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A REFORMULATION OF THE CONCEPT OF POLICY STYLE

Chapter One of British Policy-Making and the Need for a Post-Brexit Policy Style, Palgrave, 2018,

ISBN 978-3-319-90028-5

Many decades ago, Heidenheimer noted that the early 1970's began what he saw as the

'launching decade of comparative policy studies (Heidenheimer, 1985, 445). He was

interested in some of the fundamental questions for comparative policy analysts,

especially how to explain the many differences in the way in which nations handle the

various policy challenges facing them. The concept of 'policy style' reflected that early

period of comparative policy studies and was an attempt to answer the question, how

do we explain often quite major cross-national variations in the way that nations handle

what are essentially the same policy problems? The policy style concept arose out of a

realisation by many policy analysts that nation states had their own characteristic 'way

of doing things'.

Thus, anyone who has travelled around the world cannot fail to be aware of different

styles, such as in architecture, food, clothing, art and so on. It would be odd indeed if one

can easily detect national characteristics in these areas yet could not detect them in

national policy-making. If I may be autobiographical for a moment, as a young

researcher I decided to branch out from the study of British policy-making and to

conduct some interviews with policy-makers in Sweden. On day one I was, of course

aware that I was in a different country. I looked different. By the end of the first week of

interviewing it had dawned on me that Swedish policy-makers were very different to

British policy-makers in their approach to solving public policy problems. The Swedish

approach was summed up by Anton as '...decision making which never seems rash,

abrupt, irrational, or exciting' (Anton 1969, 94). This is, of course, so Swedish, as any

Volvo owner will know! Thus, Swedes seemed to make public policy just like they make
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cars, very carefully and thoroughly. It was the 'Swedish way of doing things' summed

up by the Swedish word saklighet, literally translated as 'matter of factness' or

'objectiveness', or what Elder described as '... a cool objective and dispassionate

approach to public policy (Elder, 1970, 186).

In Britain, my earlier programme of policy case studies conducted with grant Jordan

had convinced me that there was also 'a British way' of doing things'. We had argued

that 'problems are handled similarly, irrespective of what government is in power.

Agreement will be sought within the community of groups involved...(with) merged

relationships between departments and relevant groups within individual policy areas'

(Richardson and Jordan, 1979, 43). We believed, as Anton did in the Swedish case, that

these procedural traits cut across all policy sectors. Thus, we thought we could answer

Heidenheimer's question '... to what extent can these habits and experiences be

subsumed under consistent national models of policy making (and) are these models

applied similarly in most policy areas, or do the various sectors develop their own

policy-making characteristics? (Heidenheimer, 1982, 317). Our answer was that yes,

there are 'standard operating procedures' which nations adopt when policy problems

reach the political agenda. (For a recent example of the use of the term 'standard

operating procedures', see the comparative study of differing policy styles in

international public administrations by Knill et al. Thus, they define 'administrative

styles' as '...standard operating procedures that characterise the behaviour and

decision-making of bureaucracies...under conditions of uncertainty and complexity,

administrators and policy-makers develop routines in order to cope with shortages of

knowledge, information-processing capacities and time...at the level of the organization,

such coping strategies can consolidate into stable patterns of problem-solving behavoiur,'

Knill et al, 2016 1059, emphasis added)Since the original formulation of the concept of
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policy style there has been much debate about its utility in comparative public policy.

On the one hand it was seen as not a new concept at all but merely another variant of

(vague) cultural explanations – like culture, a ‘residual’ category. On the other hand it

was seen by others as a testable theory in the sense that it has predictive value – once a

national style has been identified, one can predict how new policy problems will be

handled and, possibly, the kind of policy outcomes that would result. For example,

regulatory style theorists would claim to be able to predict how, say, Germany and

Britain would address environmental problems, with Germany likely to adopt the

precautionary principle and Britain not, and Germany likely to adopt state regulation

and Britain likely to adopt some form of self-regulation. At worst the concept of policy

style is merely ‘armchair generalisations’ (a form of national stereo-typing in fact) and

at best a ‘systematic comparative tool’. In fact, concepts are neither true nor false: they

are more or less useful and need to be judged by their usage. Whatever its weaknesses,

the policy style concept seems to at least justify the adjective 'useful' in the sense that

