

Source: The Author

5. Different approaches of policy influence for different mechanisms of policy change

As Table 1 shows, the two institutions exert influence on national policy through different pat-terns and mechanisms of change. The CEPEJ relies on a networked approach exercising mainly a symbolic pressure for change through instruments, allowing diagnoses and drawing lessons from principles or practices of organisation from below, i.e. from the states or judicial profes-sionals, but as well through cooperation with other actors of the field, such as the European Commission.


The CEPEJ report is available on the site of the CoE and it is the object of a press confer-ence at its publication. Moreover, it is diffused at national and local level in two ways. One is through the hierarchical chain linking the CoE country representatives to their national au-thorities. The other is through the action of the national members of CEPEJ that produced it. This implies that the use of indicators spreads through national authorities and jurisdictions at different degrees depending on the capacity of the national members to reach the important stakeholders, and on the level of interest that judicial reform has in the policy agenda of the country. The Scoreboard is publicised through the media division of the Commission and it is sent to the national authorities of the Member States for notice. Both represent trademarks for the organisations producing them as they are their most well-known activities in the judicial administration policy sector.

For instance, while a direct effect of transnational indicators of performance assessment is dif-ficult to prove, actors in the field often point out the inspirational role played by comparative data, as has been the case for the recent trend of judicial map reforms. Based on the necessity of cutting budgets and the relation observed between increasing backlogs and the excessive number of courts, the results of the first reforms realised in Denmark, France and Belgium be-fore 2010, subsequently inspired similar changes in other countries such as Austria, Italy and the Netherlands (European Commission, 2015). The CEPEJ report is also widely used by either governments or associations of magistrates to pinpoint the strengths or weaknesses of their judicial systems during policy debates over reform17. In some cases, it is used in ways that go beyond the intentions of its producers, showing the nature of the policy instrument of the re-port (Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2007). Indicators alone do not provide specific representations of social reality. It is the interpretation by social actors that gives them a specific significance. To the despair of CEPEJ experts, in 2010 the UK government cut its legal aid funds and justified its choice with CEPEJ data, proving that the UK had the biggest budget in Europe allocated to it. It is arguable that the use of CEPEJ data done by the EU Commission falls in the same cat-egory in the opinion of many CEPEJ members who criticise the economic-oriented approach of the Scoreboard.

The report worked as well as the catalyser of attention over CEPEJ and its other activities. Within CEPEJ, the SATURN Centre for judicial time management (another expert group) de-velops benchmarking tools for the management of court timeframes. These practical tools found interested audiences in courts at the national and local level, which lead CEPEJ to par-ticipate in various cooperation programmes within specific courts or with national authorities. In these programmes, experts realise local studies on the needs and problems of courts and propose solutions based on the tools developed within CEPEJ18. Realised mainly in Eastern Europe and in EU neighbouring countries (e.g. Azerbaijan, Morocco), EU candidate countries have also been in demand of CEPEJ cooperation as part of institutional reforms requested to obtain EU membership (e.g. Albania and Croatia19). Western European courts showed less

17 — A debate over the contested law that reduced the vacations of Italian magistrates saw the national association of magistrates use CEPEJ data to prove that Italian judges do not have a problem of productivity and that the problems of the system had to be identified elsewhere. However, the proposed alternatives of limiting the excessive quantity of incoming cases and intervening on the extremely high number of lawyers did not move the government from its initial intentions.18 — The work of the group consist of guidelines, checklists and best practices, covering almost every aspect of judicial administration. Depending on the needs of local courts, some specific solutions are chosen out of the array of best practices and are proposed by CEPEJ experts to local professionals in meetings and trainings.19 — The Commission, in 2006, deemed Croatia as in need of considerable efforts in the sectors of judiciary and fundamental rights, and justice, freedom and security. At the time of its access to the EU in 2013, its status on these domains was “generally aligned with the acquis”. The CEPEJ participates nowadays in a large project of diffusion of best practices for court management financed by Norway grants throughout all Croatian courts.


interest in CEPEJ expertise. However, examples of cooperation involving local change entre-preneurs in Italian courts validating their backlog cutting tools under the umbrella of CEPEJ expertise (Barbuto, 2013) confirm the validity of lesson-drawing for some Western European countries as well. These examples show that the network approach represents a fundamental resource for CEPEJ to produce effective change in judicial systems. Leaving the initiative for cooperation to the will of local and national authorities to draw lessons from European best practices (Rose, 1991), the CEPEJ generally finds receptive actors when it is requested on the field in programmes. These programmes, in Rose’s terms, take the form of synthesis (‘combin-ing familiar elements from programs in a number of different places to create new programs’) or inspiration (‘using programs elsewhere as an intellectual stimulus to develop a novel pro-gram’) (1993, p. 30). In contrast, the horizontal structure of the network approach is also an important reason to explain the limited capacity of CEPEJ to promote cooperation on a larger scale (Coen & Thatcher, 2008).

Inversely, if the European Commission developed expertise in the field of judicial administra-tion relying on a network of other actors (e.g. the CEPEJ for the efficiency of justice, and the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary for the independence of justice), it is a hierar-chical top-down relationship that better describes the ways in which the Commission tries to push through its policy solutions towards Member States in the judicial administration policy field. The performance assessment of countries is used to persuade Member States to change their practices and norms in a direction that would allow them to achieve better results in the indicators, avoiding the blame and the economical disincentives from investors that come with low performances in indicators such as the disposition time for a proceeding or the capacity to enforce a contract in the country’s judicial system. In this framework, the European Com-mission intervention capacity to foster change in its position of guardian of the treaties and growth in the European Economic Area is higher in the countries that are violating the treaties or struggling with growth, but lower to influence ‘well-behaving’ states. In the framework of the European Semester, while not being the only source of information, the Scoreboard is used to study and justify annual country reports to the Member States20. Moreover, the Commission exercises policy influence through country-specific recommendations and meetings with Min-istries, Councils for the Judiciary, judges and lawyers in member countries21. Therefore, while being a non-binding and not evenly influential tool, the Scoreboard allows the Commission to open tables of discussion with member countries to exercise vertical pressure on national and local policies.

This pressure can take either the form of conditionality in the cases in which the recommen-dations are part of Economic Adjustment Programmes (e.g. Portugal), or the form of persua-sion and incentive for those countries that are not under financial redressing programmes (e.g. Italy). For these countries, the adoption of the recommendations coming from the Commis-sion relies on the appropriateness that they attribute to them as solutions to ameliorate the functioning of their national judicial system (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2004). The recom-mendations addressed to countries are based on the identification of problems and solutions. The first ones are pinpointed by the Scoreboard data and by meetings with national stakehold-ers. Solutions are built on the contextualisation of European practices in the field concerned by the recommendation. These European practices come either from other EU countries or the

20 — In 2016, 14 countries presented some paragraphs delineating the state of play and possible interventions in the functioning of their justice system and insolvency (Interview, EU Commission officer 3).21 — Not all the countries with a chapter on justice in the country reports have country-specific recommendations. The latter ones are issued taking in consideration of the severity of the situation in other policy sectors as well.


European best practices elaborated in transnational institutions such as the CEPEJ, the CCJE or ENCJ22. Moreover, the contributions coming from research and think tanks working in the field are also included. The case of Italian reforms is again illustrative of these dynamics.

Since 2013, the country reports and recommendations addressed to Italy put an emphasis on the need to reduce the input and the backlog of court cases. Recognised as hard working23, Italy is advised to intervene in the high level of litigation. The 2013 country report states that “out-of-court dispute settlements carry a strong potential for reducing the length of civil pro-ceedings and alleviating judges’ and courts’ workload” (European Commission, 2013a). Italy has since then adopted measures to make pre-trial mediation compulsory in some specific mat-ters in civil and commercial procedures (European Commission, 2014a). However, the 2016 country report evaluates negatively the impact of these reforms, suggesting that the “limited success of the mediation scheme introduced in 2013 […] may call into question the compul-sory approach to mediation” (European Commission, 2016). This example shows that while the Commission can pinpoint areas for intervention, it cannot draw countries to specific solutions. For what concerns the reduction of courts’ backlog, the use of clearance rates and disposition time indicators has a central role in the evaluation of the measures undertaken by Italy.

Every country report considers the overall impact of the reforms undertaken by Italy under the scope of these two indicators. While acknowledging the efforts put in place by judges, with very high clearance rates, the limited reduction of disposition times is used to recommend a continuation of working on reforms to reduce the court backlog24. The adoption of the “first-in-first-out” rule permitting the processing of the most ancient cases in order to reduce the overall disposition time is indicated as a measure that “could have positive effects by addressing one of the most critical challenges in the justice system” (European Commission, 2016). This practice was discussed and promoted by CEPEJ in a cooperation programme with the Tribunal of Turin in 2008 (Dallara & Piana, 2015). The registration of cases by year was nationalised in 2009 and the promotion of the president of the Turin court to the President of the Court of Appeal of Turin allowed him to diffuse the practice to the whole Piedmont-Val d’Aosta regions (Barbuto 2013). The promotion of the president of the court to a leading role in the Ministry of Justice, and its inclusion in a 2007-2013 EU Commission funded nation-wide programme of practices directed to the digitisation of civil trials and organisational and statistical reliability improve-ments in courts (Vecchi 2013) lead to its wider adoption, although not on a mandatory basis. The choice of disposition time as an indicator of the Scoreboard reinforced the capacity of the Commission to put pressure on Member States’ governments over reforms.

As has been hypothesised in previous publications, the EU Justice Scoreboard not only has the potential to affect the division of competences between Member States and supranational institutions in the domain of the rule of law and administration of justice (Strelkov 2019), it already does so.

22 — Consultative Council of European Judges (Council of Europe) and European Network of Councils for the Judici-ary, respectively.23 — In the 2016 country report for Italy, it is stated that: “Since 2009, the total number of cases pending in courts has fallen consistently thanks to high clearance rates in both first and second instance courts, in particular regarding civil and commercial litigious cases” (European Commission, 2016).24 — While being a prism of reform of Italian judiciary since at least 2001 with the Legge Pinto on the compensation for the unreasonable length of procedures, the focus on reducing the backlog of cases has increased since 2011 (Piana and Verzelloni 2016).


ConclusionThe puzzle at the origin of this paper was twofold. In the first place, the article depicts the Eu-ropean fabric of transnational indicators of judicial evaluation to show that the choice of using indicators as proxies of the activity of jurisdictions answers instrumental needs. The selective process of indicators on one side creates a space of equivalence between European judicial sys-tems, and on the other targets specific goals, linked with the overall mission of the institutions selecting them. The microanalysis of the actors involved in the process highlights the tensions between different conceptualisations of the judicial activity as proposed by professionals more or less familiar with the use of performance-oriented indicators. Secondly, the paper links the production of indicators to their use in European public policy. Presenting the uses that in-dicators have in the multi-layered network governance of judicial systems, the paper proves that the quantification of social reality produced by indicators has effects that go beyond the expectations and the control of the actors that shaped them. The example of the side effects produced by the CEPEJ report, both in national reforms and through the nurturing of a pow-erful competitor in the field of evaluation and governance of European judicial systems, illus-trates these contrasted dynamics. This last example illustrates that the potential of indicators is relevant in three main aspects: providing a sufficiently loose framework to solve vertical and horizontal cooperation problems at the international level; determining policy goals through the selection of areas of measurement and evaluation, and; providing proof to influence local and national policy-makers over reforms either through lesson-drawing, persuasion or condi-tionality. In future research, these results on the genesis of a European field of judicial adminis-tration policy need to be put into perspective through further and more theoretically informed analysis of the transnational mechanisms behind local policy change.

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Kidjie Ian SaguinLee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore

M. Ramesh Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. UNESCO Chair of Social Policy Design in Asia

AbstractEducational systems around the world have undergone major reforms since the 1980s, with largely disappointing results. The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons behind the lackluster results with the purpose of devising ways to address them. Analysis in the paper is based on the understanding that the education sector is characterized by distinct functional imperatives that need to be addressed in policy responses that must involve a wide array of actors to be effective. In this view, education policy is fundamentally about establishing a gov-ernance structure to ensure that all the essential functions necessary to achieve the chosen policy goals are performed. Accordingly, the paper proposes a governance framework for educa-tion comprising political and operational functions, which it then applies to education policy reforms in the Philippines since the 1970s. The analysis finds that the reforms have focused on financing and decentralization issues while overlooking many other critical governance func-tions. The lackluster results are unsurprising given that the sector has been beset by many problems unrelated to centralized bureaucratic administration and which have been left un-attended. The conclusions regarding the importance of comprehensive governance to emerge from this study are relevant not only for understanding education policy reforms in the Philip-pines and elsewhere but will also help develop a fuller understanding of the functioning of the education sector in general.

Keywordseducation policy, governance of education, education reform, Philippines



IntroductionEducational systems around the world have undergone major transformations since the 1980s, largely due to the growing recognition of the central role they play as a driver of economic and social development. In developing countries, the Millennium Development Goals, and its suc-cessor the Sustainable Development Goals, have played a catalytic role in pushing education reform to the center of development debates. However, most countries have been more suc-cessful at quantitative expansion of school places and attendance rather than providing quality education. We can look back to the experience of these countries to draw lessons from their experiences, especially regarding their efforts to implement the policy of universal education.

The objective of this paper is to analyze education policy reforms in the Philippines in recent decades, with the purpose of drawing generalizable conclusions about what works, in what combination, and to what extent. It starts by drawing attention to the critical failures that af-flict the education sector and then proposing a framework for addressing them. It argues that the purpose of education policy must be to develop a governance framework to ensure that all necessary functions to achieve desired goals are performed. It then applies the framework to the case of education policy reforms in the Philippines. The study finds that the reforms have focused largely on mobilizing additional resources and decentralizing management. While the measures did address some critical governance imperatives, they overlooked many governance arrangements necessary for the reforms to succeed. Given the critical governance deficiencies that remain unattended, Philippine’s mediocre educational performance is hardly surprising.

Education Reform

Education systems are one of the most complex systems of organization in the public sector, making reforms and innovations particularly complicated. The very nature of the sector – the variety of stakeholders, differences in time horizons, and unpredictability and immeasurabil-ity of results – sets it apart from other services (Cerna, 2014). Education bureaucracies are typically seen as difficult to reform because they are “multitask, multi-principal, multi-period, near-monopoly organization[s] with vague and poorly observable goals” (Dixit, 2002, p. 719). Observers have long characterized education systems as ‘loosely coupled systems’ or ‘organ-ized anarchies’ (Weick, 1976), where “authority and power are distributed among well-defined institutions at different levels” (Kogan, 1975, p. 231). Such weakly but interdependent connec-tions between units are typically seen as caused by unclear means-end connection and frag-mented internal and external environments (Orton & Weick, 1990), not by conscious strategy but as a product of adaptation to the varying pressures on the organization manifested as ‘organizational foolishness’ (March, 1981). These characteristics of education systems, includ-ing the inherent path dependency associated with its socio-political value in nation-building (Szolár, 2015; Tan & Yang, 2019) and interdependence with other components of the social system (Paterson & Iannelli, 2007), make education reforms particularly hard to pull off.

Policymakers have nonetheless embarked on education policy reforms that either reallocate existing spending to more productive areas of education, introduced financing schemes to fill gaps, and/or re-configured managerial and institutional arrangements (Tiongson, 2005). These reforms are distinct from the typical curricular reforms or professional development interventions pervasive in the sector because they affect the distributional impact of educa-tion by shaping how education services are delivered rather than what is delivered (Egalite, Fusarelli, & Fusarelli, 2017; Wong, 1994). The types of education reform also vary by the meas-ures implemented: rules, resources and incentives (McDonnell & Elmore, 1987). Rules and

161S a g u in / R a me sh | B r in g in g G ove r n a nce B a ck in to E d u ca t ion R e fo r ms

mandates are important in establishing the scope of authority of central administration and their span of control in ensuring that all units adhere to similar standards. It is believed that resource constraints inhibit the ability of education professionals to deliver educational ser-vices, supported by adequate classrooms, qualified teachers, and sufficient textbooks that are conducive to learning. Incentives are also equally crucial as studies show policy measures like cash and transfer programs influence household behavior by keeping children in school who would otherwise engage in child labor (Baird, Ferreira, Özler, & Woolcock, 2014).

The wide range of actors involved in education, depicted in Figure 1, complicates efforts to reform it. Education, after all, “is produced by business enterprise and by households, as well as by government; it is partly produced outside the market altogether” (Rivlin, 1973, p. 413). Governments have attempted to generate information about the actual production process of education services, the characteristics of the product in so far as how learning occurs, and the behavior of different actors involved in the delivery of education (Hannaway & Woodroffe, 2003). As shown in Figure 1, schools lie at the heart of education service delivery and many countries employ a private-public mix school system. Their relations with the government and households differ depending on school ownership. The government sets standards and regula-tions for all schools but provides different levels and forms of funding for public and private schools. Households are co-producers of education and pursue their interests by exercising choice between private and public schools. They also make the government accountable, pri-marily through elections but also increasingly through school management bodies of various sorts.

Figure 1. Actors and Relationships in Education Governance

Source: The Authors

Private Schools

Household

State/LocalGovernment

CentralGovernment

Public Schools

School choice,payment

Service provision

School choice

Serv

ice

prov

ision

Electio

ns

Standards,

funding

Minimum

require

ments

Regulation


Intervening in such a complex policy sector makes for an uncertain policy environment and only limited scope for complete success. Thus, even reforms successful at improving enrol-ment, attendance and progression do not necessarily lead to improvement in test scores and achievement outcomes (Petrosino, Morgan, Fronius, Tanner-Smith, & Boruch, 2012). Simi-larly, decentralization efforts like school-based management (SBM)have been shown to reduce repetition rates and student failures, but evidence is mixed regarding their effects on academic achievement (Patrinos & Fasih, 2009). Pious hopes aside, there is no reason to assume that schools will perform the required functions simply because they have been conferred decision authority, as assumed by proponents of decentralization. As Chapman puts it, “[d]ecentraliza-tion is not an automatic solution unless decision making reflects a clearly defined division of authority and responsibility between different levels of the system” (Chapman, 2000, p. 302). The school management needs to be given clear direction, backed by appropriate incentives and rewards, if they are to achieve their objective.

What is needed, first of all, is a coherent conceptualization of a comprehensive governance frame-work for education. Many scholars have rightly called for bringing together the theories of pub-lic policy with education policy to fully understand and address the challenges faced by the sector (Grace, 1995; Whitty, 2002). Yet, there is little theoretical work offering systematic defi-nition of education policy or education system reforms. Education system is often understood to mean anything that pertains to the design and implementation of education – laws, rules, administrative offices, personnel, and instructional materials. In this view, educational policy refers to any intervention that affects the education system, with the notion of ‘policy’ bor-rowed from policy studies without due understanding of its purpose (Corson, 1986; Ranson, 1995). These wide-spanning and catch-all conceptualizations have spurred limited theoreti-cal debates about how best education systems should be configured or how education policies should be designed.

Traditionally, educational policy interventions were designed to shape how learning occurred in the classroom and often ignored the policy and implementation aspects of education. Early reforms in the US, for example, were inspired by perceptions of a ‘crisis of teaching’ despite the absence of strong empirical evidence supporting this perception (Weis, 1987). Education policy is not only about “the statements of strategic, organizational and operational values (product) but also the capacity to operationalize values (process)” (Bell & Stevenson, 2006, p. 18). Thus, from a policy perspective, education reforms can be conceived as the changes in objectives and organization of the education system as well as the capacity to carry out the intended changes (Bowe, Ball, & Gold, 2017). Since education is inherently multi-dimensional, multi-objective and multi-principal, policy reforms are unavoidably intertwined, with goals and implementa-tion strategies typically layered and woven together (Helgøy & Homme, 2006). This points to the importance of analyzing the elements of education reform as a whole rather than as dis-crete strategies or measures. Education reforms are also necessarily political, as they produce winners and losers (Levin, 2001).

From this perspective, education policy is fundamentally about establishing a governance structure to ensure that all the essential functions necessary to achieve the chosen policy goals are performed. This is aligned with the ‘governance turn’ in education, where transformation in systems in-volves changes in structures, participants, discourse and ‘subjects’ (Ball, 2009). However, while actors play a huge role in governance, as suggested by existing notions of decentered govern-ance (Bevir & Rhodes, 2003, 2006) or interpretivist governance (Rhodes, 2012), the choice of the structural relationship between the government and non-government actors – as in legal,


market, network or corporatized – is an important determinant of governance effectiveness (Capano, Howlett, & Ramesh, 2015). Effective governance of education can be designed by ex-amining how these actors can meaningfully work together to address key governance failures (Saguin, 2019). Education reforms thus involve effecting changes to the governance functions, including funding, provision, ownership and regulation (Dale, 1997). Using Kooiman’s (2000) framework of distinguishing socio-political interactions based on ‘governing orders’, education reforms inevitably alter the management of day-to-day affairs (operational functions) as well as meta-governance (political) framework for how ‘governors are governed’.

Framework for Understanding Education ReformsWhile the goals of education are diverse and controversial, the goals of education policy are, at the core, more straightforward, centered on establishing governance processes to guide the key stakeholders’ behavior in a desired manner. Effectively designing education policy involves identifying the necessary governance functions – which may be grouped as political and opera-tional – that must be performed and establishing institutions and processes to ensure they are performed. The specific functions and mechanisms vary across jurisdictions and over time, of course, but they share substantive core conditions. A generic framework, which will be applied subsequently to the case of the Philippines, is outlined in Table 1.

Table 1. Critical Governance Functions in Education

Political Operational

• Setting direction, goals and objectives • Designing and deploying appropriate policy tools

• Mobilizing resources for achieving goals • Managing financial and human resources

• Building political support and establishing collaborative arrangements

• Ensuring accountability

• Allocating powers and responsibilities to ap-propriate units and levels of the government

• Designing appropriate curriculum

Source: The Authors

A crucial political policy function in education, indeed any sector, is to set the overall strategic direction and goals and the medium- to short-term objectives: what is it that the government seeks to achieve through its policy measures and within what time frame? Is it to provide es-sential education to all, reduce regional or socio-economic disparities, or train a work-ready workforce, and so on? While these are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals, not all can be pursued simultaneously, at least not easily and not in the medium to short term due to practi-cal difficulties (Mintrom, 2001). Next, it is important for governments to mobilize the fiscal and political resources necessary to support the measures being taken to achieve the goals.

