Executive Agencies in Government: The Impact of Bureaucratic Networks on Policy Outcomes

The creation of agencies is a growing feature of contemporary governance yet key questions about agency autonomy and their influence on policy making remain unanswered. This article operationalises a policy network approach to explore the impact of agentification in three British government departments. It argues that the transfer of resources from departments to agencies created differing power-dependent networks between minister, department and agency. The networks have had both intended and unintended impacts on policy outcomes. Agencies have input to policymaking, the network's level of integration affects how well policies are delivered, networks have developed policy preferences and acted to impede further institutional change. These findings assist in understanding the nature of agencies' autonomy, the diversity of their impact on the policy process, and provide insights for other forms of alternative service delivery.

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Do Networks Matter? Linking Policy Network Structure to Policy Outcomes: Evidence from Four Canadian Policy Sectors 1990-2000

Canadian Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0008423902778232 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 35 (2) ◽

pp. 235-267 ◽

Cited By ~ 66

Author(s):

Michael Howlett

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Policy Change ◽

Policy Making ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Policy Network ◽

Network Approach ◽

Policy Sector ◽

Policy Dynamics ◽

Policy Subsystems ◽

The Impact

Relatively recent contributions to the policy literature have called into question the utility of the "network" approach to the study of public policy making, including a challenge to long-held views concerning the impact of the structure of policy subsystems on policy change. This article uses empirical evidence accumulated from case studies of four prominent Canadian federal policy sectors over the period 1990-2000 to address this issue. It sets out a model that explains policy change as dependent upon the effects of the articulation of ideas and interests in public policy processes, and generates several hypotheses relating different subsystem configurations to propensities for paradigmatic and intra-paradigmatic policy dynamics. It suggests that the identification of the nature of the policy subsystem in a given policy sector reveals a great deal about its propensity to respond to changes in ideas and interests.

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Intelligence and the Core Executive

Public Policy and Administration ◽

10.1177/0952076709347072 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 11-28 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Martin J. Smith

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Policy Process ◽

Policy Making ◽

Security Policy ◽

Prime Minister ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Considerable Influence ◽

British Government ◽

The Core ◽

Core Executive

Much of the analysis of intelligence and security in British government has treated it as a separate and distinct sphere. This article argues that the core executive framework provides a useful mechanism for integrating security policy making with other aspects of the domestic policy process. The article analyses the changing nature of the core executive and its impact on decision-making. The article argues that if we look at intelligence through the core executive framework we can analyse intelligence as a particular form of knowledge that can provide the Prime Minister with considerable influence on policy outcomes. This is not, however, to suggest that the Prime Minister is presidential.

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Integrating Ideas into Policy-Making Analysis

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/001041402237506 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 35 (9) ◽

pp. 1054-1076 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

Erik Bleich

Keyword(s):

Policy Development ◽

Policy Making ◽

Vital Role ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Policy Frames ◽

Policy Choices ◽

History Of ◽

The Impact ◽

History Of Race ◽

Cross National

This article argues that systematically integrating ideas into policy-making analysis greatly enhances our understanding of policy outcomes. Variables emphasized by other schools of thought—such as power, interests, institutions, and problems—often provide an inadequate explanation of policy choices. To demonstrate the contribution of ideas to policy-making analysis, this article examines the impact of policy frames, showing how they help actors define their interests, generate interpretations of pressing problems, and constrain actions. Retracing the history of race policy development in Britain and France reveals that each country's frames influenced domestic policy outcomes and thus played a vital role in explaining cross-national race policy differences.

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Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2010534 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 479-512 ◽

Cited By ~ 211

Author(s):

Thomas Risse-Kappen

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Public Opinion ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Policy Making ◽

Public Attitudes ◽

The United States ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Liberal Democracies ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

The Impact

The paper discusses the role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, public opinion matters. However, the impact of public opinion is determined not so much by the specific issues involved or by the particular pattern of public attitudes as by the domestic structure and the coalition-building processes among the elites in the respective country. The paper analyzes the public impact on the foreign policy-making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. Under the same international conditions and despite similar patterns of public attitudes, variances in foreign policy outcomes nevertheless occur; these have to be explained by differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures. Thus, the four countries responded differently to Soviet policies during the 1980s despite more or less comparable trends in mass public opinion.

