‘Public administration in an age of austerity’: positive lessons from policy studies

Cairney, Paul

doi:10.1177/0952076712442212

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Further, our object of study has changed and new approaches have developed to conceptualise that new world (Cairney, 2012a: 42). Modern accounts do not support the simple idea of top-down decision making pursued by a sole central actor (Cairney, 2012b). Rather, they describe action by many people and organisations within a complex policy process.…”

Section: Modern Policy Theory Has Moved On From Those Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How can policy theory have an impact on policymaking? The role of theory-led academic–practitioner discussions

Cairney

2014

Teaching Public Administration

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Policymakers and academics often hold different assumptions about the policymaking world based on their different experiences. Academics may enjoy enough distance from the policy process to develop a breadth of knowledge and produce generalisable conclusions across governments, while policymakers/ practitioners such as civil servants may develop in-depth expertise when developing policy for a number of years. In turn, both may learn from each other about how to understand the policymaking world. Academic-practitioner seminars and short training courses can help further that aim. Yet, there is a major barrier to such conversations: academics and practitioners may have their own language to understand policymaking, and a meaningful conversation may require considerable translation. The article explores this topic in four main ways. First, it considers the extent to which academic-practitioner discussions still use simple concepts, such as the policy cycle, rejected by policy scholars in favour of concepts explaining policymaking complexity. Second, it identifies a series of relatively simple key tenets, from policy theories designed to explain complexity, to explore the extent to which modern theories can provide straightforward insights to policy practitioners. Third, it considers how those insights, based largely on what governments do, can be used to recommend what they should do. Fourth, it considers how to engage directly with policymakers to encourage intelligent and reflexive policymaking.

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Section: Modern Policy Theory Has Moved On From Those Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Modern accounts do not support the simple idea of top-down decision making pursued by a sole central actor (Cairney, 2012b). Rather, they describe action by many people and organisations within a complex policy process.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

How can policy theory have an impact on policymaking? The role of theory-led academic–practitioner discussions

Cairney

2014

Teaching Public Administration

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“…Social and political contexts are the result of long histories of institutional development; policy-making is seldom concerned with making radical changes to existing systems (22). The term path dependency is used to explain how political activity relates to and builds on the current system (23), which explainins institutional stability, where the basic principles of an established system are unlikely to change.…”

Section: Bounded Rationality Path Dependency and Social Systems Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying theories to better understand socio-political challenges in implementing evidence-based work disability prevention strategies

Ståhl

Costa-Black

Loisel

2017

Disability and Rehabilitation

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Future research may involve participatory approaches focusing on building coalitions and communities of practice with policy-makers and stakeholders, in order to build trust, facilitate cooperation, and to better promote evidence utilization. Implications for Rehabilitation Implementation of work disability prevention policies are subject to contextual influences from the socio-political setting and from relationships between stakeholders Stakeholders involved in implementing strategies are bound to act based on their interests and previous courses of action To promote research uptake on the policy level, stakeholders and researchers need to engage in collaboration and translational activities Political stakeholders at the government and community levels need to be more directly involved as partners in the production and utilization of evidence.

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“…Policy structure‐based accounts of the transition between New Labour and the Coalition have tended to emphasize continuity between the two administrations. This is in spite of the adversarial party culture in which the main UK parties compete and govern, resulting in a need to emphasize the radicalism of one's own position compared to that of rivals (Cairney : 231). Such accounts juxtapose the rhetoric of innovation with the apparent tendency towards ‘business as usual’ in policy‐making.…”

Section: Interpretations Of Uk Welfare Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Continuity? Understanding Change in the UK Welfare State since 2010

McEnhill¹,

Taylor‐Gooby

2017

Soc Policy Adm

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One approach to identifying policy change stresses policy instruments, settings and policy paradigms, while another also considers the process and culmination of various shifts and consequent outcomes. This article illustrates the debate through an examination of how far developments in social security policy between the 1997-2010 New Labour and 2010-15 Coalition Governments in the UK constituted real policy shifts. It shows that, despite continuities in instruments and approach, there have been substantial changes in the impact of welfare state policies related to short-term benefits, employment and housing. The article identifies new policy directions leading to a different kind of welfare state, concerned less with living standards and equality and more with individual responsibility and paid work. It suggests that this has been achieved without the need for radical changes in instruments and their settings. KeywordsSocial security; Welfare policy; UK Coalition; Conservative Party; New Labour; Policy change IntroductionThe UK has been characterized as the paradigmatic majoritarian democracy, allowing the party of government to exercise considerable authority over policy directions. In theory, a new government is in a strong position to redirect policy. The tendency of UK parties to offer sharply contrasting characterizations of their policy approaches in their manifestoes, and the adversarial style of British party politics, certainly supports this impression.Few areas over the 2010-15 period have been as hotly debated as the main parties' approaches to welfare policy. There is now good quality evidence of the different effects of these approaches, and clear sets of 'new' policies can be identified from 2010, rendering this a fruitful area in which

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‘Public administration in an age of austerity’: positive lessons from policy studies

Cited by 8 publications

References 49 publications

How can policy theory have an impact on policymaking? The role of theory-led academic–practitioner discussions

How can policy theory have an impact on policymaking? The role of theory-led academic–practitioner discussions

Applying theories to better understand socio-political challenges in implementing evidence-based work disability prevention strategies

Beyond Continuity? Understanding Change in the UK Welfare State since 2010

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