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The distinction between the analysis of policy and analysis for policy is a useful one to make here to clarify the concerns of this chapter at the outset. The former is concerned with furthering understanding of policy, whether of a specific policy area – such as environmental policy, education or welfare – or of the processes or stages involved in development and implementation. The latter is focused on how the quality of policymaking can be improved, for example, through the provision of evidence to inform choice or the enhancement of

7_{See: Mandelbaum, ‘The past in service to the future’, p. 51; Gaddis, The landscape of history, pp. 8-}

9; Graham, ‘The Uses and Misuses of History: Roles in Policymaking’, The Public Historian 5 (1983), p. 12; Neustadt and May, Thinking in Time, p. 1. Garner makes the same point with reference to managers: Garner, ‘History for the Corporate Executive: Cultivating the Historical Imagination in MBA Students’, The History Teacher 18 (1985). “Legitimacy” in analogising also has a psychological basis, see: Hofstadter, Analogy as the core of cognition: Stanford Presidential Lecture, (6th February, 2006).

systems and structures.9 _{Analysis of policy, including studies of policy content and accounts}

of the policymaking process, is of interest to the extent that it helps to structure and guide enquiry into analysis for policy; it is the physics that aids the engineering. Thus my intention here is not to rehearse the various accounts and models of the policymaking process, particularly given the many textbooks on the topic (Hill’s is currently in its fifth edition since 1997). Rather, the purpose of this section is to address the policymaking process in terms of the influences on it. This then provides a basis for my later consideration of the potential for historical thinking to enhance the quality of that process and appreciation of the barriers that may be involved.

It is worth noting that academic policy analysis (both “of” and “for” and blends thereof) is a field to which different disciplines have contributed, but where history is not as visible as might be expected given the importance of change, continuity, context and agency as concepts. As an extension of political science, the construction of models to capture the sequences and iterative loops involved in policymaking is a key task. Writing in this field can be prescriptive in intent, although more recently emphasis has been placed on the

descriptive mode, drawing attention to ‘the complexity and ambiguity of the concept of policy’ and suggesting we need to be ‘sceptical’ of rationalist claims that ‘a policy-making process is organised and has specific goals’.10 _{The incorporation of ideas from organisation}

theory and from public administration and management has challenged sequential or “stages” models of policy development. The complexities and ambiguities in the demands made by the “top” on the “bottom” are such that policy development is regarded by some as still going on during implementation, hence Michael Lipsky’s ‘street-level bureaucrats’.11

Whatever the approach, an underlying interest in the field is in influence and agency. Where does it (or should it) lie? At what points and how is/should it be exercised?

Sociologists and economists have played key roles alongside scholars in comparative political science in the ‘“rediscovery” of institutions’ and their role as (changing) contexts in which political struggles are mediated.12 _{Although this mode of enquiry is clearly historical – a sub-}

field ‘historical institutionalism’ has emerged, discussed below – intellectual leadership does

9_{Hill, The public policy process, pp. 4-5.} 10_{Hill, The public policy process, pp. 18-19.}

11_{Hill, New Agendas in the Study of the Policy Process, pp. 2-3.}

12_{Steinmo, Thelen and Longstreth (eds.), Structuring politics: historical institutionalism in}

not seem to lie with historians. Both history and policy as scholarly domains would be enriched by an interdisciplinary engagement in this area.

The stages model of policymaking has, in various versions, survived critiques of its validity and effectiveness; the logical sequence of activities (agenda setting, problem

recognition/definition, consideration of options, policy choice, implementation, evaluation) has an intuitive appeal. But it cannot capture a highly political and problematic reality, nor admit the role of ideas or of complex or dispersed forms of agency. Iterative loops and overlaps mean ‘public policy is being formed as it is executed and … likewise executed as it is being formed’.13 _{Key questions cannot be answered. How do issues emerge and what}

factors ensure one is taken up as a policy problem but not another? Why do some policies “succeed” and others “fail” on implementation? An overarching critique would be that no model could account for the policymaking process, as context is critical. We cannot understand the emergence and take-up of an issue unless we ask questions about the settings and the terms in which it is discussed, and how those connect both to broader policy agendas and to concerns, priorities and capacities in those bodies involved in policy development.

