The Significance of Leadership in the Evolution of Policy Styles: Reconciling Policy-Making in the Short and Long Term

Abstract

Can relatively short-term political leadership affect long-term national policy styles, and if so, how? We examine these questions in order to explain the temporal dynamics in national policy styles observed in several recent studies whose findings have challenged the traditional view that policy styles lend continuity and stability to policy-making. In its original formulation, the concept of policy styles refers to the extent to which governments are committed to anticipatory or reactive policy-making, as well as to whether they seek to reach consensus with societal groups over policies or simply impose decisions on them. Following these definitions, we contend that political leaders can alter a long-held policy style and often do so due to strategic considerations, either in an attempt to improve their policy performance or in response to an exogenous shock, such as an economic crisis. We illustrate this argument by using longitudinal records of changes in country-level governance indicators which include data on dimensions of policy styles. Specifically we examine how two of the Sustainable Governance Indicators compiled by the Bertelsmann Foundation changed for Ireland, Italy, Malta, and Poland between 2014 and 2020. As the cases show, government leaders sought to alter long-standing processes and the arrangements of governance and policy-making. Our empirical findings support the overarching argument that the study of national policy styles should be combined with that of political leadership.

Analyzing national policy styles empirically using the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI): insights into long‐term patterns of policy‐making

“…Richardson attributes the change in the British policy style to the change in the ideological composition of the government-a finding also reported by Ertugal (2021) for Turkey. More precisely, it is the entering into office of right-wing populist governments that Richardson (2018aRichardson ( , 2018b, Tosun et al (2022), and some contributions to the volume edited by Zahariadis et al (2022) associate with a more impositional and less anticipatory policy style.…”

“…That is, we observed a pattern that resembles patterns of change as described by the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: many instances of no or little change and few instances of major change ("punctuations"; Baumgartner & Jones, 1993). However, the potential for and driver of changes in policy styles deserve further conceptual reflection as also highlighted by Tosun et al (2022).…”

“…Future research is invited to help disentangling the direct effects of institutions and the moderating effects of institutions for the policy-makers' behavior. Fortunately, there exists a small but growing body of empirical research on policy styles that can serve as the point of departure for such efforts (Candel et al, 2020;Ertugal, 2021;Howlett & Tosun, 2019aTosun et al, 2022;Zahariadis et al, 2021Zahariadis et al, , 2022.…”

“…Executive capacity includes, inter alia , the measurement for strategic planning and public consultation, which we consider to approximate the two dimensions of the original formulation of national policy styles. Strategic planning maps onto the dimension on the approach to problem‐solving, whereas public consultation captures the second dimension on the relationship between the government and other actors in the policy process (see Tosun et al, 2022; Zohlnhöfer & Tosun, 2021).…”

Public Policy Research—Born in the USA, at Home in the World?

“…But what leads to changes over time? In their contribution to this special issue, Jale Tosun, Maria Tullia Galanti, and Michael Howlett ( 2022 ) examine the influence of political leadership on policy styles, using the data of the Sustainable Governance Indicators that cover 41 European Union and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2020 ). The authors select the four cases of Malta, Italy, Ireland, and Poland.…”