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Networks of Power in the CAP System of the EU-15 and EU-27

Journal of Public Policy ◽

10.1017/s0143814x09001056 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 153-177 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Christian H.C.A. Henning

Keyword(s):

Comparative Politics ◽

Agricultural Policy ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Policy Network ◽

Interaction Patterns ◽

Network Approach ◽

Explicit Integration ◽

Suggested Approach ◽

The Common ◽

The Eu

AbstractThis article utilizes a quantitative network approach to analyze complex interaction patterns of public and private actors in EU multi-level governance, concerning the common agricultural policy. It demonstrates, in particular, that the theoretically founded policy network approach provides a powerful tool for comparative politics allowing a quantitative analysis of complex governmental systems. At the micro level, lobbying strategies of different groups can be identified and compared, while at the macro level the classical Corporatism-Pluralism typology could be generalized using this network approach. Further, due to its explicit integration with a legislative decision-making model the suggested approach is a valuable tool in comparative politics as it allows testing to what extent observed lobbying structures are systematically related with specific policy outcomes. In this article the policy network approach is applied to the lobbying system of the Common European Agricultural policy of the EU-15 and EU-27.

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Getting Beyond the ‘Official Line’: Reflections on Dilemmas of Access, Knowledge and Power in Researching Policy Networks

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279402006505 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 39-59 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

KAREN DUKE

Keyword(s):

Policy Process ◽

Research Problem ◽

Policy Networks ◽

Qualitative Approach ◽

The Political ◽

Policy Network ◽

Network Approach ◽

Academic Climate ◽

Political Dimensions

Although the policy network approach has moved to the forefront of the debates around the formulation and development of policy, there is a paucity of methodological and reflexive literature which explores how policy networks and the actors within these arenas are actually studied. Researching powerful individuals within such networks generates a unique set of dilemmas and complexities for the researcher. Drawing on my experiences of researching the policy networks involved in the development of prison drugs policy, this paper provides a methodological and reflexive account of the key processes and issues involved in my research. In particular, it explores the political dimensions of the research problem and the importance of switching the research gaze from the ‘objects’ of policy to those who are in the powerful positions of ‘making’ policy. In order to understand the interactions within the policy process, it is argued that the qualitative approach offers distinct advantages in studying policy networks. The paper examines my attempts to uncover and understand the role and influence of policy networks in the development of prison drugs policy and the ways in which I grappled with the dilemmas of access, knowledge and power which emerged during the course of the fieldwork. Although the importance of transparent methodologies and reflexivity are highlighted, the paper concludes by suggesting that the resistance on the part of researchers to providing such accounts is related to the pressures and constraints of the current academic climate.

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The European External Action Service (EEAS)

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1081 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ana E. Juncos ◽

Karolina Pomorska

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Policy Process ◽

External Action ◽

Foreign Affairs ◽

The European Union ◽

Process And Outcome ◽

The World ◽

The Impact ◽

European Diplomacy ◽

Key Questions

The European External Action Service, with its 140 delegations all over the world and its headquarters in Brussels is a unique institution, which has been likened to a state diplomatic service or EU ministry of foreign affairs. The composition of the EEAS and its functions have been the result of complex negotiations between the member states of the European Union and EU institutions. The ability of the EEAS to have an influence in the European Union’s foreign policy process and outcome is still a subject of controversy, not least because it co-exists with 28 national diplomatic services. The impact of the establishment of the EEAS on the emergence of a esprit de corps among its ranks and whether it has led to the transformation of European diplomacy as a result constitutes other key questions in existing scholarly debates.

