Towards a Framework for Establishing Policy Success

Abstract

Claims that a particular policy has been a 'success' are commonplace in political life. However, a few of these claims are justified in any systematic way. This article seeks to remedy this omission by offering a heuristic which practitioners and academics can utilize to approach the question of whether a policy is, or was, successful. It builds initially on two sets of literature: Boyne's work on public sector improvement; and the work of Bovens et al. on success, failure and policy evaluation. We discuss the epistemological issues involved in whether it is possible to produce an objective measure of 'success'. Subsequently, we present a framework for assessing success, focusing on three dimensions: process success; programmatic success; and political success. We then move on to raise a series of what we term complexity issues in relation to success for whom; variations across time, space and culture; and methodological issues.

Addressing Complexity in Environmental Management and Governance

“…Second, modeling enables the evaluation of consequences of actions, as it illustrates mutual dependencies. Third, adaptive decision making is relevant for dealing with side effects [35,45], which can be both negative and positive [48]. These management strategies are based on the difficulties humans encounter in dealing with interconnectedness.…”

Delivering reform in English healthcare: An ideational perspective

“…By drawing attention to such ideational success and failure we can go some way to explaining why certain ideas succeed and others fail because of the ways in which they are projected to whom and where. Evidently the pinning down of policy success remains an ongoing issue (Marsh and McConnell, 2010), however by drawing attention to these ideas we can help to explain why certain policies succeed and fail but also why they change.…”

Development and implementation of policies for the management of psychosocial risks: Exploring the role of stakeholders and the translation of policy into practice in Europe

“…Marsh and McConnell (2010) report that popular instances of 'policy success' appear in media pieces assessing the success/consequences of policies, claims by government and government agencies of policy successes, either in the media or in official documents, reports by interest groups' or voluntary organisations' assessments/claims about policy successes, blogs on policy outcomes and academic articles assessing policy success, usually in the form of evaluation studies. According to them, both political actors, whether politicians, bureaucrats or interest group leaders; and observers, whether academics, journalists or bloggers, 'assert', even if they don't demonstrate, the 'success' of policy initiatives.…”