'policy style' is now a generic term, used by very many authors without reference to the

original formulation. For example, the work by Knill et al on administrative styles in

international organisations (cited above) is underpinned by the concept of 'style' (in the

sense of standard operating procedures) but has its own specification of what

constitutes 'style'. Thus, they specify 'style' according to three variables, namely '...an

entrepreneurial style in policy initiation, a strategic approach to policy formulation and

a mediating implementation style' (Knill et al, 2016,1057).

In the original typology of policy styles (designed to help explain variations in

policy process only in Western Europe, it must be said) it was suggested that it is useful

to describe policy processes according to two main factors. The first factor is a

government’s approach to problem solving. Some governments appeared to adopt an

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anticipatory/active attitude towards societal problems, whilst others have seemed to

adopt an essentially reactive approach to problem solving. The second main factor is a

government’s relationship to other actors in the policy-making and implementing

process. For example, how do governments ‘deal’ with the interest groups in society? Is

government very accommodating and concerned to reach a consensus with organised

groups, or is it more inclined towards imposing decisions notwithstanding opposition

from groups?

These two factors should at least be generally accepted as central aspects of the

policy system in any one country, even if readers would see other factors of equal

importance. Certainly, it would be easy to justify extending the list, because selecting

only two factors may fail to capture the richness, complexity, and diversity of policy

processes. For example, Premfors argued that degrees of centralisation, openness and

deliberation should be added as central features of a policy process (Premfors, 1981).

He suggested six dimensions in his typology of policy styles, namely degrees of policy

change (from 'occasionally radical' to 'non-radical); degrees of centralisation (from

'highly centralised' to 'less centralised'); degrees of consultation (from 'limited

consultation' to ''quite extensive consultation'); degrees of openess (from 'quite

secretive' to 'secretive'); degrees of conflict (from 'high' to 'quite low'), and, finally,

degrees of deliberation (from 'quite deliberative' to 'not very deliberative') (Premfors,

1981, 255). As he admitted, there were no doubt many other additional dimensions

that might be added. His, and subsequent attempts to develop the policy style concept,

were all intended to make the concept more fine grained, as each author sought to add

in dimensions that their empirical findings (often relating to sectoral studies rather

than whole system studies). For example, Kelemen and Sibbitt identify the American

legal style as characterised by detailed rules, extensive transparency requirements,

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adversarial procedures for dispute resolution, costly legal contestation involving

lawyers, and frequent judicial intervention in administrative affairs. (Kelemen and

Sibbitt, 2004).

As suggested above,the concept of policy style has often been used to explain

differences in regulatory styles. As Vogel notes, countries tend to regulate, say, pollution,

in much the same way (style) as they regulate other policy sectors (Vogel 1986, 101).

Lundqvist had similarly noted the differing regulatory styles of pollution control in the

US and Sweden, arguing that undisturbed by citizens’ suits and court orders, the

Swedish administrators could engage in negotiations with polluters to find an

acceptable formula for policy implementation (Lundquist, 1980, 196). Halffman's study

of science policy came to similar conclusions about the existence of national regulatory

styles. He argues that:

The evidence for the existence of these national approaches to regulation is

overwhelming. The typical differences among countries that I have described are found,
in one form or another, time and again,over several decades, and in a wide variety of
policy fields, including occupational health standards, food additives, biotechnology,
pharmaceuticals, manure policy,waste policy, and even immigration policy . The
patterns seem relatively stable over time and seem to persist even under pressure of
harmonisation from international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) or the EU. (Halffman 2005, 426)

Halffman's study, though comforting for policy style advocates like me, also presents a

challenge, however. His fine grained research turned up some puzzles and he notes that:

'in the regulation of environmental hazards of chemicals, I found differences where

there should be similarities. It is only by making rather crude generalisations, as I just
did in the country descriptions, that I was able to describe differences between
countries in terms of the typical patterns from the literature on national styles. There
were stubborn cases where regulatory practices were atypical or developed in
unexpected ways. (Halffman 2005, 426).

