Time for a revival?

Public
policy implementation: a
September 2001
review of the literature
and an agenda for future
research
Jill Schofield

This paper argues that there is not a vigorous contemporary literature in the UK which
addresses implementation studies as part of the public policy process, whereas this is not the
case in the USA. A review of the literature is presented, and a critique of the more traditional
thematic groupings used to review the literature is given. A revised thematic review of the
literature is presented based on the four themes of: (1) the role of knowledge and learning in
policy implementation; (2) the processes of policy implementation; (3) the role of actors and
agents in implementation; and (4) the role of bureaucratic discretion. The paper argues for a
revival of research into public policy implementation and suggests a research agenda for the
future which can use the aforementioned themes from the literature.

A decade of academic research on the New heading of implementation theory, a

Jill Schofield is from the
Public Services
Management Group,
Aston Business School,
Aston Triangle,
Birmingham B4 7ET, UK.
ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4
1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA
Public Management (NPM) has paid much
attention to policy design and policy
evaluation. It has, however, paid less attention
to how policy is put into effect. A decade prior
to the popular use of the term NPM, Barrett
and Fudge (1981) had pointed out that ‘policy
does not implement itself’ (p. 9) and that
moreover, policy needs to be activated in the
sense of being put into action, hence the title
of their book, Policy and Action.
Understanding who, how and why policy is
put into effect can be conceptualized under the
terminology initially used by Pressman and
Wildavsky (1973) during their study of job-
creation programmes in Oakland, California.
The benefits of an implementation perspective
are such that they allow the policy analyst to
transcend the distinction between politics and
administration. Such a distinction has had a
tendency to be polarized between either
political science research or public admin-
istration and management research.
It is possible to trace clearly two and a half
decades of implementation theory, where it

International Journal of Management Reviews Volume 3 Issue 3 pp. 245–263 245

Time for a revival?
Public policy
implementation: a
review of the
literature and an
agenda for future
research
ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
246
has been clearly labelled as such, stretching
back to 1973, with Pressman and Wildavsky’s
work in the USA as a clear indicator of the
growth of interest in implementation studies
per se. Similar work in the UK was not put
together until Barrett and Fudge’s collection,
Policy and Action, in 1981. It could be argued
though that Dunsire’s work in 1978 pre-dates
Barrett and Fudge with his Implementation in
a Bureaucracy: The Execution Process,
although this was very much concerned with
the workings of bureaucracies rather than
solely the transformation of policy into action.
Two main aspects strike the reader of the
extensive literature on policy implementation.
First, the more recent literature has not
presented any new paradigm, rather it has
sought to synthesize existing literature or
revisit older themes such as the success or
failure of policy implementation; Ryan
(1995), Matland (1995), Buck et al. (1993)
and Palumbo and Calista (1990) are good
examples of this approach.
The second striking point is the almost
complete disappearance from the UK public
policy literature of any work bearing the label
‘implementation’, with the exception of Marsh
and Rhodes (1992) and Younis and Davidson
(1990). Barrett (personal communication,
1995) suggests that this may be because many
of the policy analysts actually became more
preoccupied with strategic planning, public
policy and organizational strategy and,
certainly in the 1990s, with institutional and
organizational change within the public sector.
It could be argued that fashions come and go
among the policy analytical community and
that implementation studies have lain dormant
or just been called something else in the UK
for the past decade, while in the USA the
subject has been consistently strong, but
mainly articulated within a tightly knit group
of political scientists. Evidence of the vitality
of implementation studies in the USA is
demonstrated by the fact that the winner of
the 1996 Kauffman price at the American
Political Science Association was won by a
paper about policy implementation (Lin 1996).
The objectives of this paper are threefold:
first, to critique the existing thematic focus of
implement studies and their associated
literature; secondly, to present a review of
the literature structured in terms of a new
thematic focus, which could help with a
revival of implementation studies as an
academic subject area, certainly in the British
context. Thirdly, the paper presents a future
research agenda for implementation studies,
and one which looks in particular towards
uniting the perspectives of political scientists
with those of public services management.
Contextual Background to
Implementation Studies
Hjern (1982) has argued that implementation
research is the ‘link gone missing’ between
the political and economic analysis of policy
and the organizational or institutional analysis
of public administration. Herein lie some
important features of implementation studies
within the public policy arena. Such studies
are characterized by relatively few, but
prolific, writers and scholars. There is a strong
cultural focus between the UK, the USA and
Scandinavia. The differences between these
national perspectives tend to reflect the very
nature of the public policy process itself in
these countries, and therefore it is not possible
to suggest that there are global modes of
policy implementation.
While as a subject area the explicit use of
the term implementation studies has been in
existence for nearly 30 years, there has been
very little cross-fertilization between academic
disciplines. Implementation studies have
tended to be dominated by political scientists
and scholars of public administration. Even
within the relatively energetic and con-
temporary public management discipline,
more attention is given to evaluation rather
than implementation. Equally important has
been the lack of academic cross-over between
the for-profit, general management literature
on implementation and the public policy
implementation literature.
 In terms of practitioner relevance, while
implementation studies purport to be
concerned with ‘big problem’ issues of social
relevance, this tends to be more in terms of
locating case studies in such big problem areas
and using the cases as a means to a data-
gathering end. The dissemination of imple-
mentation studies findings among
practitioners appears to be less than, for
instance, those who study collaborative theory
within the public services, or the joint
development of approaches to corporate
governance within the public sector.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned
limitations of the subject area, this paper
argues for the revival of implementation
studies and its dissemination to a wider
community beyond specific academic disci-
plines, essentially because of its integrative
abilities as an intellectual discipline. These
integrative abilities exist because of the
conceptual keystone of an implementation
perspective, namely, policy politics, or social
politics, as opposed to electoral or partisan
politics. This differentiating terminology was
defined by Pressman and Wildavsky in 1973,
and Brodkin (1990) provides a further
definition:
Implementation analysed as policy politics . . .
enhances the study of social politics, in part, by
distinguishing analytically between the state’s
policy promises and the state’s policy products.
