The Logic of Policy Change: Structure and Agency in Political Life

Abstract

Policy universes are usually characterized by stability, even when stability represents a suboptimal state. Institutions and processes channel and cajole agents along a policy path, restricting the available solution set. Herein, structure is usually to the fore. But what of agency? Do no actors choose? In fact, they do, even in policy environments of incrementalism, even amid hostility. But where agency makes for momentous change is during the punctuations of long policy equilibriums, perfect storms enabling nonincremental movement onto a new policy trajectory, departing from the old path. On both levels, the interaction effects of both structure and agency make a difference--incrementally in the first case, nonincrementally in the second. It's not just one damn thing after another, nor does just anything go.

Continuity and Change in Social Policy

“…Zehavi () also states that historical institutionalism (HI) and the related concept of path dependency connote stability that is brought about by endogenous factors that reinforce the status quo, and make it difficult to initiate major reform, with path‐dependent systems having a clear status‐quo bias. However, Wilsford () argues that the closely related model of path dependency is more dynamic than strict HI would claim, as by its very terminology path dependency points to the unfolding over time of the given path. Path dependency is nicely summed up in Wilsford's (: 285) phrase as ‘why history makes it difficult but not impossible to reform health care systems in a big way’.…”

“…The most radical form of policy change has been variously termed ‘paradigm shift’ or ‘paradigmatic change’ (Hall ), ‘transformative change’ (Palier ),’ path‐breaking change’ (Ross ), ‘system shift’ (Hinrichs and Kangas ), ‘regime change’ (Waddan ) or ‘nonincremental change’ Wilsford (). Howlett and Cashore () state that paradigmatic change (and by extension radical policy change in general) has been treated as an abnormal, atypical, relatively unstable, and usually short‐lived process associated with changes in policy ends…”

Mellan kunskap och politik : Kvalitetssystem och offentlig kunskapsstyrning i hälso- och sjukvården

“…Jag ansluter mig i den här avhandlingen till Shpaizmans uppfattning att det finns ett värde i att uppmärksamma motstridiga idéer snarare än en viss politiskt styrande institution (se även Wilsford, 2010;Campbell, 1998). Det är i konkurrensen mellan aktörers idéer och normativa uppfattningar som det finns ett spän-ningsfält som är väsentligt för utvecklingen av kvalitetssystem.…”

The Little State That Couldn't Could? The Politics of "Single-Payer" Health Coverage in Vermont

“…The institutional argument suggests that American political institutions, with many veto points and a fragmented power structure, are the most proximate reason that the United States has con tinually failed to adopt universal health coverage and tends to adopt incremental rather than big-bang reforms (Steinmo and Watts 1995;Immergut 1990). The ideas category is broader and encompasses the use of symbolic language and framing of issues, including the power of certain policy metaphors, as well as the influence of ideology (particularly in the form of state versus market policy approaches) (Wilsford 2010) and political culture, which draws on America's antistatist attitudes as an explanation for the failure of universal health coverage proposals to launch (Jacobs 1993).…”

“…These federal institutions constrain what is possible for states to achieve on their own without federal waivers. Through this analysis, we hope to advance understanding of state health reform efforts by separating the specific from the general to draw broader policy lessons while hewing closely to the particularities of events (Wilsford 2010;Tuohy 1999).…”