Thus, we need to be aware that 'policy style' is a broad brush concept. Within national

styles there can be variations and, of special importance to my study here, styles can
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change over time. Indeed, the utility of the style concept is that it helps us capture the

results of this dynamic process.

At the outset, the concept of policy style was deliberately kept simple. We resisted the

temptation to develop a complex model with too many variables. Simplicity had the

advantage of increasing the heuristic value of the typology in comparative terms; one

should avoid a country-specific typology if it is to be used for comparative analysis. A

country’s policy style was therefore defined as ' the interaction between (a) the

government’s approach to problem solving and (b) the relationship between government

and other actors in the policy process. Such a definition enabled societies to be

categorised into four basic ‘policy styles’:

 Some societies seem to be located in a category which we might see as

emphasising consensus and a reactive attitude to problem solving.

 Others appear to be located in a category also stressing consensus but

with a set of normative values which emphasise an anticipatory or active

approach to problem solving.

 Others are seemingly less concerned with consensus but see the role of

the state as being rather active and willing to impose policy in the face of

opposition from organised interests.

 A fourth category is where governments are increasingly reactive rather

than anticipatory in their approach to problem solving, and if any policy

change is to be achieved, it has to be enforced against the resistance of at

least some organised groups.

By concentrating on two main factors in the policy process, a simple basic

typology of policy styles, as shown in Figure 1, was produced.

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Figure 1

National Policy Styles: 1982 Formulation

CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP

ANTICIPATORY/ACTIVE
PROBLEM SOLVING REACTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

IMPOSITIONAL RELATIONSHIP

Sweden was seen as having been (for most of the post-World War 2 period) located in

the upper left quadrant of the figure, i.e. it placed great emphasis on policy innovation

and an anticipatory style, yet emphasised the need to reach consensus. France was seen

as much more inclined towards an active (or 'heroic' as Hayward described it, Hayward,

1982, 112)) policy style in which solutions are often imposed against resistance – neatly

captured in the French saying that if you want to drain a swamp, you do not first consult

the frogs! Britain, in sharp contrast, was characterised (for most of the post-World War

2 period until Mrs Thatcher’s election in 1979) as having a policy style which has

placed great emphasis on bargaining in the context of a very reactive approach to

problem solving. Germany, in the post-war period was seen as emphasised an active

policy style, yet to be achieved through consensus. In the late 1970s, however, the

German policy style was seen as becoming more reactive, as the active policy style

posed problems to consensus-building, especially in the energy sector.

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Thus, the policy style concept does not imply total stability of ‘standard

operating procedures’ although it was assumed that styles were strongly embedded and

‘sticky’. However, under certain circumstances policy could be determined via a

different style if necessary. More importantly, under certain circumstances the

predominant national policy style might itself change over time. As pressures for more

participation developed from the mid 1960s onwards, and as more interest groups

emerged, there seemed to have been a tendency for most societies to be increasingly

reactive rather than anticipatory and for policy change to be blocked because of the

difficulty of reaching consensus. As the problems of reaching consensus increased, so-

called ‘reform deficits’ developed. Essentially, the gradual shift towards a more reactive

policy style eventually weakened the capacity of governments as problem solving

institutions.

As we shall see in our analysis of the changing British policy style, Mrs Thatcher's

government, elected in 1979, presents a classic example of a shift in policy style. The

irony of her Government, as I have argued, was that it was elected on a slogan of having

less government but became one of the most interventionist governments of the post-

war period. She tried to do less by doing more (Richardson 1994). Many other

countries seemed to follow suit sooner or later. Not only policy solutions (such as

privatisation) are part of the policy transfer process between nations, but policy styles

can be transferred too. Policy styles do change in the face of both endogenous and

exogenous challenges. It is a truism to say that Western democratic governments now

face a whole raft of quite huge policy challenges, from global climate change, to

terrorism, to obesity, to name only three examples. It would be odd indeed, if 'standard

operating procedures' and 'policy styles, were not put under strain as a result.