(Brodkin 1990, 108)
In short, an implementation perspective brings
politics back into policy analysis. That it has
been sadly lacking, in at least the British
policy literature for the past decade, has been
recognized by Common (1996) and Newman
and Clarke (1996).
Existing Literature and Reviews
It is possible to identify three substantial
academic reviews of the policy imple-
mentation literature from two North American
and one Australian scholar, namely, O’Toole
(1986, 1993), Ryan (1995) and Matland
(1995). It is worth noting that, prior to the
1995 articles, there had not been a useful
synthesis of the literature since O’Toole’s
work emphasizing once again the relative
academic backwater into which
implementation research had tended to drift.
The nature and focus of these three reviews is
a function of their cultural predisposition in
terms of the policy process, chronology and
their thematic organization. The reviews pro- September 2001
duced by Ryan and Matland benefit from hind-
sight, and they both concentrate upon trying to
achieve a conceptual synthesis between the
three overarching themes generally found
within the implementation studies literature.
The first of these themes, concerns the attempts
of scholars to develop analytic models,
variously called the first-, second- and third-
generation models. The second overarching
theme relates to the different approaches taken
to studying public policy implementation,
namely a ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’ approach.
The third theme concentrates upon trying to
identify key implementation variables and is
well exemplified by O’Toole’s work (1986,
1993), when he reviewed over one hundred
studies of public policy implementation.
Prior to an examination of how the literature
has developed around these three themes, and
to understand their dominance, it is helpful to
understand the variety of justifications put
forward for doing implementation research,
and in turn the range of roles allocated to
su bse q u e n t m o d e l s a n d t h e o r i e s of
implementation.
Broadly, the justifications can be
categorized as (1) explaining policy success
or failure, (2) the predictability of policy
outcome, (3) normative policy and policy
design recommendations, (4) providing a
unifying approach to studying multi-actor
and inter-organizational activity within
politics and administration.
Sabatier and Mazmanian’s (1979) paper is
subtitled ‘A guide to accomplishing policy
objectives’, and their stated aim is to research
implementation to ‘maximise the congruence’ ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
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Time for a revival?
Public policy
implementation: a
review of the
literature and an
agenda for future
research
ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
248
between policy objectives and the impact of
policy decisions, i.e. to ensure that the policy
per se is implemented as it is conceived and is
successful within such a logic. Other writers
also ascribe this role to implementation
research, in particular Van Meter and Van
Horn (1975), Bardach (1977), O’Toole (1986),
Ingram and Schneider (1990) and Hood (1976).
There are a range of implementation studies
whose raison d’etre is to predict policy
outcome and in so doing inform future policy
design. Webb and Wistow’s (1983) work in
the UK on the implementation of community
care for personal social services demonstrated
the impact of resource constraints on local
government during the policy to action phases.
A more recent attempt at policy prediction
based upon isolating the policy success/failure
variables is provided by Sarbaugh-Thompson
and Zald (1995), who performed a historical
analysis of child labour laws in the USA.
None of these works, however, demonstrates
the link between the findings of their research
and how such knowledge, together with the
experiences of the implementing actors, can be
fed back into the policy design stage. Neverthe-
less, the third category, that of normative policy
advice, does regard its role as one of feeding
back into the policy design stage. Pressman and
Wildavsky’s early work can be categorized as
such, researching as they did how lessons could
be learnt from policy implementation failures.
O’Toole (1986) provides a comprehensive
review of the literature on the role of implemen-
tation research for policy recommendations and
prescription. His conclusions are that the pre-
scriptive nature of many policy analysts’ find-
ings are contradictory and confusing. The
normative, policy prescriptive authors, tend to
rely upon a linear model of implementation
(Bardach 1977; Gunn and Hogwood 1982; Yin
1982) and as such ignore the ambiguous nature
of political policy initiatives; multi-
organization and multi-actor contingencies and
conflict.
The use of an implementation approach to
understanding inter-organizational activity has
proved to be very helpful. This field of study
has been applied to the ‘Big Problem’ areas by
Hanf and Scharpf (1978), particularly in
respect of employment and training; Hjern et
al. (1978) in respect of small and medium size
enterprises; Lester et al. (1987) for
environmental policy initiatives and, more
recently, the delivery of service quality within
public programmes (Hjern 1992, 1995; Hjern
and Blomquist 1991).
Policy analysts and researchers use
implementation studies for different reasons,
often to demonstrate what they believe to be the
misguided ‘folly’ of central government polices
(Kingdom 1990). Others approach the policy
problems with a truly heuristic agenda (Hjern
1992). Given that implementation studies have
different roles, we can expect to discover a series
of themes within the established implementation
models such as ‘top-down’ approaches being
more aligned with the normative and predictive
roles of implementation. Similarly, the ‘bottom-
up’ approaches tend to focus more closely on
policy networks, often in multi-agency settings.
The key point to recognize is that the perceived
role of implementation has had a considerable
effect upon how the various implementation
models within the literature have been
formulated.
The existing literature and associated
reviews have concentrated on three themes,
namely, the analytic models of first-, second-
and third-generation implementation research,
top-down and bottom-up models of policy
implementation, and an identification of
implementation variables. These thematic foci
have shaped the thinking of implementation
scholars but, in so doing, have also left
significant analytical gaps, not least their
inability to address the more dynamic and
processural aspects of implementation.