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Opening the ‘Black Box’ of asylum governance: decision-making and the politics of asylum policy-making

Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica ◽

10.1017/ipo.2019.30 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 191-212 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Andrea Pettrachin

Keyword(s):

Policy Making ◽

Public Attitudes ◽

Black Box ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Power Dynamics ◽

Asylum Policy ◽

Cognitive Component ◽

Strategic Element ◽

Public Reaction ◽

The Impact

AbstractComplementing and challenging the existing literature on the Italian asylum crisis, this article develops an actor-centred approach to open the ‘black box’ of asylum governance, showing the constitutive effects of governance on the asylum issue. It then applies this approach to the case of the Veneto region in Italy during the recent ‘refugee crisis’. By doing so, the article, first, investigates the cognitive mechanisms that shape key actors’ asylum policy decisions. Drawing concepts and ideas from framing and sensemaking theories, it shows that, while there is certainly a strategic element that shapes actors' policy preferences, there is also a meaningful cognitive component in asylum governance. Indeed, it argues that actors' strategies are shaped, more than by anti-immigration public attitudes per se (as often assumed), by how political actors make sense of these attitudes. The article then applies SNA to examine how actors' understandings are located within and depend upon network relations and investigate actors' agency, power and interactions. It ultimately shows that local asylum policy outcomes are deeply influenced by the ‘politics of policy-making’, that is by power dynamics and how powerful actors position themselves, behave and mobilize their understandings. Finally, by examining the impact of policy outputs on cognitive micro-level mechanisms, the article sheds light on the interplay between the ‘regulatory’ and the ‘public reaction’ dimensions of the Italian asylum crisis, illustrating the relationship between public attitudes on migration, frame emergence, asylum policy-making, politics and public mobilizations in the active constitution of the Italian asylum crisis.

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Policy Networks and Industrial Revitalization: High Speed Rail Initiatives in France and Germany

Journal of Public Policy ◽

10.1017/s0143814x00007303 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 311-343 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

James A. Dunn ◽

Anthony Perl

Keyword(s):

High Speed ◽

Policy Networks ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Policy Network ◽

Network Approach ◽

Passenger Transport ◽

Temporal Dimension ◽

High Speed Rail ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Commercial Viability

ABSTRACTUsing Atkinson and Coleman's typology of policy networks, this article shows how many of the differences in policy outcomes can be traced to the structure of the policy environment in each nation. French and Germany policy makers adopted a strategy of investing in high speed passenger transport to revitalize their declining railway sectors. The French TGV was developed in a state-directed policy network which insisted on cost containment and commercial viability. In Germany a corporatist style of policymaking in the rail sector led to delays and higher costs for the ICE train. A separate clientele pluralist network led by the Research Ministry developed the Transrapid maglev option, but in order to finance and deploy an operational system, the Chancellor and cabinet had to create a concertation network. The policy network approach provides a useful framework for conducting comparative analysis. In addition, these detailed cases suggest that it is useful to add a dynamic, cross-temporal dimension to the static typology.

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The Convention to Combat Desertification and the Role of Innovative Policy-Making Discourses: The Case of Burkina Faso

Global Environmental Politics ◽

10.1162/1526380041748010 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 107-127 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Hans Bruyninckx

Keyword(s):

Policy Implementation ◽

Burkina Faso ◽

Local Knowledge ◽

Policy Process ◽

Policy Making ◽

Local Level ◽

National Level ◽

Agenda 21 ◽

The Impact

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification is a mix of traditional regime elements with a set of innovations. These innovative elements can be interpreted as emanations of policy discourses that have been gaining in importance since the introduction and the fairly broad acceptance of sustainable development and Agenda 21 as guiding conceptual frameworks. In this article I first elaborate on three of those discourses: the participatory, the decentralization and the local knowledge discourses. In a second part, I will look at Burkina Faso as an example of UNCCD policy implementation at the national and the local level (Yatenga region). It will become clear that although changes are visible in policy-making dynamics, major difficulties and obstacles remain. The CCD undeniably has an impact at the national level of policy-making. It has provided support for decentralization, for more participatory processes of policy-making and for the inclusion of local knowledge in the policy process. At the more decentralized level the impact is less clear and more difficult to distinguish.

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