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I therefore conclude this Introduction to my study of the British policy style under

pressure, with a suggested re-formulation of the policy original policy style typology.

My central thesis is that we are witnessing a rather common cross-national trend, which

exhibits two main characteristics. First, there has been a trend towards the

marginalisation of interest groups, in the sense that , although they have not been

excluded from the policy process, they now generally play a less powerful role (i.e. there

is now more imposition).

Secondly, it has become more and more difficult to find examples of democratic

governments adopting an anticipatory policy style. Looking back, the original policy

style typology was probably too influenced by the Swedish case, which was atypical.

Sweden, post-war, was an extreme case of modernisation and long-range anticipatory

planning . By the1960s, the 'Swedish model' as it became known, was seen

internationally as something to be copied. However, by that time, the Swedish policy

style was already undergoing major change. The days of anticipatory policy-making

were probably over by then, though the myth of the Swedish model continued. To be

sure, anticipatory policy-making might still be found in political systems that are not

democratic (such as China) but for systems having fair, free, and regular elections, with

increasingly competitive party system, anticipatory policy-making is a hard sell to

voters. There are two basic problems in adopting an anticipatory policy style. First, it is

intellectually challenging to identify future problems (let alone what to do about them)

before they have actually begun to have adverse effects. As DeLeo suggests, 'The

defining characteristic of the anticipatory policy problem is its temporal dimension.

Specifically, anticipatory problems have yet to occur, although they are projected--

anticiated-- by some policy actors to emerge sometime in the future' (DeLeo 2016, 177).

A good example, today, is the possibly severe effects on employment of artificial

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intelligence (AI). Conventional wisdom is that millions of jobs will simply disappear,

even hitherto 'safe' jobs such as lawyers and accountants, and even doctors. Put simply,

there will be mass unemployment, hence the growing discussion of the need for the

state to provide everyone with a living wage at some future date, even if they are sitting

at home watching TV all day. However, we have no clear idea of which jobs will go, or

when, which will remain, and which new ones will be created. Moreover, though the 'AI

revolution' is conventional wisdom now, it might be the case that the conventional

wisdom is wrong. For example, Acemoglu and Restrepo argue that it is at least possible

that the AI revolution might end up creating more new jobs than the old jobs it destroys

(Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2017). However, whether or not the conventional wisdom is

right, governments, responsibly, need to do something. As Acemolgu and Restrepo

argue:

'the development and adoption of productivity-enhancing AI technologies cannot be

taken for granted. If we do not find a way of creating shared prosperity from the
productivity gains generated by AI, there is a danger that the political reaction
to these new technologies may slow down or even completely stop their adoption and
development. This underscores the importance of studying the distributional
implications of AI, the political economy reactions to it, and the design of new and
improved institutions for creating more broadly shared gains from these new
technologies'(Acemolgu and Restrepo, 2018, 34).

The problem is that the political costs of taking action are very high, as the New Zealand

Labour Party found when , in opposition in 2017, it set up its own policy commission on

'The Future of Work'. It emerged that one of the options that the commission might

consider was paying people for doing no work (as there would not be enough jobs in the

future due to AI) but the governing (right of centre) party had great fun claiming that

idle folk would, indeed, be paid to stay at home watching the TV,and that the Labour

Part was neo-Marxist. No votes in that bit of anticipatory policy-making then (idle folk

being too idle to vote, presumably!). This story does illustrate, perfectly, the problem of

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anticipatory policy-making. It is mostly about future benefits (or avoiding future

disbenefits). Voters need to be into deferred gratification, which most of us are not. Even

if we concede that anticipatory policy-making is not solely about dealing with problems

that are not yet evident, but is concerned with problems about which we are very well

informed right now and which, if not addressed now are going to get a whole lot worse,

we still hit the 'deferred gratification' problem. The obesity epidemic in the western

world is a good example of the problem. It is beyond dispute that obesity is a time bomb

ticking away for the healthcare system. It is likely to cause a massive increase in

diabetes, to take just one example. Action could be taken now, via regulatory and

taxation changes (such as fat and sugar taxes), but few, if any, governments are as yet

willing to take unpopular action in order to address the obesity problem. (A contrast is

provided by the Swedish state which in the early 1900s introduced a state liquor

monopoly and steadily raised the price of alcohol as a means of reducing health

problems and developing a sober workforce). Voters want jam today, not jam tomorrow

and there are plenty of new populist political parties around who will promise just that.