Critique of Existing Themes
Theme One: Analytic Models ^ First-,
Second- and Third-generation
Implementation Research
It was the work of Goggin et al. (1990) which
gave rise to the terminology ‘third-generation’
implementation research and, in so doing,
identified, first- and second-generation
research and their associated models. Authors
within this category include Derthick (1972),
Murphy (1971) and Pressman and Wildavsky
(1973). In the first-generation models,
considerable attention was also paid to issues
of policy output and quasi-scientific
measurement of policy implementation,
reflecting a more positivist approach to policy
analysis, thus, Luft (1976) sought to address
cost-benefit analysis in implementation. The
specific case study approach of the early
1970s was gradually generalized within the
literature, particularly by Bardach (1977),
Rein and Rabinovitz (1978), Van Horn
(1979) and Williams and Elmore (1976).
The implementation literature has well-
established criticisms of the first-generation
studies. They have been accused of being too
pessimistic (Goggin et al. 1990; Lester et al.
1987) because of an over-concentration on
policy ‘failure’. The studies were also
criticised for failing to produce real models
to help the predictability of policy outcomes
(Linder and Peters 1987). These first-
generation studies introduced the idea of the
‘correctable pathology’ and in turn have been
hailed as, on the one hand, advantageous
(Goggin et al. 1990) and on the other hand
distinct drawbacks (Sarbaugh-Thompson and
Zald 1995). In short, as Sarbaugh-Thompson
and Zald have explained, the first-generation
studies saw implementation success or failure,
as a function of flawed or imperfect primary
legislation and a failure of bureaucratic
compliance.
First-generation implementation research
did not produce predictive models as today’s
scholars have come to understand the term.
They in effect concentrated on the success or
failure of policy goals and produced a
typology of approaches to make imple-
mentation more effective within the logic of
the policy goal itself.
Above all, the first-generation
implementation studies sought to identify
factors to describe the implementation
process. However, in so doing they made
some (mis)assumptions that policy formation
and implementation was a rational, linear
process. Added to which, implementation
was regarded as being distinct and separate
from policy formation, reflecting the then
concept of the politics/administration
separation.
Despite these assumptions, the first-
generation literature made an important
contribution to the field, particularly in respect September 2001
of directing attention towards the outcome of a
policy (even if subsequently these outcomes
were measured and expressed as outputs). The
studies were also analytical in the sense that
they attempted to establish causal relation-
ships between the policy and its outcome.
Their other contribution to knowledge
revolved around their ability to address
political behaviour and the complexity of
public administration and policy. The
second-generation literature was consciously
more analytical: it sought to develop
analytical typologies for predicting policy
outcomes, but above all it concentrated upon
the variables which impacted either positively
or negatively upon implementation. Goggin et
al. (1990) have broadly categorized these
variables into policy, organization and people.
Key texts which can be classified into the
second-generation literature are Barrett and
Fudge (1981) and Mazmanian and Sabatier
(1983), both of which dealt extensively with
complex public sector arenas.
Mazmanian and Sabatier developed a model
of public policy implementation which
concentrated upon describing 16 variables
used to analyse case study data. Essentially,
their work was concerned with imple-
mentation as a means of understanding the
congruence between outcome and policy and,
if one is able to identify the variables, then this
congruence might be engineered towards
success. The Mazmanian–Sabatier model has
had an important impact in terms of framing
policy analysts’ ideas, particularly because
their predictive criteria carry with them a very
‘common sense’ and intuitively practical ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
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Time for a revival?
Public policy
implementation: a
review of the
literature and an
agenda for future
research
ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
250
approach to implementation. However, it
could be argued that this criteria is the
Achilles heel of the model; this is a model
which is not contingency responsive. As such,
it loses much of its analytical capacity in
periods of uncertainty and rapid policy
innovation.
The main critique of the second-generation
model is again based on their approach – too
many case studies, not enough validation and
replication. Goggin et al.’s criticism of the
models was their failure to develop testable
and explanatory theory. Others, such as
Matland (1995) and Ryan (1995), suggest
some first- and second-generation models
failed to provide a comprehensive synthesis
or a unifying approach to implementation
analysis.
Unsurprisingly, it is precisely this that the
third-generation models claim to do. The
justification of the third-generation taxonomy
is based on the belief that the latest research
addresses the dynamism in implementation
processes. It does this by using multiple
locations and observation, more than one case
study and pays greater attention to research
methodology involving more longitudinal
studies than the first- and second-generation
models. The literature is very heavily
influenced by Goggin et al. (1990).
Methodologically, these studies use a wide
range of approaches, including network
analysis, content analysis, social experi-
mentation and qualitative regression
techniques, élite interviews and questionnaires
(Goggin et al. 1990). The theoretical advances
made by Goggin et al. are based upon their
‘Communication Model of Inter-
Governmental Policy Implementation’ (1990,
p. 32). The key components of this model are
very North American based, and designed
around the legislative and organization bodies
of state, federal and local implementation
pr oce ssors. Th e m ode l i nc orp ora te s
interaction between the different legislative
levels, suggesting that such interaction is
framed in terms of inducements and
constraints.
The model has only been operationalized
over the past five years, again demonstrating
something of the intellectual time lag which
exists within implementation studies. Matland
(1995) and Ryan (1995) draw extensively
upon the third-generation work to act as a
synthesizing model for two-and-a-half
decades of implementation research. Neither,
though, pays much attention to two important
aspects of the model, namely, the way in
which it takes account of capacity, and the
way it distinguishes between decisions and
actions.
Finally, just as the second-generation
literature had benefited from developments
in organizational theory, so too for the third-
generation literature, which benefited from
developments in institutional theory. Hanf and
Scharpf (1978) and Ripley and Franklin
(1982) had already identified institutional
issues as being important in implementation,
particularly the inter-agency aspects, but it has
been the third-generation literature which
addressed the operational co-ordination and
co-operation needed for such an approach.
