Advice for practical application

This chapter provides advice on the practical application of the concepts relating to public action resources presented in the book. It proposes experience-based units for measuring each of the ten resources (and related indicators), a way of identifying the resource portfolios of public policy actors (mainly capable of demonstrating the differences between the resource portfolio at the disposal of each one of the three actors) and a standardized way of documenting resource exchanges. Finally, the chapter locates public action resource analysis within the context of comprehensive policy analysis studies based on a seven-point checklist.

Property

The application of the resource-oriented approach used in this book confirms the prominent role of the resource Property in the resource portfolios of each of the three policy actors. Property consists of the ownership of property and use rights to material and immaterial (natural, manufactured, social and/or human) resources and the various bundles of goods and/or services they provide to the owner. One of the prominent services of such resources involves their role as policy resource (abstract use of such resources as opposed to concrete uses). The most prominent material resource is the ownership of (strategic) land, which enables both public and private actors to play a predominant role in policy formulation and, especially, implementation processes. The chapter illustrates the mobilization and use modes of the resource Property in the areas of spatial planning, institutional policies (creation of a Swiss canton) , public accounting and state infrastructural policies (land acquisition policies for communal land use policy). It stresses the role of legal appeals by target groups or beneficiary organizations and the privileged position occupied landowners in the planning and implementation of large urban projects.

Conceptual development of the resource-based approach

This chapter contains an in-depth definition of the aforementioned resource-based approach to public policy resources, which is usually used for analysing the institutional conditions for sustainable resource use in connection with the postulate of sustainable development. It exploits the concept of institutional resource regimes (IRR) rooted in constitutional and civil law, which is illustrated by the analysis of the governance of the resource ‘public documentary information’ (big data) conducted by Olgiati Pelet.

Context: a survey of the literature

This chapter deals with 19 recent contributions from the literature, which aim to provide a systematic categorization of public policy resources (Meltsner, Clapham, Lapeyronnie, Lacam, Kiun, Davern, Lemieux, Newig, Söderlund, Blin, Sabatier & Weible, Hood & Margetts, Dowding, Vesan & Graziano, Sauer, Imbeau, Compston, Klüver and Dente). It concludes that all of the ten resources dealt with in the current book feature in this literature, that the value of resources is relative, and that the contributions by Dente, Compston, Hude & Margetts are closest to mine while those of Söderland, Davers and Meltsner differ most significantly from it. The chapter insists on the exchangeability, transferability and objectivability of public action resources and rejects the inclusion in the definition of personal, individual characteristics of the actors, to whom such resources belong. Furthermore, it stresses the observation that not only public actors but also civil society actors have public action resources.

Personnel

This chapter deals with the resource Personnel which is another important resource in the hands of public and private actors and is usually managed using an institutional policy known as human resources policy. It describes the high degree of regulation of the use of this resource, even in the ‘post public service’ age, the key postulates of modern human resource policies for public action, and the importance of budgetary cuts for this resource. Examples are drawn from money laundering policies, environmental policies, professional training policies and labour market policies. The chapter specifically refers to the numerous modes of exchange of this resource between target groups and political-administrative actors.

Law

This chapter deals with the resource Law, which is defined as the competence of public actors to formulate and implement public policies and the right of civil actors to appeal mainly public implementation acts in the courts. Law is considered as an important public action resource, the main service of which that can be mobilized by actors is the “right to impose a behaviour that complies with the objective law”. Examples are provided of cases involving the lack of a legal basis (political-administrative actors). They are drawn from municipal implementation activities, including non-decisions, financial policy, public tendering procedures and public infrastructure policies, and language policies. The chapter highlights the importance of the right to submit an appeal (or not), the threatened or actual submission of an appeal, and the particular cases of renouncement of this right.

The foundations of public policy analysis2

This chapter revisits the foundations of public policy analysis as presented in our previous textbook of 2011 (Knoepfel et al., 2011): the definition of public policies (distinction between substantive and institutional policies), the rejected notion of public action, causality models, actor triangles and resources. It adds some new perspectives on the relation between actors (political-administrative actors, target groups and beneficiaries) and their resources. Finally, it brings some clarification to the topic of the institutions, which are considered as the ‘rules of the game’, and introduces a list of possession, behavioural and decisional rules that feature in the constitutional and private law of Switzerland. The majority of these rules can also be found in other democratic political systems.

Introduction

Any observer of the public or private actors involved in the production of public action will encounter frequent complaints about the lack of resources available to these actors. A common statement likely to be heard in this context is: ‘I would like to take action, but I do not have the necessary money, legal basis, people, time etc.’ Surprisingly, such statements are made not only by marginal actors but also, and perhaps even more often, by individuals and groups that the observer would identify as powerful political-administrative, economic or social actors who enjoy a high degree of public visibility and a strong presence in a considerable number of policy contexts. Moreover, this observation is not limited to the development of new activities that may be initiated by these actors; it also concerns the implementation of follow-up interventions or inventions involving the production of public action in existing areas....

Conclusion: Strengths and weaknesses of the proposed approach

The concluding chapter compares the 2011 policy analysis textbook with this book and points out some remaining weaknesses. These include the quality of the literature analysis, the lack of a chapter on the capacity of individual actors to actually mobilize the presented resources, the presentation of examples and the disparities on the level of detail in the resource chapters. Before presenting the weaknesses of the book, the chapter stresses some points which I consider as strengths. These include the consistent dissociation of resources from the individual characteristics of the actor-users, the attempt to provide a comprehensive typology, the avoidance of any hierarchization and the more or less universal character of the presented typology and the examples (although most of them originate from Switzerland).

Information

This chapter is dedicated to the resource Information, which has become an indispensable key resource for both public and private actors involved in public policy processes in recent years. Information has become a real common pool resource. Nevertheless, each of the actors will try to obtain advantages from exclusive access to Information and secrecy. This is particularly true of target groups, which are the most important owners of such resources in technical policy fields. The examples presented in this chapter stem from security and risk policies, (institutional) transparency policies, economic, environmental, archive and pharmaceutical product policies. The chapter illustrates strategies of exclusion and proliferation for each of the three actor groups and other specific uses of the resource Information, particularly in policy implementation processes.