Healy and Malhonta's study of preparedness for natural disasters provides some

important clues as to why anticipatory policy-making is not very common. Their

findings suggest that governments will underinvest in natural disaster preparedness.

As they put it:

'The inability of voters to effectively hold government accountable thus appears to

contribute to significant inefficiencies in government spending because the results show
that preparedness spending substantially reduces future disaster damage. Voters are, in
a word, myopic. They are not, as we have shown myopic in the sense that they respond
more to spending just before an election than to spending a year or two earlier; rather,
they are myopic in the sense that they are unwilling to spend on natural disasters
before the disasters have occurred. An ounce of prevention would be far more efficient
than a pound of cure, but voters seem interested only in the cure. The resulting
inconsistencies in democratic accountability reduce public welfare by discouraging
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reelection-minded politicians from investing in protection, while encouraging them to

provide assistance after harm has already occurred' (Healy and Malhatra, 2009, 402).

Whilst there appear to be relatively few political incentives for politicians to introduce

anticipatory policies it is probable that there are also fewer politicians of stature who

will have the courage to explain to electorates some of the realities of the world and to

take tough, unpopular, decisions. So, anticipatory policy-making was always a difficult

task for elected governments but has become very much more difficult. Political

pressures are such that politicians are best, in terms of their own self interest, to even

resort to cynical placebo policies rather than anticipatory policies. To the politician,

placebo policies at least give the appearance of solving problems even if in the long run

they do not, or even make it worse (Gustafsson and Richardson, 1979). Thus, whilst it is

nice to think that politicians really do always wish to solve problems, it is also naive to

ignore the fact that they are often more likely to be concerned with simply managing the

political agenda to their advantage. Such strategies can even involve re-defining the

problem in a way that it simply disappears (Stringer and Richardson 1980).

In considering typologies of policy styles, we need to remember one simple fact, above

all. Governments are very busy, indeed they are overloaded. As I was completing this

volume, my former Essex colleague Tony King passed away. In a perceptive

retrospective on his Tony King's career, Moran captures the essence of Kings'

pathbreaking analysis of trends in British government, as follows:

'The descriptive account can be reduced to three propositions. First, ‘the business of
government has become more difficult.’ A symptom of this is the proliferation of failed
policies, some large, some small. Second, ‘the range of matters for which British
governments hold themselves responsible—and for which they believe that the
electorate may hold them responsible—has increased greatly over the past ten or
twenty years ...and is still increasing at a rapid rate.’ This is the connection with King’s
aphorism that nowadays people look not to God or the market for help, but to
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government: ‘the hungry sheep look up and reckon that they have a least a reasonable
chance of being fed... government [has] come to be regarded, in Britain at least, as a sort
of unlimited-liability insurance company.’ Finally, the account is tied explicitly to the
language of overload: ‘just as the range of responsibilities of governments has increased,
so, to a large extent independently, their capacity to exercise their responsibilities has
declined. The reach of British government exceeds its grasp.’ (Moran, 2017, p2, citing
King, 1975).