Theme Two: Top-down and Bottom-up
Models
The two intellectual ‘protagonists’ in this
discussion are Paul Sabatier, as the supporter
of top-down explanations, and Benny Hjern
for the bottom-up approach. What is
interesting, from the researcher’s point of
view is the amount of effort which seems to
have gone into trying to reconcile the two
approaches (Lester et al. 1987; Linder and
Peters 1987, 1990; Sabatier 1991), just as it
has in trying to synthesize the first-, second-
and third-generation models. The top-down
approach was dominated by the assumption
that implementation begins with policy or
legislative objectives, and that the processes of
implementation will follow on in a fairly
linear fashion from this. Such assumptions are
a direct by-product of the rational, perfect
public administration model which builds
upon the bureaucratic assumption of the
separation of policy from implementation; the
presence of a myriad control measures and
tight boundaries to discretion.
The dominant criticism of the top-down
models stems from the top-down researcher’s
emphasis on the role of central government
and the specific working of the primary
legislation as being the embodiment of the
policy objectives. This approach fails to
recognize the role of political rhetoric in
policy formulation. Furthermore, it fails to
address the pre-legislative phase of policy
making (Nakamura and Smallwood 1980;
Winter 1986). A further criticism which can
be levelled at the top-down models is their
overriding belief in the rational approach.
Top-down models do not deal very well with
the messiness of policy making, behavioural
complexity, goal ambiguity and contradiction.
In this sense, they lack a great deal of macro
and micro political reality, a point emphasized
by Berman (1978) and Baier et al. (1986).
The idea of policy compromise and
modification leads on to a consideration of
discretion and, in turn, to a third established
criticism of the top-down models, namely, that
they fail to take into account the role of the
street-level bureaucrat (Lipsky 1980). Top-
downers consider that street-level bureaucrats
could divert ‘true’ policy and hence act as
deviants within the system (Sabatier 1986),
but they had failed to incorporate the role of
street-level bureaucrats into their model as the
interpreters of central policy (Thompson
1982).
The bottom-up researchers responded to this
inability to incorporate street-level discretion
into an analytical model of implementation.
The bottom-up researchers have been
dominated by European and Scandinavian
scholars, particularly Hjern, Porter, Hanf and
Hull, who developed their ideas during the
late 1970s and early 1980s. The work of the
bottom-up writers can be characterized in
three ways. First, their focus on the actions of
local implementers, as opposed to the central
government; secondly, their attention is given,
not so much to the goals of a policy, but rather
the nature of the problem which a policy is
designed to address; thirdly, the bottom-up
approach seeks to describe networks of
implementation and in so doing has made an
important methodological contribution to
implementation analysis. Bottom-uppers are,
therefore, concerned with the motives and
actions of actors.
The work of Berman (1978) helps us to
conceptualize the inter-linkages of these three
aspects. He argues that implementation occurs September 2001
when the macro (central policy) interacts with
the micro (institutions, the public, the problem
itself). Thus, context is as important as the
policy itself. Elmore (1982) attempted to
describe these contextual factors which are
located away from the centre, by conducting a
‘backward mapping’ exercise. In his backward
mapping, the processes of implementation
were analysed starting from the results and
impact of the policy rather than its goal. By
definition, such an approach also meant a
move away from single-actor, single-case
approaches, to one concerned with multiple-
actor analysis.
Bottom-up models can, however, be
critiqued in terms of their explanatory
capacity, but much of this critique depends
upon the researcher’s normative perspective,
in particular their views on the limits to
discretion and political legitimacy. Bottom-
uppers deal directly with complexity and
confusion, and this in itself is antithetical to
those researchers who are trying to establish
analytical simplicity.
Perhaps the main criticism of the bottom-
uppers is their own failure to recognize that
central actors and central policy are in
themselves contingent factors to the local
situation: a simple reversal of the top-down
logic. Neither the top-downers nor the bottom-
uppers mention research access and
practicalities. Access to elected officials who
are prepared to give unrhetorical interviews is
quite rare and, indeed, as Sabatier pointed out
in his 1986 critique, distinguishing between
elected officials and senior civil servants in
terms of legitimacy is also difficult. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
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Time for a revival?
Public policy
implementation: a
review of the
literature and an
agenda for future
research
ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
252
A discernible move can be detected in the
literature towards a combination of the two
approaches. Goggin et al. would argue that
their third-generation model heralds a new
approach. Furthermore Sabatier, once an arch
top-downer, has conceded the most ground in
moving towards a combined perspective
(Sabatier 1991, 1993; Sabatier and Pelkey
1987).
Theme Three: Implementation Variables
The nature and type of policy was considered
as a variable in the early implementation
literature as one which effects the success or
failure of a chosen public strategy. Success
was equated with clear and consistent policy
which had prioritized objectives (Berman
1978; Bullock 1980, Ripley and Franklin
1982). As more empirical data were analysed,
the actual nature of policy was interpreted by
scholars, and a more realistic view of policy
ambiguity was formed. Indeed, using policy as
a variable in this way, implementation studies
were in part able to advance from a success or
failure rationale towards one which was more
concerned with explaining the outcome of
policy objectives, even in trying to explain the
policy itself.
The nature and type of organization can also
be considered as an implementation variable,
as well as a process. Brodkin (1990) makes the
startlingly obvious point that all policies need
channels or structures through which to be
delivered into action. One of the benefits of
adopting an implementation approach is that
an organizational perspective becomes
politicized. This is because the very
institutions used as ‘delivery channels’ are in
themselves results of particular patterns of
social policies. Such a concept is at the very
heart of implementation studies, to the extent
that the type of delivery system cannot only
determine the success or failure of a policy,
but also define it. Such issues had been noted
by Long (1986) and Skocpol (1985) but much
of the succeeding literature failed to analyse
the political nature of organization and chose
instead to address how inter-organizational
and inter-agency implementation operated.