While providing basic education to all children is within the fiscal means of most governments, higher quality education requires better facilities and better paid teachers, which requires ad-ditional resources that often must come at the expense of other sectors. Without belabor-


ing the definition of quality, which has been debated and discussed elsewhere (Cheng & Tam, 1997; Harvey & Green, 1993; Hoy, Bayne-Jardine, & Wood, 2000), the term is taken here to mean the development of a range of socioemotional, technical, and physical skills that allow individuals to be productive and innovative (World Bank, 2018). Similarly, objectives such as promoting equity or national integration require political will and capacity to counter likely op-position from groups who do not benefit and may even lose out. Finally, governments need to strengthen their links with societal partners and enjoy their trust and support to push through politically difficult measures (Zajda, 2003). Many reform efforts around the world flounder in the face of opposition from teachers’ unions and apathy from the population (Strunk & Gris-som, 2010). Successful reforms also need the support of business, who can contribute finances as well as labor market information for education. As such, political alliances between the gov-ernment and civil society are essential for effective education policy reform.

Ensuring that the right levels of government are tasked with the appropriate responsibilities is a vital governance function (King & Guerra, 2005). Strategic direction and goals, for instance, must necessarily come from the highest level of the government, while local governments and service delivery units (i.e. Schools) must set their own operational objectives aligned with over-all goals. The overall responsibility for mobilizing fiscal and political resources is similarly the responsibility of the central government, even in situations when education spending is the responsibility of local governments. Without such an arrangement, local governments with weak finances, tenuous political support, or low policy capacity will be left behind. Education, similar to other complex sectors, requires a modicum of collaboration across agencies and with partners that is best undertaken at the local level, whereby families, businesses, and teachers collaborate to achieve goals and objectives (Han & Ye, 2017).

Most operational functions – policy tools, accountability mechanisms, and fiscal and personnel systems – are the responsibility of regional governments, though central and local govern-ments are intricately involved. As such, the regional governments need to be given the respon-sibility and commensurate financial and other resources to perform the actions.

The overwhelming emphasis on across-the-board decentralization in education reforms in many countries has skewed reform efforts and produced unsatisfactory results. Even a de-centralized system requires the national government to ‘steer’ the education sector not only through the traditional mechanisms of curriculum, operating procedures, and accountability requirements, but also through performance monitoring and evaluation (Daun, 2007; Karlsen, 2000). Bardhan (2002) rightfully argued for the national government to take on ‘activist roles’ such as mobilizing citizens and providing technical assistance and coordination of localities to mitigate the negative outcomes from decentralization. A strong measure of central direction is also necessary to mitigate regional disparities and prevent rent-seeking behavior by local governments (Ozga, 2009). However, performing these activities requires a certain ability to acquire and process information and data to understand where interventions are necessary (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Ouimet et al., 2010).

The intermediate level of government is expected to localize national priorities and direction based on the local setting through consultations and bargaining with other actors such as lo-cal politicians and local counterparts of national government agencies. Establishment of field administration is especially critical where tasks and responsibilities are geographically dis-tributed through deconcentration (Fesler, 1968; Rondinelli, 1981). Those at the intermediate level are typically expected to carry out inspection and monitoring as well as offer pedagogical support, technical advice, capacity building of local staff, and performance evaluation (Daun,


2007). As an intermediator, units at this level of administration require high levels of analyti-cal capacity to localize policies and standards but only require moderate levels of managerial capacity since intermediate levels are responsible for budgeting but are not delivery units. They should also have medium level of political capacity because of the need to create vertical inte-gration of programs with both the national and local levels and horizontal coordination with other agencies and regional politicians.

Once the government has set the political direction and mobilized resources and built support for the reform measures, it needs to put them in operation, which comprises numerous inter-related and intertwined tasks. Significant failures to perform these tasks will trip the reforms and, indeed, it is through failure in this area that reforms often go awry.

The first task is to plan the delivery of the new programs and adjust the existing program as necessary. In education, in addition to curriculum issues, there is the vital task of designing the organizational structures and their roles, powers and responsibilities (Altrichter, Hein-rich, & Soukup-Altrichter, 2014). This is perhaps the most important operational task because assigning tasks to wrong agencies or insufficiently clarifying the relationships among them would stymie concerted action. It is in this broader institutional context that SBM needs to be conceptualized, and not as a separate reform, as is commonly the case. Another critical op-erational task is to design necessary rules, regulations, and standards to control agencies’ and their officials’ behavior, accompanied by appropriate incentives and disincentives to reward and improve performance (Hannaway & Woodroffe, 2003). Similarly, the concerned agencies need to be allocated the financial and personnel resources necessary to acquit themselves of their responsibilities backed by a robust budgeting and personnel system. Finally, it is critical to establish robust accountability mechanisms for monitoring, reviewing and auditing perfor-mance, and meting out rewards and penalties as appropriate. All of the other efforts may come to naught if agencies and their officials realize that there are no penalties for poor performance and no rewards for exceeding expectations.

Designing and operating a modern education system is a complex task and involves immense challenges, the overcoming of which requires sophisticated analytical work on the part of poli-cymakers. Designing an appropriate curriculum so that children receive the intended educa-tion, for example, requires analyzing vast data and drawing policy-relevant conclusions about them. Effective education policy also requires data and analysis of trends regarding educational achievements, equity, productivity, human resource needs and so on, all of which require elabo-rate and complex analytical tasks. The vital and growing importance of analytical skills and resources is yet to be fully understood and addressed in most governments.

Research Method

Using a single-case study method (Yin, 1981), this paper examines education policy reforms in the Philippines using the framework set out above. Based on archival data and expert inter-views, observations are constructed diachronically as a way to tease out within-case variation that may have led to the existing set of education outcomes in the country (Gerring, 2006). In June 2016, a total of seven (7) elite interviews were conducted with executives of the Depart-ment of Education (DepEd) in the central, regional and district offices as well as at a school. The respondents were identified by DepEd based on who can provide the most relevant infor-mation about how governance reforms are undertaken in the Department. As the research was largely exploratory, the purpose of the data collection was to help construct an “analyti-cally generalizable” (Yin, 2009) framework to guide future governance reforms in education by other governments.


Education Policy Reforms in the PhilippinesThe Philippines represents a critical case for testing the comprehensive governance framework. Largely understudied in the education literature, the Philippines was an early leader in expand-ing school education in Asia and indeed the developing world, but it lost the lead during the 1970s and 1980s when social development stagnated along with economic growth and politi-cal competition. At the turn of the 20th century, the Philippines sought to establish universal primary education and by the 1960s was “already ahead of most other colonies in popular education” (Myrdal, 1968, p. 1632). The end of dictatorship and the onset of democracy in the late 1980s fostered pressure for improving the quality of education for all children. The govern-ment responded with broad sets of measures, including decentralization of education adminis-tration (De Guzman, 2007), over successive periods, with mixed results. The country managed to pass key legislation to universalize kindergartens, extend the basic education cycle from 10 to 12 years, and institutionalize mother-tongue based learning. Yet the quality of education remained and remains a concerns, confirmed by the recent OECD-PISA results, which put the country among the lowest of all those covered by the assessment (Schleicher, 2019).

Philippine government leaders have over the decades declared education to be one of their top policy priorities and devoted considerable resources to the sector. However, beyond expressing general commitment to promoting education, the government has offered little clarity about its goals or the means to achieve them. Instead of viewing the sector holistically and addressing the need to perform the diverse governance tasks that must be performed in concert, it has employed decentralization as a multi-purpose and omnipotent tool for achieving its disparate objectives despite pervasive evidence of this approach’s limitations. The singular emphasis on decentralization and neglect of other necessary reforms lie at the root of poor education out-comes in the Philippines, as we will see in this section.

Table 2. Education Indicators, Philippines (1975-2015)

Key Indicators 1975 1995 2015

• Net Enrolment Ratio (Primary) 96.79 (1976) 95.68 (1996) 95.72

• Gross Intake Ratio to the last grade of primary education

85.81 (1981) 84.70 (1998) 100.52

• Net Enrolment Ratio (Secondary) 46.19 (1979) 57.93 (1996) 65.92

• Gross Intake Ratio to the last grade of secondary education

68.40 (1992) 71.27 (2013)

• Govt Expenditure on Education, % of GDP

1.71 (1980) 3.04 2.7

Source: The Authors


Setting Goals, Directions and Objectives

Universal quality education has been the stated goal of successive governments in the Philip-pines for decades, long before it was enshrined in the constitution in 1987. Yet no government has clearly spelled out a practical vision of how the goal is to be achieved. In fact, the problem of a lack of operational and achievable objectives was recognized as early as the 1970s: “The present objectives prescribed for Philippine education which are really goals of the entire social system, and are, therefore, unachievable aims for the educational system alone” (Presidential Commission to Survey Philippine Education, 1970, p. 2).

Efforts to clarify basic education policy objectives have proven insufficient despite identifica-tion of clearer operational strategies. Defined in the K-12 law of 2012, education policy now seeks to develop a “productive and responsible [citizen] equipped with the essential competen-cies, skills and values for both life-long learning and employment”. However, the basic educa-tion bureaucracy sets itself up to fail when the policy objective reflects the goals of the entire education system (to include vocational and higher education), that is, to bestow functional literacy. Since performance of the basic education sector is typically measured in terms of ef-ficiency (e.g. completion rates) and quality (e.g. achievement rates), what appears to be a more instructive of the problems (i.e. access and quality) basic education policy aims to address are the ones outlined by DepEd’s organizational outcomes: a) Access of every Filipino to a complete quality basic education achieved, and b) Preparedness of every graduate for further education and world of work ensured.

Building Political Support and Collaborative Arrangements

Like their East Asian neighbors, Filipinos value education primarily because of the belief that it is the main determinant of better employment and income prospects. Based on the Nielsen Global Survey of Education Aspirations in 2013, 90% of Filipinos correlate quality of education with better opportunities in the workplace, compared to a global average of 75%. In 2016, So-cial Weather Station (SWS) also found strong support from the public for providing more funds for education. It is therefore unsurprising that education policies feature prominently among legislators’ political agenda, with 44% of the bills filed on the 16th Congress in the House of Representatives coming from the Committee on Basic Education and Culture.

The breadth of support for education has made it easy to mobilize stakeholders to contribute to the attainment of stated goals. The K-12 reform that began in 2010 was necessitated by the need for a calibrated effort on the part of the three education agencies – DepEd, Commis-sion on Higher Education (CHED) and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) – to lead a multi-sectoral advisory group. Curriculum reform required collaboration between the CHED and TESDA to determine what competencies are articulated in basic educa-tion from university and vocational education. Identifying competencies needed by industry necessitated working with the labor department and various industry organizations. The ac-tual extension of the education cycle also meant that colleges and universities would almost have zero enrolment for two full years, but associations of private universities remained largely supportive of the initiative. All these arrangements required a macro-level view of how reforms unravel and how stakeholders can be engaged to push it forward.

But such ease in building support is only contingent on the ability of the education bureau-cracy to coordinate the introduction of reforms. The typical mandated nature of coordination between the different education agencies indicates an environment deficient of regular har-monization of policies and programs. As a result of education tri-focalization, setting up the


sub-sector education goals required mobilizing different stakeholders at different levels of the government, prompting various administrations to create special coordinative bodies to ‘har-monize [the] goals and objectives’ of the education system, such as Joseph Estrada’s Presiden-tial Commission on Educational Reform and Gloria Arroyo’s National Coordinating Council for Education (NCCE). Such ad hoc and sporadic efforts undermined the government’s capacity to implement reforms in a coordinated manner.

Mobilizing Resources

Early on, the political leaders realized that education objectives can only be achieved with am-ple supply of fiscal resources. A provision in the 1987 Constitution mandated the government to “assign the highest budgetary priority to education” to guarantee the right to quality educa-tion of all citizens at all levels. The provision addresses low spending on education. The share of education spending in total national spending declined from 31.53% in 1957 to 7.61% in 1981, before rising again to 16% in 1987 (Dolan, 1993). More recently, education spending stayed within the range of 13%-18% of the total budget from 2009-2017.

Historically, financing education has posed a major challenge to enacting reforms. Because of unstable national budgeting processes, local governments have been mobilized as supplemen-tary financing for construction and operations of schools since the early 1960s. In 1991, local governments were required to allocate 1% of the real property tax revenues to a Special Educa-tion Fund (SEF). This boosted local government spending on education from P0.8 billion in 1991 to P7.9 billion in 1998 (Behrman, Deolalikar, & Soon, 2002). By 2008, SEF expenditure as a percentage of non-personnel expenditure on education was 41% (Manasan, Cuenca, & Celestino, 2011), suggesting a significantly larger contribution of local governments on educa-tion than originally conceived.

Despite this, additional financing was needed to fill in the input gaps, particularly classrooms. Since 2012, the private sector, through public-private partnerships (PPP), has constructed more than 10,000 classrooms, amounting to a monetary value of Php19 billion. International financing institutions also provided loans, such as one of approximately $300 million from the Asian Development Bank in 2011.

Allocating Powers and Responsibilities to Appropriate Levels of Government

The history of administrative decentralization of education in the Philippines clearly highlights how decisions about organizational forms, despite good intentions, are often misguided. Allo-cating powers and responsibilities to different units and levels of government revolved around expanding the scope and depth of decentralization of functions in the hope that local gov-ernments will use their autonomy to address access and quality problems in basic education rather than on the basis of assessment of which level is more appropriate for assuming the responsibility. While centralization was critical in meeting the need to quantitatively expand the system during the American occupation and after the Second World War, coordination of public service provision did not keep up with the rapid expansion of the education system, par-ticularly in rural areas (Zamora, 1967). Because of these constraints, political decentralization has long been identified as a suitable structure to better achieve the qualitative objectives of education (Swanson, 1960; UNESCO, 1949). Schools were progressively granted some degree of autonomy, formalized only through the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, which assigned functions to each level of education bureaucracy from the national level to the school level.


However, different levels of local government have been allocated functions regardless of their capacity or incentive to perform the assigned functions. Schools’ for example’ struggled with the newly conferred financial responsibilities entailed in allocating, spending and liquidating operational expenses, a core principle of School Based Management (SBM). Subsequent recen-tralization of control over school improvement funds indicates an allocation of roles based on faith rather than actual capacity. Local governments were also brought in to provide local fi-nancing to school operations but the special education fund utilization remained very limited, owing to a faulty budgeting process that is both at the mercy of national and local governments (Manasan et al., 2011).

The process of decentralization has also been hijacked by existing officials, leading to sub-op-timal allocation of functions. Despite the percolation of political decentralization of education into the earlier organizational forms, the decentralization that eventually occurred was what Brillantes (1987) called a ‘department model’ of administrative decentralization. Policy legacy would have guaranteed the devolution of education to the local governments, but backroom negotiations by the education bureaucracy resulted in the exemption of education from de-centralization (Diokno, 2008). Regional and division offices that are at the mercy of a rigid national budgeting process continue to dominate the process of making decisions that clearly affect school management (De Guzman, 2007). As a former DepEd senior official lamented, “[r]egional offices…continue to try to control situations making operational decisions that are best left to school divisions” (Luz, 2009, p. 12).

Designing Policy Tools

The lack of acumen in designing and deploying is evident in DepEd’s inability to move away from the traditional command and control tools to use more nimble newer tools for promoting accountability and performance. The criticisms over DepEd’s ‘culture of obeisance’ (Bautista, Bernardo, & Ocampo, 2009), the ‘no memo, no action attitude’ (Monsod, 2009) and the gov-ernance by ‘DepEd memo’ (Luz, 2009) point to the very top-down and heavy-handed approach in getting things done within the education organization. As a result, most of DepEd’s policies have excessively focused on easily measured and controlled activities (Monsod, 2009) as the central office is heavily engaged in directing and guiding the day-to-day affairs of regional and division offices. Such a culture only perpetuates the slow and incremental transformation of reforms into results.

Even the introduction of market-based policy instruments by DepEd has been constrained by this culture of obeisance. The education service contracting (ESC) scheme, one of the larg-est public-private partnership programs in the world ( Patrinos, Barrera-Osorio, & Guáqueta, 2009), was introduced to democratize and improve access to quality education for ‘poor but de-serving’ high school students by providing grants to students to attend private high schools to shift them away from congested public high schools. Recent evaluation studies of the scheme have demonstrated the failure of the scheme to decongest the public secondary school system and provide greater access to needy students (Philippine Comission on Audit, 2018). The ESC failed to properly align the grants or slots with the distribution of ‘aisle students’ (or those students in excess of the current capacity of schools) (World Bank, 2011). The main source of the setbacks is the inability of DepEd to construct an institutional arrangement that aligns the interests of the private administrator of ESC (i.e. the Private Education Assistance Commit-tee/PEAC) and the equity objective of the scheme. As pointed out by the World Bank (2011), DepEd exercises almost no supervision over PEAC and is indeed subject to regulatory capture by it. Despite DepEd’s willingness to employ market-based instruments, its lack of capacity to


design appropriate policy tools and over-all proclivity for control mechanisms have contrib-uted to the failure of the ESC.

Managing Financial and Human Resources

Despite efforts to guarantee sufficiently available resources, managing the largest bureaucracy in the country is not easy, particularly when it comes to expending financial resources and al-locating personnel properly. For many years, DepEd has been unable to use its resources opti-mally, having a consistently low utilization of the budget at year-end. From 2012-2016, average year-end budget utilization rate1 was only 73%, with the lowest rate recorded in 2013 (57%). According to current and former DepEd officials, much of the underspending is a result of the inability to carry out planned procurements and failure to liquidate expenses at the field level. In 2016, the external audit reports showed gaps in program planning and implementation, particularly in procurement and sub-allotment of the Central Office to the Regional Office, eventually leading to non-utilization of the budget and budget reversals.

Chronic underspending is also evident in the schools. In 2008, a total of Php135 millions of school improvement funds were not downloaded to schools despite the thrust to automatically and directly transfers to field offices. The Philippine Commission on Audit report identified the failure of schools to prepare simple administrative documents like a School Improvement Plan and Work Program and financial reports as the primary reasons for the lack of download-ing, indicative of many schools’ unpreparedness to properly disburse funds. Many of the cash advances taken by division offices remained unliquidated or unutilized owing to the lack of training on how to correctly manage and record financial accountabilities.

Much of this inability to manage resources emanates from a lack of qualified managers at the different levels of the government. Appropriate supervision of schools is also largely absent owing to an insufficient number of division superintendents, with only 61% of divisions led by a duly-appointed superintendent in 2016, down from 80% in 2009. The absence of division leadership has prevented the highly centralized structure from providing technical assistance and advice to its delivery units. The career system has also failed to generate adequately trained school administrators since school leadership is usually given as a token of seniority and not based on managerial potential (Luz, 2009). Only 65% of elementary schools had either a prin-cipal or school head in 2016 (DepEd 2017). With all these issues considered, why SBM failed is unsurprising.

Ensuring Accountability

Until recently, there was no clear mechanism to hold the education department accountable for underperformance. DepEd adopted the Quality Assurance and Accountability Framework (QAAF) in 2010, defining accountability as vertical alignment of roles and responsibilities and allocation of principal accountability for certain education outcomes across different levels of the organization. However, implementation remains patchy, and as Ogundele and Laguador (2017) argue, proper assessment and evaluation can only be made after the implementation and roll-out of the quality assurance system. Recent government-wide reforms on improving performance management attempt to establish accountability through a single results-based performance management system (RBPMS), linked with a bonus system based on the perfor-mance of delivery units. A survey of perceptions of civil servants revealed that better manage-ment, trust and teamwork in DepEd as well as positive effects on teacher recruitment are the key results of the RBPMS (World Bank, 2014).

1 — Utilization rate is defined as total disbursement over total obligations.


Driving accountability is challenging because of the situation of extreme scarcity of resources faced by different actors in the organization, particularly schools. Under the QAAF, schools serve as the core unit of quality assurance as they deliver the curriculum and instructions, teaching and facilitation, administration and leadership, learning environment and culture, while school performance is evaluated based on student achievement scores, dropout rates, the liquidation rate of maintaining expenses, and the achievement of other exemplary indica-tors such as demonstrating initiative and uniqueness under the RBPMS. However, there is widespread opposition to the performance management from the teacher’s union because many teachers and principals see the lack of resources as a failure of the central government to provide support. School performance is thus perceived to be beyond the control of teachers (Torneo, 2016).

More importantly, the lack of trust in performance information exacerbates the performance paradox in basic education due to deep-seated corruption in DepEd (Reyes Jr, 2007; Reyes, 2009). In 2001, instances of cheating and selling of exams plagued standardized achievement exams, which led to the cancellation of the National Achievement Test (NAT). While the exam has since been reinstated, the same issues arose when an investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation revealed widespread cheating in 2011. More recent attempts to improve the integrity of information from DepEd involve systematization of data collection and manage-ment through database systems—the Enhanced Basic Education Information System (EBEIS) and the Learner Information System (LIS)—that primarily provide data and information on schools and learners. The EBEIS covers indicators of input performance such as number of teachers and number of schools, while the LIS uniquely identifies all learners in the educa-tion system, including information on gender, and name of guardian, among others. The LIS is envisioned to include information on achievement results and other performance data. The installation of the EBEIS has eventually led to the calculation of public school capacity and determination of aisle students that can be targeted for ESC (World Bank, 2011).

Designing Appropriate Curriculum

The education research generated within DepEd has no doubt directed reforms towards cur-ricular issues; however, while most curriculum issues are known, the implementation of re-forms has been dismal. Various educational assessments commissioned by the government have touched on broad issues to include sector governance, but curriculum improvements have been at the center of most reforms. As noted by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (1999), curriculum design improvements that had been introduced earlier, such as reduction in subjects and reduction of contact hours, provision of inputs and re-design of implementation structure, continued to lag. In fact, much of the design issues, such as overcrowding of topics and overlapping and duplication of contents (Mariñas & Ditapat, 1999), have been addressed and implemented on a larger scale only recently through the K-12 reform. The principle in curriculum design followed by the reformers was to ensure integrated and seamless learning, whereby lessons are horizontally articulated across subjects (Alonzo, 2015). These are thought to be the appropriate curriculum designs considering the initial problems faced by the dis-juncture in instruction and curriculum between primary and secondary education due to a disjointed organizational structure.

One reform where DepEd has shown analytical capacity to design appropriate curriculum is the institutionalization of kindergartens and the introduction of mother-tongue based edu-cation. The Kindergarten Act of 2012 (otherwise known as Republic Act No. 10157) institu-tionalizes pre-elementary schooling as the first phase of mandatory and compulsory formal


education, which is a response to years of research linking dropout rates, grade repetition and poor achievement rates to inadequate preparation for elementary education (Magno, 2010). The existing pre-elementary programs were so lacking in quality that, as the former DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus noted, students need to “‘un-learn’ some of the things they were taught during their preschool year” (Lapus, 2008). The law also institutionalizes the adoption of a Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE), whereby the mother tongue of a child shall be used as the primary medium of instruction in classrooms. This came as a result of various studies employed by DepEd to distill best practices from other countries in improving the curriculum.

