Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
pursued and by the interaction of the decision makers within a given politico administrative
context”.
The distinction between policy formulation and implementation is hence difficult to
maintain in practice and is mainly used for analytical purposes. Planning, decision, and imple
mentation of political programs are embedded in the political, administrative and societal con
text of the respective country: “Only the exact knowledge of the institutional landscape and the
linked policies allows saying, whether, in the light of the given structures and policy assets, a
new measure will have a chance for success.” (Heritier 1993a: 13, translation JS)
The insights are significant not only for the analysis of implementation, but also for deci
sion making. Politics as a whole cannot be detached from its societal context. While this seems
obvious, these factors have long been neglected by policy analysis.
There is no coherent theory of implementation despite efforts to develop theoretical and
analytical approaches. Najam (1995) distinguishes five variables that are considered relevant for
the failure or success of reforms in most of the literature, albeit the importance assigned to the
respective variables varies. These variables also influence each other. He calls them the “5 C
Protocol”:
-
Content : the objectives of a policy, the causal theory attached to the problem and the
methods of its solution;
- Context : the institutional corridor for the implementation of the reform, the main ac
tors, interests, power relations, institutional setting;
- Commitment : will and motivation of the involved actors on all levels;
- Capacity : mostly understood in a narrow sense as administrative resources;
- Clients and Coalitions : the target groups as well as interest groups and their characteris
tics.
In both case studies, content and capacities are similar. Content factors involve the extent of
change aimed for, the type of benefits (collective divisible; short term long term), the num
ber of goals and actors targeted at, the sites and actors of implementation (Grindle 1980: 8 11;
Cleaves 1980: 286 288). It is obvious that policies aiming at a marginal change with a clear
short term benefit are easier to reach than those which include multi goal objectives, involve
various target groups, comprehensive changes, and only long term benefits. The content fac
tors of good water governance belong to the latter categories for the most part and are not
easy to reach (even in highly developed, democratic regimes). The capacities in both countries
are weak. The clients are also the same but we have to determine whether they form similar
coalitions and whether they have other characteristics in common or not. Hence, for this anal
ysis, the focus will be on context , commitment as well as clients and coalitions . Recurring back to the
ideas of neo institutional policy analysis, we consider that commitment and the characteristics of
clients and coalitions can be explained by institutional context . 20 It shapes the preferences and op
tions of actors to a considerable degree. Hence, the context evolves as the key variable in the
analysis of the implementation process. Context is not a catchall phrase for all societal pheno
mena but is restricted to those institutional arrangements that influence the implementation in
the field under consideration, the institutional corridor the implementation process has to go
through.
As with policy analysis, implementation research was developed primarily in Western
countries. Research carried out in developing countries did not receive much attention in the
20 In addition, content is dependent on context, as it is ultimately the context against which a policy has to be
implemented and this is what determines whether content is critical or not.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search