O’T ool e (1993) has re vi sit e d the
organizational contingency argument in
implementation studies. Although, once more,
the emphasis is on inter-organizational
channels, his approach is concerned with the
co-ordination, control and command systems
within and between organizations in respect of
policy implementation.
A third and related variable is the specific
organizational structure which is developed
either during or preceding implementation.
The major contribution in this area has come
from Hjern and Porter (1981) and from Rainey
(1990). Hjern and Porter analyse policy
implementation from the point of view of
organizational theory. They differentiate their
implementation structures from goal structures
in other organizations by assuming that most
programme implementation is achieved by
parts or clusters of various organizations, both
private and public. Therefore, an imple-
mentation structure is in effect a subset of
these organizations. By definition, they are
then, more fuzzy, less formal and authoritative
and may be self-selected. Both Hjern and
Porter and Rainey’s work suggest the
applicability of a non-formal, non-bureau-
cratic structure to enable implementation. It
would appear that such structures encourage a
more interactive, creative and emergent
process for implementation and, as such, of
course reflect the bottom-up approach both
ideologically and analytically.
Revised Thematic Foci for Literature
Review
The focus of the preceding literature is as
much a function of its cultural provenance as
the point in time when it was completed. The
literature appears to be overly concerned with
the top-down, bottom-up argument and
chronicling the development of theoretical
models. While, undoubtedly such a focus has
been important to our understanding of the
implementation process in public policy, it has
meant that other areas, certainly present
within the literature, have received less
attention.
Furthermore, if there is to be a revival of the
subject in its own right rather than as an
offshoot of strategic management in the public
sector, then implementation studies need to
address some of the contemporary problems
facing the management of public services. In
particular, if scholars are to achieve an
understanding of Brodkin’s (1990)
differentiation between the ‘policy promises
and policy products’, there are other themes
within the literature which can assist in this,
namely:
(1) knowledge, learning and capacity in im-
plementation
(2) the processes of implementation
(3) the role of actors and agents in implemen-
tation, and
(4) bureaucratic discretion in implemen-
tation.
Knowledge Learning and Capacity
The early literature on policy implementation
certainly hinted at learning as a possible
process by which policy was turned into
action. Browne and Wildavsky (1988)
suggested that implementation is learning,
while Barrett and Hill (1984) explored the
differences between ‘getting things done’ and
the ‘routinization’ of policies (p. 222),
although they framed this discussion in terms
of change. The use of this terminology in part
explains why ideas of learning became lost in
the literature. Just as it can be argued that
implementation approaches have been
subsumed under the strategic management
approach, so too we can say, that learning has
got lost under the enthusiasm for change and
innovation. However, in the 1990s there has
been a reawakening of interest in learning,
probably for two reasons: first,
implementation theorists went back to their
political roots, in particular, the ideas of Heclo
(1974) and ‘political learning’. Secondly, one
of the major implementation scholars, Paul
Sabatier, embraced wholeheartedly the idea of
learning in his development of the ‘Advocacy
Coalition Framework’ theory (1986, 1993).
Sabatier (1994) proposed that the Advocacy
Coalition Framework should bring together
the best of the top-down and bottom-up
implementation literature. As a model, it has
three premises: first, policy change, including
learning; secondly, the focus of research
should be the policy subsystem, i.e. actors September 2001
from inter-agencies; these subsystems need
also t o have an int er-governmental
perspective; thirdly, public policies should be
viewed as ‘belief systems’, which Sabatier
believes relates to sets of values, priorities and
causal assumptions.
The Advocacy Coalition Framework brings
together many of Sabatier’s long-held beliefs
over the 20–25-year period during which he
has been involved in implementation work,
particularly the longitudinal element, and the
need for all studies to express the contingent,
causal assumptions upon which they are built.
The learning element within the Advocacy
Coalition Framework hypothesis (1991, p.
185) is very much based on Heclo’s work
(1974). In Sabatier’s thesis, in order for
learning to occur, there must be an alteration
of behavioural intentions as a result of
experience from trying to attain the policy
objectives.
Thus, we have the idea of a policy loop,
wherein policy formulation could be informed
by policy experience. In itself, this was not
entirely new, given that Barrett and Fudge had
indicated such an approach in 1981. Sabatier’s
particular contribution has been in terms of
giving attention to the role of technical
information and also the role which critical
individuals have in disseminating this
information.
Other than the extensive work completed by
those scholars who have adopted the
Advocacy Coalition Approach as a theoretical
construct for their research, such as, Brown
and Stewart (1993) and Mawhinney (1993),
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about policy learning have done so from either
a theoretical perspective (May 1992) or by
reinterpreting primary documentation
(Etheridge and Short 1983). Even Sabatier
and Jenkins-Smith (1993) add a method-
ological appendix to their edited work on the
Advocacy Coalition Framework, which
addresses content analysis of public
documents as a way of obtaining evidence
about élite beliefs.
Consequently, there is a paucity of field-
based, primary evidence concerning policy
learning. One of the results of this is that the
literature fails to illuminate the processes of
policy learning. Since much of the previous
implementation work had been about whole
programme review and evaluation, learning
was dealt with under the success or failure
categories. There was little research which had
been ethnographically formatted, particularly,
in terms of discovering the real world views of
actors.
Finally, the Advocacy Coalition Framework
model does not fully address the impact and
strength of bureaucratic obedience, not
necessarily in terms of ensuring policy-
outcome congruity, but more in respect of
how actors will use the ‘official’ guidance
which accompanies new policies as a starting
point for implementation.