ConclusionOver the last few decades, education systems around the world have been the subject of in-cessant reforms – centred on curriculum, teacher training, budget mobilization, SBM, decen-tralization, and so on – with varying but largely lacklustre results. In retrospect, the outcomes are unsurprising given that the reforms have focused on specific problematic issues without considering the relationships among them. More significantly, without a comprehensive con-ception of the sector and the requirements for its effective functioning, the reforms have been either partial or misdirected. This paper sought to overcome the lacunae in both scholarship and practice by proposing a composite framework identifying the key political and operational functions in the management of the sector and assessing the extent to which they are per-formed. From this perspective, education policy is fundamentally about establishing a govern-ance structure to ensure that all political and operational functions necessary to achieve the chosen policy goals are performed.

Application of the framework to the case of the Philippines showed that while the reforms cor-rectly identified and hit some of the targets, they overlooked, neglected or mishandled many more. The government’s overwhelming focus on fiscal mobilization and, especially, decentrali-zation, blindsided it to other vital governance functions. More crucially, the government has been unclear about education policy goals and how to achieve them. Resource mobilization and decentralization measures in the absence of goal clarity understandably produced only limited success. Similarly, political support for education did not realize its full potential due to an absence of clear operational objectives. The problem was compounded by lack of attention to analytical and operational functions that need to be attended to if the sector is to function effectively.

While decentralization and SBM reforms have provided much needed relief from the rigidities and unnecessary centralization of the past, they have had only limited impact due to shortcom-ings along other dimensions of governance. These unremarkable outcomes are hardly surpris-ing given that neither decentralization nor SBM directly address many of the core governance deficiencies in the sector. It is hoped that further research along the lines proposed in this paper will encourage scholars and policymakers to focus more on strengthening governance of the education sector.

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The Spread of Vouchers among French Local Government: When Private Companies Reshape the Meaning of a Tool

Arnaud LacheretAssociate Professor, Director of the French Arabian Business School, Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain

AbstractVouchers as tools of provision of social and individual subsidies are rather marked politically as they have been promoted by economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Despite their controversial political sense, vouchers have spread widely in the 2000 among the French local governments to provide individual subsidy. While in the USA the debate is strong between supporters and opponents of voucher systems, in France, the apparent neutrality of vouchers permitted them to spread at a local and regional scale without particular political tension. Our research, based on 45 qualitative interviews and on a wide source research within the local gov-ernments and private actors, showed that this silent spread is mainly due to the marketing and lobbying action of voucher companies that have done a lot to neutralize the vouchers and avoid all political debate on its their strong liberal roots.

Keywordsvouchers, policy transfer, lobbying, social subsidy, new public management, innovation


179Lacheret | The Spread of Vouchers among French Local Government

IntroductionVouchers are “instruments of public action” (Lascoumes and Le Gales, 2004) with a paradoxical scientific reputation. Despite their widespread use in France, particularly within local govern-ments, they have been more widely studied in the English-speaking world. The reinvention and the transformation of vouchers into a political science object can be dated precisely. Milton Friedman launched the use of vouchers and tried to implement them in the public services, especially in the field of education (Friedman, 1955, 1962). He imagined a deregulated system where parents would be free to choose their children’s school using a “school-voucher”. He as-sumed that, as a targeted subsidy provided directly to families, vouchers would enable them to choose the school for their children, whether public or private, provided they follow the mini-mal standard requirements approved by the state government.

In France, vouchers appeared in the 1990s in a politically liberal context inspired largely by the Anglo-American model and especially the spread of New Public Management (NPM) (Brookes, 2019). They then became ubiquitous tools of public policy in the sense of Lester Salamon (Sala-mon, 2001), trade-off dispositives between the stakeholders of public action and, later, sus-tainable instruments present in the majority of French local governments.

After an overview of vouchers through a literature review addressing their roots and origins, this article proceeds to a discursive analysis of the perceptions and feelings of a number of French actors that are positioned to provide insights into their rapid and wide-spread use. Meanwhile, we will notice the relative persistence of NPM-based landmarks within the concep-tions and definitions made by political entrepreneurs of the concerned publics. The third part shows that, in order to become a legitimate tool of public action, vouchers have invaded the field of permissible tools as they have become politically more neutral and acceptable because of the role of mediation and promotion played by the companies and organizations whose role it was to promote and implement them, concealing the initial ideological dimension.

We will therefore question the reason(s) behind the spread of vouchers among French local governments. Despite an apparent link with New Public Management, no particular political debate has occurred and our assumption is that this “neutralization” of vouchers in France is due to private actors that have been clearly part of the public policy transfer among local governments. This research question has two main assumptions. Without mentioning the liberal origins of vouchers in French local governments, actors are clearly introducing them by using arguments found in the literature of vouchers. Second, to avoid any political debate and smoothen the policy transfer, the real sense of vouchers has been neutralized by French voucher companies, thereby providing these tools to the local governments by using new kinds of arguments.

The Anglo-American origin: an example of school vouchers

Vouchers have their roots in far older references than Friedman. Regarding the school vouch-ers he proposed, we could go back to John Stuart Mill (1860), who mentioned, in an English context, the importance of parental choice for the education their children may receive. Hayek (Hayek, 1944), then Friedman, were the American promoters of “neoliberalism”, a politico-economic order Michel Foucault referred to as a “technique of government” of self. Supporters of Neoliberalism aimed to spread the grip of the market mechanism to the individuals and finally to the entire society. Vouchers are also considered as tools of NPM (Hood, 1991). Ap-plied to education institutions, they allow the concept of quasi-markets to expand to other fields (Glennester, Le Grand, 1995). With this mindset, the mechanisms of the trade model are transferred to public education through an in-depth reform of that sector in the USA. This ap-proach proposes a sort of alternative market oriented and individualized regulation, which can


partially replace the state financing of the public educative system, considered too costly. The distribution of vouchers can thus substitute, at least partially, education budgets, representing a trade-off model between public funding and a fully private system.

Vouchers emerged in this new deregulated context. Theoretically, from an NPM perspective, the state has to interfere only to allow the individual-entrepreneur to use his freedom of choice. Christopher Hood summarizes this by explaining that NPM generates a set of administrative reform doctrines built on contestability, user choice, transparency and incentive structures. Therefore, the state has to guarantee the smooth running of the market mechanism to allow the individual to choose the training supply of his choice. This was the vision of Friedman and the Chicago School when they proposed the school voucher for the US: the individual has to have the possibility to reach the market for education using an oriented subsidy he can use freely.

Vouchers, pragmatic tools stemming from liberal vision

Vouchers were used in a famous experiment in 1981 in Chile. Friedman became the advisor to the Chilean Government led by Augusto Pinochet and sought to implement the first school voucher. They would then be adapted in diverse forms in several American states (Milwaukee and a few other states such as Florida still use the “school voucher system”) and also, perhaps surprisingly, in Sweden, the paragon of welfare state capitalism. Vouchers were first consid-ered by American researchers as a tool of public action that was supposed to be “ideologically neutral” and seen as merely one tool among others in the policy toolbox (Steuerle, 2000). They were, however, subsequently criticized (One can refer to the major debate surrounding US Sec-retary of Education Betsy DeVos’s proposal for using school vouchers). The massive rise of “tools” and “instruments” in the public policies in the 1990s has been described as a “revolu-tion that no one noticed” (Salamon, 2000). Eugene Steuerle argues that vouchers are just tools among others, more or less efficient depending of the target and the considered public policy. According to these observers, vouchers are first a social object, aiming to provide an oriented social subsidy to well-identified public beneficiaries (Steuerle, 2001). This notion of being a pragmatic tool that is not apparently ideologically oriented is present in other papers written by researchers specializing in vouchers. For example, Gary Sturgess and Ivana Bodroza men-tion a technical dispositive, a tool that helps to level up the value of public services when the market and the public policies have the same orientation (Sturgess and Bodroza, 2011). In an-other book on vouchers, Steuerle defines them as a subsidy that gives limited spending power to individuals who can select from among a restricted choice of goods and services (Steuerle, 2000).

Thereafter, many critical studies challenged this idea of a “neutral” voucher and emphasized their “neo-liberal” sense while at the same time criticizing their efficiency. The evaluations of the voucher system in the USA after the first experimentations generated severe controversies among researchers on this sensitive political subject (Carnoy, 2008; Wolf, 2012; Chingos and Peterson, 2013; Lacheret, 2013; Feigenberg et al, 2017). This definition of vouchers as tools linked to the NPM best explains the success of their implementation and spread in France, which is the subject of our research. Considered neutral tools by American decisions makers, they have been applied to many other fields, starting with culture (Peacock, 1968), housing, food, and social aid (Colin, 2005). With this expansion, particularly in the USA, of the spread of vouchers to other fields (and following several researchers Steuerle (2000, 2001), Salamon (2001), Greene (1998, 2001, 2011), and Sturgess and Bodroza (2011), our research method consists of isolating the six main arguments justifying the desire by a government to imple-ment a voucher system, namely: promotion of free choice for a targeted public, social equity (to legitimize to tax payers the provision of an oriented social subsidy to a targeted population),


the organization of tenders between providers of goods and services redeemable by vouchers, the replacement of an existing subsidy program, the restriction and capping of choice of ben-eficiaries and the desire to save public money while funding social policy.

NPM (Hood, 1991) naturally appropriated this tool by using the following argument: a voucher policy has to be considered from both the point of view of the beneficiary but also of the tax-payers who finance it. In this case, notions such as “public value” (Moore, 1995; Alford, 2017) or merit goods (Becker, 1974) can be used. Therefore, the voucher is identified in the research discourse as a tool based on a liberal conception of public policies and individuals, especially the recipients of social aid. This tool crystallizes (Halpern et al., 2014) political and moral opinion and defines the target “public” of this social aid: this aid should be a “waste of public money” and those that receive it should not adopt a “the state can do everything for me” attitude, but rather be guided in their choice and be able to use the services of competing private providers overseen by the regulatory state.

1. Dynamic of diffusion and appropriation of vouchers in FranceIn the French case, surprisingly, vouchers have not been the subject of much political debate or scientific controversy despite their intensive use since the 1990s, essentially by local govern-ments, and despite the fact that the first elected officials were clearly not shy about identifying the Anglo-American parenthood of the school voucher system [1]. The generalization of the use of vouchers is a consequence of the global reform of the welfare state and the gradual trend towards a neoliberalized model of capitalism (Kersberger, Manow, 2008). The aim of this broad tendency is to individualize social subsidies (this trend appeared in the 1970s and strength-ened throughout the 1990s and the 2000s) and to implement them on the local scale with tools adapted to the various specificities of the regions (Esping-Andersen, 2008). Vouchers also be-came relevant, consistent and rational because they can be used for a precise and specific good or service. Moreover, they are, in the main, dedicated to a specific person (in France the name of the recipient is often written on the voucher) and therefore avoid irregular payments that can prove rather difficult to recover.

Our main assumption is as follows: the smooth spreading of vouchers in France may be ex-plained by the fact that their political and ideological dimensions have been lost or concealed and they have been depoliticized by the companies and the suppliers that sell them to local governments. Actually, the French context, and in some ways the weakness of French local government, lead the latter to pass through specialized companies to develop voucher systems that play the role of mediators among the local governments by reshaping the arguments de-fining vouchers. Thus, vouchers are instruments replete with paradoxes: although the first local elected officials to implement them were clearly liberal and saw the opportunity for a classic policy transfer of an innovation (in the sense of Everett Rogers, 1995), our assumption is that the ideological sense of vouchers has since then been neutralized. Once implemented in the first region in 1993, they spread among French local governments, following a certain form of isomorphism (Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000), through a public private dimension that has helped to reduce political debate on their use.

This paper stems from a PhD research on the adoption of vouchers and their reinterpretation and implementation within French local government. We assessed the rise of vouchers in the Rhône-Alpes Region, the pioneer locale in the trend, and their transplantation to other re-gions (Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur) and/or other local governments (Department of Saône et Loire and Drome) that have adopted this tool and its method of implementation. To determine

1 — Interview with E1 former President of Rhône-Alpes Regional Council, 1999, 2010.


how this instrument is perceived, the study is based on interviews with 45 individuals such as local representatives, civil servants from the bottom to the top of local government, as well as employees of voucher companies. In addition, we were able to access documents of local government and of voucher companies, allowing us to undertake a qualitative survey which was supplemented by interviews with actors from other local governments. This enabled us to minimize any findings that may be attributable to locally specific circumstances.

In the Rhône-Alpes Region, where vouchers were first launched by a French institution, the aim of the vouchers was to create access to cultural goods and services for a targeted popu-lation. Their quick spread among other French local governments clearly demonstrates the phenomenon of horizontal dialog among peers (Ferlie and McGivern, 2013) and benchmark-ing between same-leveled institutions. The results of the study show that the actors, during each transfer and implementation of the method, also accepted the implicit liberal arguments of the vouchers. Eventually, the action of the voucher companies was crucial in introducing pragmatic logic that helped to depoliticize the adoption of this instrument, making them more easily accepted because of their apparent political neutrality. The first vouchers used in France on the national scale to provide a public subsidy were implemented in the 1990s, essentially with a social purpose. We can mention the “Universal job service voucher” [2] or the “social aid personalized voucher” [3] in this context. However, the voucher systems aiming to provide individual subsidies were created at the local government level. In 1993, the regional council of Rhône-Alpes created the “chèque culture”. Dedicated to high school students, this checkbook contained four vouchers purchased at the price of 10 francs and redeemable in a library, a theater performance, an entry to a museum or at a cinema. This kind of subsidy spread widely: 21 French regions out of 22 had such a cultural voucher system in place by the year 2014 (since that date the merging of regions has seen vouchers invade all the French regions). This experi-ence opened new fields of development for vouchers, and we can now find training vouchers (Poitou Charentes Region), moving vouchers (Nord Pas de Calais Region, Var and Puy de Dome Department), health Vouchers (La Réunion Department), baby vouchers (redeemable to pur-chase a baby seat) (Bouches du Rhône and Pyrénées Atlantiques Departments) and energy or sustainable development vouchers (to help for the supply of wood for boilers or solar boiler (more than half of the French regions).

To summarize, France has two different types of vouchers. Although these are used for the same purpose (as a subsidy to help a targeted public access a good or a service), their objectives differ: - Social vouchers target and rationalize the supply of a social aid - The other type of voucher offers non-compulsory aid to a public that does not necessarily

have social difficulties, and are also used to replace an existing cash subsidy to make the ac-tion of local government more concrete and visible to the public.

Cultural vouchers: pioneers in local government

Used as tools of cultural policy for the Rhône-Alpes Region, which presented them as the pri-ority track of its policy of free access for youth to culture (Lacerenza, 2001)4, cultural vouch-ers have been transformed since their launch in 1994 and became a chip card referred to as “carte MRA” in 2013. From a pure cultural instrument dedicated to the region’s high school

2 — Chèque emploi service universel.3 — Chèque d’accompagnement spécialisé.4 — LACERENZA Sabine, «L’impensé des études sur les effets des politiques de tarification - L’exemple du chèque culture en région Rhône-Alpes », in Olivier Donnat, Sylvie Octobre (ed.), Les publics des équipements culturels – Méth-odes et résultats d’enquêtes, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Département des Études et de la Prospec-tive, collection Les Travaux du DEP, 2001, p.170.


students, they have become a “card of autonomy”, offering services that go far beyond culture (sports, health, among other things). Cultural vouchers can therefore be considered as tools presenting a supply of services and providing freedom of choice. They are used in a way that is diametrically opposed to traditional cultural policy, which subsidies and supports the cultural actors. We find this idea in the arguments developed in the interview with E25, Vice-President in charge of Cultural Affairs in 1998, and with E36, President of the Cultural Commission of the Regional Council, when they discuss a political divide in the perception that politicians have of cultural vouchers. They share the same vision of the vouchers as a tool to ease freedom of choice while constraining indirectly the use of public funds by obliging the beneficiary to spend them for a pre-determined type of good or service. They both trace the origins of these vouchers to the Anglo-American system. and E3 even referred to Milton Friedman during the interview. However, surprisingly, the shift of political power from the right-wing to the left-wing within the regional council did not curb the use of vouchers in Rhône-Alpes or in the other regions. The regional elections in 1998 and then again in 2004 saw heavy defeats for the right and led the left to rule 21 from 22 French regions. Nevertheless, the spread of the vouchers increased: “art vouchers” in Ile de France Region in 2001, “book and cinema vouch-ers” in Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur in 2001, etc. The departments followed the same path with, among others, the “cultural vouchers” of the Var Department, the first one of a series of imitations of the Rhône-Alpes cultural vouchers. This unexpected spread across diverse French local governments induced the French Ministry of Culture to run a survey to list them. Thus, Francois Rouet has been appointed by the Ministry to map the existing cultural voucher sys-tems in France (Rouet, 2009).

Figure 1 : Local government use of cultural vouchers in 2009

Source: Rouet 2009

5 — Interview with E2, 15 April 2000.6 — Interview with E3, 1st March 1999.


Meanwhile, other vouchers were locally developed, enlarging the range of policies: “sport vouchers” to pay the membership fees in sports clubs for the youth (Midi-Pyrénées and Lim-ousin Region), or a wide range of vouchers for high school children to participate in sport, lei-sure and cultural activities (Drome and Allier Departments). This example of cultural vouchers, because of their popularity and good reputation, explains the surprising absence of political division about them in France, especially compared with the polemic debates and controversies which surrounded their use in the USA. The liberal origin is not easy to discern in the French context of their implementation, and neither is it clearly claimed by the actors (except for the above-mentioned pioneers in Rhône-Alpes). This is why the spread of vouchers among French local governments has been comparatively a-political and consensual.

This sketch of the way vouchers were diffused in France poses a question: As vouchers have spread among French local government through a process that closely resembles isomorphism but lost their initial ideological roots, what are the main arguments actors have used to define their use?

2. Arguments developed by actors and the perception of the public2.1 Some fragmented and diverse arguments

The various interviews conducted during this study enable us to compare the arguments used to explain the implementation of the various voucher systems by French local governments with those developed by Anglo-American researchers in the 1990s and 2000s and presented in our introduction. Our assumption here is that by concealing the mainly liberal political sense of vouchers and reshaping them, their promoters (who are mainly private actors) have found a way to efficiently spread their use. Nonetheless, in our interviews, the actors always referred to at least one argument advanced by the liberal doxa. Each actor used the dimension that best fitted his/her argument without showing support for the liberal source of the voucher concept. A discourse analysis and comparison of the arguments used by the American promoters of vouchers and the ones put forward by the interviewees in this study was considered the op-timal way to link our research with the theoretical framework and highlight the link between French and Anglo-American vouchers. Some actors thus emphasized the free choice argument7, and others drew on Steuerle’s framework of “choice and equity” and used arguments describing it as a “merit good” with “public value”8. Yet others insisted on the fact that vouchers help to increase the competition within a market9. Several actors consider that vouchers can also be used to replace an existing public policy10. Some interviews suggest that vouchers may restrict the choice of their users, for example, in the interview with the former General Director of the Saône et Loire Department11 when discussing the vouchers used to provide social aid for disabled people. Lastly, the financial argument in which the supply of a subsidy with vouchers should be a way to save public money was also a well-developed argument of the actors dealing with social welfare [12].

In addition to these classic arguments stemming from the American literature, two new argu-ments, far more pragmatic and less politically oriented, arose from the study: first, according to some of the interviewees, vouchers can be considered as tools of communication by making social subsidies easier to materialize and appear more concrete in the eyes of the beneficiaries; second, the vouchers can simplify the administrative process and instructions on how to apply for and receive the subsidies because externalizing the instructions of the individual demands to the private sector (the voucher company) makes the provision of the public service more fluid. These two arguments are clearly part of the reshaping of the sense of vouchers conducted


by the French voucher companies to which local governments have outsourced the provision of vouchers. Those two additional arguments, as well as the founding role of the French voucher companies, appear to be the main difference that may explain the lack of political debate when vouchers were launched in France. Indeed, the essential difference in the French model of vouchers lies, above all, in the way they were introduced and described by the actors.

2.2 The various “public” of the vouchers: a multiple target that differs according to sectors

The interviewees emphasized far less the political sense of vouchers than their usefulness re-garding the allocation of subsidies. This definition of vouchers, fits with Harvey Rosen’s broad definition (Rosen, 2001). Contemporary actors, even if they adopt parts of the discourse in-spired by the NPM-oriented model, promote a depoliticized definition of vouchers linked to their apparent neutrality and their pragmatic aims. This makes possible their uncontroversial spread among various local governments, most of which were ruled leftist politicians during the survey. The vouchers do not have overt political connotations in the same way that po-liticized instruments do. They become an object of compromise, a common sense, “above the political fray” solution to an existing problem. Thus, new arguments developed to promote them are assumed to be more effective for their spread among local government. However, it is noticeable that during the interviews an important difference arose in the conception between two types of representation the actors had about the beneficiaries of facultative sub-sidies such as “cultural vouchers” and more social oriented vouchers. In the case of the provi-sion of social welfare to the “public”, the latter is imagined as an ensemble of persons whose rationality is bounded and, for that reason, is observed with a certain paternalist mistrust in the eyes of elected politicians, public managers and operational civil servants [14]. The “public” is perceived as somewhat immature - for example, a manager of a social department in a local government claimed that “those people are not able to understand everything” [15] - and are unable to use their subsidies properly. To restrict their choice by orienting their expense with a voucher is considered a way to frame and actively help the beneficiaries according to norms enshrined in public service. In contrast, the public targeted by non-social vouchers is described as less immature, more responsible. It has a certain sense of initiative and is “naturally” in need of more freedom of choice.

This difference in institutional attitude is not dependent on the nature of vouchers. Indeed, even if, technically speaking, the social vouchers permit a degree of choice by their beneficiar-ies, this dimension of autonomy of choice was never mentioned during the interviews. How-ever, we did encounter the notion of freedom of choice to be high in the arguments used by the actors when discussing vouchers which aim to provide non-social welfare (cultural vouchers, sport vouchers etc.). Therefore, the public targeted by that non-compulsory welfare is put into a position of having more freedom of choice, to be realized by accessing the private market through use of the voucher. This conception of empowered beneficiaries being underpinned by this type of instrument should have manifested itself in a strong right/left political divide within the local political institutions involved, as was the case with the launch of the cultural vouchers in Rhône-Alpes Region in 199312 . However, the political divide was far from obvi-

7 — Interview with E2, 10 February 2010.8 — Interview with C1, Head of services of Drôme department, 11 July 2011.9 — Interview with C2, Head of sport and youth department, Drôme, 11 July 2011.10 — Interview with C3, Head of energy department, Rhône-Alpes, Lyon, 28 April 2013.11 — Interview with C4, 31 January 2013.12 — Interview with E1, 10 February 2010.


ous in the transcripts of the interviews. From the left to the right, elected officials described the vouchers as instruments which empower the skills of the targeted public, offering them a margin of action and freedom if used efficiently. This positive perception was shared by the local civil servants, who consider that the beneficiaries of non-social welfare are to a degree responsible and autonomous actors, able to take free decisions13. Thus, vouchers are not only a means of giving shape to a cash subsidy, they also carry a representation, not only of the subsidy given, but also of the targeted public. The same instrument, used for different goals, carries different images of the public it is supposed to help.