In fact, very few studies have been conducted of anticipatory policy-making (perhaps an

indicator that anticipatory policy-making is not often seen in the wild?). Robert DeLeo's

excellent study of anticipatory policy-making is a notable exception, though he notes

that 'government is unquestionably predisposed to reactive policymaking' (DeLeo, 2016,

7, emphasis added). Even in cases of what he terms 'proactive policy' he notes that a

'reactive bias' still exits (DeLeo, 2016, 6). Anticipating natural disasters is one of the

most likely policy areas where anticipatory or proactive policies might be found, but

even there he finds that disaster relief spending dwarfs preparedness spending. He

quotes one study which found that '...between 1985 and 2004, the US government spent

an annual average of $3.05 billion on disaster relief and a mere $195 million on disaster

preparedness (DeLeo 2016,citing Healy and Malhotra 2009). He also draws attention to

the health policy sector, quoting Faust who has estimated that 'medical treatment

spending outpaces preventive medicine spending by a 1:99 cents ratio (Deleo, 2016, 6,

citing Faust 2005). The explanation for this is simple, of course. As I suggested above,

'jam tomorrow' is not a strong selling point to the average voter. Specifically referring to

disaster relief, DeLeo argues that ' At its most basic level, relief spending addresses

highly salient problems with an immediate and very tangible impact on voter whereas

preparedness spending is far less visible and often addresses problems that are yet to

occur' (DeLeo, 2016, 6).

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Nevertheless, one should not assume that anticipatory policy-making is totally

unknown. For example, the incentive structure for politicians can sometimes actually

encourage them to be anticipatory. Thus, Healy and Malhotra argue that:

'... the government almost certainly does not underinvest in all kinds of preparedness.
For example, after the attacks on September11,large investments were made in
preventing future attacks on passenger jets. One clear difference between airport
security and most natural disaster preparedness measures is that airport security is
highly observable and salient. Moreover, this example may be the exception that proves
the rule ...when voters provide their elected officials with incentives to make mistakes—
ranging from insufficient investment in natural disaster preparedness to perhaps
excessive attention to airline security—elected officials are likely to provide the
inefficient policies that voters implicitly reward' (Healy and Malhotra, 2009, 402).

Of course, dealing with a terrorist threat immediately after a terrorist attack has taken

place is rather different to dealing with the threat of, say, a major earthquake. If we take

the Alpine Fault in NZ as an example, it is certain that the fault will rupture, with truly

massive consequences, at sometime in the next fifty to one hundred years, but can we

expect any New Zealand government to invest huge amounts of capital now, when the

benefits of that might not be seen by the current generation or the maybe even the next

one? Surely not. Meanwhile, one of New Zealand's most popular tourist destinations

(the small glaccier town of Franz Joseph, including its only petrol station!) continues to

sit literally on top of the Alpine Fault. This example nicely illustrates that anticipatory

policy-making relates to inter-generation equity problems. I am 75 and live in New

Zealand, paying NZ taxes. Chances are that the Alpine Fault will not rupture in my

lifetime, so what incentive do I have to pay higher taxes in order to fund anticipatory

investments in earthquake-proof infrastructure etc?

Yet, as Deleo argues, governments do engage in anticipatory policy-making (his case

studies are of nanotechnology policy, pandemic policy, and climate change policy).

However, such activity '...is sporadic and in some cases can have disastrous results'

(DeLeo, 2016, 177). Moreover, to be fair to elected politicians, many huge private
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companies have run into trouble through not being anticipatory enough. Anyone still

using a Blackberry or Nokia phone? And which companies had policies in place to deal

with the 2008 financial crisis?

Anticipatory policy-making is, clearly, increasingly problematic for governments.

However, possibly of equal importance, public policy-making has become a) much less

deliberative b) much more frenetic when dealing with problems which are already well

known and firmly on the political agenda. As a result, the policy style typology might

need amending to take account of some quite fundamental changes in the world since

the typology was first formulated in 1982. My tentative suggestion is reproduced in the

figure below. No doubt this reformulation is overly influenced by my analysis of the

British case, but I suspect that comparative policy analysts will recognise the trends

which are think are very evident in Britain. It seems to me that policy styles generally

have become more impositional, less anticipatory, less deliberative, and more frenetic. If I

am correct, then we should all worry as it suggests that the capacity of policy-making

systems to actually solve problems has significantly declined, just as the problems have

become more intractable.