The Processes of Implementation
If we are to accept a working definition of
implementation which equates to policy
becoming action, then we also need to be
concerned with a processural view of
implementation. Thus, action is achieved by
various dynamic effects, such as decision
making, communicati on, bargaining,
negotiation, even conflict. There also needs
to be a concept of a continuum of action which
links the policy itself to its effects on the
ground.
By focusing upon the processes of decision
making, a considerable insight can be gained
into this dynamism which helps to create the
policy–action continuum. When Hall and
MacManus (1982) completed extensive field
work as part of the Brookings/Princeton public
service employment and community
development studies (all ‘big problem’ areas),
they utilized a field network approach to track
decisions and their consequences. Their work
made a positive move away from survey
research, towards in-depth interviews and
observation of local politicos. Such an
approach, wherein the decisions taken by
actors are seen as part of the raw research
data, is entirely different from the classic,
public administration model, wherein a policy
decision was equated with action.
Practical research which focuses upon
decisions can be very diffuse and some
scholars have chosen to limit this diffusion
by studying specific points in the policy–
action continuum. Carlucci (1990) has done
this by integrating an implementation
perspective with an innovation model of
adoption, acquisition and implementation.
Decision analysis may well help the
understanding of implementation processes,
but it also requires attention to micro-level
detail. Rainey (1990) illustrates this well in his
study of the structural changes which took
place in those human service organizations
dealing with retirement and welfare payments
in the USA in the 1980s.
A more detailed study of micro-
implementation which links into a processural
approach is given by Scheirer and Griffith
(1990) in their study of school-based fluoride
mouth rinse programmes in the USA. Their
conclusions are interesting and perhaps
unwittingly provide empirical evidence of
the ability to merge top-down and bottom-up
approaches. While the fluoride rinse
programme was essentially a state, top-down
initiative accompanied by written materials
and scientific evidence, when it came to
turning this into action, it was essentially a
bottom-up activity.
It may be self-evident that communication
is a key process involved in implementation,
but the literature which relates to such micro
processes of communication within imple-
mentation is sparse. Yin (1982) deals with it in
part from a methodological perspective and
stresses the importance of not only field
observation and recording of verbal
communications but also of written reports,
operational procedures and even news reports.
However, Nixon’s (1980) study provides a
far more detailed account of communication
processes, and its findings still stand the test of
time. Her study addressed the local
implementation of the UK 1976 Race
Relations Act. The study had the primary
objective of examining the processes of
implementation predicating these processes
upon two phases: first, interpretation of the
central policy and then the response to it at
local level.
Of singular interest in this work on
communication is the emphasis which is given
to the importance of technical instruction and
advice in terms of implementing policy.
Because so much of the literature on
implementation is concerned with the nature
of the policy objectives little detail has been
included about how to implement the policy.
Bargaining, negotiation and compromise
can also be clearly identified within the
literature as dynamic processes within the
implementation phase. Indeed, it was
Bardach’s work in the Implementation Game
(1977) which identified the processes of
exchange and negotiation as being more
prevalent than the use of authority or sanction.
It is again useful to reflect upon the
fundamental political theory which underlies
this finding, namely, interest group theory.
The whole basis of Bardach’s hypothesis is
that implementation occurs within a ‘game’
framework with its associated stakes,
strategies, implicit and explicit rules.
The whole concept of a ‘negotiated order’
within implementation studies has been more
fully articulated by Barrett and Hill (1984).
The Barrett and Hill approach stresses the
processural factors of negotiation and
bargaining which goes on between multiple
actors and agencies, stressing such processes
as exchange, dependency and power relations.
Using the same fundamental theory as did
Barrett and Hill, Matland (1995) has sought to
capture conflict as a process within imple-
mentation and link it to a policy variable,
namely, the degree of ambiguity involved in
the policy. His Ambiguity–Conflict Matrix
suggests four types of implementation:
administrative implementation; experimental
implementation, political implementation and
symbolic implementation. While these
categories provide a useful analytical September 2001
typology, they still rely upon the processes
of communication, bargaining and the use of
power expressed in terms of either coercion or
negotiated agreements.
The Role of Actors and Agents of
Implementation
Both the top-down, bottom-up and first-,
second- and third-generation models of policy
implementation emphasize the importance of
actors and groups of actors during
implementation. However, very little of the
literature about implementation addresses
behavioural or socio-psychological studies of
actors which are designed to discover how
actors’ goals and priorities impact upon the
implementation outcomes. It is more the case
that these issues are suggested in the analysis
section of case studies as opposed to being
incorporated in the research design.
One of the few models which appears to be
designed with actors in a prime position is that
of Nakamura and Smallwood (1980). Their
typology involves three groups of actors:
formulators, implementers and evaluators, all
of whom are linked to each other in terms of
delegation, discretion, bureaucracy, tech-
nocracy and bargaining. The model is useful
analytically because it focuses upon
relationships between actors, and how power
and responsibility is distributed between them.
It also provides a useful analytical chart for
other researchers (pp. 114–115) and
Sarbaugh-Thompson and Zald (1995) have
operationalized the model in respect of child
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In part, the relative paucity of
implementation research designed to address
actor behaviour may be explained by the
nature of the scholars undertaking the
research. These people are training, in the
main, as policy analysts, political theorists or
organizational behaviourists in a sociological
tradition. There are few psychologists working
in the field of public administration. This does
not, however, preclude some socio-psycho-
logical methods being used, particularly in
respect of socio-linguistic analysis (Buck
1993).
