Routledge Handbook of Comparative Policy Analysis

Marleen Brans, Iris Geva-May, Michael Howlett, Marleen Brans, Iris Geva-May, Michael Howlett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317337454
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This Handbook presents the first comprehensive study of policy analytical practices in comparative perspective.

It explores emerging developments and innovations in the field and advances knowledge of the nature and quality of policy analysis across different countries and at different levels of government by all relevant actors, both inside and outside government, who contribute to the diagnosis of problems and the search for policy solutions.

Handbook chapters examine all aspects of the science, art and craft of policy analysis. They do so both at the often-studied national level, and also at the less well-known level of sub-national and local governments. In addition to studying governments, the Handbook also examines for the first time the practices and policy work of a range of non-governmental actors, including think tanks, interest groups, business actors, labour groups, media, political parties and non-profits.

Bringing together a rich collection of cases and a renowned group of scholars, the Handbook constitutes a landmark study in the field.

1
POLICY ANALYSIS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: AN INTRODUCTION

Marleen Brans, Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett

Part A: Conceptual Foundations and Contribution

The Handbook of Comparative Policy Analysis provides the first comprehensive examination of policy analysis in a comparative perspective. It covers an international meta study of the state of the art knowledge about the science, art and craft of policy analysis in different countries, at different levels of government and by all relevant actors in and outside government who contribute to the analysis of problems and the search for policy solutions.

This book’s ambition is to advance the comparative knowledge of policy analysis, and it does so by a unique configuration of internationally diverse authors and internationally based evidence. It is comparative in both the international scope of the cases presented and in the overarching theoretical conclusions that are generalizable enough to be applicable for understanding the field.

The book brings together invited experts who, as editors of/or contributors to country studies on policy analysis, are experienced in collating theories and empirical evidence from a wide range of countries. Many of the contributors are at the forefront of studying comparative policy analysis and policy advice, and several are leading scholars advancing policy analysis internationally. They are active in promoting policy analysis studies in various international research networks, such as the International Comparative Policy Analysis Forum and the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis (ICPA/JCPA), the International Political Science Association (IPSA), the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA), the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) and the International Public Policy Association (IPPA). Some contributors to this volume were specifically invited to close particular theoretical and empirical gaps that have until now never been systematically approached from a policy analytical angle.

In terms of the perspective of policy analysis as a subject for comparative research and in terms of its structure, the Handbook follows the International Library for Policy Analysis book series (Geva-May & Howlett, 2013–2018) sponsored by the ICPA Forum and the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, and is informed by a common template and content orientation derived from Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock’s Policy Analysis in Canada (2007).

The definition of policy analysis is seen by the editors of this volume as applied social and scientific research as well as more implicit forms of practical knowledge. Compliant with Lasswell’s (1971) distinction between ‘analysis for policy’ and ‘analysis of policy’, this book studies practices of analysis for policy in order to inform the analysis of policy. Referring to the first aspect, ‘for policy’, one is reminded that analysis for policy refers to applied policy analysis, and includes both formal and informal professional practices that organizations and actors entertain to define a problem marked for government action, as well as to prescribe the measures to solve that problem by policy action or change. In this meaning, policy analysis relies upon policy work by actors, and encompasses the garnering of information about the problem situation and its context, the demarcation of problem definitions, the design and comparison of policy instruments, and the assessment of policy alternatives reached and capable of feasibly mitigating the problem situation. The outcome of policy analysis is eventually policy advice, which in this book is understood as a recommendation or opinion for future courses of government action or inaction.

By an explanatory observation of applied policy analysis by different policy actors, in different social or policymaking units, the Handbook also aims to make a significant contribution to the meta study of policy, or what Lasswell (1971) calls the analysis ‘of policy’. Analysis of policy refers to the more theoretical and/or generalizable investigation of the ways in which policies are made and the roles policy actors play in the policy cycle. It investigates the ways in which their policy analytical work sets the agenda, informs the search for solutions, supports decision making, impacts upon implementation, and eventually helps to evaluate policies.

This Handbook’s anchoring points for studying the bearing of policy analytical activities on policymaking, however, do not necessarily follow the distinct stages of the policy analysis process (DeLeon, 1999; Dunn, 1994; Patton & Sawicki, 1993; Dye, 1995; Geva-May with Wildavsky, 2011; Geva-May, 2017; Bardach, 2015) or those of the policymaking process (Patton, 1997; Howlett, Ramesh & Perl, 2009). Rather, given the actor and client orientation of the policy analysis process in policymaking (Wildavsky, 1979; Weimer & Vining, 2010; Radin, 2013, 2016; May, 2005) the book offers a useful heuristic tool to map actors and their influence over policy choices, and reviews the nature of their policy analytical activities and the difference they make in the policy process (Howlett, Ramesh & Perl, 2009). Some of the studied actors may put their policy analysis to use for agenda setting but not for policy evaluation, while others may a have a more encompassing impact across different stages. With this conceptual orientation in mind, the organizing principles for the majority of the chapters are related to the locus and focus of public policy analysis by policy-relevant actors in and outside of government.