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Figure 2

Changing National Policy Styles: Frenetic Problem Solving

CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP

FRENETIC PROBLEM SOLVING

DELIBERATIVE PROBLEM
SOLVING

IMPOSITIONAL RELATIONSHIP

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main contractor, Metronet went into administration in July 2007 leaving taxpayers

between £140m and £170 m worse off (NAO 2009:40). Crewe and King identify a lack

of proper consultation as one of the causes of the Metronet fiasco. As they put it ' leading

ministers made sure that, to the extent that outsiders were consulted at all, the

consultations were purely nominal' (Crewe and King, 2013:656). Similarly, Moran's

study of policy disaster concluded that 'Introducing radical policy changes without

building up support among affected interests was obviously a high risk strategy'

(Moran, 2010,420)

A policy style which either reduces the amount of deliberation or, worse, excludes it, in

fact runs against modern democratic traditions. As Majone has argued, '...public

deliberation has been carefully institutionalised in all modern democracies...the general

purpose of these procedures is to insure the hearing of many opinions without

compromising the need to reach a conclusion' (Majone, 1989, 3). He goes on to argue

that '... a lack of access to the appropriate forum may, by itself, be a serious obstacle to

the proper consideration of new policy ideas. Systematic development and evaluation of

new proposals is impossible without organised opportunities for critical debate'

(Majone, 1983, 162-3). Majone is mainly concerned with the efficiency of policy-making

and the role of policy analysis in the policy process, but the quotations above also allude

to the importance of democracy in policy-making. Democratic policy-making systems

have to balance the contradictory ideas that democracy is about numbers and the rights of

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winners against the notion that and democracy is also about accommodating losers and

building consensus.

Here we see a central paradox in government/interest group relations, namely that

granting excessive power to interest groups can lower the effectiveness of policies (as

Olson, Scharpf, and Peters have argued), leading to reform deficits, yet excluding groups

from policy-making risks introducing new policies that will simply not work or are even

close to madness. Indeed, so extreme was the lack of deliberation in the London

Metronet case that a leading American transport expert told the Minister to his face

that the scheme was insane! (Crewe and King, 2013, 657). Of course, much more

systematic and cross-sectoral research needed for one to be sure that the Metronet

fiasco was not unique. However, the use of the word madness to describe a major

government programme is certainly not unique. Thus, the Institute for Government's

detailed report on the fiasco (eventually righted it must be said) surrounding the

introduction of Universal Credit in 2012/13 quotes one of the suppliers who had signed

up to deliver the scheme as believing that the timetable was simply 'madness' (IfG ? 64).

Other participants in the process, such as civil servants, are convinced that the timetable

was political as the Coalition Government wanted to reduce the public deficit over the

life of a parliament. David Pitchford (Head of the Major Projects Authority in HMG) is

quoted as saying 'It was announced before it was planned. This is a common issue in

major public enterprise projects worldwide because a prime minister or minister wants

to make an announcement and get underway' (IfG, 2016b, 65).

No wonder, as Moran has argued, for some period now Britain has been living in an age

of policy catastrophe. As he puts it, 'If governments now invest huge resources in

trying to be so smart, why does it often act so dumb?' (Moran, 2001, 415).
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Reform deficits as a result of excessive group power are a clear danger. However,

effective interest group involvement in both problem definition and policy formulation

also has an inherent logic . Groups have been historically integrated into public policy-

making for good practical reasons. Their participation in the policy process contributes

essential knowledge which policy-makers lack, and it generally raises policy

effectiveness providing it is properly managed and balanced. As a recent review of the

experiences of over seventy ministers concluded:

' relations with external stakeholders, whether business lobbyists, patients’ groups or
teachers’ unions, are important for two main reasons. The first is that ministers can
learn from them and get better policy outcomes as a result. One of the risks of
ministerial life is that ministers, surrounded by willing officials who want the best for
their department, become inwardly focused... The second reason is that poor relations
with external stakeholders mean negative press and a lack of support for what the
Government is trying to do..'. (IfG 2017:17).