Bureaucratic Discretion and its Role in
Policy Implementation
One of the important contributions which im-
plementation studies have made to our knowl-
edge of the policy process has been in terms of
how the bureaucracy exercises discretion in
performing their jobs. The work of authors
during the late 1960s and 1970s, such as
Prottas (1979) and particularly Lipsky (1980),
established that lower-level bureaucrats had a
wide range of discretion and interpretative
power in respect of how policy affected the
citizens with whom they had contact.
Lipsky’s work is firmly rooted at ‘street
level’ and involves that tier of workers who
interact directly with the public. Hudson
(1989) maintains that Lipsky’s work has been
scarcely acknowledged in the literature on
public administration. Interestingly, Barrett
and Fudge’s work does not mention Lipsky,
their work being published in 1981 and his
synthesis in 1980. More recently, the
importance of his work is at last being
recognized in the general organizational
behaviour literature (Fineman 1998).
A further important factor of Lipsky’s thesis
is that many of the street-level bureaucrats are
in fact professionals in their own right, being
teachers, health care and social workers. A
point which makes his theory appealing to
human services researchers and is noted by
Hill (1993, p. 379) who emphasized the
potential dilemmas for professionals in terms
of work autonomy, responsibility to clients
and a duty to implement policy as so directed
by their superiors.
Lipsky’s thesis has given rise to
considerable debate regarding whether
discretion was desirable and necessary
(Barrett and Hill 1984; Van Meter and Van
Horn 1975); or whether it was anti-democratic
and reflected inadequate top-down control and
so acted to subvert policy (Linder and Peters
1987; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983). The
idea of street-level bureaucracy does raise a
range of questions about governance,
particularly about command, control and
accountability. Burke (1987) has addressed
this point suggesting that, in certain
circumstances, it is necessary for public
bodies to be prescriptive about the use of
discretion in policy implementation, in order
to counteract the influence, however benign,
of the professional, personal and moral codes
of individual street-level bureaucrats.
The exercise of discretion appears to lead to
a form of ‘adaptive’ implementation. In the
case of Thompson’s (1982) much quoted
study of the USA National Health Service
this was ‘benign’ adaptation. Similarly,
Mazmanian and Sabatier believe that the
exercise of discretion acts as a check and
balance to hierarchical control and offers the
possibility of innovation and creativity within
implementation. Additional support for these
views can also be found in Maynard-Moody et
al.’s (1990) study of the implementation of
community-based corrective judicial
programmes in Oregon and Colorado. They
conclude that adaptive implementation seems
to work best where the social policy is
ambiguous and in some cases experimental.
The success of innovative programmes like
the one they studied cannot always be tightly
defined from the top-down, and they rely as
much on service providers’ ‘savvy’ (p. 845)
about what is going on.
In his review of two decades of
implementation research, Sabatier (1991)
concludes that the role of street-level
bureaucracy will always be important,
probably more important in terms of its effect
on final policy outcome, than ‘official’ policy
making. Like Barrett and Hill (1984) before
him, he maintains that the complexity of the
links between policy makers, street-level
bureaucrats and citizens can be embodied in
terms of an overall bargaining structure
predicated upon power, dependency and
exchange.
Should There Be a Revival?
O’Toole (2000) has argued that implemen-
tation studies are alive and well, but just called
something else. He suggests that the
contributions to implementation studies are
indirect and might be better understood when
framed in terms of the work on institutional
analysis (Ostrom 1999); a stronger focus on
governance (Stoker 1991; Stone 1989) and
network analysis (Kikert et al.1997; Rhodes
1997). While his arguments are convincing,
certainly in the context of the USA, they
nevertheless seem to assume that there will
always be a political perspective to any study
of public policy. It would be difficult to find
evidence of this in the UK, because many of
the contemporary studies of implementation
are expressed as occasions of change in the
public sector. As such, they are framed in
managerialist terms, adopting explanatory
theories of strategic change from the for-profit
sector and in so doing, ignoring the special
political nature of public sector management.
There are, of course, some exceptions in the
British literature. Drawing upon a different
tradition, that of the theories of co-operation
and collaboration, Exworthy et al. (2000)
attempt to explain the implementation of
public policy in terms of the mutual alignment
of ‘big’ (national) and ‘little’ (local) windows
(agendas), wherein successful implementation
occurs when these windows are aligned. This
is a novel idea in the British literature, but not
necessarily in the literature from the USA.
Arguments in Favour of a Subject
Revival for Implementation Studies and
a Future Research Agenda
The article began with a brief review of the
integrative abilities of an implementation
perspective. Other integrative attributes of an
implementation perspective are its associated
investigative methodologies. Although domi-
nated by case study research, implementation
studies allow good opportunities for a macro September 2001
or micro analysis of a problem. It is not only
the case study approach which uses macro and
micro analytical techniques. Hjern et al.
(1978) have used network analysis; Sabatier
and Jenkins-Smith (1993) and Sabatier and St
Clair (1993) content analysis; Nathan (1982)
social experimentation and Yanow (1993)
semiotics. Barrett and Fudge also adopted a
micro analytical perspective, when they
described the day-to-day working of public
agencies and how formal policy works to
structure such operations. Implementation
studies also foster a more interpretative
approach to policy studies. In so doing, they
are able to encompass policy ambiguity and
policy irresolution without necessarily
regarding these as policy ‘failure’ as more
rationalist approaches would.