To be sure, it is not the first time that these actors and their roles in the policy process have been analysed. Several actors and their roles have featured in theories of the policymaking process, from neo-corporatist and pluralist studies to policy networks or subsystems approaches (Polsby, 1960; Schmitter & Lehmbruch, 1979; Schmitter & Streeck, 1999; Rhodes, 1997; Richardson, 2000), in public choice (Dunleavy, 1991), actor-centred institutionalism (Scharpf, 1997), as well as in approaches such as the policy streams theory (Kingdon, 1984), the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993), resource theory on lobbying and advocacy (Bouwen, 2002), and finally in work on policy advisors and the configuration of policy advisory systems (Halligan, 1995, 1998; Craft & Howlett, 2012, 2013).

But this is the first time the policy-relevant actors are comprehensively approached with a focus on their policy analytical activities. As policy analytical work has long been recognized as a core function of modern bureaucracies (Lasswell, 1971; Meltsner, 1976, Geva-May, 2017; Page & Jenkins, 2005), bureaucrats’ policy analysis can count on a longer-standing research tradition than that of actors outside executive government. But even then, attention has mostly focused on policy analysis in central government, and has left policy analysis in subnational and local governments largely unexplored. There are also some actors outside government who have attracted research attention for a while, such as academic researchers (Weiss, 1979) and think tanks (Stone, 1996). But for other actors, such as voluntary organizations or management consultancies, academic interest in the nature of their policy analytical work is relatively recent, for some even absent up till now. Political parties and parliaments are cases in point.

While the policy analysis tenet of transparency, effectiveness, efficiency and accountability through systematic and evidence-based analysis started in the US in the 1960s, it only began to spread internationally in the late 1990s as the global village became increasingly smaller through technology, transportation and commerce, and more economically, environmentally and politically interdependent. In seeking to better understand the local adoption of policy analysis by different loci, and their respective interpretations, as well as the effect on international interactions—whether explicit or implicit—the Handbook promises to substantively advance the comparative knowledge about policy analysis across the globe.

The Handbook’s content relies on contributions that connect the broader literature, existing comparative research and supplementary secondary analysis with the evidence garnered in a collection of single case studies that were published in Policy Press’s International Library of Policy Analysis (ILPA) book series (Geva-May & Howlett, 2013–2018) and the comparative policy analytical tenets pioneered and enhanced by the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. Throughout the three volumes per year of the ILPA, each focusing on policy analysis in a different country, the country cases build consensus on the definition of policy analysis, answer the same set of central research questions, and consider the same range of actors that configure the policy advisory systems in different jurisdictions. Together these country studies have provided the ground material with which the chapters of this volume proceed, as well as the contextual description necessary for the higher comparative aims of classification, typology building and explanation. They also significantly enlarged the geographical scope of current policy analysis literature. This Handbook brings together evidence from countries other than the usual Anglo-Saxon countries that have much dominated the literature to date. From continental Europe, the chapters feature policy analytical practices in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark. From Asia, evidence is brought in from Japan, China and Taiwan. South American cases include Brazil and Mexico.

First, apart from addressing a larger than usual geographical scope in their investigations, the contributors to this volume substantively advance the state of comparative policy analysis. They do this by departing from operational definitions that are devoid of national bias so that they are encompassing enough to capture similarities and differences of policy analysis across the globe. The definitions and concepts entertained are necessarily broad enough to capture functional equivalents of the same phenomenon across a variety of jurisdictions and languages. This is the case for the definitions of ‘policy analysis as a profession’ (Geva-May, 2005); ‘formal policy analytical methods’; or ‘policy analytical activities’ (Weimer & Vining, 2010; Bardach, 2015; Geva-May with Wildavsky, 2011); ‘policy analysis’ and ‘policy research’ as academic subjects (JPA, NASPAA publications), as well as for defining such policy-relevant actors as ‘committees of inquiry’, ‘expert advisory bodies’, ‘non-profits’, ‘think tanks’ (Radin, 2000, 2002, 2016; Fischer & Forester, 1993; Stone, 1996).

Second, the authors of this collection move their analysis up the ladder of comparison, and provide heuristic tools and frameworks for further studies. Several of the chapters apply, for instance, a policy analysis supply-and-demand framework. The chapter on the relationship between policy analysis and policy capacity offers a way to map different jurisdictions along different combinations of strong or weak demand and supply of policy analysis. An additional chapter on professional policy analysis uses a supply-and-demand logic. The chapter on policy analysis in central governments presents a consistent set of material research subjects, such as the context of policy analysis, the institutionalization of policy analysis in central government vis-à-vis other institutions, the people that perform policy analysis, and the challenges they face. Legislative policy analysis, in turn, is approached with a comprehensive set of units of analysis, ranging from the people and units that perform parliamentary policy analysis to the instruments that legislators have at their disposal to garner knowledge and expertise. One of the more comprehensive heuristic matrices in this book considers policymaking styles. It provides legitimacy and guidance for future studies of the way in which different policy analytical styles are produced and circulated in a country’s policymaking system.

