Acting Right? Privatization, Encompassing Interests, and the Left

Hicks, Timothy

doi:10.1017/psrm.2015.11

“…The structure of political partiesand hence policies-depends on the economic system in play. Electoral systems feature in the work of Hicks (2015), on the impact on the concentration of left-wing votes. He shows that support for privatization policies may not be partisan.…”

Section: The Debate About Political Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theories of Policy Change and Variation Reconsidered: A Prospectus for the Political Economy of Public Policy

John

¹

2015

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Studies of decision-making in public policy may be conceived as three distinct ages of theory building and testing. The first was the classic period of studies of decisionmaking and rationality; the second was the age of synthesis when theories of decisionmaking were blended into accounts of agenda setting. The third-which is starting to take shape-is the age of the political economy of public policy, drawing on models and methods that have been applied to the study of international relations and comparative politics, which are increasingly addressing issues in public policy. The paper's argument offers a challenge to public policy scholars to use theory and approaches from political economy and to integrate them with classic and synthetic approaches. Insights from public policy approaches from the first two ages could also inform the political economy of public policy. The paper contains a review of the development of public policy theory in the 1990s; it provides an account of the recent period as one of relative stability; it then presents work in comparative political economy as examples of research on public policy.Keywords Public policy Á Political economy Á Decision-making So far there have been two ages in the study of decision-making in public policy: the firstthe classic period-was when key terms were defined. Debates took place about the nature of decision-making and the extent to which full information prevails. It was the time when incrementalism, the rational model, the stages heuristic and sectoral representations of decision-making processes were elaborated, notably set out as the second two lens in Allison's influential Essence of Decision (1971). The second and synthetic age was of complex accounts of decision-making, which produced the policy advocacy coalition framework, the garbage can and policy window metaphors, and the punctuated equilibrium model-the currency of many of today's policy scholars. In these frameworks of analysis,

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“…Christensen ; Christensen and Pallesen ; Green‐Pedersen ), privatization (e.g. Boix ; Zohlnhöfer et al ; Hicks ), and outsourcing (e.g. Chandler and Feuille ; Bhatti et al ; Picazo‐Tadeo et al ; Sundell and Lapuente ; Elinder and Jordahl ), but this has focused on either parliamentary or local government politics without consideration of the politicization of unelected actors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisan Governance and Policy Implementation: The Politics of Academy Conversion Amongst English Schools

Hicks

¹

2014

Public Administration

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This paper demonstrates that party-political orientations within governance communities can have strong effects on policy implementation. Empirical evidence is drawn from the Academy conversion scheme for secondary schools in England that was recently pursued by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. The opt-in nature of the reform for individual schools makes it possible to discern the impact that nominally apolitical school governors have on the implementation of the policy. Several intriguing features of the distribution of schools that have converted to Academy status are documented. First, they are disproportionately found in more Conservative-voting constituencies. Second, this is due to varying school-level propensities to apply to convert, rather than varying propensities for the Department for Education to authorize conversions. Third, applications to convert are significantly more likely from schools in Conservative parliamentary seats that are under the control of Labour local authorities. Generalizing from these findings, it is argued that nominally apolitical policy participants may act in rather political ways, and that this has implications for our understanding of the involvement of civil society in the provision of public services. * I'm grateful to Lucy Barnes, Matt Hall, James Hicks, Gail McElroy, and Peter Stone for helpful discussions and comments regarding this project. I also wish to thank Becky Allen for generously sharing OFSTED data and Brian Cheal at the Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre, Plymouth Business School, for sharing data on local election results.

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Theories of policy change and variation reconsidered: a prospectus for the political economy of public policy

John

¹

2017

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Studies of decision-making in public policy may be conceived as three distinct ages of theory building and testing. The first was the classic period of studies of decisionmaking and rationality; the second was the age of synthesis when theories of decisionmaking were blended into accounts of agenda setting. The third-which is starting to take shape-is the age of the political economy of public policy, drawing on models and methods that have been applied to the study of international relations and comparative politics, which are increasingly addressing issues in public policy. The paper's argument offers a challenge to public policy scholars to use theory and approaches from political economy and to integrate them with classic and synthetic approaches. Insights from public policy approaches from the first two ages could also inform the political economy of public policy. The paper contains a review of the development of public policy theory in the 1990s; it provides an account of the recent period as one of relative stability; it then presents work in comparative political economy as examples of research on public policy.Keywords Public policy Á Political economy Á Decision-making So far there have been two ages in the study of decision-making in public policy: the firstthe classic period-was when key terms were defined. Debates took place about the nature of decision-making and the extent to which full information prevails. It was the time when incrementalism, the rational model, the stages heuristic and sectoral representations of decision-making processes were elaborated, notably set out as the second two lens in Allison's influential Essence of Decision (1971). The second and synthetic age was of complex accounts of decision-making, which produced the policy advocacy coalition framework, the garbage can and policy window metaphors, and the punctuated equilibrium model-the currency of many of today's policy scholars. In these frameworks of analysis,

show abstract

Acting Right? Privatization, Encompassing Interests, and the Left

Cited by 6 publications

References 70 publications

Theories of Policy Change and Variation Reconsidered: A Prospectus for the Political Economy of Public Policy

Theories of Policy Change and Variation Reconsidered: A Prospectus for the Political Economy of Public Policy

Partisan Governance and Policy Implementation: The Politics of Academy Conversion Amongst English Schools

Theories of policy change and variation reconsidered: a prospectus for the political economy of public policy

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