Week 10- Policy Success Framework Flashcards
What is the key problem?
The claims/assessments about policy outcomes do not establish any systematic criteria for assessing success or failure
What are the three criteria for programmatic success?
- Effectiveness
- Efficiency
- Resilience
How is political success characterised?
- ‘The political dimension of assessment refers to the way in which policies and policy makers become represented and evaluated in the political arena’
- Indicators of political success or failure are political upheaval (press coverage, parliamentary investigations, political fatalities, litigation) or lack of it, and changes in generic patterns of political legitimacy (public satisfaction with policy or confidence in authorities and public institutions)
Why might criteria for policy success be contradictory?
Policies may be unsuccessful in programmatic terms, but ‘spun’ to appear a political success, or successful in programmatic terms, but represented as a failure and thus, politically negative for the government
What are indicators of process policy success, and what is evidence for this?
- Legitimacy in the formation of choices: that is, produced through due processes of constitutional and quasi-constitutional procedures and values of democracy, deliberation
- Legislative records, executive minutes, absence of legal challenges, absence of significant criticism from stakeholders
- Passage of legislation: was the legislation passed with no, or few, amendments
- Analysis of legislative process, using legislative records, including identification of amendments and analysis of legislative voting patterns
- Political sustainability: did the policy have the support of a sufficient coalition?
- Analysis of support from ministers, stakeholders, especially interest groups, media, public opinion
- Innovation and influence: Was the policy based on new ideas or policy instruments, or did it involve the adoption of policy from elsewhere (policy transfer/diffusion)?
-Government statements and reports (e.g. white/green papers) academic and practitioner conferences, interest group reports, think tank reports, media news and commentary, identification of form and content of cross-jurisdictional meetings/visits by politicians and/or public servants
What are indicators of programmatic policy success, and what is evidence for this?
- Operational: was it implemented as per objectives?
-Internal programme/policy evaluation, external evaluation (e.g. legislative committee reports, audit reports), review by stakeholders, absence of critical reports in media (including professional journals) - Outcome: did it achieve the intended outcomes?
-Internal programme/policy evaluation, external evaluation (e.g. legislative committee reports, audit reports), review by stakeholders, absence of critical reports in media (including professional journals) - Resource: was it an efficient use of resources?
- Internal efficiency evaluations, external audit reports/assessments, absence of critical media reports
- Actor/interest: did the policy/implementation benefit a particular class, interest group, alliance, political party, gender, race, religion, territorial community, institution, ideology etc?
-Party political speeches and press releases, legislative debates, legislative committee reports, ministerial briefings, interest group and other stakeholders’ speeches/press releases/reports, think tank reports, media commentary
What are indicators of political policy success, and what is evidence for this?
- Government popularity: is the policy politically popular? Did it help government’s re-election chances? Did it help secure or boost its credibility?
-Opinion polls, both in relation to particular policy and government popularity, election results, media commentary
Broadly define ‘process’
Refers to the stages of policy-making in which issues emerge and are framed, options are explored, interests are consulted and decisions made
It is assumed ‘programmatic success’ is more likely if what?
- If the policy process involves and reflects the interests of a sufficiently powerful coalition of interests
- Innovation and influence can also be measures of process success, irrespective of the particular policy outputs and outcomes. A policy process may produce new and innovative ways of tackling a problem
How can policy transfer be considered innovation?
- Innovation can also be based on policy transfer from another political jurisdiction
- If policy instruments or even broad frameworks are imported from elsewhere, the assumption is that there is some value in doing so
- In effect, a policy transferred from elsewhere can bring with it not only particular policy instruments, but also the idea, sometimes erroneous, that it was successful in the original
Why is policy implementation generally a much more complex affair than it was?
- The growth of:
-Multi-level governance
-Public sector fragmentation through arm’s length agencies
-Quangos
-Non-departmental public bodies
-Privatisation
-Outsourcing
In what ways might a policy be considered a programmatic success?
- the nature of programmatic success can also encapsulate the subsequent impact on society
- Efficient use of resources can also be considered a success, and the growth of public audit bodies, value for money studies, national competition councils and productivity commissions are indications of the salience of resource efficiency as a measure of contemporary public policies
- May be successful if it benefits a particular actor, target group or interest, based on issues such as territory, race, religion and gender
What is the biggest indicator of political success?
- From the perspective of the government and the governing party, a policy may be successful if it assists their electoral prospects, reputation or overall governance project
What is a ‘token policy’?
- The creation of a new programme without any additional funding, which does little more than keep a “wicked issue” off the political agenda
What are other indicators of political success?
- Successful policy may also rescue the party or government from low popularity, or help consolidate a lead in opinion polls
- May also apply to a policy which helps pave the way for a national election campaign
- Policy can be framed as successful because of an assumption that it has positive political impact