In the two cases studied, another type of “client” of vouchers emerges: “public opinion”, the “taxpayers” (Alford, 2002). Many of the interviewees are persuaded that by showing that the destination of the subsidy is controlled with the allocation of vouchers, the external legitimacy of this form of social welfare is extended and their acceptance by public opinion is eased, espe-cially in the eyes of non-beneficiaries [17]. This claim is particularly notable in the comments of the local politicians E2 [18], E1 and the socialist C5, the Vice-President of the Department of Saône et Loire, who insisted on the guarantee to give to the population (composed of tax-payers) proof that the allocation of social welfare is serious and that the public money is well spent. These interviews show the plural and polysemic character of the argumentation aiming to legitimate the use of vouchers in public policy. Obviously, the comments are inspired by the ideological baseline of vouchers, namely the NPM, but they cannot be placed in an easily recog-nizable and well-defined belief system. In fact, the way they justify the use of vouchers is to be found outside of their respective intellectual paradigms and political field but rather in the in-strument itself. Their arguments borrow much from the words and guidelines of the companies that sell and market the vouchers and submit their commercial arguments to their customers and to the institutions to which they provide those vouchers and processes of provision.

3. Mediation by the companies: vectors and actors in the de-politiciz-ing of a “cause without opponents”The interviewees at all levels claimed that the management of a voucher system is complex, at the same time illustrating the poor capabilities of French local governments, which most of the time struggle to outsource even an apparently simple technical dispositive. Much of the time they find it easier to hire the technical knowledge from specialized companies, creating public private partnerships to outsource their needs. Although it is not easy to discern how many local voucher systems have been externalized to the private sector among the 43 identified in 2009 by a Ministry of Culture study, the authors are conscious that “when the provision is del-egated, major companies can rely on their preexisting networks14”. They deal with the technical launch of the vouchers, the monetary transfer costs and the communication issues, while at the same time concealing their political sense. The local governments can then externalize the technical and political costs of the vouchers.

3.1 From service delivery to politic lobbying?

Competition is rather strong among the four leading companies (Edenred (Ticket Restau-rant), Groupe Up (Chèque Déjeuner), Sodexo CCR (Chèque Restaurant) and Natixis Intertitres (Chèque de Table)) during the call for tenders to supply luncheon vouchers for public employ-ees in French local government. Considering the maturity of the market for luncheon vouch-ers, and in order to make a profit from the fiscal and legal existing opportunities, these voucher

13 — Interviews with C6, 20 April 2013, C7, 8 October 2012, C8, 11 February 2010, C9, 23 June 2010.14 — Op.cit.


companies have created new types of products to enlarge their range of supply. They have a similar business model (gift vouchers, social service vouchers, etc.) but create new and unique opportunities for business development reasons.

In addition to this range of classic vouchers, several companies have created more specific vouchers, tailor-made for local governments that seek to implement additional services to targeted beneficiaries. Since 1999, Groupe Up (the new name of Groupe Chèque Déjeuner) has developed a tailor-made voucher department able to respond rapidly to the demands of local government (named “adequation”). Its competitor, Edenred, created at the same time a department named “ticket à la carte”, much with the same objective in mind. This adapted answer to the needs of local governments corresponded, at the end of the 1990s, to the emer-gence of new cultural policies supporting demand by targeting specific groups that fit perfectly with the use of vouchers. “Tailor-made” products are indeed considered less as sources of new income for these companies but more as promotional and influence tools. These allow them to highlight their knowledge and their brands in the highly competitive market of luncheon vouchers, displaying their unique skills by tailoring specific vouchers15. It seems perfectly logi-cal that the three biggest luncheon voucher companies have taken advantage of the opportu-nity represented by the provision of individual subsidies to a targeted population to launch the production of tailor-made vouchers. The cultural field has been the first to benefit from this new windfall. Later, in response to the spread and evolution of the demands of local gov-ernments, new markets arose in fields such as the environment, transport and social welfare. Companies had to reorganize their services and create additional departments dedicated to supplying local governments, able to reply to calls for tenders and manage the daily life of such devices. This evolution had serious consequences for the companies and the local administra-tions. Therefore, in 2006 “Groupe Chèque Déjeuner” (the former name of Groupe Up) created, in addition to its “adequation” department, a specialized marketing service aiming to promote its tailor-made expertise to local governments. This emergence of demand for cultural vouchers fit perfectly with the beginning of the spread of “cultural vouchers” among French local govern-ments. The company was then going to take advantage of the poor technical resources of local Governments, as well as of the path dependency effect due to the use of luncheon and other kinds of vouchers in HR management, and encourage it further through an approach similar to a lobbying and influence strategy. This strategy shift was conducted rapidly and silently, in just a few months, by the board of Groupe Up. This adaptation to this new framework conveyed the will to increase the capacity of lobbying the local public sector by encouraging it to implement voucher systems for all kinds of individual welfare. At the same time, the two other companies - Edenred and Sodexo – implemented similar strategic shifts.

3.2 The marketing discourse on vouchers: a public/private coproduced argumenta-tion

This marketing action was accompanied by efficient lobbying, which had the consequence of generalizing the promotion of an argumentative discourse emphasizing the ethical dimension of the voucher system as well as claiming its efficiency and its political neutrality. Vouchers and their promotion thus became a “cause without opponents” (Cloteau and Mourad, 2016; Juhem, 2001) but also indirectly a coproduced social piece of work. The marketing actions of the vouch-er companies targeting the local governments appeared as one of the factors that explain this dynamic of appropriation and the quick spread of vouchers among French local government.

15 — Interview with Stéphane Lefebvre, Epernay, 21 December 2012.


One of the sales leaflets of a leading voucher companies stated that implementing a voucher policy permits a “guarantee of good use of public subsidies by the beneficiaries”, “a simplifica-tion of the management of the social aid dispositive” and “ensures anonymity which is a source of broader dignity, of freedom of choice and of ease of contact with actors in local life”16. In 2010, in two business emails to the managers of youth departments of the local governments and to the elected officials in charge of this policy, the arguments given were administrative simplification, control of the public expenses and clarity of the public policy17. The companies that purchase vouchers played a central role in mediation by privatizing and shifting the means of providing social subsidies by using vouchers. They implemented an efficient representation of individual subsidy but have also legitimated a public/private partnership model. Taking into account the cognitive dimension of these discourses of public and private action provides an explanation of the extent of “bricolage” that has occurred (Levy-Strauss, 1962) in the political arguments used by both the political and administrative actors during the implementation of the voucher system and by the companies aiming to explore new markets by creating a sense of confidence and partnership with local governments. The purpose of the use of vouchers can thus not be reduced merely to a “neo-liberal quest”, even though the liberal character of these tools and the pervasiveness of NPM can nevertheless easily be shown and proved.

ConclusionThis paper sought to question the reason(s) behind the spread of vouchers among French local governments. This spread has occurred in a transversal way, without any particular interven-tion of the state, as has been the case for other public policies, and without stirring much in the way of political controversy. By taking into consideration the liberal origins of the vouch-ers assumed by several elected officials who participated in their introduction in the 1990s, we might have imagined that the discourses built by the stakeholders would have been quite radical and would have generated a major political debate among the local authorities where vouchers were implemented. However, this was not the case at all because vouchers became a “cause without opponents”, technical tools that are considered efficient and useful, and whose politically sensitive aspects did not stir the interviewees in this research. When vouchers aimed to provide a social aid, they were described as tools of control and of restriction of the benefi-ciaries’ behavior, whereas when they were used to provide, for example, access to culture for a targeted public, the arguments were totally reversed - freedom of choice came to the fore to describe the vouchers during the interviews. The adoption of this tool of government in France was in fact widely based on commercial arguments developed by luncheon voucher compa-nies that had long existed and that occasionally already provided services to local governments (through their HR policy). The companies organized themselves to respond better to this new opportunity, spreading it among local government by presenting it mainly as a tool of com-munication and of administrative simplification. Local politicians and civil servants used the vouchers to answer local, concrete issues while adopting in their arguments the liberal rhetoric found in the multiple studies published by Anglo-American researchers. The spread of vouchers among French local government is clearly due to this “discourse assistance building” developed and provided by the companies. Vouchers carry a specific representation of social welfare and of its beneficiaries. Ultimately, they are vessels, vectors of a change in the conception of social subsidies and of their public, and they accompany the shift from a universalist logic to a logic of targeting provision of subsidies. Therefore, the emergence of vouchers in French local gov-

16 — Translated from the sales leaflet of the three biggest French voucher companies.17 — Translated from emails sent by “Groupe Up”.


ernment in the early 1990s occurred concomitantly with the massive introduction of tools of NPM within public administration. The originality of this particular instrument lies mainly in its manner of spreading and the “argumentation support” built by the companies, in coopera-tion with the local government, to introduce a utilitarian logic accompanied by a differentiated representation of the beneficiaries of the vouchers. Obviously, vouchers, French or not, are tools of NPM, matching all the main characteristics highlighted in the literature, especially the work by Christopher Hood. In the French case, their specificities prevented them from being at the core of political debates that would have prevented or at least curbed their spread. The discourse of the actors quickly shows that the political sense of vouchers is not the same in France as it is in the Anglo-American world, although the tool is actually quite similar in intent and practice.

This reshaping of the meaning of vouchers, emphasizing its administrative simplification, com-munication and political marketing aspects, has been done mainly by a number of private com-panies that were directly economically interested in selling the voucher systems to French local governments. This private argumentation tended to make what is essentially a liberal tool more presentable and acceptable by partly depoliticizing it and taking out the potential “noise” that may have been expected to have accompanied their implementation, as has been the case with other tools of NPM. The promotion of these new tools of governance is the result of the times, the institutional history and the discursive research of coherence between public and private logics, not just their user-friendliness. By coming together to provide a united representation of vouchers, the actors involved avoided fruitless struggles and political controversies. The ap-parent neutrality of the use of instrumental rationality and its apolitical legitimacy implied the development of normative dynamics shared among actors, a perfect fit with the emergence of NPM. The pervasiveness of a state of mind, of values, of common representations that avoid conflict and debates and are focused on the coproduction of institutional innovations have done the rest.

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Putting the Peter Parker Principle into PracticeVertical Policy (Non-)Coordination on CO2 emissions reduction in Germany and Sweden

Maximilian Lennart NagelZeppelin University

Jon PierreUniversity of Gothenburg

AbstractVertical coordination is a significant problem in many if not most countries. These problems are exacerbated in policy implementation related to issues that cut across jurisdictional borders. This paper compares policy implementation in the field of climate change, a quintessential example of such cross-cutting issues. In the context of CO2 emissions reduction policies, the Peter Parker principle states that vertical coordination presupposes not just central govern-ment control but also its responsibility. Our contribution to that argument is that the divorce between regulatory authority and formal jurisdiction challenges the principle. The present pa-per studies how these issues play out in two different types of institutional contexts; those of Germany and Sweden.

Keywordsvertical policy coordination, multi-level governance, climate policy


193Na g el / P i e r re | P u tt in g the Pe te r Pa rk e r P r inc ip le in to P ra ct i ce

IntroductionThis paper explores the complexities of vertical coordination of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the main cause of climate change, in Germany and Sweden. These complexities stem from a combination of autonomous agents, information and resource asymmetries, and an extraordinarily “wicked” policy problem. Much of our attention on policy coordination so far has been directed at horizontal policy coordination (see, for instance, Peters, 2015, 2018). We will argue that vertical policy coordination—aligning central government programs with those of autonomous regions and local authorities—poses an equally complex challenge as coordinating agencies, NGOs and societal actors, if not only more so. The significance of insti-tutional values is particularly important in central-local relations where norms of subnation-al autonomy and self-government raise constitutional barriers to coordination. In addition, member states of the European Union (EU) must also factor in the EU’s programs and direc-tives into their domestic policy making, adding further institutional complexity and vertical coordination challenges.

We have found that although formal, institutional constraints prevent the federal/central gov-ernment from relying on a strict top-down method of coordination, actors on all institutional levels strategically explore ways to reduce asymmetries between formal authority and resourc-es. Moreover, the EU and the federal/central government achieve some degree of coordination by relying less on coercive instruments and more on incentives, thus circumventing constitu-tional obstacles to control cities and regions. Thus, with only minor exaggeration would we say that in both countries there is fair degree of vertical policy coordination, not because of the formal institutional arrangements but despite them.

Public policy making and implementation reflect a complex blend of ideas, objectives and values embedded in institutional arrangements, political and administrative agency, and professional norms shaping government action. Policies and programs addressing different issues related to climate change are no exceptions to this pattern. The policy problem is often described as the quintessential “wicked problem” (Head and Alford, 2015; FitzGibbon and Mensah, 2012); indeed, the potential impact of full-scale climate change would have a major impact on society and the economy. At the same time, public policy to mitigate climate change is frequently re-sisted by social groups such as private industry and farmers and their political representatives.

One particularly vexing issue is derived from the complex institutional arrangement within which climate change programs are embedded. In many countries, central government con-trols regulatory instruments and financial resources while subnational government, by virtue of constitutional norms of local autonomy, own many of the specific policy issues that are part of the climate change policy cluster (Linander, 2019; Meadowcroft, 2007). Thus, institutional and financial leverage is essentially divorced from issue ownership; while member-state gov-ernments have the financial means and expertise required to design and fund policy towards reducing greenhouse emissions, they lack formal authority over autonomous cities, where the bulk of greenhouse emissions occur and where targeted measures should be implemented. Cit-ies, on the other hand, have such authority but often lack the necessary resources and know-how to design and implement appropriate programs to reduce greenhouse emissions. Coupled with the increasingly active role of the EU in the environmental policy field, this disjuncture has propelled the emergence of complex multilevel governance arrangements seeking to align jurisdiction with institutional and financial capabilities across different institutional levels.


This complex institutional context and its apparent inability to comprehensively address sali-ent policy challenges has brought back central-local relationships onto the political agenda in many countries. In Sweden, for instance, the partially failed or insufficient response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic has to a large extent been attributed to problems associated with the vertical coordination of decentralized healthcare and elderly care systems (Pierre, 2020). It is thus no coincidence that Sweden, over the past decade, has witnessed a marked increase in both the range and the specification of central government’s steering and control efforts over subnational government (Statskontoret, 2019a, b). Some of this increasing control may well have political motives although a good part may also simply be a matter of boosting vertical policy coordination.

Germany offers an even more complex case, one where local government enjoys extensive au-tonomy vis-à-vis higher echelons of government, but where the Länder interact both with the federal government and with cities. The specific nature of these institutional relationships var-ies considerably across different policy sectors.

The Peter Parker Principle, named after the action movie hero Spider Man, states that “with great powers come great responsibilities.” This principle is fundamental to constitutional de-sign where authority is linked to accountability. In the present context, the principle states that vertical coordination presupposes not just central government control but also its respon-sibility. Our contribution to that argument is that the divorce between regulatory authority and formal jurisdiction challenges this fundamental principle. Thus, unlike horizontal policy coordination, vertical policy coordination in political systems with constitutionally guaranteed local and regional autonomy frequently tends to challenge or even violate that principle.

Our study draws on Most Different Systems Design (MDSD), where cases ideally differ on all relevant aspects except for the key dependent variable, which in our study is vertical policy coordination (Peters, 1998; Przeworski and Teune, 1970; see also Przeworski, 1987). In this design, we have conducted a comparative case study project observing vertical policy coordina-tion in two different institutional frameworks: a federal state and a unitary state. The MDSD approach is the preferred research design, allowing as it does for vast differences in independ-ent variables and where similarities are found at the sub-system level (Przeworski and Teune, 1970). Embedded in these two differently organized states, there are important similarities, such as the autonomy of cities, which have a significant impact on policy implementation and local initiatives. This distinction facilitates an analysis of different multilevel governance ar-rangements in the greenhouse emissions policy sector in two different political systems.

The methodology used in the paper is a qualitative method based on, and synthesizing, previ-ous research. There are several studies on how cities and regions seek to tackle greenhouse emissions and to develop green technologies for transport, district heating and heat storage and similar projects.

The next section of the paper reviews the institutional organization and coordination of cli-mate change policy. We then turn to a brief outline of the basic tenets of multilevel governance theory before we introduce and compare processes of vertical policy coordination in the two countries. A concluding discussion wraps up the paper.

Institutional politics and issue ownership in climate change policyA major governance challenge associated with climate change is that while global challenges call for global solutions, the source of much of what causes climate change is found in the grow-


ing cities of the world. Thus, cities are part of both the problem and the solution: “Cities are the locations where most of the (un)sustainability issues find their origin. At the same time, cities are the basic units for policies that have significant environmentally beneficial consequences (both local and global) [...]” (Nevens et al., 2013:111). Some (see for instance Hammer et al., 2011:34) emphasize the economic opportunities that the development of green technologies has to offer cities: “The greening of the traditional urban economy and expanding the green urban sector can generate growth (through increased supply and demand), job creation and increased urban attractiveness. These effects are in part the result of stronger interactions at the urban level among economic efficiency, equity and environmental objectives.”

Cities play a major role in causing climate change, particularly greenhouse gas emissions. To-day, cities account for 70 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. It is estimated that in 2050, 75 percent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas (Juncker, 2015). However, cities are embedded in institutional hierarchies, framed by structures such as the nation state and (in Europe) the EU. As we will discuss in detail later, cities vary widely with regard to their activity and strategic choices in climate change policy: some form local networks with industry and stakeholders; some collaborate with other cities domestically and internationally; while some take a more passive stance. While the EU multilevel governance arrangement to address climate change is challenging to navigate for cities, it is also ripe with opportunities for col-laboration both across the public-private divide and across national and jurisdictional borders (Pierre, 2019).

The policy problem

We mentioned in the introduction that climate change is often understood as a typical “wicked problem”: slippery to define; characterized by “strong complexity, uncertainty and ambigu-ity” (Hustedt, 2014:153), and more or less impossible to address efficiently (Head and Alford, 2015).

Climate change policies can be divided into two main policy fields; mitigation and adaptation. Climate change mitigation policies address in general causes of climate change. Greenhouse gas emission reduction is an example of a mitigation policy. Adaptation policies, by contrast, deal with preparations for addressing the consequences of global warming, for instance protecting coastal cities from flooding. Some adaptation actions have characteristics of a private good as benefits of actions may accrue more directly to the individuals, regions, or countries that undertake them, at least in the short term. Nevertheless, financing such adaptive activities remains an issue, particularly for developing countries (IPCC, 2014).

The EU has taken a high profile in this policy sector. Thus, for 2020, the EU committed itself to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent compared to 1990; in 2030 emissions are sup-posed to be down to 60 percent; and by 2050 the EU aims to cut emissions by 80-95 percent. Furthermore, EU member states need to promote and sponsor renewable energy projects and reduce their energy consumption.

The strategy addressed several issues that were identified as main boundaries in the promo-tion of climate policies. The main issues concerned financial as well as personal resources (Mc-Callum et al., 2013). The EU has created financial incentives and funding opportunities for member states and their cities in order to promote climate change policies. However, most EU policies towards environmental protection and climate change are directives, offering member states discretion for interpretation in their national policy making. Hence, the outcome of a directive differs from one member state to the next.


Thus, importantly, EU member states maintain their own environmental policies. The imple-mentation of EU policies depends largely on the good will of the member states and their capac-ity to coordinate between different levels such as the European, federal and municipal levels.

Embedded in this complex governance system, cities and municipalities find themselves torn between serving as agents implementing national obligations on the one hand, and setting their own priorities, strategies and objectives on the other (Bulkeley and Kern, 2006). In order to compensate for their limited formal and legal leverage in this policy field, cities find other sources of leverage and capacity act by increasing cooperation within and across national bor-ders. Over the past 10-15 years, international networks of cities (frequently sponsored by the EU) have evolved to help cities build capacity to address the challenge of greenhouse gas emis-sions (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2006). These networks disseminate knowledge and expertise on climate change-related issues, outline strategies and formulate policy goals for their members (Gore, 2010; Pierre, 2019; Sharp et al., 2011).

Vertical policy coordination in a multilevel governance settingWe will now step back from our empirical analysis for a moment and discuss the broader im-plications of aligning issues related to vertical policy coordination with multilevel governance, which is the predominant mode of governance of environmental policy in the EU.

Multilevel governance of climate change

What we have described so far is a textbook case of multilevel governance in the EU. Our task now is to outline a framework which integrates multilevel governance and vertical policy co-ordination.

The multilevel governance framework allows us to observe how political agency evolves through interaction among institutional levels (Bache and Flinders, 2004; Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005; Hooghe and Marks, 2003; Piattoni, 2010). Multilevel governance in the EU draws to a large extent on negotiated relationships between different institutional levels and incentives rather than command and control patterns of vertical policy coordination. Equally important, the EU version of multilevel governance is essentially non-hierarchical; we see numerous ex-amples—not least in climate change policy and environmental policy—of the EU Commission approaching cities and regions rather than communicating through the capital of the member states. This behavior is to a significant extent explained by the limited formal authority that the EU has in these policy areas. As a result of those constraints, the EU will support networks and offer incentives to subnational governments to address those issues.

Multi-level governance draws on the notion that “decision making competencies are increas-ingly shared between actors operating at different levels of governance” (Betsill and Bulke-ley, 2006:149). Piattoni (2010) points out that multilevel governance fosters an exercise of a slightly different form of political authority, which represents a shift from attention to the center towards focusing on the periphery; a shift from the national to the international arena; and a shift from the public towards the private, bringing in stakeholders and relying on incen-tives and market mechanisms. Together, these shifts imply an exercise of a contextualized and negotiated form of political authority where policies and programs to a large extent are oppor-tunity structures for subnational agents rather than directives for execution (Peters and Pierre, 2001, 2004; Pierre, 2019).

This means that as we study vertical policy coordination, we need to not just observe how this works domestically but also in relationship to the EU. It also means that while formal


chains of command certainly matter, so do softer instruments like incentives or invitations to knowledge-based networks. These informal and contextually defined instruments thus oper-ate alongside formal institutional relationships. And finally, integrating multilevel governance and vertical policy coordination, we should be open to a much less hierarchical order of policy making and implementation and that ideas and policy concepts can flow not only top-down but also bottom-up.

Vertical policy coordination

One of the most salient problems in contemporary government is that of coordinating policies and programs in order to boost efficiency, impact and outcomes (O’Flynn et al., 2013; Peters, 2015). While coordination has always been a challenge to governments, the problem has been exacerbated along with growing societal complexity, diffused knowledge and expertise, and the increasing saliency of policy problems—national security and safety, pandemics, climate change, migration, etc.—that traverse policy sectors and institutional borders.

