Political Decisions and Agency Performance

302 Pages·2000·11.76 MB·English

by  René Torenvlied (auth.)

POLITICAL DECISIONS AND AGENCY PERFORMANCE
Library of Public Policy and Public Administration
Volume 2
General Editor:
DICK W.P. RUITER
Faculty ofP ublic Administration and Public Policy,
University ofTwente,
Enschede, The Netherlands
The titles published in this series are listed at the end a/this volume.
POLITICAL DECISIONS
AND
AGENCYPERFORMANCE
by
Rene Torenvlied
Utrecht Un;versity,
The Netherlands
.....
"
SPRJNGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-94-010-5857-5 ISBN 978-94-011-4285-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-4285-4
The publication of this book was made possible by financial support from
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
Printed on acid-free paper
AII Rights Reserved
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 2000
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from
the copyright owner.
In memory of Comelis Torenvlied
CONTENTS
PREFACE xiii
CHAMmR1.THEPARADOXOFCOMPUANCE
1.1. A PARADOXICAL FINDING 1
1.2. POUCY ANALYSIS BY "MODELING THROUGH" 5
1.2.1. Concepts and definitions 5
1.2.2. A political science approach 7
1.2.3. A modeling approach 10
1.3. REsEARCH OBJECT: SOCIAL RENEWAL 13
1.4. PLAN OF THE BOOK 17
CHAPTER 2. IMPLEMENTERS CONSTRAINED?
2.1. NEO-CLASSICAL MODELS OF THE BUREAUCRACY 19
2.1.1. Rationality and goal oriented behavior 19
2.1.2. Politicians and agencies I: Information asymmetry 21
2.2. SUBST~PREFERENCESOFAGENCIES 23
2.2.1. Policy position and salience 25
2.2.2. Policy visions and problem perceptions 26
2.3. NEO-INSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF THE BUREAUCRACY 27
2.3.1. Politicians and agencies IT: Political control 28
2.3.2. Political decision models 30
2.3.3. Mixed models 37
2.4. POLITICAL CONFUCT MODELS 41
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER 3. OVERARCHING MODEL OF POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
3.l. INTRODUCTION 47
3.2. THE BASIS OF THE MODEL: POLICY ISSUES 48
3.3. COLLECTNE DECISIONS AND INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES 51
3.3.1. Preference loss 53
3.3.2. Reputation loss 56
3.3.3. Choosing the optimal policy performance 59
3.4. FOUNDATIONS OF A SIMPLE MODEL OF IMPLEMENT AT ION 61
3.4.1. Formal model derivation 62
3.4.2. The incentive to deviate 64
3.4.3. The room for maneuver 64
3.4.4. The preference weight 66
3.5. MODEL ELABORATION: EFFECTS OF POLITICAL CONFLICT 68
3.5 .1. Opportunism of political decision makers 69
3.5.2. Implementation agencies use political tolerance 70
3.5.3. Formal model derivation 72
3.5.4. The surprising effect of preference weight 73
3.6. VARIATIONS IN POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM AND CONTROL 76
3.6.1. Five specifications of an overarching model 78
3.6.2. Hypotheses and their consequences for the models 80
3.7. MODEL COMPARISON AND TESTING 82
3.7.1. Model error 83
3.7.2. Model bias 86
CHAPTER 4. JESTING SIMPLE MODELS IN COMPLEX SE1TINGS
4.l. INTRODUCTION 89
4.2. RESEARCH DESIGN 89
4.2.1. Explanatory power of different model specifications 89
4.2.2. Comparison of concise case studies 91
4.2.3. Validity and reliability of the chosen design 91
4.3. SELECTION: JUSTIFICATION AND PROCEDURE 94
4.3.1. Research focus: social and administrative renewal 97
4.3.2. Local authority policy programs and policy issues 98
4.3.3. Actors involved 101
