4. SISTEMAS DE ESPERA
5.10 CÁLCULOS PARA EL MÉTODO DE HAYWARD-FREDERICKS
Amongst ideas about how policy decisions get made, three influences come to the fore: the role of rules (institutions), the role of decision-making actors (the exercise of agency), and the role of ideas (cognitive influences). Various models of policy decision-making reflect these three influences, for example incrementalist and bureaucratic organisation models, rational actor models, and belief system models.106 This section examines what literature has to say about the effect of these three features within government on the work of environmental agencies, with a caveat that it is difficult to separate them too strictly because they are often closely intertwined.
2.4.4.1 Role of institutional features in shaping policy
The role of institutional features will be looked at in two ways: from an organisational perspective, and from a policy process perspective.
Organisational perspectives:
There are a wide range of ideas about how government agencies exercise influence. Peters provides six criteria for an agency, or a bureacracy generally, to influence government. They are: an ability to formulate intentions for action; the intentions must be workable; competition for resources to drive priorities between alternative options; sufficient numerical strength; managerial skills; and
implementation abilities.107 But what determines how these criteria are met? Answers to this question frequently point to capacity and how organisations perform and behave.
A challenge for organisational analysis is that it is often highly generalised, or alternatively prone to fads or fashion, at least in the popular business literature. James Q. Wilson qualified the theoretical basis of his book, Bureaucracy: what government agencies do and why they do it, by saying,
103 Nilsson, "Framework for Analysing Environmental Policy Integration." P.346 104 Ibid. P.355.
105 Ibid. P. 345, citing Zito, Creating Environmental Policy in the European Union. 106 Heywood, Politics. Pp.426-430
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After all these decades of wrestling with the subject, I have come to have grave doubts that anything worth calling "organization theory" will ever exist. Theories will exist, but they will usually be so abstract or general as to explain rather little.108
Although Wilson’s comment may have been a throw-away remark, the type of general theory to which Wilson was referring includes complexity and systems theory, and economic, sociological or anthropological explanations of what motivates people and the behaviours that flow from this. A point common to this theoretical base, however generalised, is that organisations are not
automatons, but respond to institutional influences. Consequently, it is possible to derive features that account for differential performance, as Wilson himself does.
One approach to understanding capacities of agencies is to apply business oriented analytical or diagnostic frameworks, commonly examining organisational strategy, design, resources, and culture. An example of this is a framework developed in the McKinsey management consulting firm to assess organisations’ strategy, staff, systems, structure, style, skills, and shared values, and how they are linked.109 The argument runs that these features need to be aligned for the organisation to be successful. Business oriented analyses, while valuable as an internal management tools, can miss some of the specifics that come from the institutionalised drivers and incentives inherent in public administration and public policy, such as the political nature of government agency work.
Another approach, relatively formalistic and echoing traditional institutionalism, is to examine roles, powers and resources. Assumptions here are that:
Clearer purpose promotes better performance ;110 and/or
Stronger powers or positions of authority in the political decision-making hierarchy give agencies greater authority to pursue their objectives;111 and/or
Resources or, more particularly, lack of resources (often couched in financial terms) assist or inhibit departments.112
Analysis of roles, powers and resources provides a perspective on the configurations and potential formal influence of agencies, but says less about characteristics that might enable a relatively lightly
108 J.Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. (BasicBooks, 1989). P.xi. 109 R. H. Waterman, Peters,T.J., Phillips, J.R., "Structure Is Not Organisation," Business Horizons, no. June 1980
(1980).
110 Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. P.48.
111 R. Arnold, Whitford, A. B., "Organisational Dilemmas of the U.S. E.P.A.: Why Structures Matter for
Environmental Protection," Environmental Politics 14, no. 1 (2005). P.121.
112 Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. P.232. Peters comprehensively discusses issues associated with
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resourced agency with, say, ambiguous powers to be effective whereas another agency seemingly in a more advantageous position isn’t.
This question, why some agencies succeed and others fail, is difficult because of the challenge of establishing cause. The subject has stimulated research into the less obvious internal drivers of performance by government agencies.