At the same time, however, governments around the world are still predominantly structured according to different policy sectors. There is good reason for this arrangement; while the func-tional organizational paradigm has proven to be conducive to sectorization, these often deni-grated “silos” or “stovepipes” do provide for specialization and the accumulation of expertise better than any other organizational model (Verhoest and Bouckaert, 2005). Thus, the heart of the problem is that the more public institutions become knowledgeable and expert-oriented, the bigger the problems in convincing them to team up with institutions in other policy sectors and to develop a joint agenda and plan of action.

The obstacles to working across boundaries are not confined only to the nature of the policy problems or growing social complexity. Problems with bending or integrating organizational cultures and with defining hierarchies among institutions at the same nominal level of organi-zation like government departments or executive agencies loom large in processes aimed at increasing horizontal coordination. In addition, pooling resources across sectoral borders and ensuring accountability are perennial problems in horizontal coordination. As O’Flynn et al. (2013) show, the nature of these different problems varies, as do the strategies employed in different national contexts to ameliorate them. Arguably, different institutional and constitu-tional settings to some extent explain this cross-national variation in coordination strategies.

The literature on policy coordination is, perhaps for obvious reasons, mainly preoccupied with horizontal coordination among central government institutions in different policy sectors (Pe-ters, 2015, 2018). However, there also is a vertical dimension of policy coordination whereby central, regional and local government seek to align policies and programs and policy design links up with policy implementation (Adam et al., 2019). Also, and most prominently in the European context, transnational institutions use economic or regulatory resources to try to shape domestic programs, thus adding an additional institutional level to the coordination process.

Perhaps the most important challenge to vertical coordination is the extent of autonomy ac-corded subnational government; the more extensive subnational autonomy, the more complex the vertical policy coordination (Adam et al., 2019). If we look specifically at the climate change policy sector, vertical policy coordination is essential since, as pointed out earlier, much of greenhouse gas emissions occur in cities while formal legal and regulatory authority and finan-cial resources rest with national institutions. Thus, there needs to be some consistency among the three levels in terms of policy targets and measurements (Linander, 2019).


In the current analysis, we need to consider not just how coordination is achieved; of equal im-portance is the question of what needs to be coordinated. For instance, is policy coordination mainly a matter of harmonizing policy objectives; or does coordination refer to synchronizing policy instruments; or is coordination a mechanism to ensure that programs are implemented in a similar fashion across the territory? Furthermore, vertical policy coordination is often fraught with issues related to how the funding required to implement central government pro-grams is to be divided between central and subnational government where central government frequently relies on “unfunded mandates” to relocate financial responsibilities to the local level (Pierre, 2013). Thus, if anything, vertical policy coordination is at least as challenging as hori-zontal coordination, if not more so.

Vertical and horizontal policy coordination are closely intertwined processes which cannot be fully understood without considering both dimensions of coordination. This is particularly the case in jurisdictions with extensive regional or local autonomy. Given that much of the policy coordination literature explicitly or implicitly draws on the UK or US experiences—countries with very limited local autonomy (Gurr and King, 1987)—the vertical coordination dimension has received far less attention. We argue, however, that ensuring that actors and institutions at all tiers of government have a shared understanding of policy objectives and instruments is just as essential to policy success as horizontal policy coordination at the central government level.

Vertical policy coordination in a multilevel governance context

The consolidation and continuing integration of the EU presents member-state institutions with a new type of challenge. Multilevel governance refers to more than merely adding another institutional level to the system of governance (see, for instance, Bache and Flinders, 2004; Hooghe and Marks, 2003; Peters and Pierre, 2001; Piattoni, 2010); the interaction between institutions at different levels is more negotiated and sometimes even defined ad hoc than in more conventional intergovernmental relationships. The case of CO2 emissions reduction policy illustrates this issue.

This contextualization of policy making and implementation has several important conse-quences. One such consequence is related to the flow of ideas and the location of expertise in the system. Cities may experience that nation-state policies have unintended consequences when implemented at the local level and seek to communicate those issues to central govern-ment and help shape future policies. Several studies show the significant role of local gov-ernment in shaping policy choice and design at the national level (Gustafsson, 1987; Rhodes, 1986).

Add to this complex picture the EU and the global level and the extent to which policy coordi-nation in a multi-level governance setting poses a significant challenge becomes even clearer. Thus, the vertical coordination of climate change-related policies and programs does not nec-essarily follow a strict top-down and ordered process; it is as likely to be top-down as bottom-up, or could evolve through an interactive and iterative process among different institutional levels (Torfing et al., 2012). These fluid, ad hoc coordination processes are fertile soil for net-works connecting agency at different institutional levels where cities and regions cooperate to share knowledge and extract resources from higher institutional echelons (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2006; Pierre, 2019).

We also note that there is a significant undercurrent to the decentralized pattern of environ-mental policy in the form of court appeals on local governments’ building permits for power


plants which are likely to have an environmental impact (Majone, 1997). For example, ad-ministrative rulings to impose stricter rules on industrial processes potentially damaging the environment are sometimes appealed and end up in the court system for a considerable period of time.

Vertical climate change policy coordination in Germany and SwedenWe will now turn to our case studies of vertical policy coordination in Germany and Sweden.

Germany

Germany is not among the forerunners in environmental protection, at least when it comes to the establishment of agencies and policy programs. In 1971, the first Environmental Protec-tion Program was agreed on and led towards the installment of Germany’s Environment Pro-tection Agency (Umweltbundesamt), in 1974, following the example of Sweden and the United States.

Since 1972, policymaking in the environmental field is mainly carried out by the federal gov-ernment. Until 2006, the Bundesländer were tasked with the protection of landscapes and na-ture. As EU policies gained increasing importance, coordination between the different levels became more difficult. Since 2006, Länder and municipalities have been in charge of the imple-mentation, whereas legislation remains with federal institutions. In addition, most German Bundesländer have their own environmental protection policies.

German environmental policies were completely reassessed after the nuclear accident at Fuku-shima. The so-called Energy Transition (Energiewende) was passed by the CDU/FDP coalition in 2011, signifying the shift towards renewable and sustainable energies. Key parts of the pro-gram are the phase-out of nuclear reactors by 2022 and emissions reductions, which include the retirement of the coal-fired power plant generation. The overall goal is to have a sustainable energy system in place by 2050. The Energiewende is geared to foster three main policy goals; supply security, economic efficiency, and environmental protection.

Vertical and horizontal climate change policy coordination in Germany is rather complex. Pe-ters (2018) points out that both types of coordination are particularly important in federal systems. Due to the federal structure and the constitutional autonomy of local authorities, five levels matter; the global sphere, the EU, the central government, the 16 constituent states, and the more than 11,000 municipalities.

Most climate-change related legislation takes place at the federal level. However, most state governments also pursue their own agenda and have their own climate change policies. As a result, conflicts occasionally arise when Länder set different priorities than the federal govern-ment. Such conflicts might, for example, lead to an expansion of renewable energy sources at non-optimal locations (Wurster and Köhler, 2016).

The Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV - Energieeinsparverordnung) established in 2007 is a case in point which illustrates the difficulties of vertical coordination and the problematic relationship between the federal state, the Länder and municipalities. While the requirements set in 2016 are reasonable from a climate policy perspective, German energy and climate change policies seem to suffer from a coordination deficit due to limited municipal resources such as expertise and manpower. Consequently, the degree of implementation differs and individual measures at the local level can barely be coordinated (Sahner and Plachta, 2013).


It is argued that the EnEV ignores local realities and sets standards which are out of reach, since it was solely planned at the federal level (Galvin, 2012). The Länder are tasked with monitoring their municipalities. However, Hennig (2013) argues that the Länder fulfill their monitoring tasks to very different degrees. Overall, the attempt to shift responsibility to the Länder in the sense of hierarchical top-down governance illustrates the challenges and pitfalls when it comes to multi-level governance. Länder regulations show a big discretion in their interpretation of the EnEV (Hennig, 2013). While some federal states “protect” their municipalities from strict enforcement of the EnEV, other federal states and municipalities position themselves as pio-neers, putting pressure on the federal government to force laggards to comply with minimum standards.

Yet, not only the Länder pursue their own agendas; municipalities, too, have their own strate-gies. The Local Authorities Guideline (Kommunalrichtlinie - KRL) is a support program from the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. It serves as the main instrument of the National Climate Initiative (Göpfert, 2014) and focuses on initial ad-vice, climate action concepts as well as climate action management. Cities can apply for fund-ing for the position of a climate manager sponsored by the KRL for three years. In addition, the ministry has introduced the Masterplan 100% Climate Action, a key characteristic of which is the financial support of so-called Masterplan Municipalities (MPK - Masterplan Kommunen). Consequently, some cities are forerunners while others are laggards.

The difference between laggards and forerunners is even more evident when we look at energy and CO2 policies at the Länder level. There is a major conflict between those Länder that pro-duce a significant amount of renewable energy (such as Lower Saxony) and those relying on traditional energy production (for instance Baden-Württemberg). The latter seek to protect their home industries and fear financial as well as political costs. Consequently, they under-mine the expansion of electricity grids for the transport of renewable energy from the north to the south. Furthermore, resources spent on research programs or funds made available to citizens differ from Bundesland to Bundesland, increasing the gap and illustrating difficulties of horizontal coordination. Conflicts among the Länder in terms of CO2 reduction related policies serve as a case to exemplify tensions in terms of horizontal policy coordination.

Conflicts not only occur among the Länder; there is also tension between the Länder and their respective municipalities. Freiburg, for instance, was prevented by its state government when it sought to designate areas for wind power plants (Späth and Rohracher, 2011; Galvin, 2012). This case illustrates challenges in terms of vertical coordination. So-called ecopoints (Ökopunk-te) demonstrate a further case that underlines tensions between state governments and their respective municipalities. Ecopoints (Maurer and Schader, 2019) should compensate for the sealing of areas. For example, farmers converting a field into a meadow can claim ecopoints be-cause a meadow is “more ecologically valuable” than a field. Municipalities and businesses are allowed to sell these points, they can even be found on eBay. The system is criticized as a mod-ern form of indulgence trade. In Baden-Wurttemberg almost 30 percent of compensation and replacement measures were not implemented in 2019, and similar numbers can be found for Bavaria and Hesse. A survey among the 16 state governments revealed that most environment ministries do not know how many ecopoints are registered or traded in their state. Municipali-ties and regional governments are supposed to control ecopoints.

Local governments not only engage domestic regional and federal institutions; they also col-laborate in global, transnational networks. The ICLEI, Energy Cities and the Climate Alliance represent the three biggest networks (Kern and Bulkeley, 2009). Much of this collaboration


evolved as EU-funded projects, substantiating the multilevel governance of this policy sector in Europe. However, most cities participating in those networks are forerunners in the sustain-ability field, increasing the gap between leaders and laggards. Many local authorities lack nec-essary resources; for instance, they lack the expertise required to implement and monitor cli-mate policies and they do not have the financial resources to comply with national legislation.

All these cases illustrate the poor vertical coordination of climate change policies in Germany. Institutional relations easily become tense when environmental issues such as the reduction of CO2 emissions come on the agenda. The federal government has no monopoly on setting policy objectives; the Länder are also engaged in policy making and their policies may or may not correlate with those by the federal government.

Sweden

Sweden embarked comparatively early on public policy to protect the environment. Sweden was also among the first countries to create an agency in the environmental policy sector when The Environmental Protection Agency [Naturvårdsverket] was created in 1967. This attention to the environment was later directed more specifically towards the climate change cluster of issues.

Sweden is often described as a forerunner in environmental protection and the promotion of sustainable development. While there certainly is some merit to that account there are also some specific factors that help explain Sweden’s early commitment to environmental issues. First, Sweden has for a long time relied on hydro-electric and nuclear power for its supply of electric power. In 2017, hydro-electric power accounted for 40 percent of the total production of electric power and nuclear power plants generated another 40 percent. While both of these technologies have potential or real impact on the environment, they are both fossil free, hence meeting greenhouse emission reduction targets has presented less of a challenge to Sweden than for most other countries.

Secondly, Sweden has pushed climate change-related issues intensively on the international stage although the country’s influence on international agreements has been marginal at best. Parts of the soft power that the government has tried to muster have been derived not just from implementing but also from over-implementing international accords and agreements, in an effort to lead by example (Zannakis, 2009).

The vertical coordination of climate change policy in Sweden is complex and fragmented. As Linander (2019) shows, central, regional and local governments use different targets for the reduction of greenhouse emission reductions and also different measures of such emissions, thereby exacerbating policy coordination problems. The Swedish case also highlights the need for central government to strike a balance between too much and too little steering and provi-sion of guidelines to regions and cities. Interestingly, Linander (2019:32-33) shows how cities and regions criticize central government for not doing enough in this respect in the climate change policy field, stating that “cities are waiting for consistent state steering” (present au-thors’ translation).

Thus, in vertical policy coordination, as in Spider Man, with great powers come great responsi-bilities. Sweden’s regions and cities enjoy extensive formal autonomy in relationship to central government, yet in greenhouse emissions reduction policy, where central government seeks to take command, these autonomous institutions want more steering from the state, not less. We mentioned earlier how the divorce between formal jurisdiction on the one hand and proximity to both the sources and the solutions to greenhouse gas emission reduction is a major compli-


cating factor. Deeply aware of this problem, cities and regions in Sweden seem to urge central government to take a higher profile on these issues in order to strengthen the vertical policy coordination (Linander, 2019).

Central government is, however, not idling on these issues. It employs legislation, regulation, and subsidies to drive environmental policies and programs. Overarching legislative frame-works such as The Environmental Code (miljöbalken) provide the judicial backbone of the envi-ronmental policy and define the roles of subnational government. The chief role of The Code is to set the goal and means of sustainable development. Frequently updated and amended, the Code serves as a foundation for regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. Subnational governments are instructed to develop sustainable plans for their physical planning.

Regional government in Sweden (landsting) is predominantly engaged in healthcare. In addi-tion to subsidies from central government, some 90 percent of regional governments’ budgets goes into health care. Swedish regional government has two components. One is the regional government based in regional elections producing a regional elected assembly. The other com-ponent is the regional tier of central government (länsstyrelse), historically referred to as “the extended arm of the King”. In the area of environmental policy and climate change-related actions, the länsstyrelse plays a more important role as it oversees local governments, engages the EU structural funds, and monitors the implementation of central government programs at the regional and local levels.

For the present context we should note that regions are not a very significant environmental policy arena. The role of regions in the environmental policy sector is primarily to surveil local governments’ implementation of central government policies. This is the common institution-al arrangement in most unitary states.

Turning now to the local level, Swedish local governments enjoy considerable formal and de facto autonomy. While it is true that there has been a growing tendency among central govern-ment institutions to steer and control local authorities, the pattern that local governments are quite autonomous remains true.

Much of the collaboration between the public and private sector takes place at the local level. This is also where the bulk of environmental policy and sustainability programs and policies is put into action. These two aspects are closely related. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing a “green economy” requires close collaboration between the city and private sector research facilities. The city of Gothenburg is a good example, having received a dozen or so in-ternational awards for its work on environmental, economic and social sustainability, in close collaboration with the city’s corporate sector (see Pierre, 2019).

Moreover, European cities are increasingly networked in the sustainable development policy field. The EU’s “smart cities” program supports transnational networks of cities as a means of diffusing knowledge and technologies to support a sustainable city. It is safe to say that the learning and diffusion of knowledge that takes place in these networks is at least as important to local governments as are its contacts with higher echelons of their respective national gov-ernments.

All is not well, however. Betsill and Bulkeley (2007:450) argue that there is “a lack of ‘fit’ be-tween the nature of the problem to be governed and the institutions undertaking governance”. This ‘lack of fit’ refers precisely to the disjuncture between issue ownership and political and administrative legal leverage. which is the theme of this paper. Similarly, Nilsson et al. (2012)


note that the governance of climate change action at the local level is poorly institutionalized. Thus, the local governance of climate change-related policies and programs has been conducted to a large extent by informal networks and other forms of contextual forms of collaboration be-tween the local government and actors in their external environment. Some might argue that informal networks and partnerships provide better opportunities for innovation than more formalized structures of collaboration, but in the longer haul it might be desirable to have a higher degree of institutionalization providing a framework for collaborative projects.

These observations refer to the horizontal governance dimension, i.e. patterns of collaboration and exchanges between the local authority and actors in the surrounding society, and less so to the vertical dimension of governance and policy coordination. In this latter dimension, as we saw earlier, national legislation gives local government a baseline definition of assignments but much of the activity in the sustainable development sector should be seen as part of the realm of the local authority’s autonomy; how cities relate to the corporate sector or to interna-tional networks of cities is essentially their own choice.

Comparative analysisIn an ideal intergovernmental relationship arrangement, we would expect lower-level rule-making to be embedded in upper-level policy objectives and regulatory frameworks. However, the autonomy of regional and local government allows subnational institutions to set their own objectives which may or may not correlate with national objectives. In other instances, cit-ies and regions criticize central government for not coordinating sufficiently. Also, subnational government may use other measurements on greenhouse gas emissions than those used by national government, something which makes any coordinated assessment of environmental change very difficult (Linander, 2019).

These observations suggest that the targets of steering, in order to deliver good climate change policy, sometimes demand stricter steering in order to boost policy efficiency. The idea that the demand for steering sometimes exceeds the supply is not new (see Jacobsson, Pierre and Sundström, 2015) but it is nonetheless worth noting as it suggests that cities and regions may find their institutional autonomy to be an impediment to policy efficiency.

In both Germany and Sweden, the self-governing mandate grants all municipalities the right to “decide all matters relevant to the local community in their own responsibility within the frame of existing legislation” (in Germany, the Grundgesetz, article 28, section 2; in Sweden, the Instrument of Government, Chapter 1, par. 1 has an almost identical ruling). While this ar-rangement may vitalize local democracy, it also presents significant hurdles for vertical policy coordination and, by extension, for efficient policies to address climate change.

In both countries it is easy to note the tensions between those institutions that own the green-house emissions reduction issue and those that control the regulatory and financial leverage required to execute environmental protection and climate change-related policies and pro-grams. However, the two countries have chosen somewhat different paths towards strength-ening the vertical coordination of CO2-reduction policy. In Germany, the complexity and chal-lenges of multi-level governance become evident when we look at climate change policies more broadly. The division into laggards and forerunner municipalities underlines the wickedness of the climate change policy sector, highlighting the bargain over power and resources. Since municipalities are not only embedded in the federal government structure but also of their re-spective Land, political interests come into play and have tremendous consequences on policy implementations. Thus, Germany serves as a case in point to illustrate the consequences of


poorly coordinated policies. Again, cities produce most of the pollution and greenhouse gases, and while some cities address this problem by network collaboration to disseminate knowledge and help develop new technologies, there are also those that lack the necessary resources and expertise.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, which as a unitary state should offer fewer challenges to vertical policy coordination, cities and regions argue that occasionally there is a shortage of central govern-ment control and coordination. Central government has introduced (or in some cases re-intro-duced) instruments and levers to strengthen its control over cities and regions (Statskontoret, 2019a). This development can be seen across the full range of policy sectors in which local gov-ernment is a significant agent in the delivery of services or in the implementation of programs. Here, climate change emerges as a cross-cutting issue challenging almost all areas of the local authority, urging the city to reach out to the local private sector in order to promote research and development in green technologies and also to assist in developing more environmentally friendly production processes.

As a result, many cities find themselves in a situation where they have to juggle the complex vertical multilevel governance processes against horizontal, collaborative governance to bring in businesses and stakeholders into joint projects. Thus, the Swedish case offers interesting findings. Intergovernmental relations tend to present challenges more frequently than they support CO2 emission policies; goal setting and target setting does not correspond across dif-ferent institutional levels and the re-empowerment of central government in relationship to cities and regions has a lasting impact on policy implementation at the local level.

Furthermore, both countries substantiate the close relationship between horizontal and verti-cal policy coordination; poor horizontal policy coordination at the central government level creates or exacerbates problems of vertical policy coordination. In Sweden, this phenomenon was evident as the 2006-14 central government pursued several large-scale infrastructural pro-jects, thereby allowing for increasing CO2 emissions, without considering how the new infra-structures would impact the prospects of reaching the CO2 policy targets (Linander, 2019).

A final observation from this comparative analysis, coming back to a previous point, is that the concept “vertical” in a multilevel governance context is not always synonymous with a top-down model of political and administrative communication but can also refer to more iterative and interactive exchanges between levels. In most other policy sectors, “vertical” coordination denotes central government instructing regions and cities on how to implements its policies and programs. However, the multilevel governance perspective of greenhouse emission reduc-tion policy suggests that cities, as loci of collaborative public and private ventures to develop green technology to reduce emissions, sometimes are transmitters of policy ideas at least as much as they are recipients.

ConclusionsCoordinating public policy across jurisdictional borders and institutional levels has proven to be a challenge for central governments for a long time. The novelty that this paper brings to the discussion is twofold. First, we show that vertical policy coordination is essentially a two-way street; ideas and calls for action flow both top-down and bottom-up. Cities’ and regions’ demands for more coordination sometimes exceed central government’s provision of such co-ordination. In the EU multilevel governance of environmental policy, broadly defined, there is additional complexity to vertical coordination when EU institutions and domestic subnational institutions engage each other directly, bypassing central governments.


Secondly, the context where cities own issues related to the reduction of greenhouse gas emis-sions but lack the expertise and resources to address those issues by themselves has proven to be a powerful incentive for cities to escape the domestic institutional hierarchy and seek collaboration with other cities and also with the local business community. In other words, when the vertical supply of resources dries up, many (not all) cities explore horizontal avenues to collaboration. This strategy is likely to exacerbate vertical policy coordination problems in the future. It is also likely to increase the gap between cities that lead the development towards reducing CO2 emissions and the laggards. Thus, there is a vicious circle at work; when vertical policy coordination fails, regions and cities often find themselves pitted in horizontal-level competition for financial and other resources, something which further exacerbates the verti-cal policy coordination challenges.

Such vicious circles can be arrested. Central government has, on occasion, and in extraordinar-ily challenging circumstances, stepped in and overruled even constitutionally guaranteed local government mandates. For instance, in response to a major financial crisis in Sweden in 1991 and 1992, central government chose to override local governments’ authority to set their own tax levels and imposed a cap on local taxes. The decision was justified with reference to the economic crisis and the concern that local governments would significantly raise taxes. Also, the measure was explicitly short-term. Enforcing national decisions on autonomous cities and regions is ultimately a matter of weighing costs against benefits.

Against this background further research should include more cases with regard to the degree of autonomy of local government (Ladner, Keuffer and Baldersheim, 2015), and analyze differ-ent ways in which central/federal government can control local authorities enjoying different degrees of autonomy. One could, for instance, compare a state with a high degree of autonomy (Germany or Sweden), a medium degree (the Netherlands) and a low degree (United Kingdom).

