‘Values’ in the Policy Process

Abstract

This paper is addressed to some of the problems of using the concept values as an explanatory factor in the analysis of public policy-making. An obvious justification for a focus upon values is the presence within the field of policy output studies of implicit or partly explicated value or predisposition variables. The attention given to party control or Labour strength as intervening variables in the papers by Newton and Sharpe and Alt testify to the assumed importance of values, for party identification and control are clearly surrogates for a constellation of values which, though rarely discussed, are thought to inhere in the party. A broad range of studies conducted on both sides of the Atlantic suggest that such dimensions as ‘the scope of government’, ‘attitude to deviance’, ‘tolerance of ambiguity’, as well as more general aspects of actor roles, class cultures, or organizational ideologies, playa major part in the determination of policy decisions. Value analysis is without doubt a theoretical and methodological minefield. It is clear that different dimensions of belief and evaluation bear upon different policy areas; that levels of analysis problems arise in the identification of whose values are potent for policy;

Elite sports policy and coaching at the coalface

“…This method of interviewing encouraged participants to provide in-depth information that resonated at a personal level and captured meaning in contextual situations (Kvale and Brinkmann 2008). It also facilitated a greater understanding of the assumptive worlds (Young 1977) of the elite coaches. All eight interviews were recorded and transcribed.…”

Incremental change without policy learning: Explaining information rejection in English mental health services

“…Ideational theories propose that the individual mental and specifically cognitive processes of commitment to belief are in themselves sufficiently robust to explain why people ignore, disdain or argue against views that would challenge their beliefs. In this category, we find many ''discourse'' theories such as Fischer's (2003), as well as Young's (1977) ''assumptive world'' account, Scho¨n and Rein's (1994) theory of frames, and Scott's (1998) model in which certain excessively ambitious and formulaic ideas are somehow intrinsically more seductive than any others; arguments that ideas are independent variables in the policy process are also espoused, for example, by John (1999John ( , 2003, while Braun and Busch (1999) allow ideas to be independent variables in various circumstances; Be´land (2005) offers a more qualified account in which institutions filter and constrain ideas, and ideas have only limited power to modify institutions. Although it has additional complications and qualification, Sabatier's advocacy coalition framework is essentially an ideationalist theory.…”

The pitfalls of European risk governance: a question of design or application? Some empirical results from the food safety sector

“…For instance, a policy designed on the basis of ''individualist'' welfare economics principles is more likely to insist on traditional costÁbenefit analyses for guiding risk management decisions as compared with a policy based on the more ''hierarchical'' public management theory (Parsons 2001). Therefore, even when following the same legal provisions, as is the case of EU Member States, public policy officials involved in the design and implementation of specific regulations will often operate according to different values (Young 1977) or so-called ''frames of meaning'' (Schö n and Rein 1994;Hajer 1997). In turn, this explains why policy harmonization at the level of administrations does not always keep pace with progress at the legal level.…”