Third, the role of the policy-relevant actors vis-à-vis the nature of policy analysis shows divergence across the cases featuring in this book. Several chapters have succeeded to reduce the ‘world of complexity’ of policy analysis actors and activities with the use of classifications and by constructing typologies that reveal the features that cases share or do not share. Formal policy analytical methods are classified alongside participatory and consensus-oriented approaches. Policy analytical styles include policy predictive analysis, problem causal analysis, trial/error policy analysis, policy process analysis and normative policy analysis. The repertoire of resources for parliamentary policy analysis includes Members of Parliament’s (MPs) personal assistants and group assistants, and parliamentary support services to the MPs. The roles of particular policy actors are also classified. Committees of inquiry (COIs) play a variety of roles, from facilitating learning, to adjudication and political roles. Expert advisory bodies are traditional professionalized advisory bodies, or modernized interactive responsive bodies. Management consultancy firms feature as rational planners, cost-cutters, or partners in the new governance. Think tanks also come in many guises, each exposing different modes of policy analysis: ‘ideological tanks’ or ‘advocacy tanks’, ‘academic, non-partisan think tanks’, ‘specialist’ think tanks, ‘generalist’ think tanks, and ‘think and do’ tanks. The more-specific party political think tanks appear in four types, depending on the temporal and ideational focus of their advice: ‘ideological guardians’, ‘policy experts’, ‘policy advisors’ and ‘policy assistants’. As to types of policy analysis instruction, finally, the country profiles reviewed in this Handbook are either mixed-policy analysis-policy research, mixed-policy-research heavy, or mixed-policy-analysis heavy.

Fourth, next to offering descriptions, classifications and typologies, the Handbook chapters also venture into explaining the observed similarities and differences across different jurisdictions. The explanatory candidates originate from variations in institutions, political and epistemological cultures and economies. The Anglo-Saxon family of nations share a great number of similarities. Compared to other jurisdictions, they share a stronger acknowledgement of policy analysis as a profession, a stronger institutionalization of formal rational policy analysis, a longer tradition of policy analytical instruction in academia, the expert composition of advisory bodies, and a relatively greater receptiveness to management consultancy firms and think tank advocacy. While some continental European countries such as the Netherlands share some of these features, policy analysis is relatively less recognized as a profession outside the Anglo-Saxon world. Formal rational policy analysis is variably present in some policy sectors but not in others. Overall, rational policy analysis is blended with more political and participatory policy analytical activities. In academia, policy analysis is younger as a discipline. Advisory bodies have mixed memberships with representation from civil society organizations. Management consultancy firms play a smaller role in advising government, and think tanks are but an emerging discursive force.

The tentative explanations of patterns of divergence rest on the enduring influence of institutions, cultures and market characteristics. These include differences between majority and consensual systems; between elitist, pluralist or neo-corporatist forms of interest intermediation; between rational versus political epistemological cultures; and between liberal or coordinated markets. There are also within-group differences. To explain these one needs to take into account different historical paths and transitions, classic divisions between presidential and parliamentary systems, differences in political cultures of social units, and differences in politico-administrative relations and parliamentary cultures.

To sum up, the chapters included in this Handbook describe, categorize and offer explanations for the nature of policy analysis and its actors in different countries. At the same time, they point at trends and issues that confront policy analysis across the cases. These include a number of global developments that create sources of convergence.

Conducive to the quality of policy analysis is the evidence-based movement that has gained momentum since the start of the millennium. The move to knowledge-intensive policies and public services has required that governments across the globe make a commitment to evidence-based policymaking along the lines of the basic definition of policy analysis as the ‘use of reason and evidence to choose the best policy among a number of alternatives’ (MacRae & Wilde, 1979, p. 14; Dror, 1972, 1983; Weimer & Vining, 2010; Geva-May with Wildavsky, 2011; Geva-May, 2017; Sanderson, 2011; Nutley, Morton, Jung & Boaz, 2010; Straßheim & Kettunen, 2014). In some countries with relatively weak government policy analytical capacity, this movement did much to strengthen the policy analytical base in policy formulation practices. In other countries, the evidence-based policy movement had to compete with a move to the externalization of policy advice, or the ‘diversification of supply from the traditionally dominant public service to a plurality of suppliers’ (Craft & Halligan, 2015, p. 3).

Externalization has taken many forms. In some cases, it involved the marketization of policy advice to agencies at arm’s length from government or to management consultancy firms. Another manifestation of this movement is what could be called the societalization of policy analysis. Democratic governments need expertise to tackle complex problems, but also want to garner support for their decisions, and to (appear to) be following the wishes of the people and/or at least acting with their interests in mind. Policy decisions down this path involve direct consultation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Policy Analysis in Comparative Perspective: An Introduction
• PART I The Styles and Methods of Public Policy Analysis
• PART II Policy Analysis by Governments
• PART III Committees, Public Inquiries, Research Institutes, Consultants and Public Opinion
• PART IV Parties and Interest-Group-Based Policy Analysis
• PART V Advocacy-Based and Academic Policy Analysis
• Index