The root cause of the complexity of vertical policy coordination is that these issues sit at the juncture of two constitutional principles. One is the assertion that central government’s deci-sions and action should cover the entire realm. The other principle, related to the idea of sub-sidiarity, states that local (and often also regional) government should be granted some degree of autonomy so that it can respond to local demands and needs. In most countries, this ap-parent contradiction is resolved through a system of either assigning different policy areas to different institutional levels, or ensuring that essentially all levels are involved, with functional differentiation, in all or most policy areas. In both models, but primarily in the latter model, the Parker principle of linking authority to accountability constitutes a significant obstacle to vertical policy coordination.

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Bandwagons and Quiet Corners in Regulatory GovernanceOn regulation-specific and institutional drivers of stakeholder engagement

Caelesta BraunProfessor at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University

Adrià AlbaredaAssistant Professor at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology - Erasmus University Rotterdam; and Researcher at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University

Bert FraussenAssistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University

Moritz MüllerPhD candidate at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University

AbstractStakeholder engagement is often considered an essential component of regulatory policymak-ing and governance. Our main aim in this paper is to explain variation in stakeholder engage-ment across regulatory trajectories. More specifically we aim to assess why some regulatory policymaking processes attract a larger and more diverse set of stakeholders, while others at-tract much smaller and more homogenous regulatory crowds. We build on a newly established dataset of primary data regarding stakeholder engagement in EU regulatory governance to test our assumptions. We find that both the salience and the number of different consultation in-struments affect the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement, whereas the complexity of regulations seems to mainly affect the density of stakeholder engagement. The combination of both institutional and regulation-specific drivers of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance yields relevant implications for the study of responsive regulation and the role stakeholders can fulfill in regulatory decision-making.

Keywordsstakeholder, engagement, regulatory governance, interest representation


We would like to thank the journal editor, as well as the anonymous referees, for their valuable feed-back and comments. We would also like to thank the participants at the 2018 ECPR General Con-ference (Hamburg), the 2018 NIG Conference (The Hague) for excellent feedback on the paper. We further acknowledge funding from the Dutch Research Council (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Weten-schappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)), grant no. 452–14-012 (Vidi scheme).


IntroductionStakeholder engagement has become a prominent principle in the study and practice of (supra)national regulatory policymaking and governance. The OECD considers stakeholder engage-ment in regulatory governance a good governance practice: “The central objective of regulatory policy – ensuring that regulations are designed and implemented in the public interest – can only be achieved with help from those concerned by regulations – the stakeholders” (OECD 2016, p. 3). The importance of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance has long been identified in the literature on regulatory governance (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992; Black 2003; Coglianese, Zeckhauser and Parson 2004) and more recently through the regulatory interme-diary framework, which theorizes the different roles stakeholders can fulfill in regulatory gov-ernance. Engaging stakeholders will benefit the regulatory process throughout the different stages, including both ‘downstream’ roles (monitoring and compliance) and ‘upstream’ roles such as providing expertise and in advisory functions (Abbott and Snidal 2013; Abbott, Levi-Faur and Snidal 2017; Brès, Mena and Salles-Djelic 2019; Martinez, Verbruggen and Fearne 2013). In addition, stakeholder engagement has been related to the effectiveness and legiti-macy of governance (e.g. Bingham, Nabatchi and O’Leary 2005) and is often considered critical to both collect necessary policy input and ensure alignment between regulations and the public interest (European Commission 2017; OECD 2012).

We will contribute to the study of stakeholder engagement in (supra)national regulatory gov-ernance by explaining the number (density) and type (diversity) of stakeholders that engage with policymakers in regulatory governance, defined as the process by which multiple public and private stakeholders participate to advance regulations (Gray and Lowery 1996; Lowery et al. 2015; see also Arras 2017; Berkhout et al 2015; Halpin and Jordan 2012; Leech et al 2005). Our main aim in this paper is therefore to assess why some supranational regulatory processes attract a large and diverse set of stakeholders, while others attract a much smaller and more homogenous set of stakeholders. Our analysis and findings make a twofold contribu-tion to the study of stakeholder engagement in (supra)national regulatory governance. First, we contribute by developing an analytical framework which we empirically test to demonstrate how contextual factors affect stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance. Second, our findings indicate that the future models of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance can be better specified by explicitly including regulation-specific and institutional explanatory factors.

In the remainder of this paper, we first discuss the importance of examining stakeholder en-gagement for the study of (supra)national regulatory governance. We then introduce our theo-retical framework of key regulation-specific and institutional factors to explain variance in stakeholder engagement. More specifically, we focus on regulation-specific (i.e., salience and complexity) and institutional-level characteristics (i.e., consultation instruments and admin-istrative capacity) to explain why stakeholder engagement varies across European Union (EU) regulations. The EU is considered a typical case of the regulatory state (Majone 1997) and has one of the most extensive and transparent consultation regimes. Specifically, we focus on how the European Commission involves stakeholders in the regulatory-formulation stage. Being one of the most elaborate and ambitious consultative regimes (Bunea 2017, p. 47), the EU stands as a relevant case to examine the determinants of stakeholder engagement in regula-tory processes. To test our assumptions, we drew on novel datasets of stakeholder engagement in EU regulatory governance: a regulatory database consisting of 47 regulations passed by the EU in the period 2015-2016, containing an extensive analysis of regulatory characteristics, and

211B ra u n / A l ba red a / Fra u s s e n / M ül le r | B a nd wa g on s a nd Q uie t Co r n e rs in R e g ula to r y G ove r n a nce

a stakeholder database that comprises key organizational features of 2,656 stakeholders that mobilized for these regulations. We focused on a two-year period as this enabled us to collect data on regulations in a variety of policy domains, as well as other quantitative (e.g. media data) and qualitative data through interviews with public officials and stakeholders.

Our main finding is that salience and the specific usage of consultation instruments explain both the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement, whereas complexity only seems to affect the density of stakeholder engagement. We did not find significant effects of adminis-trative capacity on both the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement. Our analysis suggests that for better explanations of the effect of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance, regulation-specific characteristics as well as institutional arrangements are impor-tant conditions to consider.

Explaining stakeholder engagement in regulatory governanceAn important explanation within the literature on interest representation and particularly rel-evant for examining stakeholder engagement in supranational regulatory governance concerns the type and level of government activities. Such ‘demand-side’ factors are generally positively associated with the type and number of stakeholders that engage with the decision-making process (Gray Lowery and Benz 2013; Halpin, Fraussen and Nownes 2018; Klüver and Zeidler 2018; Leech et al 2005; Lowery and Gray 2004, Lowery et al 2004). In the same vein, we expect such demand side factors, i.e. both institutional and regulation-specific contextual factors, to affect stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance.

More precisely, we develop a framework to systematically assess sources of variation in the number (density) and type (diversity) of stakeholders involved in regulatory governance. We refer to stakeholders collectively as the set of any type of organization that has a stake in particular regulatory policy issues, such as firms, business associations, NGOs, civil society organizations and public authorities. In the context of this paper, density refers to the num-ber of stakeholders that mobilized around a specific regulation. Previous research has demon-strated that density varies considerably across policy sectors and policy issues (e.g. Berkhout et al 2015; Klüver and Zeidler 2018; Messer, Berkhout and Lowery 2011), with typically a few issues generating high levels of stakeholder mobilization, and many issues receiving very little attention from stakeholders. Whereas the former pattern has been described as a “bandwagon effect”, as more stakeholders jump on board when an issue starts moving, the latter has been referred to as “quiet corners” (Baumgartner and Leech 2001; Halpin 2011; see also Culpepper 2010, 248), for which only a few stakeholders become engaged. Clearly, variation in the density of stakeholders will strongly affect policymaking dynamics, and consequently also affect the possible role and impact of stakeholders (e.g. Breunig and Koski 2018; Hanegraaff, Beyers and Braun 2011). Rather than the sheer number of mobilized actors, diversity refers to the variety of substantive interests that engage with policymakers, often conceptualized as the presence of different organizational types or models (e.g. Lowery, Gray and Fellowes 2005; Minkoff, Aisenbrey and Agnone 2008). Diversity is at least equally relevant as density, as it is assumed to affect the variety in perspectives, voices and information that get heard by policymakers (Berkhout, Hanegraaff and Braun 2017; Beyers and Arras 2019; Pedersen, Halpin and Rasmus-sen 2015; Rasmussen and Carroll 2014).

Density and diversity are related, yet not in a simple linear way. That is, the involvement of more stakeholders does not necessarily result in a greater diversity among engaged stakehold-ers. Research has shown that both population dynamics (the number and type of stakeholders


that are already mobilized) and institutional factors affect both density and diversity in related yet distinct ways (Lowery et al 2005; Lowery and Gray 2016). Understanding how regulation-specific and institutional contextual factors affect both the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement across regulatory processes helps to better specify models of stakeholder engage-ment. Moreover, it improves our understanding of variation in the responsiveness or biased nature characterizing regulatory processes, as well as the intermediary role stakeholders can potentially fulfill in the regulatory process. We focus on selected regulation-specific charac-teristics, including salience and complexity, as such issue-characteristics are generally consid-ered important to take into account when explaining stakeholder engagement (Beyers, Dür and Wonka 2018). In addition, institutional factors have been shown to affect stakeholder engagement as well, and both consultation arrangements (Fraussen, Albareda and Braun 2020; Halpin and Fraussen 2017; Pedersen et al. 2015; Van Ballaert 2015) and administrative capac-ity (Baekgaard, Mortensen and Seeberg 2018; Bark and Bell 2019) are particularly relevant for explaining stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance. In the next section, we ex-plain these regulation-specific and institutional characteristics in more detail, and formulate hypotheses considering their effect on the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance.

Hypotheses

First, as regards regulation-specific factors, we expect that the salience of a regulation, de-fined here as the relative political attention some specific regulatory issue gains compared to other regulatory issues, affects the size and kind of regulatory mobilization (Klüver, Braun and Beyers 2015). Salient regulations are more visible to potentially interested actors and con-stituents, which is expected to foster the mobilization not only of those actors that normally mobilize, but also of those who represent diffuse interests – thus increasing the density and the diversity of stakeholder engagement (De Bruycker, Berkhout and Hanegraaff 2019). Previ-ous research has demonstrated that as legislative proposals increase in salience, they become more multidimensional and thus speak to multiple audiences. In such cases, a larger number and often more diverse set of stakeholders will face greater incentives to mobilize and become politically active (Baumgartner et. al 2009; Baumgartner and Mahoney 2008; Hanegraaff and Berkhout 2018; Klüver et al. 2015; Schattschneider 1960). We expect a similar dynamic of con-flict expansion and the mobilization of a larger (denser) and more diverse set of stakeholders to apply to regulations.

H1: The more salient a regulation, the higher the levels of density and diversity char-acterizing stakeholder mobilization.

Second, we expect that the level of complexity of a regulation affects the size and kind of stake-holder mobilization. In the case of regulatory governance, the direction of this relationship is less clear-cut than the anticipated effect of salience for stakeholder engagement during the legislative phase. Complexity is defined as the ‘degree to which a given policy problem is dif-ficult to analyze, understand or solve' (Klüver 2013: 58). On the one hand, higher complexity is expected to result in a negative relationship with the quantity and type of stakeholder mobi-lization, as fewer stakeholders will be capable of offering relevant policy goods and hence have fewer incentives to mobilize (Bouwen 2004; Braun 2012; Klüver et al 2015; ). At the same time, in regulatory governance, commonly associated with expert engagement (see Majone 1997), such a negative relationship might be less outspoken or even be absent given the significant prevalence of experts in the process. So, while we expect an effect of regulatory complexity, at this point we have no concrete assumption regarding the direction of this effect.


H2: The level of complexity characterizing a regulation will affect the levels of density and diversity characterizing stakeholder mobilization.

In addition to regulation-specific characteristics, we also expect institutional factors to affect the density and diversity of stakeholder mobilization. Consultation tools vary in their degree of openness and hence shape the number and type of stakeholders they filter into the policy system (Pedersen et al. 2015; see also Bunea 2017; Rasmussen and Carroll 2013; Van Ballaert 2017). In EU regulatory governance, many approaches involve a combination of open and closed consultation tools, such as online consultation, advisory committees, expert groups and workshops (see Fraussen et al. 2020 for a more detailed discussion). Our assumption is that as more tools are being applied, both the number and diversity of stakeholders will increase.

H3: The more consultation tools have been applied, the higher the levels of density and diversity characterizing stakeholder mobilization.

Furthermore, studies of stakeholder engagement at the EU-level have demonstrated variance of stakeholder mobilization patterns within specific EU institutions, for instance across differ-ent Directorate-Generals, as well as inter-institutional variation in stakeholder mobilization, such as the European Commission versus European Parliament, because of the varying infor-mational demand by either distinct units of a particular public institution or across distinct public institutions (Broscheid and Coen 2003; Coen and Katsaitis 2013; 2017; Princen and Kerremans 2008; Rasmussen and Carroll 2013). We focus on how the administrative capacity of public institutions, defined as “the ability to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives” (OECD 2003, p 5), affects stakeholder engagement in regulatory processes. More specifically, we focus on one particular dimension of administrative capacity, namely the human resources of public agencies (see Berkhout et al. 2015 for a similar approach). On the one hand, higher administrative capacities might result in a lower number and type of stake-holders (Berkhout et al. 2015; Bouwen 2004; Coen and Katsaitis 2013), the assumption be-ing that higher administrative capacity implies more internal know-how and policy expertise, which reduces the need for information provided by stakeholders (Baekgaard et al. 2018). On the other hand, these higher administrative capacities might also improve the ability of public institutions to engage with a wider set of stakeholders, either to collect more relevant exper-tise or to ensure broader societal legitimacy (Thomson and Perry 2006). As both expectations appear plausible, we posit no directional effect but a general hypothesis regarding the effect of institutional administrative capacities.

H4: Variation in administrative capacities across Directorate-Generals will affect the levels of density and diversity characterizing stakeholder mobilization.

Design The strong emphasis on regulatory governance in the EU and its Member States as well as the general demand for interest representation and inter- and intra-institutional variation of interest representation in the EU, render it a highly relevant case to study the (variation of) the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement in supranational regulatory governance. First of all, the EU’s nature as a regulatory state (Majone 1997) renders it a relevant case for an assessment of stakeholder engagement in supranational regulatory governance, also consider-ing that most regulation in EU Member States nowadays originates at the EU-level or at the very least from the interplay between national and EU-level governance. Second, as in other national political systems, we have witnessed a positive correlation between government ac-tivity and interest group mobilization in EU governance more generally (Berkhout and Lowery


2010; Coen and Richardson 2009, Coen and Katsaitis 2013; 2017; Princen and Kerremans 2008; Wonka et al 2010). In addition, multiple studies test institutional factors as explanatory variables for stakeholder mobilization in the EU (Broscheid and Coen 2003; Coen and Katsaitis 2013; 2017; Princen and Kerremans 2008; Rasmussen and Carroll 2013), or more directly examine demand-side effects as part of population ecology models of interest mobilization. These studies have shown a significant effect of demand-side factors for stakeholder engage-ment at the EU level as well (Berkhout et al 2015). In sum, the nature of the EU as a regulatory state and general significant stakeholder engagement warrant a study of stakeholder engage-ment in regulatory governance. Specifically, we focus on the European Commission, as the EU institution with the exclusive right to initiate regulations. During the policy-formulation stage, that is, before the Commission publishes a regulatory proposal that will then go to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, Commission officials reach out and interact with stakeholders through different consultation mechanisms to obtain political and expert information about the regulatory issue under discussion.

To test our hypotheses regarding stakeholder engagement in EU regulatory governance, we constructed two datasets. First, we constructed a regulatory database including characteris-tics of specific regulatory proposals to facilitate the study of regulation-specific characteris-tics. These proposals were selected based on a full overview of EU legislative output in the period 2015-2016 in the context of a larger research project on stakeholder engagement in supranational regulatory governance led by one of the authors. We first selected all output that followed the Ordinary Legislative Procedure (OLP) and downloaded the 127 legislations through Euro-Lex. We opted for legislation following the OLP as it is the current standard decision-making procedure for adopting EU legislation (European Union, 2007) and allows us to control for non-equivalent decision-making procedures. To select the regulatory proposals from this full list of OLP output, we define regulation as the intentional intervention in the activities of a target population, following Koop and Lodge (2017, p. 95-108). For our study, we consider interventions to be of a direct and/or indirect nature, the activities can be economic and/or non-economic, the regulatee may equally be a public-sector or private-sector actor, and we refine our analyses to public-sector regulators. While the majority of the cases in our regula-tory database are actual regulations, we also included legislative cases with a strong regulatory dimension. Additionally, to account for variation across policy areas (Van Ballaert 2017), we examine six different policy areas in which the EU has exclusive or shared competences with the Member States: (1) Finance, banking, pensions, securities, insurances; (2) State aids, com-mercial policies; (3) Health; (4) Sustainability, energy, environment; (5) Transport, telecom-munications; (6) Agriculture and fisheries. As a consequence, our dataset excludes cases that were exclusively distributional in nature (n=10), centered on EU agency functioning or EU internal matters (n=8) could not be classified in any of the six policy domains of interest for the study (n = 36) and codifications of previous regulations (n = 9). Out of the 64 remaining regulations, our analysis of the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance focuses on the 47 regulations for which certain types of formal consultation tools have been employed by the European Commission.

Our second dataset includes the stakeholders that were involved in the 47 regulations that had some sort of formal consultation tools in place, including open (online) consultations, conferences, public hearings and events, workshops, meetings and seminars, expert groups of the Commission and direct meetings with Commission officials (European Commission 2017). To obtain a complete list of stakeholders, we consulted the Commission’s proposals, available consultation documents, and impact assessments. As we aimed to obtain as comprehensive a


picture of stakeholder engagement as possible, we also reviewed other official documents, EU websites, register of expert groups. Furthermore, when the list of stakeholders participating in a particular type of consultation could not be identified via these publicly available sourc-es, we contacted the responsible DG to request the list of stakeholders involved. Combining all these approaches, we identified 2,656 stakeholders, including firms and institutions, but excluding private citizens and anonymous responses to the Commission's consultations. We coded each identified stakeholder following a well-established method in recent interest group studies (Berkhout et al. 2017; 2018; Bernhagen et al. 2016; Beyers et al. 2014). Relying on publicly available data from different organization’s websites, human coders identified several key features of the 2,656 stakeholders, including type of group, level of mobilization, country of origin, policy focus, and nature of membership (if applicable).

Dependent variables: density and diversity

The dependent variables of our analysis include the density and diversity of the 2.656 stake-holders engaged in the set of 47 regulations. These variables are measured by examining the type and number of interest groups involved via consultation tools for the regulations for which consultation tools were employed. Density is measured as the count of the absolute number of stakeholders involved in each regulation and ranges from 1 to 341 groups per regu-lation. Our measure of diversity of each regulation is the Shannon-normalized index based on a 10-category classification (citizen groups, trade unions, professional associations, business associations, firms, research institutes, institutions, national authorities, EU authorities, and others (including courts, foreign public authorities, and international organizations)).1 This coding scheme treats professional associations, business associations and individual firms as distinct stakeholders to allow for the idea of business pluralism (Eising 2007; see also Pagliari and Young 2016). Similar to the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and other diversity indices, the Shannon index summarizes the diversity of a population (in our case all actors involved in a regulation) in which each member (i.e., stakeholder) belongs to a unique group (i.e., actor type). As shown by Boydstun et al. (2014), Shannon’s H and its normalized form minimize the danger of spurious findings that could result from less sensitive Herfindahl measures. We use the normalized form (divide Shannon-H by the natural log of the total number of actor types) to transform the final output into a value between 0 and 1 for easier comparability (see Boydstun et al 2014).2

Independent and control variables

Our first set of independent variables concerns the regulation-specific characteristics. The first characteristic considered is salience of the regulation, which, as discussed by Beyers et al. (2017), can be captured in different ways. We focus here on the degree of attention that a regu-lation attracted in the media. Thus, salience is calculated by counting the number of relevant

1 — We conducted an inter-coder reliability test for a randomly selected set of 100 observations from the complete sample list of stakeholders collected. Two coders independently coded six variables for these 100 observations. The Krippendorff’s inter-coder reliability test for variable used to construct diversity measures (i.e., actor type) was α=0.833, which confirms the reliability of the data (Krippendorff 2004).

2 — Normalized Shannon’s where: xi represents an item (i.e. each actor type); p(xi) is the proportion of total attention the item receives (i.e. relative proportion of involvement of each actor type); ln p(xi) is the natural log of the proportion of attention the item receives; ln(N) is the natural log of the total number of items (i.e. total number of actor types).

– ∑n -1(p(x1)) + In p(x1)In (N)

H=


articles published in five EU-wide outlets (De Bruycker et al 2019). In the analyses we use the log of this count variable because we expect that the size of the effect of salience decreases as salience increases.3 Second, we understand complexity as the “degree to which a given policy problem is difficult to analyze, understand or solve” (Klüver 2013, p. 58), and we measure the complexity of a regulation by examining the readability of the proposal. Readability refers to the “ease of understanding or comprehension due to the style of writing” (Klare, 1963, p.1). Regulatory proposals of the Commission present the different aspects that a regulation is in-tended to address. In this case, the main assumption is that that the more technically demand-ing a regulation, the more difficult it will be in terms readability. We therefore used one of the most commonly used text readability measures of every policy proposal in our sample. More specifically, to measure complexity we rely on the Flesch Kincaid readability score (Kincaid et al., 1975), which is widely accepted and used in fields of medicine (Paasche-Orlow, Taylor and Brancati, 2003), education (Duffy and Kabance, 1982) as well as in business management (Wang, Hsieh and Sarkis 2018).4 The higher the value of the score, the more complex the regu-lation.