There are a number of ramifications of
taking this approach, in particular, the need to
understand the detail of day-to-day working
even to the level of working practices. I
would argue that it is this aspect which dif-
ferentiates implementation research from
strategic research, although this is not
necessarily emphasized in the literature. One
of the possible reasons for this is the
difficulty of gaining access to both policy
makers and implementing actors in the same
project, together with the resource-intensive
nature of such research. A comprehensive
review of the literature adds further support to
these arguments. Furthermore, implemen-
tation studies offer a different perspective to
the more popular evaluation and change
studies currently dominating public policy
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Table 1. Benefits of an implementation perspective
Implementation research can address
The complexity of achieving policy goals
The framing of policy advice
The potential `reverse effects hypotheses' or counter
intentional outcomes of policy
The reformulation of policy goals and policy re-design
The dynamic, continuum-based nature of policy
initiation and conversion into action
Time as a variable within the policy process
The role and importance of technical detail and
procedural information
Attention towards lower level actors, rather than policy
ëlites and the role which non-ëlites can play in
operationalizing ambiguous policy design
Practical issues based on the day-to-day effects of policy
at street-level and how these impact on bureaucrats'
work
They offer more because of their concern
with detail, their potential for a practical focus
and, unlike a general change perspective, they
are firmly based in the contingencies of
politics and political theory. Perhaps above
all, by taking an implementation perspective,
both practitioners and academics can learn to
understand and measure the degrees of
allowable risk which society is willing to
accept if there is a lack of policy-outcome
congruity between the policy as it is designed
and as it is experienced by the public. This is
not to suggest that a lack of policy-outcome
congruence is either good or bad, rather that it
carries risk.
Table 1 describes a range of benefits of
using an implementation perspective for
public policy analysis. These benefits are then
related to specific areas of the literature which
help to develop the related arguments.
A Future Research Agenda
There is a need to take the debate about the
implementation of public policy forward and
Contributory themes from the literature using revised
thematic focus
Knowledge, learning and capacity
The processes of implementation
Bureaucratic discretion
The processes of implementation
The role of actors
Knowledge, learning and capacity
The role of actors
Knowledge, learning and capacity
Bureaucratic discretion
The process of policy implementation
enhance its conceptualization beyond those
models which appear to address only the top-
down or bottom-up dilemma (Sabatier and
Jenkins-Smith 1993), or those models which
are more concerned with multi-party co-
operation (Matland 1995). In particular, in a
European context, there is a need for
implementation studies to reflect the new
and emerging political ideas which impact
upon public services organizations (Schlager
1999).
Within British public policy the concept of
a ‘third way’ political ideology dominates the
discussion about social policy and, in so
doing, has formed a template for the
Government’s modernizing agenda for all
public services (Giddens 1998; Powell
1999). Given this, there are new challenges
for those who study the implementation of
public policy some of which are as follows:
(1) new structures in public services organ-
izations, particularly inter-agency part-
nership arrangements
(2) new and complex linkages between Gov-
ernment and the public
(3) a public which in turn is highly
differentiated and has a modified view
of citizenship
(4) non-bureaucratic networks of influence,
particularly the increasing role of ‘think
tanks’ on public policy design
(5) the dominance of evaluation in the
policy cycle and the philosophy of ‘what
works, counts’, creating an evidence-
based culture among public services
managers
(6) the overriding importance of corporate
public governance and the development
of the regulatory state.
Any future models of policy implementation
will need to take account of this increasing
fragmentation, not only of organizations and
the public, but also of the policy process itself.
Given all the approaches covered by the
research in the literature, a seemingly very
simple question of ‘how do actors know what
to do when implementing a policy’ does not
appear to have been asked. Almost the
opposite is suggested – that actors are raring
to go and implement, and all that is getting in
their way is the policy itself, communication
channels or the political processes of
organization. The fact that implementing
agents may be in a state of ‘ignorance’ about
what to do is not referred to.
There appears to be a very real gap in the
knowledge about implementation studies and
the processes by which actors actually learn to
implement policy. The Advocacy Coalition
Framework Studies (Sabatier 1993) go some
way towards rectifying this, but there are still
some areas which need to be developed. In
particular, there needs to be an understanding
of the competencies and capacity issues of
individuals and their organization in dealing
with new policy requirement. Furthermore,
the detailed processes by which learning
occurs, and how learning is routinized and
maintained have all but been ignored in
implementation study research and design.
Such a need as this, presents a real
challenge to researchers, since it requires a
focus on the technical and procedural
activities of putting policy into action, while
at the same time incorporating a research
design which addresses the nature of the
policy design at a political level. One way
forward is for researchers from different
academic communities to collaborate in
implementation research.
Implementation studies have been
dominated by political theorists, which while
necessary, has also meant that some of the September 2001
explanatory theories and principles of
organization studies have been excluded.
These include a focus on the role of
organizational culture, learning, knowledge
and capacity; together with control and
autonomy within organizations and how these
organizational aspects, rather than political
aspects of public services organizations
impact upon the implementation of policy.
Future research could acknowledge the
contribution towards understanding how
policy is put into practice from the disciplines
of political science, public administration and
organizational science. There is, of course the
problem that each discipline will tend to
address potentially similar problems in a
different manner. Thus, in terms of learning,
governments tend to assume that policy
innovations are ‘doable’ from a technical
perspective, given bureaucratic obedience
(the public administration perspective).
However, organizational culture is also known
to have an impact upon learning at the
individual and group level (the organizational
science perspective). On the other hand, there
is an established body of knowledge about
political learning particularly in respect of
‘lesson drawing’ and the systematic pinching
of policy ideas and implementation solutions
(the political science perspective). More
recently, one political scientist (Cline 2000)
has acknowledged that the actual way in
which public sector organizations are
managed can impact upon how public policy
is implemented.
Implementation studies have the potential to
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ordinary public services managers oper-
ationalize often ambiguous policy. These
initiatives are often radical in nature, the
design of which, on the whole, they had very
little influence upon; but the survival and
future shape of which they are responsible for,
whether formally or otherwise. It is because of
this continuum between policy and action that
future implementation research will also need
to consider not only how practitioners are
incorporated into the design and execution of
studies, but equally how the findings of such
studies are disseminated throughout the
practitioner community.
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