4.3.4. Policy performances 103
4.3.5. Timing of the first and second points of measurement 103
CONTENTS ix
4.4. RESEARCH USING KEY INFORMANTS 105
4.4.1. Background of key infonnant research 106
4.4.2. Criteria for the selection of key infonnants 108
4.4.3. Who are 'good' infonnants? 109
4.4.4. Reducing bias in infonnant data 110
4.5. OPERATIONALIZATION AND MEASUREMENT OF THE VARIABLES 111
4.5.1. The policy issues 112
4.5.2. Policy position 113
4.5.3. Salience 115
4.5.4. Sensitivity to control 116
4.5.5. Voting power 118
4.5.6. Other variables in decision making models 119
4.5.7. Political decision and policy perfonnance 120
CHAPTER 5. SOCIAL RENEWAL: INTERESTS AND IMPLEMENTATION
5.1. SOCIAL RENEWAL IN THREE LOCAL AUTHORITIES 123
5.1.1. Dutch local authority policy making 123
5.1.2. Introduction to the case descriptions 125
5.2. SOCIAL RENEWAL IN WESTSTElLINGWERF 126
5.2.1. Brief historical overview 126
5.2.2. Policy program and selected issues 130
5.2.3. Policy deviations 136
5.2.4. The actors involved 137
5.2.5. Characteristics of the organizations involved 140
5.3. RESTRUCTURING SOCIAL-CULTURAL WORK IN GRONINGEN 143
5.3.1. Brief historical overview 143
5.3.2. Policy program and selected issues 153
5.3.3. Policy deviations 158
5.3.4. The actors involved 159
5.3.5. Characteristics of the actors, involved 163
5.4. NEIGHBORHOOD ORffiNTED WORK IN ARNHEM 166
5.4.1. Brief historical overview 166
5.4.2. Policy program and selected issues 173
5.4.3. Policy deviations 176
5.4.4. The actors involved 177
5.4.5. Characteristics of the organizations involved 180
5.5. CONCWSION 182
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER 6. TOWARDS AN INTEGRA TED PREDICTION MODEL
6.1. INTRODUCTION 183
6.2. TESTING THE MIXED MODEL 187
6.2.1. Model error and the mixed model 189
6.2.2. Overestimation and underestimation by the models 195
6.2.3. Conclusion 198
6.3. TESTING THE MODELS WITH POLmCAL CONFLICf 200
6.3.1. Comparison of the political decision model with the
political conflict model 202
6.3.2. Comparison of the mixed model with the
mixed conflict model 205
6.3.3. Conclusion 208
6.4. AN INTEGRATED PROGNOSTIC MODEL 209
6.4.1. Analysis of decision making: Predicting the political
decision 211
6.4.2. Integrated analysis: Predicting the policy performances 214
6.5. CONCLUSION 219
CHAPTER 7. WHERE POLITICS MAKES SENSE
7.1. NOnlING IS SACRED 221
7.1.1. Recapitulation 222
7.1.2. Brief overview of the model 225
7.2. ROOM FOR MANEUVER OR POLmCAL CONTROL 227
7.2.1. Theory 227
7.2.2. Empirical findings: loyalty at what price? 228
7.3. DEVIATING BY CONSENT? 229
7.3.1. Theory 229
7.3.2. Empirical findings: political conflict has no effect 230
7.3.3. Possible explanations for the missing effect 231
7.4. PREDICTING POLICY PERFORMANCES 233
7.4.1. An adjustment of assumptions 233
7.4.2. What have we achieved? 234
7.4.3. Some caveats 235
7.5. DON'T BASH BUREAUCRACY 239
7.5.1. Political control in disguise 240
7.5.2. What is the problem? 241
CONTENTS xi
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1. MATHEMATICAL APPENDIX 245
1. Derivation of the simple implementation model 245
2. Mathematical representation of the tolerance interval 247
3. Glossary of notations and terms 253
ApPENDIX 2. OVERVIEW OF SELECTED POUCY ISSUES 255
ApPENDIX 3. ACTORS INVOLVED AND CHARACTERISTICS 261
ApPENDIX 4. OVERVIEW OF SELECTED POLICY PERFORMANCES 265
ApPENDIX 5. POUCY DOCUMENTS AND DUTCH REPORTS 269
REFERENCES 275
INDEX 287