Regarding the institutional factors, we measured the effect of consultation arrangements on density and diversity by counting the number of different consultation tools employed by EU institutions to facilitate the dialogue and the engagement of stakeholders. We rely on an adapt-ed version of the consultation tools listed by the European Commission Better Regulation Guidelines.5 Second, following recent research on interest group mobilization in the EU (e.g. Berkhout et al. 2015), we measure administrative capacities of the respective Directorates-Generals (DGs), which are responsible for each regulation. We focus on a particular aspect of administrative capacity, namely the human resources of institutions (see Bark and Bell 2019, for a similar approach). More specifically, we operationalized administrative capacity as the number of staff working in each DG (Berkhout et al. 2015).6 The final variable, “Administrative capacity”, consists of the log of this variable.7

We add an organizational field factor as a control variable to examine the robustness of our reg-ulation-specific and institutional factors. The key inter-organizational explanatory mechanism in the study of interest representation regarding the density (and diversity) of a stakeholder community is the so-called carrying capacity of a given domain or sector. That is, the number of viable politically active organizations can be largely predicted by the number of potential constituents within a given community (Berkhout et al 2015; Lowery et al 2005; Lowery and

3 — The time frame we use to collect articles ranges from two years before the first consultation tool was implemented up to 31st of December 2017. The outlets included in the Factiva search are: Financial Times, Politico Europe, Agence Europe, EurActive, EUObserver, and European Voice. For each regulation a search code was developed including key terms related to the regulation and general terms related to the EU decision making process. Subsequently, human coders went through the articles obtained via the Factiva search and excluded those that were not deemed as relevant. That is, only those that specifically discussed the regulation or the regulatory process leading to the regulation included in our sample were coded as relevant.4 — Following Kincaid et al. (1975), the formula to obtain the readability scores reads as follows: 0.39 * average sentence length + 11.8 * (number of syllables /number of words) - 15.59.5 — see http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/guidelines/tool_50_en.htm). These are: (1) open/public (online) consultation; (2) survey and questionnaire; (3) stakeholder conference/public hearings/events; (4) stakeholder meet-ings/workshops/seminars; (5) focus groups; (6) interviews; (7) commission expert groups/similar entities; (8) SME panels; (9) consultations of local/regional authorities (networks of the Committee of the Regions); (10) direct consul-tation of special stakeholder groups (including Member States); (11) others.6 — For staff, see Human Resources Key Figures of the European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/european-commission-hr-key-figures_2016_en.pdf. 7 — This log-transformation is justified by the presence of one outlier: DG Agriculture, whose budget includes subsi-dies to Members States and thus is significantly higher than the other DGs – it represents 38% of the total budget.


Gray 2016; Hanegraaff, Beyers, and Braun 2011). This leads us to expect that the number of potential constituents of a domain is positively related (but at a declining rate) to the number of mobilized stakeholders.

In order to measure the overall density of the included regulatory domains, or their carrying capacity, we needed a measure that validly captures the overall community of active stake-holders. In US research, for instance, such measures have been constructed by using (state or federal) lobby register data to count the overall number of mobilized stakeholders (Leech et al 2005; Lowery and Gray 1996). We used the Transparency Register, the register commissioned by both the EU Commission and the EU Parliament, which includes stakeholders who have been consulted by one of the EU institutions.8 The transparency register has been criticized for its reliability, given the voluntary nature of registrations. Yet its quality and inclusion of stake-holders has improved in recent years, rendering it useful for the purpose of academic research (Berkhout et al 2018; Greenwood and Dreger 2013). Our measure of the organizational field factor is constructed on the domain rather than the regulation or DG level to account for the effect of the wider interest community on regulation-specific mobilization. It is a count of the number of stakeholders for each of the six domains in our regulatory sample. We matched our policy domains with the different “fields of interest” distinguished in the Transparency Regis-ter (see Table A1 in the Appendix). We subsequently included the logged number of stakehold-ers registered in each domain to construct the measure of density, as we assume a decreasing effect size as the number of stakeholders increases (Klüver 2013, 120). Tables A2 and A3 in the Appendix present the descriptive statistics and the correlation coefficients of the variables included in our models.

Analysis: the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement in eu regulatory governanceWe first assess the total number and type of stakeholders that were mobilized. This can be observed in Figure 1, which presents the distribution of stakeholders in the 47 regulations with stakeholder involvement. We relate the density of the mobilized actors to their overall diversity. Figure 1 shows a rather typical overall mobilization pattern that has also been ob-served in earlier studies of EU legislative politics (e.g. Wonka et al 2018), as well as research on stakeholder mobilization in different political systems at the national level (Baumgartner and Leech 2001, Halpin 2011). Yet, compared to previous studies, the pattern is considerably less skewed. For instance, Baumgartner and Leech, who examined lobbying patterns in the US on a random sample of 137 issues, found that the median issue attracted 15 groups, while 4 issues were characterized by lobbying of more than 500 groups. In our dataset, the median issue engaged 109 stakeholders, while we do not have strong outliers with very high levels of mobilization. Furthermore, whereas Baumgartner and Leech had many issues on which almost no rival groups were active, we do not have a long tail of regulations with very limited stake-holder mobilization. So, while the overall mobilization patterns follow a similar trend, there also appear typical characteristics of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance. Com-pared to earlier work that also included policy measures that are not regulatory in nature, in our sample fewer issues are characterized by either high levels of conflict expansion or very low mobilization of stakeholders. At face value, Figure 1 also presents a clear correlation between density and the two diversity measures, indicating a positive relationship between density and diversity. At the same time, a correlation of .64 also indicates that this relationship is not as

8 — https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/service-standards-and-principles/transparency/trans-parency-register_en


straightforward as it might seem, as high density does not always result in high diversity and vice versa (see also Table A3 in the Appendix). This is an important argument for examining the factors driving density and diversity separately.

Figure 1: Stakeholder mobilization across regulations with consultations tools

Source: The Authors

Explaining the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement

We ran several regression models to estimate the effect of the explanatory factors on density and diversity measures of our sampled regulations. Due to the small n, we discuss the results while comparing them with the bivariate relationship between the variables presented in the correlation matrix in Table A3 Tables 1 and 2 present three models for each dependent vari-able, the first two models (i.e., "a" and "b") only include regulation-specific and institutional fac-tors, while in the third model (i.e., "c") we control for the organizational field factor. To analyze density, we opt for a negative binomial regression since our dependent variable is a count vari-able and highly skewed. We used a fractional regression model to analyze the effects of our fac-tors on the diversity measure. This is an appropriate approach considering the distribution of both variables and the fact that they range between 0 and 1 and are measured as a proportion (Papke and Wooldridge 1996). In addition, we conducted variance inflation factor (VIF) test to control for possible multi-collinearity effects among our explanatory factors. Importantly, all the VIF values are below two, which is an acceptable value that indicates low correlation among the variables (see also Table A3 in the Appendix).

Table 1 presents the findings for the explanatory factors of density of stakeholder engagement at the regulation-level. First, model 1a indicates that more salient and complex regulations tend to have more stakeholders involved. Aligned with H1, the effect for salience is constant, even when controlling for institutional factors and for domain-level stakeholder density. Public


visibility thus fosters stakeholder engagement. Regarding H2 on complexity, models 1b and 1c lead to a p-value close to 0.1, thus our results should be interpreted with caution, also be-cause our bivariate analyses do not present a significant relationship between complexity and density (see Table A3 in the Appendix). The positive coefficients indicate that more complex regulations require more input from a larger set of stakeholders. Regarding our second set of hypotheses on institutional factors, we first observe that the number of consultation tools implemented by public officials has a positive relationship with density. In addition, the sig-nificant and negative relationship between density and administrative capacity that is found in the correlation matrix (see Table A3) cannot be confirmed in our multivariate analyses as the p-value of the negative estimates in model 1c is 0.374. However, alternative operationalizations of administrative capacity, focusing on the absolute budget of the DGs instead of the staff, do lead to significant results (see Table A4 in the Appendix). Lastly, the supply-side factor, do-main density, is negatively related to the level of density, yet the p-value is 0.129, indicating a weak relationship between the variables. However, this negative association could indicate an explanatory effect of carrying capacity as it suggests that a higher density is related to fewer mobilized stakeholders.

Table 1: Assessing density of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance

Model 1a Model 1b Model 1c

Estimate p-value Estimate p-value Estimate p-value

Salience 0.367 (0.104)

<.001 0.289 (0.104)

.005 0.258 (0.101)

.011

Complexity 0.121 (0.057)

.034 0.094 (0.056)

.092 0.078 (0.057)

.167

Consultation tools

0.173 (0.081)

.034 0.208 (0.081)

.010

Administrative capacity

-0.001 (0.001)

.285 -0.0004 (0.001)

.374

Density per domain

-0.745 (0.489)

.127

Intercept 1.268 (1.217)

.297 1.647 (1.182)

.163 8.021 (4.447)

.071

AIC 59.524 63.118 65.009

PseudoR2: Nagelkerke

.346 .499 .544

N 47 47 47

Source: The Authors


In Table 2 we observe that salience and the number of consultation tools are the most impor-tant factors explaining stakeholder diversity, hence confirming H1 and H3. This means that the higher the salience of the regulation, the more diverse the set of stakeholders that gets involved. This aligns with previous findings (see Hanegraaff and Berkhout 2018) and confirms that a more diverse set of stakeholders gets mobilized on a regulation when it becomes more visible to the public. Regarding the institutional demand-side factors, only the number of con-sultation tools significantly affects the diversity of stakeholder engagement. In contrast to other studies, we do not find significant effects of the administrative capacity of the DG, sug-gesting that regulation-specific demand side factors are more important explanatory factors for diversity. Importantly, this non-significant relationship holds when operationalizing ad-ministrative capacity in terms of budget instead of staff (see Table A5 in the Appendix). Lastly, our supply-side variable (i.e., density per domain), is significantly and negatively related to the level of diversity of regulations.

Table 2: Assessing diversity of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance

Model 1a Model 1b Model 1c

Estimate p-value Estimate p-value Estimate p-value

Salience 0.400 (0.113)

.001 0.304 (0.109)

.007 0.317 (0.106)

.004

Complexity 0.104 (0.060)

.094 0.051 (0.058)

.381 0.011 (0.059)

.846

Consultation tools

0.314 (0.089)

.001 0.363 (0.089)

<.001

Administrative capacity

-0.0001 (0.001)

.728 0.0004 (0.001)

.388

Density per domain

-1.220 (0.517)

.023

Intercept -2.988 (1.309)

.027 -2.878 (1.254)

.027 6.858 (4.654)

.148

AIC 18.204 19.586 20.691

PseudoR2: Nagelkerke

.266 .440 .497

N 47 47 47

Source: The Authors

Overall, our findings suggest that regulation-specific and institutional factors affect the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement. Salience and the number of consultation tools seem to explain both density and diversity, but the complexity of the regulation seems to matter


only for density and does not seem to be relevant for attracting more diverse set of stakehold-ers. In other words, highly technical regulations demand more input, but not necessarily from a diverse set of stakeholders. Another relevant difference relates to the effect of administrative capacity, which seems to matter for density – a negative relationship – but not for diversity.

Robustness checks

We ran several robustness checks. First, to examine whether our findings are applicable to regulatory processes without consultation arrangements we run t-tests comparing the means of our two main regulation-specific variables (i.e., salience and complexity). The results are sig-nificant, suggesting that cases with formal consultation vary significantly from cases without formal consultation (cf. Van Ballaert 2017) in terms of salience and complexity. However, if we run models "a" and "b" to test our main hypotheses while including the full set of regulations, including those that did not have stakeholder involvement, we obtain similar results for den-sity and diversity (see Table A6 and A7 in the Appendix). While the nature of the regulatory processes is different, it does not seem to affect our findings regarding the main explanatory factors of density and diversity. In addition, we conducted bootstrapping simulations as a re-sampling strategy to assess the robustness of our findings. The bootstrap resampling method included 1000 runs to compute confidence intervals around the observed coefficients of the regression models (see Table A8 in Appendix). Taken together, these robustness checks lend support to the analyses based on our sample of regulatory issues.

Conclusion and discussion Stakeholder engagement has long been posited as a necessary component of regulatory gov-ernance and recent advancements in the literature specify different intermediary roles of stakeholders to engage with the regulatory process (Abbott et al 2017). As different numbers and types of stakeholders capable of engaging with the regulatory process will affect both the potential outcomes of stakeholder engagement as well as the intermediary roles stakeholders can fulfill, understanding the explanatory factors of the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement is warranted. Our findings indicate that the salience of a regulation and the num-ber of different consultation tools employed by public institutions both affect the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement. The complexity of the regulation only seems to matter for the number of groups that get mobilized but is less relevant for explaining stakeholder diversity. In other words, highly technical regulations seemingly demand more input, but not necessarily from a diverse set of stakeholders. Another relevant difference between factors affecting density and diversity relates to the effect of administrative capacity, which seems to matter for density – negative relationship – but not for diversity. These are relevant findings as they point to the importance of regulation-specific explanatory factors for understanding and explaining both the number and type of stakeholders that engage with the regulatory process.

Before discussing the implications of our findings, it is important to consider the limitations of our study. We examined stakeholder engagement for a selected set of regulatory propos-als in EU governance in a given time period and for a specific role in the regulatory process. Although the robustness checks lend support to the external validity of our analyses, further research into the regulation-specific explanatory factors of stakeholder engagement is required to confirm and further specify these findings. To further test effects of regulation-specific and institutional factors on stakeholder engagement, future research could include a larger sample of regulatory proposals over a longer period of time and across various stages in the regulatory process. In addition, by studying stakeholder engagement in EU regulatory governance, we se-


lected a likely case of stakeholder engagement given its extensive consultation arrangements, providing us with the opportunity to empirically distinguish between regulatory-specific and institutional explanatory factors. Research demonstrates that such contextual factors matter for stakeholder engagement in general (Beyers et al 2015), including other institutional fac-tors, such as the degree of neo-corporatism or pluralism, characterizing stakeholder engage-ment arrangements, or the type of lobby regulation in place (Chari et al 2019; but see Lowery and Gray 1997). We could not include these factors given our single case study of the EU as a most likely case of the regulatory state, but such contextual factors are obviously relevant to include, in addition to regulation-specific factors in future research into stakeholder engage-ment in regulatory governance at (supra)national and local levels of governance.

Notwithstanding these considerations, our findings have important implications for research on stakeholder engagement in (supra)national regulatory governance in particular and stake-holder engagement in policymaking more generally. As regards regulatory governance, the literature seems inconclusive about the potential impact of stakeholder engagement in (su-pranational) regulatory governance. Studies regarding regulatory enrolment (Black 2003), re-sponsive regulation (Abbott and Snidal 2013), and the recently emerging literature on regula-tory intermediaries (Abbott et al 2017; Brès et al 2019) all emphasize the potential of involving stakeholders in regulatory trajectories for effective and responsive regulatory governance, as well as the drawbacks of stakeholder engagement, most notably regulatory capture. Examin-ing the explanatory factors of the number and type of stakeholder engagement helps to better specify the conditions under which such stakeholder arrangements are likely to yield positive outcomes or instead harm both the process and outcome of regulatory governance.

Our findings on stakeholder engagement also speak to stakeholder engagement beyond a mere focus on regulatory governance. While both salience and consultation tools relate to more di-verse and denser stakeholder engagement, complexity of regulations results in bigger crowds, but not necessarily in more diverse engagement. These findings confirm the general finding that higher levels of government activity result in higher levels of stakeholder engagement, but not necessarily in more diverse stakeholder crowds. This can be explained by the complex interplay between the density and diversity of stakeholder communities (Lowery et al 2005; 2015; Lowery and Gray 2016) as well as by a positive relationship between higher levels of government activity and a narrowed and more specialized policy engagement of stakeholders (Halpin and Thomas 2012). Understanding how density and diversity relate to each other in the context of regulatory governance is one of the likely avenues for future research as well as a more explicit comparative perspective regarding stakeholder engagement in legislative and regulatory decision-making to specify the distinctive and common explanatory factors of stakeholder engagement across public decision-making processes.

In addition, our findings on the effect of consultation arrangements are in line with recent observations regarding the effect of the design of consultation arrangements (Arras and Braun 2017; Bunea 2017, Fraussen et al. 2020; Halpin and Fraussen 2017; Pedersen et al. 2015; Van Ballaert 2015; 2017) on the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement. As consultation is often regarded as an important instrument for better regulation, assessing how the institu-tional design and type of consultation arrangements affect both the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement, and the potential intermediary roles they can fulfill, is an important avenue for further research.


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Appendix

Table A1. Match between policy domains and fields of interest of the Transparency Register

Policy domains Fields of interest in the Transparency Register

Finance, banking, pensions, securities, insurancesBanking and financial services

Economy, Finance, and the Euro

State aids, commercial policies

Competition

Business and Industry

Taxation

Trade

Health Public Health

Sustainability, energy, environment

Climate Action

Energy

Environment

Transport, telecommunications

Transport

Communications

Trans-European Networks

Agriculture and fisheriesAgricultureMaritime affairs and fisheries

Source: The Authors

Table A2. Descriptive statistics of dependent and independent variables across regula-tions (n=47)

Variable Measurement Mean (S.D.) Min-Max

Dependent variables

Density Number of skateholders per regulation 109.1 (104.779) 1-341

Diversity Shannon-H Index .505 (.27) 0-.804

Explanatory factors: Demand-side variables

Regulation-specific characteristics

Salience Logged number of articles published that were related to the regulation

2.145 (1.364) 0-4.553

Complexity Flesch Kincaid readability score 20.640 (2.481) 16.909-30.350

Institutional-demand

Consultation tools Number of consultation tools used 2.251 (2.152) 0-8

Administrative capacity Number of staff per DG 591.043 (267.602) 159-1024

Control factor: Supply-side variables

Density per domain Logged number of interest groups in each domain

3950 (1221.704) 2548-5657

Source: The Authors


Table A3. Correlation matrix of dependent and independent variables (n=47)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1.Density 1

2.Diversity 0.646*** 1

3.Salience 0.451** 0.470*** 1

4.Complexity 0.215 0.205 -0.043 1

5.Consultation tools 0.484*** 0.581*** 0.290* 0.254* 1

6.Administrative capacity -0.0309* -0.027 -0.166 0.053 -0.040 1

7.Density per domain -0.199 -0.191 0.014 -0.233 0.119 0.170 1

+p≤.1; *p≤.05; ** p≤.01; ***p≤.001

Source: The Authors

Table A5. Assessing density of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance

Model 1 Model 2

Estimate p-value Estimate p-value

Salience 0.319 (0.104) .002 0.272 (0.098) .006

Complexity 0.097 (0.057) .090 0.088 (0.056) .113

Consultation tools 0.164 (0.083) .049 0.202 (0.080) .012

Administrative capacity (DG budget logged)9

-0.075 (0.104) .468 -0.168 (0.101) .094

Density per domain -1.096 (0.481) .023

Intercept 1.764 (1.274) .166 9.831 (4.455) .011

AIC 63.152 64.919

PseudoR2: Nagelkerke .475 .576

N 47 47

Source: The Authors

9 — For budget, see Consolidated annual accounts of the EU of 2015, page 127: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/2015/EU_AnnualAccounts2015_EN.pdf.

This log-transformation is justified by the presence of one outlier: DG Agriculture, whose budget includes subsidies to Members States and thus is significantly higher than the other DGs – it represents 38% of the total budget.



Model 1 Model 2


Salience 0.297 (0.107) .008 0.301 (0.106) .007

Complexity 0.045 (0.058) .439 0.015 (0.059) .803

Consultation tools 0.324 (0.090) >.001 0.362 (0.090) <.001

Administrative capacity (DG budget logged)10

0.077 (0.108) .480 0.038 (0.108) .727

Density per domain -1.089 (0.511) .039

Intercept -3.199 (1.356) .023 6.584 (4.754) .173

AIC 19.512 20.677

PseudoR2: Nagelkerke .445 .498

N 47 47

Source: The Authors


Model 1a Model 1b


Salience 0.458 (0.159) 0.004 0.304 (0.131) 0.021

Complexity 0.245 (0.092) 0.008 0.130 (0.077) 0.098

Consultation tools 2.537 (0.274) <0.001

Administrative capacity -0.001 (0.001) 0.391

Intercept -1.771 (1.906) 0.353 -2.61433 1.51 0.085

AIC 80.086 82.109

PseudoR2: Nagelkerke 0.240 0.751

N 64 64

Source: The Authors


Table A7. Assessing diversity of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance

Model 2a Model 2b


Salience 0.481 (0.128) <0.001 0.289 (0.116) 0.015

Complexity 0.227 (0.073) 0.003 0.065 (0.064) 0.319

Consultation tools 0.548 (0.087) <0.001

Administrative capacity 0.000 (0.001) 0.646

Intercept -6.14530 1.559 <0.001 -4.119 (1.366) 0.003

AIC 32.165 24.640

PseudoR2: Nagelkerke 0.312 0.650

N 64 64

Source: The Authors

Table A8. Confidence intervals based on bootstrap simulations10

10 — We ran bootstrap simulations for each of the models to calculate confidence intervals for the coefficients (1000 runs each). The table below presents the bootstrapped confidence intervals around the coefficients attained through running the various regression models (90% confidence intervals).

The Epistemics of Policymaking: from Technocracy to Critical Pragmatism in the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Kris HartleyAssistant Professor, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong

AbstractThis essay examines epistemological tensions inherent in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) project. The clash between the totalizing logic of the SDGs and growing populist antipathy for expert governance can be better understood and potentially mediated through a critical pragmatist view. For the SDGs, technocratic fundamentalism not only serves the am-bition for universality but also ensures epistemic stability in problem framing and protects the interests that benefit from it. However, technocratic fundamentalism also undermines the mechanics of SDG localization, working against their stated aims of justice, transparency, and institutional equity; in this way, a global development agenda shaped by myopic epistemics does itself no favors on elements by which it proposes to be measured. Compounding these epistemic tensions, anti-expert and anti-intellectual populism is confronting the credibility of technocracy and governance more generally, with possible implications for national and lo-cal policymaking informed by the SDGs. The concept of critical pragmatism, as articulated by Forester, presents both a provocation to the SDG project and a vision for imparting a more participatory orientation to it. This essay elaborates on these points.

Keywordssustainable development goals, SDGs, technocracy, critical pragmatism, public policy


Forum


1. SDG technocracy: process, program, and politicsAt the UN’s Third International Conference on Financing for Development in 2015, Co-Fa-cilitator George Talbot, the Permanent Representative of Guyana, stated about financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that “politics cannot always be anticipated and are best left to the politicians, who should be allowed to resolve the remaining issues” (Leone 2015). This statement instantiates the tension between technocracy and politics in global develop-ment. While the SDGs reflect a totalizing and rationalist1 vision for advancing policy goals, operational guidance on local implementation is suggested by an array of over 200 indicators2 that act in effect as policy nudges (Hartley 2019). In this way, the translation of a global de-velopment vision into highly contextualized settings illustrates the core-periphery dynamic long characterizing development initiatives. It also reveals new opportunities to understand tensions between technocratic authority and the current era’s rising assertiveness of local and national identity movements. This essay begins by examining SDG technocracy through the lens of Marsh and McConnell’s (2010) three dimensions of policy success. It continues with a discussion about the role of technocracy in framing policy issues and the inherent epistemic instability that attends it. The essay concludes by examining ‘critical pragmatism’ as both a diagnostic and prescriptive tool for SDG localization.

At a theoretical level, the SDGs are the 21st century expression of the ‘modern project’ – an Enlightenment-style agenda that, despite its claimed independence from dogma, embraces the rule-sets of rationalism, liberalism, and internationalism (Dunne 2010). Actualizing the total-izing and rationalist vision of the SDGs is a ‘positivist’ and ‘technocratic’ orientation. Positiv-ism refers here to a theory of knowledge in which “reality exists and is driven by laws of cause and effect that can be discovered through empirical testing of hypotheses” (Fischer 1998; p. 143); positivism can manifest itself as a paradigm (Kuhn 1962) or a ‘culture’ (Ryan 2015). Technocracy applies positivist perspectives to understanding and addressing policy problems, with theoretical roots in the policy sciences, managerialism, and public choice theory (Fischer 1990).

