PUBLIC POLICY The dynamics of public policy theory and evidence

158 Pages·2007·0.63 MB·English

The Dynamics of Public Policy
NEW HORIZONS IN PUBLIC POLICY
Series Editor:Wayne Parsons
Professor of Public Policy,Queen Mary and Westfield College,
University of London,UK
This series aims to explore the major issues facing academics and practitioners
working in the field of public policy at the dawn of a new millennium. It seeks to
reflect on where public policy has been,in both theoretical and practical terms,and
to prompt debate on where it is going. The series emphasizes the need to understand
public policy in the context of international developments and global change. New
Horizons in Public Policy publishes the latest research on the study of the
policymaking process and public management,and presents original and critical
thinking on the policy issues and problems facing modern and post-modern societies.
Titles in the series include:
Public Policy and Local Governance
Institutions in Postmodern Society
Peter Bogason
Implementing European Union Public Policy
Roger Levy
The Internationalization of Public Management
Reinventing the Third World State
Edited by Willy McCourt and Martin Minogue
Political Leadership
Howard Elcock
Success and Failure in Public Governance
A Comparative Analysis
Edited by Mark Bovens,Paul t’Hart and B. Guy Peters
Consensus,Cooperation and Conflict
The Policy Making Process in Denmark
Henning Jørgensen
Public Policy in Knowledge-Based Economies
Foundations and Frameworks
David Rooney,Greg Hearn,Thomas Mandeville and Richard Joseph
Modernizing Civil Societies
Edited by Tony Butcher and Andrew Massey
Public Policy and the New European Agendas
Edited by Fergus Carr and Andrew Massey
The Dynamics of Public Policy
Theory and Evidence
Adrian Kay
The Dynamics of Public
Policy
Theory and Evidence
Adrian Kay
Department of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University,
Brisbane, Australia
NEW HORIZONS IN PUBLIC POLICY
Edward Elgar
Cheltenham,UK • Northampton,MA,USA
©Adrian Kay 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic,
mechanical or photocopying,recording,or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
Glensanda House
Montpellier Parade
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 1UA
UK
Edward Elgar Publishing,Inc.
Thomas Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kay,Adrian
The dynamics of public policy :theory and evidence / Adrian Kay.
p. cm. — (New horizons in public policy series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Policy sicences. 2. Policy sciences — Case studies. I. Title. II.
Series:New horizons in public policy.
H97.K39 2006
320.6—dc22
2006012076
ISBN-13:978 1 84542 105 2
ISBN-10:1 84542 105 1
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd,Bodmin,Cornwall
Contents
Abbreviations vi
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
1 Introduction:why we need dynamic perspectives 1
PART I THEORY
2 Policy dynamics and history 17
3 Path dependency 29
4 Evolutionary perspectives 42
5 Structured policy narratives 59
PART II EVIDENCE
6 The development of the EU budget system 77
7 The Common Agricultural Policy 1977–2003 90
8 The GP fundholding scheme 104
9 UK pharmaceutical policy 118
References 131
Index 143
v
Abbreviations
ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions
AFR annual financial return
BBR balanced budget rule
BMA British Medical Association
CAP Common Agricultural Policy
CCT common customs tariff
CE compulsory expenditure
CoAM Council of Agricultural Ministers
CRL Co-Responsibility Levy
DHA District Health Authority
DoH Department of Health
EU European Union
FE functional explanation
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP gross domestic product
GNP gross national product
HI historical institutionalist
IIA inter-institutional agreement
NCE non-compulsory expenditure
NGO non-governmental organization
NHS National Health Service
NHSE National Health Service Executive
NICE National Institute for Clinical Excellence
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OR own resources
PACT prescription analysis and cost
PCGs primary care groups
PCTs primary care trusts
PPRS Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme
R&D research and development
SFP single farm payment
VIL variable import levy
VPRS Voluntary Price Regulation Scheme
WTO World Trade Organization
vi
Preface and acknowledgements
During the writing of this book,I moved to a new job in Australia. This slowed
down the writing of the book significantly but prompted some new reflections
on policy dynamics and the incorporation of references to the situation in
Australia to complement the empirical chapters based on my previous work on
UK and EU public policy. If the reflective pause in writing ever tried the
patience of my publisher, Edward Elgar, it never showed: thank you to
Catherine and her colleagues for supporting this project through to
completion.
In trying to think about temporality in policy analysis I have benefited
greatly from many discussions with former colleagues at the School for Policy
Studies at the University of Bristol,as well as my new ones at the Department
of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University.
I would like to thank the publishers of the following journals for permission
to draw on material, in heavily revised form, I have published previously:
(2003), ‘Path dependency and the CAP’, Journal of European Public Policy,
10(3), 405–21; and (2001), ‘Beyond policy community: the case of the GP
fundholding scheme’,Public Administration,79(3),561–77.
My greatest debt is to Siwan and I dedicate this book to her. Dw i’n dy garu
di.
Adrian Kay
Brisbane,March 2006
vii

1. Introduction: why we need dynamic
perspectives
WHAT IS DYNAMIC ANALYSIS?
This is a book about the dynamics of public policy. Like many well-used and
widespread terms in the social sciences the idea of dynamic perspective or
analysis, whilst intuitive and appealing, is difficult to define precisely in a
manner that will cover all of its different uses. For example, even within the
field of economics and its commitment to a positivist science, the Nobel
Laureate Paul Samuelson (1947, p. 311) was able to say that: ‘often in the
writings of economists the words “dynamic”and “static”are used as nothing
more than synonyms for good and bad, realistic and unrealistic, simple and
complex’. In his Essays in Economic Semantics,the Austrian economist Fritz
Machlup (1975, p. 10) offered the view that: ‘Typically, “statics” was what
those benighted opponents have been writing; “dynamics” was one’s own
vastly superior theory.’
Precise definitions do exist:for example,Samuelson’s own formulation that
dynamic analysis refers to models in which time is an independent variable
would be recognized by students of economics. However, this limited
definition is of little utility outside the formal models of economics and does
not capture any substantial sense of the concept of dynamic analysis as it is
used variously in the social sciences. Instead this definition is an exemplar of
‘how economics forgot history’,the title of Geoffrey Hodgson’s investigation
of the long-standing difficulty of time and historical specificity in the social
sciences (Hodgson 2001).
It is precisely the difficulty that economists have had in modelling time that
reveals the value and importance of the dynamic perspective to the analysis of
public policy. Any policy process is a complex system and dynamic models of
complex systems are much more difficult to construct than static ones (which
is why dynamic models are also less well developed in biology and physics
(Auyang 1998)). The difficulty arises because there are typically several
processes with different speeds going on at the same time. This makes
separating different time scales such as the short,intermediate or long run as
essential to understanding and explanation as distinguishing between
different spatial scales, as in the macro, meso, micro and decision levels
1