All of this points to the human character of policymaking; it is complex, problematic and political, because so too are the human relationships and interactions at the core of the exercise of power. Sequential models downplay, if not exclude, that human dimension. For example, the implication, if not the requirement, of such a model is that there is a division of competency into politics and administration, following Woodrow Wilson.14 _{The mandate for}

the initiation and development of policy conferred, in this view, through democratic process. Ministers, as MPs called into the executive, would be the holders of such a mandate in Britain, although elevation to the House of Lords has proved a convenient direct route to government. Implementation is then the domain of officials: the permanent civil service. The interplay of influence and agency is however far more complicated. Hill notes that governments have had to consult or negotiate with various organised groups, such as worker or employer associations, consumer groups and parents, in order to retain office. Dorey points to the role of the Select Committees and the growing significance of special advisers to Ministers (“spads”) since the Blair governments.15 _{Indeed, policymaking has}

13_{Hill, The public policy process, p. 143. Citing C. J. Friedrich's The nature of administrative}

responsibility (Public Policy, 1: 3-24)

14 _{Wilson, ‘The Study of Administration’.}

become a crowded space as Britain has become a ‘post-parliamentary democracy’.16 _The

‘core executive’ (Dorey’s phrase) now takes a stronger lead on policy development

emergence of policy advisers, both in government and in the organisations, pressure groups and public affairs agencies looking to influence it.17 _{These features of modern government}

can be contentious and contested, as is evident in the debates about Cameron’s choice of Andy Coulson as the No. 10 Director of Communications, then the government’s highest- paid special adviser, the calls for a register of lobbyists following allegations about access to the Prime Minister, or, indeed, the appointment of “celebrity reviewers” mentioned

earlier.18 _{In essence, we cannot rely on understanding extrapolated from a model; we need}

to pursue a historian’s line of enquiry, just as Stephen Jay Gould recognised with regards to planetary surfaces.

The distinctive importance of that line of enquiry is most clearly evident when it is recognised that ‘the policymaking process … has an inherent time dimension’.19 _{It is a}

recognition that creates an alignment between history and policy but also strategy: strategy because, as Anderson explains, policy ‘encompasses a flow and pattern of action that extends over time and includes many decisions, some routine and some not so routine’.20

The strategic character of policymaking can thus be understood by contrast to the more tactical “decision-making”. Policymaking is strategic, both in the sense of being ‘stable’ and ‘purposive’, and in having a temporal dimension; it unfolds over time. This definition of policy can be problematised; policy need not involve action, and indeed outcomes may arise that are not claimed as purposive, hence studying public policy is ‘essentially the study of the exercise of power in making policy’.21 _{Nevertheless, the differentiation of “policy” from}

“decision” as a project that extends over time is a helpful one and demonstrates the three-

16_{The terms is Richardson and Jordan's: Richardson and Jordan, Governing under pressure: the policy}

process in a post-parliamentary democracy, (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979).

17_{This includes the emergence of policy roles in universities, many of which include engagement with}

and influence of government and other political actors.

18_{The Public Administration Select Committee conducted an Inquiry on special advisers, see final}

report: Public Administration Select Committee, Special advisers in the thick of it, (London: House of Commons, 2012). “Celebrity reviewers” should be distinguished from expert reviewers. Wells points to examples of high-level reviews commissioned under Labour (such as Leitch on Skills, Lyons on local government, Stern on climate change). The choice of reviewer would imply rather different

motivations than in the cases mentioned in chapter 3 above. Nevertheless, such choices do not imply that resulting policy will be evidence- (or expertise-) led. Wells, ‘New Labour and evidence based policy making: 1997-2007’, People, Place & Policy Online 1 (2007).

19_{Achenbaum, ‘The Making of an Applied Historian: Stage Two’, p. 22.} 20_{Anderson, Public policymaking: an introduction, p. 14.}

way alignment of history, policy and strategy. This alignment is explored by Neustadt and May, who contrast their approach with the problem-solving, case-by-case style of decision- making that tends to plunge towards action without a ‘clear sense of the long past from which [possible] futures would come’.22 _{They stress the importance of thinking in streams of}

time; so what seems to be a present problem becomes a strategic issue and can be addressed accordingly.

It is worth noting that Neustadt and May are concerned with ‘practice in government service’, a broad categorisation embracing both ‘decision situations’ and policy

development. They see a role for their historical methods in contexts of real and immediate pressure on a government to take a decision, as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as those where longer-term projects are being pursued or positions formulated, for example, social security reform or policy towards communism. For them, both the core business of government in exercising power and high-stakes decision-making require a shift from tactical to strategic thinking. The timescale for historical work and the level of pressure would be very different for policy development and ‘decision situations’, but the principles are the same. By locating a situation in the stream of time, the historian as adviser

lengthens the perspective on that situation and enables the response to be strategic. This contribution could be made not only in political environments, but in many others, such as business, public services, education institutions, charities and so on, where the

“downstream” implications of decisions are significant.23

Spads, Tanks and Wonks: evidence, analysis and policymaking in the post-