Government agencies operate in a climate in which goals are often ambiguous, where diverse public interest considerations are part of decision-making, which together make measuring effectiveness, and efficiency, challenging. Success in these circumstances, hinges around agencies’ information and expertise, and their internal characteristics.113 Also, external constituencies can affect internal performance. One argument is that interest groups capture and drive government agencies, their influence becomes internalised, and this in turn influences the creation of new policies and tightens the grip of interest groups further114, although as Peters says there are many and more complex factors that drive agencies than interests or agency self-interest.115 Wilson argues that key internal (my emphasis) drivers of government agency performance are a mix of experience, professionalism and agency ideology. These can be harnessed, he said, by effective internal management comprising clarity of stated goals, freely inferred tasks for staff underpinned by good leadership (traditional business-oriented factors of performance mentioned earlier), combined with understanding the agency’s culture.116
Culture, Wilson argues, is especially important in performance and arises from professional norms, and/or the origins of the department, and/or the institutional settings or purpose of the agency.117 Government agencies are certainly not ciphers. They have their own characteristics that influence how they behave and how they perceive and seek to address issues. They frequently have their own well-developed ideas about what governments should do drawing on their own experience and expertise usually linked with their role or on-going programmes, which Peters describes as agency
113 Denhardt, Theories of Public Organisations. P.16.
114 This is the classical argument about departmental capture by interest groups mounted by Theodore Lowi.
T.J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy and the Crises of Public Authority (New York: WW Norton, 1969).
115 Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. Pp.13-15.
116 Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. P.89. For a summary of the many
facets of leadership, see K. Grint, Leadership: Classical, Contemporary, and Critical Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Pp. 1-17.
117 Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. Pp.63-68. Government agency
culture was the subject of the pioneering study of the USA forest Service by Kaufman (H. Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study of Administrative Behaviour (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1960). For another example of two government environmental agencies, see R. McMahon, The Environmental Protection Agency: Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy: The Conflict between Regulatory Style and Cultural Identity
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“ideology”.118 There is also often a patterned persistent way of thinking about their central tasks.119 Boin says that in these situations agencies can develop a certain identity, which, in turn, informs to a significant extent the administrative behaviour of its members.120 They share “decision premises.” Hence agencies can create their own “discourse”, or world-view.121 These characteristics can flow from: the orientation of their client or interest groups;122 from operating routines, internal socialisations and the historical and policy conditions in which these agencies are created;123 from structure;124 from leadership;125 and from their professional norms.126
Culture is certainly not confined just to government agencies. Nevertheless, it has been argued that it can be especially prevalent in government organisations because of their strongly institutionalised operating environment.127 Johnston’s view is that agency operating environments can embody different value systems and different assumptions about people and relationships.
In my experience, when bureaucrats clash and personalise those clashes, pointing fingers at each other for sins they share, they are often acting out of the different value systems implicit in their legislative and institutional frameworks, but the difference is personalised (or organisationalised) because of a lack of awareness of the underlying values and discourse.128
The main conclusion about internal organisational institutional features is that agency roles and their formal and informal strategies, design, resources, and cultures are likely to have an influence on the nature of policy, and hence effectiveness. Furthermore, this may be greater than that suggested by traditional models of bureaucracies that separated administration and politics, and ideas that they
118 Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. P.197.
Examples of ideas and policies promoted by departments appear in New Zealand at least every three years in post-election departmental Ministerial Briefings.
119 H.A. Simon, Administrative Behaviour (New York: Free Press, 1945). P.123. Simon termed this “shared
decision premises”. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. P.91. McMahon,
The Environmental Protection Agency: Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy: The Conflict between Regulatory Style and Cultural Identity. P.9.
120 Boin, "Institutional Theory and the Public Policy Field: A Promising Perspective for Perennial Problems."
P.46.
121 K.N. Johnston, "Complexity of Thinking and Levels of Self-Complexity Required to Sustainably Manage the
Environment" (doctoral thesis, ANU, 2008). P.23.