The risk factor presented by the hierarchical style is a recurring theme of the Institute

of Government's report on Leading Change in the Civil Service, cited earlier. It reports

that 'ministers across virtually all of the main Departments have each pursued their

own large and risky policy agendas at pace' ( IfG, 2014:17, emphasis added). From a

ministerial perspective this must sound just fine as it implies that the levers of power

real do work. Being a minister in this kind of compliant culture must actually be quite

fun, like being able to have a go at driving a tank! This sentimnet is captured nicely by

the observation of former minister, Nick Boles, as follow: 'I’ve had a generally very

positive experience in the three departments – because my second job was across two

departments – in that I basically found a bunch of very bright people who were willing

to engage and do the work and, in both cases, really wanted to deliver my ideas of

reform ( Boles 2017).

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The increased risk factor is not solely due to civil servants being less inclined towards

the 'protect my minister' role. It is also increased by the greater role of specialist

political appointees, often less familiar with the detailed management of policy sectors

and the dramatis personae of policy communities and networks therein. Everett and

Faulkner report that the number of political advisers (at17/12/1) was 92, the highest

number by a UK government, other than a coalition (Everett and Falkner 201:11). Their

data show a steady increase from the mid thirties in 1995. Moreover, as they point out

these figures are an under-estimate as 'the informal cap on numbers has... been

circumvented by appointing individuals as time-limited civil servants' (Everett and

Falkner, 2015:10). The trend for specialist political appointees might be a generic risk.

For example, Cooper and Marier's comparative study of policy-making in two Canadian

provinces found that in politicized executives '...the result is the adoption of policies

with a shorter time horizon and with a higher likelihood of reversal' ( Cooper and

Marier,2015:2).

Baekkeskov and Ö berg's study of the comparative role of expert advice in Denmark and

Sweden in the handling of the H1N1 influenza pandemic has some important pointers to

the dangers of governments relying on too narrow a base of expertise in devising public

policy. They note that existing information may be ambiguous, and experts might have

biased agendas (Baekkeskov and Ö berg, 2017, 1007). Whilst they concede that

'...experts can reduce the risk of policy failure by reducing uncertainty; that is by

providing critcal information on options..', they also argue, correctly in my view, that 'in

turn policy failure risk may be reduced by public discourse on a wide range of policy

options' (Baekkeskov and Ö berg, 2017, 1008). Moreover, they are right to argue that

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'deliberation adds democratic legitimacy by increasing the chance of including different

perspectives'(Baekkeskov and Ö berg, 2017, 1008).

My broad overview suggests that there are some re-enforcing trends at work in Britain

over the past thirty years that have shifted the central focus of the policy process from

better policies towards more overtly political and less deliberative policies via a more

frenetic policy style. The austerity and reform turns; the strengthening of the centre in

relation to policy departments; the increased role of political advisers in initiating policy

change; a drift towards a more subservient civil service; and an apparent increasing

number of cases where interest groups are marginalised, have all facilitated the

emergence of 'strong government'. However, as an IfG Report warned (in reference to

possibility of further reductions public expenditure) 'keeping critical stakeholders on

board-- like the judiciary, police, teachers and nurses-- will be increasingly difficult,

particularly when rethinking fragile policy and funding settlements all over again' (IfG,

2014:7). Interestingly, the most recent (Jan 2016) Cabinet Office guidelines on the

consultation process, whilst generally echoing the 2012/13 guidelines cited above, do

contain a rather chilling statement, namely, 'Do not ask questions about issues on which

you have a final view' (emphasis added). This suggests more than a hint of an

impositional policy style, based on 'the why should I compromise when I am the one

who is right' approach to policy-making.

My argument is that successful policy-making (by which I mean policies actually solving

societal problems such as poverty) is very difficult if groups are marginalised or

ignored, as such an approach excludes essential expertise from policy formulation. As

Herbert Simon put it a very long time ago, 'another way in which rationality can be

bounded is by assuming that the actor has only incomplete information about
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alternatives...' (Simon 1972). Marginalising interest groups simply makes rationality

more 'bounded' than it needs to be. Thus, policy styles are not simply an academic

exercise. They do matter.

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