Analytical framework - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 33

tions were overcome by complementing policy analysis with other analytical approaches de
scribed in the following chapters.

4.3 Implementation Research

Implementation research is devoted to the analysis of how political programs are implemented,
guided by the basic interest “Why did it happen?” (Dolbeare 1974, cited in Najam 1995: 7).
Implementation research, however, is not only a tool to analyze the arena of policy implemen
tation. It significantly influenced policy analysis in general. As mentioned above, policy analysis
was occupied with models of the political process as 'policy making' that follows clear and
rational steps for al long time. Primarily the inputs from the analytical and theoretical ap
proaches in implementation research led to a reconceptualization of the initially technocratic
models (Mayntz 1980, 1980a; Heritier 1993).
The main objective of implementation research is to gain a differentiated understanding
of the specific features and dynamics of political processes rather than to find an explanation
in the sense of causal relations between selected parameters. This was a consequence of the
observed discrepancy between formal policy rules and actual behavior. The insights of imple
mentation research broke with the ideal of a rational and apolitical bureaucracy as a neutral
agency devoted solely to the exact implementation of political decisions. Rather it stressed that
it is “far more than a mechanical translation of goals into routine procedures; it involves fun
damental questions about conflict, decision making, and 'who gets what' in a society” (Grindle
1980: 3). Implementation is hence no longer understood as a technocratic management
process in which a Weberian ideal type of bureaucracy implements political decisions, but as a
political process in itself that is characterized by interests, power relations, incentives and de
pendencies of the actors involved. The implementation arena can be important for those who
want to impede reforms but did not have access to the decision making process. Hence, im
plementation research provides the opportunity to analyze policy not only top down but also
bottom up. From a top down perspective, implementation differing from the policy decision
will be regarded as problem. From a bottom up perspective it might be analyzed as an adapta
tion to local needs or constraints or even as policy making from below when the top level does
not respond to the problems perceived by the target group. The actors in the implementation
process are therefore not only implementers but also policy makers: Their views, opinions, and
values determine the ultimate output of a policy, therefore “micro level understanding of poli
cy implementation could narrow the gap between policy as theoretical text and policy as prac
tice“(Smit 2003 [2]). Bowe et al. (1992: 22, cited in Smit 2003 [16]) also stress this important
point:
„Practitioners do not confront policy texts as naive readers; they come from histories, with experience, with
values and purposes of their own, they have vested interests in the meaning of policy. Policies will be interpreted
differently as the histories, experiences, values, purposes and interests which make up the arena differ.”
This is even more often the case in non or partly democratic and developing countries, as
their implementation processes are usually much more contested than the decision making
processes due to the latter's inaccessibility for most parts of the population. Hence, a consider
able part of participation occurs at the local level (Grindle 1980:15 18). Therefore, Grindle
(1980: 5 6) defines implementation as “an ongoing process of decision making by a variety of
actors, the ultimate outcome of which is determined by the content of the program being