In a 2005 science fiction novel, Fifty Degrees Below (P.186), author Kim Stanley Robinson described this phenomenon as follows, "Driving back to the office Frank considered how interesting it was to see the way people enjoyed becoming the avatar of the institution they worked for, expressing the institutional personality like an actor in the role they love. Most people played their institution's personality with diligence but no particular flair; sometimes, however, he met good actors in a role well matched to them”. He was referring in this instance to the US National Science Foundation.
122 Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. Pp.169-175.
123 McMahon, The Environmental Protection Agency: Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy: The
Conflict between Regulatory Style and Cultural Identity. P.2 & 17.
124 Arnold, "Organisational Dilemmas of the U.S. E.P.A.: Why Structures Matter for Environmental Protection."
P.118.
125 Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. P.90.
126 Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study of Administrative Behaviour. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government
Agencies Do and Why They Do It. Pp.58-63.
127 Johnston, "Complexity of Thinking". P.24. 128 Ibid.
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are (or should be) rational neutral policy advisory units in a way that is debated by some literature of the schools of public administration and public policy.129 All this suggests that empirical studies of policy development need to account for internal capacities and characteristics of government agencies when assessing policy variability.
Policy process perspectives
The previous section examined internal agency factors that contribute to policy variability. In getting things done, however, departments operate in the arena of government. That arena is a labyrinth, through which agencies run a policy gauntlet and where institutional factors also contribute to determining the nature of policies and their variability.
The process of producing policy can be quite formal and bound by sets of rules and conventions regarding initiation, consultation, and decision-making.130 Such rules impose order, hierarchy and boundaries. They in turn create the strategic position of bureaucrats in the policy process, give rise to their status and expertise, and shape the logistical relationship with ministers.131 Nevertheless, while the literature suggests public servants can be influential and sometimes highly so, the same literature warns against over-emphasising the role of the bureaucracy. Cabinet, ministers and politicians usually play a larger part.132 Cases of high profile issues, manifesto commitments, or the talents of individual ministers encourage greater roles for the political executive.133 Kingdon argues that a top down model, with elected representatives at the top is more accurate than government-by-
bureaucracy critiques. 134
The formal rules of policy-making are one institutional feature of agency influence. Another institutional feature arises from the size and diverse functions of government. These lead to specialist sub sectors (or domains) of government policy, which in turn potentially creates room for greater influence by those involved in the domain. For example, environmental policy often tends to be a specific domain. Domains of government policy, although frequently interconnected, respond to different sets of pressures and urgencies, fostering the operation of distinctive policy and advocacy
129 Denhardt, Theories of Public Organisations. P.117. Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. P.166 & 215. G. Scott,
Duignan, P., Faulkner, P., "Improving the Quality and Value of Policy Advice," (Wellington: Treasury, 2010). P.6
130 See for example DPMC, "Cabinet Manual 2008," (Wellington: Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,
2011).Pp.65-66.
131 Heywood, Politics. P.393. Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. P.198.
132 Shaw, Public Policy in New Zealand: Institutions, Processes and Outcomes. Pp.76-91.
133 Howlett, Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems. P.199. Cairney, "The New British Policy
Style: From a British to a Scottish Political Tradition?." P.211.
134 Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policy. Pp.208-211. Kingdon’s assertion is not uncontested
however. There is an extensive literature about the questions of bureaucratic government and how it might, or might not operate, and be controlled. For a summary of these arguments, see Heywood, Politics. Pp.384-386 & 392-395.