In practice, the SDG apparatus comprises cadres of technocrats and experts generating policy ideas and ways to measure their implementation.3 Viewed critically, such cadres substantiate their advice through the credentials of their members while having the effect of de-platforming alternative ideas and perspectives at the agenda-setting stage. These cadres also appear to up-hold, consciously or otherwise, a deeply embedded epistemological legacy (i.e., positivism) that shapes policy thinking. However, the logic of these efforts is confronted by ongoing scholarly critiques of policy knowledge construction as a biased exercise. According to Kuecker and Hart-ley (2020a):

The vestiges of Enlightenment rationalism continue to privilege the problem-solving epistemic, as perpetuated by the power-knowledge nexus and valorized by ‘common-sense’ narratives about evidence-based policy. In a credibility-generating and self-referential feedback loop, experts define the parameters of policy advice, fortify themselves against competing or alternative forms of knowledge, and leverage the resulting monopoly on influence to re-assert validation (p. 5).

1 — Substituting for the term ‘rational,’ ‘rationalist’ implies a distinctive epistemological orientation that invokes the objectivity of ‘rationality’ to legitimize philosophies or practices based on underlying value-frames.2 — https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/11803Official-List-of-Proposed-SDG-Indicators.pdf (accessed 22 July 2020).3 — This cadre is constitutive of a broader ‘power-knowledge nexus’ that includes creators of knowledge (scholars and consult-ants), influencers of policy (lobbyists and advocacy-focused think tanks; see Abelson 2019), shapers of public opinion (the com-mentariat and ‘public intellectuals’), and facilitators of policy reality (politicians and policymakers), among others.

235Ha r tle y | T h e E pi s te mi c s o f Pol i c y m a k in g

The power-knowledge nexus and its constituent technocratic cadres, whether within the SDG apparatus or elsewhere, exist in no value-free vacuum (Sen 2004). The nexus frames problem definitions to fit solutions that serve particular interests, with a common example being the narrative about inefficiency in government-provided public services and the primacy of mar-ket paradigms in addressing it (see New Public Management; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). The nexus also adaptively protects its legitimacy by co-opting emergent political sentiments, as evident in deference to virtues like inclusion, deliberation, and participation expressed by post-New Public Management paradigms (see New Public Service; Denhardt and Denhardt 2000). In policy practice and in the political economy of sustainability more broadly, the substantial and largely unchallenged influence of mainstream governance paradigms, the logic of coordinated and totalizing global policy initiatives, and the maneuvers of the power-knowledge nexus can be understood through a meta-scale version of Marsh and McConnell’s (2010) three dimen-sions of policy success: process, program, and politics. The remainder of this section explores these dimensions as they relate to the SDGs.

The process dimension is exhibited through, among other things, “legitimacy in the formation of choices: that is, produced through…values of democracy, deliberation and accountability” (Marsh and McConnell 2010; p. 571). As the most coherent single vision currently articulated by the global development community, the SDG project presents its drafting process as an exercise in endogenous collective or participatory action – even in the absence of any explicit mention of democracy in the most recent SDG official report4 and in the official description of SDG #16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).5 The SDGs’ implicit deference to the princi-ples of equity and inclusion is expressed through performative overtures to stakeholder en-gagement in problem definition, options formulation, and program delivery (Fox and Stoett 2016; Gellers 2016; Sénit et al. 2016). However, the terms of this engagement are not entirely impartial. As Durnova et al. (2016) note in reference to political engagement more generally, “all collective action, such as building a coalition to support a given proposal, is never natural, obvious, or neutral; on the contrary, it is always difficult and costly” (p. 38). Given the coor-dination needs of the SDG project’s global scale, representative crowdsourcing of ideas would seem prohibitively complex. As such, localization – the city- or regional-scale interpretation and implementation of SDG targets – emerged as the preferred approach to building process le-gitimacy. However, localization efforts are geographically heterogenous and at the global scale reflect the entire continuum of political systems, confounding technocratic efforts to build an empirically-based success-narrative that is universal and consistent.

The program dimension references the ability of a policy initiative to meet desired outcomes. Indicator-based monitoring on SDG effectiveness and efficiency targets legitimizes the em-piricist approach and technocratic discourse around which SDG outcomes and successes are defined. The narrative-building mechanism of the program dimension is the institutional re-inforcement of declared policy visions and technocratic pathways. For example, iterations of the UN’s 15-year development agendas – which so far include the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) and SDGs (2015-2030) – justify continued action through failure in achiev-ing some targets and success in achieving others. Whether in the success or failure of program

4 — https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2020/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2020.pdf (accessed 7 July 2020). There is no explicit mention in the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals Report of the terms ‘democracy’ and ‘participation,’ or their derivatives. ‘Deliberative’ is mentioned once, in reference to elected or representative councils. ‘Representation’ and its derivatives, when used in reference to political processes, is mentioned 11 times, mostly in accounts about the election of women to elected or representative councils. ‘Inclusion’ and ‘inclusive’ are mentioned 21 times, mainly as titles for individual goals; neither is defined or elaborated.5 — https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2020/goal-16/ (accessed 7 July 2020).


dimensions, the SDGs’ technocratic discourse is locked-in, maintains its urgency, and self-rein-forces through cycles of need and resolution.

The final of Marsh and McConnell’s three dimensions is political success. The standards and measurement of political success differ between the SDG project’s global vision and national or subnational contexts. Macro-level political success for the SDGs is determined by the percep-tions of global institutional actors and stakeholders about project legitimacy. National buy-in is implied through the SDG ratification process. However, no formalized and systematic connection at the agenda-setting level appears to meaningfully exist between the SDGs and local governments. Material buy-in at the local level is observable only when cities and other subnational governments reference or engage with the SDGs in policymaking (Hartley 2019). At the same time, the fate of the SDGs’ political legitimacy, at any level of government, is arguably coterminous with that of the sustainability discourse more generally; for example, political debate rages about the degree to which governments at any level should commit public resources to address climate change. It is not clear, however, to what degree criticisms of the SDGs specifically are made in such debates (particularly at the local level), aside from general dissatisfaction about the subordination of local sovereignty to global interests (for discussions about this type of political agitation, see Ettinger 2020; LeRiche and Opitz 2019; Marschall and Klingebiel 2019; Lockwood 2018). While the sovereignty debate bears on the popular po-litical acceptability of the SDGs, the legitimacy of the SDGs as perceived by local or national political leadership is contingent on the flexibility with which the SDGs can be discursively reframed to serve particular political and developmental objectives.

The process-program-politics perspective illuminates power dynamics in the discourses of glob-al development. SDG legitimization can be seen as an exercise in hybrid pragmatism: the self-certitude of numbers and totalizing vision of macro-level policy goals are combined with stated deference to context through localization. From a political economy perspective, the measure-ment and subjective framing of SDG success differs among global, national, and local interests; this is the same challenge that has revealed itself in decades of development practice. In the face of contested declarations about success, the SDG discourse seeks to fortify itself against critical pushback by specifying indicator-based benchmarking and thereby disciplining local interpretation. However, this normalizing practice is impeded by substantial cross-country variation in depth, consistency, and methods of implementation and indicator measurement.6

The SDGs’ discursive bias is therefore vulnerable to critique not only on political grounds but also on epistemological ones. Across policy domains both within and outside the development sphere, there are numerous ways to define and measure success; according to Nicklin (2019), “freed from numerical constraints, [policy] successes can be acknowledged in their multitudes” (p. 188). Given that implementation is currently the only arena for meaningful local engage-ment with the SDGs (Glass and Newig 2019), power imbalances can be observed through the prism of core-periphery governance relationships and well-studied tensions between the me-chanics and politics of policymaking. At the SDG visioning stage, alternative discourses about the causes of the sustainability crisis, particularly those that indict an economic system serv-ing powerful and myopic interests, are largely invisible.

2. Technocracy and its discontentsAnti-expert and anti-intellectual populism on one side of the political spectrum, and anti-cap-italist sentiment on the other, is confronting long-entrenched forms of governance includ-

6 — https://sdg-tracker.org/ (accessed 30 March 2020).


ing those steeped in technocratic logic. Power imbalances and epistemological rigidity endure amidst the (often perfunctory) exercise of stakeholder engagement, suggesting underlying tensions at the confluence of the SDGs’ high-concept goals, more detailed targets, and action-focused indicators. Global policy visions, as products of a high-modern technocratic exercise, are coercively imposed across politically distinct micro-contexts through the institution of lo-calization. To explore this dynamic, this section discusses the conceptual provenance of tech-nocracy as a backdrop for understanding the politics of epistemic disruption and pushback.

2.1 Conceptual provenance of technocracy

The entrenched credibility of technocracy in many policymaking circles draws from a deep intellectual legacy. Long mainstream in research about public policy and administration, de-ductivist positivism appeals via technocratic logic to the practical needs of policymakers and politicians. It also well complements the measurement- and efficiency-focused reform ethic of administrative managerialism and periodic reinterpretations thereof. Connecting clearly defined problems with elegantly calibrated solutions, positivism relies on a constructed faith in the ‘common sense’ of empiricist governance, an idea timeless in both its allure and ability to reproduce power asymmetries (Riggsby 2019). However, policy issues having a high degree of ‘wickedness’ (Hartley et al. 2019; Head 2019) and ‘problemacity’ (lacking in structure; see Turnbull and Hoppe 2019) elude full reduction to measurable terms and are thus mismatched with positivist, technocratic, and even managerialist ways of thinking and governing (Scott 1998). These types of problems confound an often willfully myopic epistemic that constructs and reshapes problem discourses to suit elite interests and available policy instruments.

By nature and intent, positivism sees only what is legible based on its own terms; encoded frames limit its field of analytical vision while effectively dismissing unmeasured context. In response, theoretical alternatives have emerged under the broad banner of postpositivism; these perspectives claim to better attend non-quantifiable factors shaping the contexts of poli-cymaking, including political and social constructions of policy problems (Dryzek 2002). Car-rying this response further, the ‘argumentative’ or ‘critical’ turn in policy studies, receiving scholarly attention primarily from the early 1990s onward, exemplifies postpositivism through discourse analysis and a focus on language, communications, and their service to power (Fis-cher and Forester 1993). In its often inductive approach, postpositivism also accounts for sub-altern discourses that escape the gaze of rigid analytical frames.

That policymaking remains a purely technocratic undertaking is, however, an illusion. Policy tools and instruments – long the currency of technocracy – are said to “reflect the political culture” (Schneider and Ingram 1990, p. 526) and “are mediated by wider features of a politi-cal system” (Dunlop and Radaelli 2019, p. 130). Technocratic systems and policy design logics emerge from social and value-laden settings; neither materializes from a mythical purity of logic but is fashioned in politically and epistemically contested environments. Political realities lamented as ‘messy’ distractions often challenge the mechanics and logic of technocratic pro-cesses; as such, politics can destabilize truth-claims that appear to be objective ‘common sense’ but are in practice the product of problem constructs serving elite interests. Technocratic dis-courses can be seen as normative values that ossified into received wisdom; the privileged stead of this wisdom is protected not violently by the state but benignly and even obliviously by passive popular consensus, ideological self-disciplining, and social or cultural sanctioning. Ex-amples are the practically unassailable institutions of capitalism and democracy; in the United States as in many other countries, opposing either is largely seen as irredeemably unpatriotic.


2.2 The politics of epistemic disruption

Interests behind the political and commercial imperative to define, measure, and solve policy problems seek to cast technocratic fundamentalism as benevolent scientism. The empiricist language of traditional policy analysis, embodying a ‘common-sense’ understanding about problems while ostensibly transcending ideology (Majone 1989), sidesteps political pushback without explicitly dismissing it. However, the practical drawback of alternative epistemologi-cal approaches in the mold of postpositivism is that they do not “connote a well-defined recipe book for doing policy analysis” (Dryzek, 2002; p. 32) and are thus consigned largely to the idle chatter of scholarship. In the absence of practicable alternatives, applied positivism continues to deepen its influence by leveraging the growing methodological sophistication of computing, scenario modeling, and technical forecasting. The accompanying empirical certitude privileges positivism among elite political and commercial circles, with increasingly convenient oppor-tunities to operationalize and mainstream it (Kuecker and Hartley 2020b). While technocracy doubles-down on its positivist and managerialist logic, pushback may slowly be congealing into a techno-skepticism or ‘tech-lash’ (Krutka et al. 2020; Vraga and Tully 2019; Lynch 2007) that suggests insidious structural faults.7 These mounting tensions threaten to frustrate tech-nology-based instrumental-rationalist efforts to frame policy problems, but the old order is unlikely to capitulate without a fight.

As a countervailing force emerging not from constructivist scholarship but from raw populist grievance, pushback against technocracy and its expression in policy logic has progressed from simmer to boil. The current manifestation of populism presents itself through a piquant whiff of anti-intellectualist rhetoric about policy issues in which science plays a central role, includ-ing climate change, vaccinations, and virus mitigation (Amir Singh 2020). Whether the rising bluster against intellectual authority in government and science is only the panicky masculin-ist posturing of an aggrieved working class is better left to political sociology, but the public policy implications cannot be ignored. It is arguably no great leap of inference to anticipate similar skepticism against technology (e.g., surveillance, data security, and autonomous robot-ics) and against the broader process of mechanizing and metricizing society. When considering the targets of populist disdain, however, the connection between technology and predatory elitism has remained rhetorically incoherent until only recently.8 In scholarly circles, the con-nection relies analytically on a critical discourse that sees technology as a tool serving privi-leged interests while pacifying and even obstructing resistance. Such abstractions reflect the realities of populist pushback even if eluding full conceptual appreciation beyond the academy.

While categorically disparaging technocratic logic, the 21st century’s cohort of populist leaders builds its own credibility on instinctive, shoot-from-the-hip statesmanship in which experts are ridiculed and maligned as establishment operatives. In a profound paradox, the entrench-ment of technocracy is in effect mediated by the seemingly nihilist politicization of received ‘truth;’ the science of policymaking appears increasingly subordinated to the politics thereof.

7 — The term ‘technofascism’ has emerged on both sides of the political spectrum: for American conservatives, it reflects a grievance against the alleged repression of conservative views by social media platforms like Twitter (Lewin-ski 2020); for critical sociologists, it reflects a claim that technology is being used by ethno-nationalist politicians to marginalize minority populations during the COVID-19 crisis (Bhattacharyya and Subramaniam 2020). Policy action appears poised to respond to such sentiments; in June 2020, Santa Cruz, California, became the first American city to ban the use of technology-enabled ‘predictive policing’ that was seen as racially biased (Sturgill 2020).8 — In the United States, the testimony of Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg before Congress in 2019 drew scorn and derision on a variety of unexpected grievances beyond the immediate topic. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/business/dealbook/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-libra.html (accessed 24 July 2020).


This potentially accelerates the long-running erosion of trust in government (Citrin and Stoker 2018; Dalton 2005; Miller 1974) and the more recent erosion of trust in knowledge institutions and experts (Saarinen et al. 2019; Holst and Molander 2019; Baumgaertner et al. 2018). It also heralds a profound reckoning about the wisdom of experts as against that of ‘the masses,’ po-tentially destabilizing the credibility of knowledge both ‘in and of’ (Lasswell 1971) the policy process. There is no clear resolution. As Fischer argues (2020; 2019), scientific truth is weak tea for anti-science denialism. ‘Post-truth’ populism rarely engages scientific claims at a meaning-ful level, thus avoiding the likely prospect of losing debates held on empirical terms. Rather, the current strain of populism finds purchase in vilifying abstract bugbears like ‘big govern-ment,’ the ‘deep state,’ global authoritarian projects like the SDGs, and the perceived aloofness of political and intellectual elites (Kane and Patapan 2014). While such rhetoric appears bereft of substance, it has no less a political consequence and thus deserves further investigation across all contested policy domains including global development and sustainability.

3. SDG localization as ‘critical pragmatism’The concept of critical pragmatism mounts a challenge to elite capture in endeavors like the SDGs while offering pathways for the adoption of participatory approaches. Forester (2013; p. 6) describes critical pragmatism through five dimensions: (i) focus on both process and out-come; (ii) skepticism of knowledge claims and sensitivity to interests and values; (iii) distinc-tion among facilitating, moderating, and mediating in deliberative processes; (iv) recognition of the essence of conflicts rather than only the language of debates; and (v) orientation towards creative negotiation in pursuit of joint gains. Critical pragmatism is applicable to both current and ideal manifestations of the SDG project in that, at its core, the concept accounts for rela-tionships among power, knowledge, and stakeholders. Indeed, SDG localization enlists a com-plex array of actors, institutional expectations, and values-based truth-claims – a policy arena that provides insights for understanding governance projects at any scale. This concluding sec-tion focuses primarily on the assertion of interests and the dynamics of visioning processes as they shape SDG outcomes.

Driving SDG localization is said to be the reflective, contextualized, and variegated pursuit of a common normative outcome. The reality is not as tidy. The ambition to generate global consensus for a set of high-level policy visions can be seen as an exercise in manufactured harmonization – a normative imaginary for which localization is tacked-on as a mediating and democratizing mechanism. The cacophonous political environment of global policymaking and its core-periphery dynamics are reflected in Forester’s (2013; p. 10) elaboration of critical prag-matism: “it…has to address actual possibilities – what we might really do – in situations char-acterized by deep distrust and suspicion, deep differences of interests and values, a good deal of fear and, often, anger, poor or poorly distributed information, and more.” Viewing the SDG project through this lens captures the ‘pragmatic’ in acknowledging unique implementation contexts and the ‘critical’ in acknowledging the privilege of a single policy vision that claims a consensus mandate while effectively limiting implementation pathways through discursively strict framings of ‘success.’

An objective realization of the SDGs in their visionary purity is unlikely, but the collective ef-fect of incidental monitoring efforts (whether at the country or local level9) offers convenient

9 — Voluntary national reviews (VNRs) are undertaken by national governments to track progress on SDG imple-mentation. Voluntary local reviews (VLRs) are the same for local or regional governments. https://sdg.iisd.org/news/local-governments-commit-to-sdg-reporting-in-vlr-declaration/ (accessed 23 July 2020)


support for the claim that the SDGs are being approximately achieved and thus discursively validated. Technocratic observation creates its own reality about progress, but critical prag-matism intercedes by illuminating tensions between facts and values. From the perspective of local governments, SDG agenda-setting offered little meaningful or systematic engagement ac-cording to Forester’s ‘process’ (collective agreement about visions and mechanics), but did con-fer distributed responsibility for ‘outcomes’ (meeting targets and reporting progress). In many cases, however, local buy-in appears not to require normative coercion – indeed, SDG values comport at a superficial level with those embraced by many relatively ‘progressive’ urban gov-ernments (Douglass et al. 2019; Einstein and Glick 2017). As long as these two align, however artificially, a seemingly imminent confrontation over power and influence can be conveniently delayed – with a discursive calm furthering the impression of progress and epistemic harmony.

The appeal to more meaningfully involve subnational governments reflects what Moloney and Stone (2019) argue, in other contexts, is the need to expand “analytical, theoretical, concep-tual, and even our pedagogical approaches to include the kaleidoscope of global governance actors, levels of analysis, sectors, and concepts” (p. 104). Systematically soliciting the input of local governments, logistically complex though it may be, would add inclusivity to the SDG process, in particular by extending the influence of local actors from mere reinterpretation at the localization stage to strategic visioning at the agenda-setting stage. This provides a conduit for the ‘critical’ to shape the ‘pragmatic’ – and for the pragmatic to be more than a captive mechanism of technocratic discourses. This potential is currently unappreciated, as the value of strategic input is implicitly dismissed by claims that the interpretive implementation of the SDGs and the freedom to emphasize certain indicators sufficiently empower localities.

As the only portal through which participation has an opportunity to act on the SDGs, locali-zation can be considered at best ‘bounded’ in that it is steered by indicators whose function, beyond measuring implementation, is to deliver normative guidance. Furthermore, the failure of countries to monitor implementation on all indicators can be considered a reflection not merely of limited capacity (a time-worn explanation for developmental failure) but of efforts among local elites and policymakers to shape discourses by regulating what is seen and unseen. The SDGs are thus a teachable moment for epistemic revolution: the means of understanding reality dictate the content of discourse and what fails to be measured is ignored. An illustra-tion is the clash between science and religious belief. Australian immunologist Edward Steele argues in reference to a current scientific debate about biological origins that “the situation is reminiscent to the problem Galileo had with the Catholic priests of his time – most refused to look through his telescope to observe the moons of Jupiter.”10 The power to constrain the scope of inquiry limits not only the array of feasible solutions but also any pathways to alternative understandings about problems; new ideas are dead on arrival. Democratizing inputs in the sustainability problem-framing process can potentially loosen the epistemic gridlock described in this essay.

Critical pragmatism would appear to deserve currency in a crisis-gripped era characterized by complex problems and global-scale response efforts – and in many countries by what seems to be late-stage democracy reflected in political dissonance and stalemates over contentious policy tradeoffs. The act of constructing consensus knowledge and policy discourses around global problems itself exposes tensions between scientific expertise and democratic repre-sentation, reflecting Turnbull’s (2013) concept of problematology (the political process of con-structing problems and repressing policy views). The policy scientist or benevolent technocrat,

10 — https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astrobiology/the-return-of-panspermia/ (accessed 30 July 2020).


as an individual in fact-value dissonance (Torgerson 2019), is a synthesis of policy and politics but remains deductive in spirit. Nevertheless, the durability and flexibility of pragmatism as a broader concept is open to re-readings from multiple epistemological perspectives (Zittoun 2019).

In closing, technocracy has moved beyond its role as a method for understanding reality to now assertively delimit the policy community’s field of vision and associated rule-set; what cannot be measured, constructed, and validated technocratically cannot be managed. This has led to a dire mismatch between totalizing policy discourses like the SDGs and the gritty reali-ties of context-based governing in local settings where sustainability challenges are confronted firsthand. Highlighting this dilemma, Fischer (2007) argues that “the standard methods [of professional training in public policy] are designed for a techno-bureaucratic society, not for a participatory democracy” (p. 107). Politically applied epistemics serve the construction of pre-ferred realities, in both a contravention of purely positivist standards and a bastardized mani-festation of postpositivist ones. However, the dynamic and perpetual ‘becoming’ of social and environmental change, as ostensibly recognized by the SDG project but structurally ignored by its totalizing and epistemically exclusionary logic, calls for approaches to problem-framing that are flexible and contextualized without interest in universality. This invites fresh schol-arly contemplation on the study of power and discourse in a global policy system intent on making society ‘sustainable’ for the uninterrupted perpetuation of capitalism. This system is now thrashing about in the clutches of practical and ideological complexity, a backdrop against which formal discussions about the next iteration of the global development agenda will even-tually commence.

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