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Comments on Anderson's ch 6
As always, unless otherwise noted, references to Anderson are to his 2011 7th edition assigned as a text for this course.
Although there is over a one-hundred year history of scholarly interest in public administration, going back to Max Weber’s (1864-1920) analysis of bureaucracy as one (and the most modern) form of authority, the focus on bureaucracy and implementation is relatively new (Anderson: 210). The rise of interest in implementation, in particular in the 1970s, is tied to changing ambitions of public policy. Ending the cycle of poverty, rejuvenating cities, equalizing educational outcomes, and the like are goals that are different in nature than traditional government activities--delivering the mail, building roads, or fighting wars. It’s pretty clear how to develop procedures for delivering a letter and to trace failures in delivery. How to provide safe, decent, and life-supporting housing to the poor is a different, and much more difficult, matter. Questions of implementation bulk larger in some of the policy initiatives that really became prolific in the 1960s, especially those associated with Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.
What happens in the implementation phase is in no small measure a consequence of the policy that was adopted. Implementation of a policy which was adopted based on compromises has to accommodate the various perspectives that made the compromise possible; and to the extent a policy was adopted based on a coalition made possible by leaving some issues unresolved, the vague result gives implementers more discretion in their actions (Anderson: 217). Of course, the way in which the policy was adopted, which impacts the process of implementation, is itself is shaped by the pattern of agenda setting, policy design, and problem definition. And it’s going to get worse, as we head into Anderson’s last chapter on policy impact and evaluation, because determining how well a policy works depends, again in no small measure, on how the policy was implemented. (An example is the ESEA in its early years, Anderson: 213)
The key to the importance, and power, of bureaucrats in implementation is the issue of discretion. Discretion is the ability to choose from alternative courses of action. The example of OSHA is a good one: Congress told OSHA to protect workers from carcinogenic dangers “to the extent feasible,” without resolving the question of whether that meant economic or technical feasibility. OSHA has to choose how to proceed, to adopt one or the other or to find some middle course.
Although the study of implementation brings administrative discretion to the fore, it should be obvious that other players in the policy process—members of Congress, the president, judges, policy advocates and opponents—all have discretion in that they frequently have the ability to choose among alternative actions. Those alternatives are not always pleasant ones, but rarely is an actor totally constrained to act in one certain way.
Anderson (210) observes that “groups that suffer losses in the legislative arena may seek to recoup some of their losses by influencing or disrupting the administration of a policy,” and he’s quite right. This is why the cycle or process of policy is important. Knowing that they will lose in the congressional or presidential arena, policy opponents will keep in mind that a policy once adopted still needs to be implemented, and so they will do whatever they can in the adoption phase to “open up” the policy so that they can achieve their goals in the implementation phase. (Equally, if opponents cannot deny an issue agenda status [Anderson: 99-100], they will try to frame the debate in a way favorable to them [Anderson: 87].) Of course, policy advocates if they are smart, knowing that policy opponents plan to fight another day (in the implementation phase) , will try to design the adopted policy in such a way as to foreclose opponents’ success during implementation (recall synergy).
On the other hand, while one would think that policy proponents would be interested in how their proposals are implemented, and sensitive to the risks of implementation slips, this is not necessarily the case, especially for elected officials. While a member of Congress, say, may be a forceful advocate for some policy, his primary concern is likely his political future. Having gotten recognition for helping to pass some popular measure, he may not care all that much how the policy is implemented or how successful it is. (Obviously, if the policy turns out to be badly conceived or implemented, there may be a political risk, but the skillful politician can always try to blame the implementers.) One always has to think about the motives of the player in the policy game (Anderson: 131-34)
In profiling the political environment of agencies, Anderson (255-30) includes as part of their milieu other government agencies with which they may be in conflict for assigned responsibilities, budget, and other resources. It is worth noting that many times overall policy necessarily involves cooperative, mutually supportive efforts by two or more agencies. Think about the US Department of State and the US Department of Defense in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, indeed, around the globe), and for that matter, the Central Intelligence Agency as well. Or, just think about the Army, the Marines, and the Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each agency has its own mission, its own priorities, its own norms, and its own standard operating procedures. On the top of that, communications even within an organization are often problematic, and this is magnified in cross-organizational communications. Successful implementation of policy requiring inter-agency collaboration is not easily realized.
Institutionalism again?
- Who is going to implement a policy—the national government, or state or local governments? Because the US is a federal system and because for a variety of reasons--including the advantages of cost-shifting, a desire to accommodate state and local political preferences, and a recognition of diversity within the union--some policies are designed to be administered, even if only in part, at subnational levels. Such delegation may impact implementation. To make things more complicated, some policies are implemented by nongovernmental organizations who win grants to provide services authorized by the national government. For example, in mental health.
- Note Anderson’s (224-225) analysis of the impact of fragmenting implementation of the occupational safety policy.
Administrative rulemaking (Anderson: 234-37) is a subject about which I know little, which is probably very unfortunate because in policy terms it seems as if, at least for certain policy domains, a lot of the action takes place in the rulemaking process. For a taste, look at these two current instances
In the application of administrative rules, the issues of substantive due process (does the agency have the legitimate authority to exercise a given power?) and procedural due process (has the agency correctly followed appropriate procedures?) are of great importance. Not infrequently, agencies are challenged, charged with violating the substantive or procedural due process rights of citizens or other entities.
Odds and ends
- As a case in point that politicians agree that “organizational arrangements are not neutral” (Paul Light quoted by Anderson: 222), there is the current dispute over the organization of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the Dodd-Frank bill after the 2008 financial implosion.
- In discussing the president as a player in implementation, Anderson (226) should have singled out the Office of Management and Budget, discussed elsewhere in the text. OMB matters for implementation for a variety of reasons. Since the 1930s, OMB has had the power of “central [legislative] clearance,” which at least officially blocks executive branch agencies from transmitting proposals to Congress unless they have been certified by OMB as consistent with the president’s program. Second, as discussed by Anderson in Ch 5, OMB prepares the Executive Budget which is presented to Congress and which serves as a menu from which Congress makes additions or cuts; agencies which stray from presidential preferences in the implementation of programs run the risk that OMB will punish them at budget time. Finally, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (Anderson: 237), which reviews regulations developed by agencies for the implementation of policy under their jurisdiction, is lodged in OMB.
- Anderson (227) says that the decline of the patronage system in favor of the merit-based civil service has reduced the role of parties in implementation. Perhaps, but it is also the case that the overwhelming number of political appointees who head agencies, and at least nominally direct them, are drawn from the president’s political party.
- Anderson’s (237) observation that agencies often prefer adjudication to rulemaking is a nod to the advantages of bounded rationality over comprehensive rationality.
- Policy vagueness, which has come up a number of times, may also be a cause of noncompliance (Anderson: 260), a failure of implementation.
No comment (just something to think about)
What are the advantages, and what are the disadvantages, of allowing for flexibility in the administration of public policy (Anderson: 214)?
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