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coalitions in the manner identified by Sabatier.135 This can encourage processes, and to some extent power, to be spread across and within government amongst sub-sectors. It also can lead ministers and senior public servants to devolve the bulk of decision-making to less senior officials in
agencies.136 There is a degree of difference in the literature about whether the locus of influencing decisions lies at a lower or higher hierarchical level. Some, for example Richardson, Page, and Cairney, focus on the role played by lower level officials whereas Scharpf sees a greater degree of exercise of power and decision-making at a higher level, which aligns with Kingdon’s view (cited earlier) that it tends to be a top-down process.137 Nevertheless, the idea of policy domains and their dynamics supports the proposition of Richardson, and Page, that some of the origins of policy (and by inference aspects of its likely effectiveness) lie in the day-to-day decisions being taken in less visible government arenas, including within government agencies.138
A further potential cause of policy variability is the tendency to follow standard operating procedures for policy content, style, and structure, based on frameworks of ideas about the nature of policy problems and goals, the manner in which decisions are made (described by Richardson as policy style), and instruments or tools that fit within these frameworks.139 Policy content, style and structure arise and persist in policy domains, reinforced by incrementalist patterns of policy development (distinct from the rarer form of radical policy departure). Such standard operating procedures are simpler procedurally and cognitively (and less challenging of the dominant internal actors). In a complex government system it is easier to follow established policy trends.140 These policy approaches (a term I will use to describe this phenomenon later in the thesis) arise from institutional and cognitive perspectives, but the fact that they become a standard means they take on institutionalised form, reinforced by those dominant powers within government.141
135 Sabatier, Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Jordan, ""New" Instruments of
Environmental Governance? National Experience and Prospects." P.18. Goodin, "The Public and Its Policies." P.11. R.A.W. Rhodes, "Policy Network Analysis," in The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, ed. M. Moran, Rein, M., Goodin, R.E. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). P.426.
136 E.C. Page, Jenkins, B., "Policy Bureaucracy." (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). P.151.
137 F. Scharpf, W., Games Real Actors Play: Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research (Boulder:
Westview Press, 1997). P.198. J. Richardson, "Government, Interest Groups and Policy Change," Political studies 48, no. 5 (2000). Pp.1019-1020. Cairney, "The New British Policy Style: From a British to a Scottish Political Tradition?." Pp.211-212.
138 Richardson, "Government, Interest Groups and Policy Change." P.1019. Page, "Policy Bureaucracy." P.184.
Page and Jenkins, however, accept that the apex of decision-making lies with the political executive, but that delegation of detailed decision-making can make it difficult draw where substantive content decisions in fact are made. Boin, "Institutional Theory and the Public Policy Field: A Promising Perspective for Perennial Problems." P.46. Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy. P.167.
139 Richardson, "The Concept of Policy Style." Jordan, ""New" Instruments of Environmental Governance?
National Experience and Prospects." Pp.16-17.
140 Cairney, "The New British Policy Style: From a British to a Scottish Political Tradition?." Pp.211-212. 141 Jordan, ""New" Instruments of Environmental Governance? National Experience and Prospects." Pp.17-20.
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Power positions and internal politics in the policy process are an important part of policy variability. Certain agencies and office holders exercise more influence than others. How this occurs takes different forms in different jurisdictions.142 Governmental decision-making power structure hinges around: the relational dynamics within Cabinet; the seniority, capabilities, and relationship dynamics between ministers; the relative authorities, strengths and capabilities of public service “central” agencies; and the relative strengths, capabilities and internal and inter-agency dynamics of government departments. In particular, it is commonplace for a government’s key economic management agencies to exercise considerable influence because most new policies are likely to have economic implications and because of the power of economic considerations in the political process.143
Different power relationships among agencies and their ministers mean that public service managers have to engage in the politics surrounding the purposes of their organisations and the policies that arise in association with those purposes. The rules and expectations of policy development (including its initiation) mean agencies need to have sufficient internal capacity to undertake engagement at multiple levels in the processes of policy negotiation and bargaining if they are to be effective. Moore has described this as engaging with the “authorising environment”, where forces can lend legitimacy and support or alternatively can interfere or withdraw support or authority for what an agency, or for that matter a minister, is attempting to achieve.144
The idea that policy process plays a role in shaping policy, and hence its effectiveness, is well
rehearsed and widely recognised, even though there are diverse views about how that role is played. Government agencies, and government decision-makers are bound by rules, formal and informal relationships, and modes of operating that prescribe freedom of action. The precise details of boundaries, how they operate in practice, and their effect on policy depend on the nature of the jurisdiction in which they operate. This will be elaborated on in the chapter dealing with the New Zealand government context.
What the literature tells us is that institutional features cause variability in policy at two levels: