Policy as palimpsest

Abstract

A palimpsest is a multi-layered text that is reinscribed over time. This article presents policy as analogous to a palimpsest. The analogy highlights change and stasis, policy reinscription and the complexity of judging progress. An ethnographic study of implementation of the UK Sure Start Children"s Centres policy demonstrates how a policy-palimpsest is assembled. Asynchronous time zones are evident as premodern religious beliefs and traditional social structures are in tension with postmodern performativity and "initiativitis". Perceptions of progress depend on how history is interpreted, how policy is framed and how the future is imagined. A local policy-palimpsest reinscribes policy with unintended consequences.

Policy Integration and Multi-Level Governance: Dealing with the Vertical Dimension of Policy Mix Designs

“…That is, certain groups of actors may promote certain options without regard for their impact on other elements of a mix-for example when forest companies advocate for greater cut allotments without taking into account their impact on fisheries or endangered species-and when historical problems of policy legacies exist in a sector (Kiss, Manchón, & Neij, 2012). Older programmes and policies which have conferred benefits on certain actors, for example, can make it very costly to shift to other arrangements (Anderson et al, 2010) and many existing mixes have developed haphazardly through processes of policy layering, in which new tools and objectives have been piled on top of older ones, creating a palimpsest-like mixture of inconsistent and incoherent policy elements (Carter, 2012;Thelen, 2004;van der Heijden, 2011). Factors such as increasing efforts to promote collaborative or horizontal governance arrangements also affect the number of multi-sectoral and multipolicy situations which exist (Peters, 1998) and raise the issue of policy integration to the forefront of policy design considerations.…”

Policy Design and Non-Design: Towards a Spectrum of Policy Formulation Types

“…7 Layering, of course is a concept developed in the neoinstitutional sociological literature by some of its leading figures, namely Beland (2007), Beland and Hacker (2004), Hacker (2004), Stead and Meijers (2004) and Thelen (2004) to explain the pattern through which social and political institutions have evolved over long-periods of time. As applied to policy-making, "layering" connotes a process in which new elements are simply added to an existing regime often without abandoning previous ones so that polices accrete in a palimpsest-like fashion (Carter, 2012).…”

Governing spaces: a multi-sited ethnography of governing welfare reform at close range and at a distance

“…I chose to go into the group discussing 'work'. The session was facilitated by an eager young civil servant, keen to share ideas using the familiar scribbling-on-the-flip chart technique (Carter 2012) so that we could all discover 'what was working' in relation to tackling child poverty. Local government workers and children's charity representatives were in attendance.…”

“…Despite the 'spurious precision' (McLaughlin 2006) implied by the software, the statistical data reproduced in the form of blobs and triangles did not translate simply and directly into decision-making. This particular GIS tool designed for governing at a distance was not stable nor an example of what Latour describes as an 'immutable device' (Latour, cited in Allen 2011); local knowledge of the terrain and the adhocracy of rules-in-use (Carter 2012, Ostrom 1999) proved more powerful. Goldborough CLP had no dedicated space of its own but used meeting rooms that were proffered as part of the networked partnership.…”