12 things to know about studying public policy

Here is a blog post on 12 things to know about studying public policy. Please see the end of the post if you would like to listen to or watch my lecture on this topic.

1. There is more to politics than parties and elections.

Think of policy theory as an antidote to our fixation on elections, as a focus on what happens in between. We often point out that elections can produce a change in the governing party without prompting major changes in policy and policymaking, partly because most policy is processed at a level of government that receives very little attention from elected policymakers. Elections matter but, in policy studies, they do not represent the centre of the universe.

2. Public policy is difficult to define.

Imagine a simple definition: ‘the sum total of government action, from signals of intent to the final outcomes’. Then consider these questions. Does policy include what policymakers say they will do (e.g. in manifestos) as well as what they actually do? Does it include the policy outcome if it does not match the original aim? What is ‘the government’ and does it include elected and unelected policymakers? Does public policy include what policymakers decide to not do? Is it still ‘public policy’ when neither the public nor elected policymakers have the ability to pay attention to what goes on in their name?

3. Policy change is difficult to see and measure.

Usually we know that something has changed because the government has passed legislation, but policy is so much more: spending, economic penalties or incentives (taxes and subsidies), social security payments and sanctions, formal and informal regulations, public education, organisations and staffing, and so on. So, we need to sum up this mix of policies, asking: is there an overall and coherent aim, or a jumble of policy instruments? Can we agree on the motives of policymakers when making these policies? Does policy impact seem different when viewed from the ‘top’ or the ‘bottom’? Does our conclusion change when we change statistical measures?

4. There is no objective way to identify policy success.

We know that policy evaluation is political because left/right wing political parties and commentators argue as much about a government’s success as its choices. Yet, it cannot be solved by scientists identifying objective or technical measures of success, because there is political choice in the measures we use and much debate about the best measures. Measurement also involves (frequently) a highly imperfect proxy, such as by using waiting times to measure the effectiveness of a health service. We should also note the importance of perspective: should we measure success in terms of the aims of elected policymakers, the organisations carrying out policy, or the people who are most affected? What if many policymakers were involved, or their aims were not clear? What if their aim was to remain popular, or have an easy time in the legislature, not to improve people’s lives? What if it improved the lives of some, but hurt others?

5. There is no ‘policy cycle’ with well-ordered stages.

Imagine this simple advice to policymakers: identify your aims, identify policies to achieve those aims, select a policy measure, ensure that the selection is ‘legitimised’ by the population or its legislature, identify the necessary resources, implement, and then evaluate the policy. If only life were so simple. Instead, think of policymaking as a collection of thousands of policy cycles, which interact with each other to produce much less predictable outcomes. Then note that it is often impossible in practice to know when one stage begins and another ends. Finally, imagine that the order of stages is completely messed up, such as when we have a solution long before a problem arises.

6. Policymakers are ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’.

A classic reference point is the ‘ideal-type’ of comprehensive (or synoptic) rationality which helps elected policymakers translate their values into policy in a straightforward manner. They have a clear, coherent and rank-ordered set of policy preferences which neutral organizations carry out on their behalf. We can separate policymaker values from organizational facts. There are clear-cut and ordered stages to the process and analysis of the policymaking context is comprehensive. This allows policymakers to maximize the benefits of policy to society in much the same way that an individual maximizes her own utility. In the real world, we identify ‘bounded rationality’, challenge all of the assumptions of comprehensive rationality, and wonder what happens next. The classic debate focused on the links between bounded rationality and incrementalism. Our current focus is on ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ responses to the need to make decisions quickly without comprehensive information: limiting their options, and restricting information searches to sources they trust, to make their task manageable; but also making quick decisions by relying on instinct, gut, emotion, beliefs, ideology, and habits.

7. We talk of actors, but not on stage.

Most policy theories use the word ‘actor’ simply to describe the ability of people and organisations to deliberate and act to make choices. Many talk about the large number of actors involved in policymaking, at each level and across many levels of policymaking. Some discuss a shift, in many countries since the early post-war period, from centralized and exclusive policymaking, towards a fragmented multi-level system involving a much larger number of actors

8. We talk of institutions, but not buildings.

In political science, ‘institution’ refers to the rules, ‘norms’, and other practices that influence policymaking behaviour.  Some rules are visible or widely understood, such as constitutions. Others are less visible, such as the ‘rules of the game’ in politics, or organisational ‘cultures’. So, for example, ‘majoritarian’ and ‘consensus’ democracies could have very different formal rules but operate in very similar ways in practice. These rules develop in different ways in many parts of government, prompting us to consider what happens when many different actors develop different expectations of politics and policymaking.  For example, it might help explain a gap between policies made in one organisation and implemented by another. It might cause government policy to be contradictory, when many different organisations produce their own policies without coordinating with others. Or, governments may contribute to a convoluted statute book by adding to laws and regulations without thinking how they all fit together.

9. We have 100 ways to describe policy networks.

Put simply, ‘policy network’ describes the relationships between policymakers, in formal positions of power, and the actors who seek to influence them. It can also describe a notional venue – a ‘subsystem’ – in which this interaction takes place. Although the network concept is crucial to most policy theories, it can be described using very different concepts,and with reference to different political systems. For example, in the UK, we might describe networks as a consequence of bounded rationality: elected policymakers delegate responsibility to civil servants who, in turn, rely on specialist organisations for information and advice. Those organisations trade information for access to government. This process often becomes routine: civil servants begin to trust and rely on certain organisations and they form meaningful relationships. If so, most public policy is conducted primarily through small and specialist ‘policy communities’ that process issues at a level of government not particularly visible to the public, and with minimal senior policymaker involvement. Network theories tend to consider the key implications, including a tendency for governments to contain ‘silos’ and struggle to ‘join up’ government when policy is made in so many different places

10. We struggle to separate power from ideas.

Policy theory is about the relationship between power and ideas (or shared beliefs). These terms are difficult to disentangle, even analytically, because people often exercise power by influencing the beliefs of others. Classic power debates inform current discussions of ‘agenda setting’ and ‘framing’. Debates began with the idea that we could identify the powerful by examining ‘key political choices’: the powerful would win and benefit from the outcomes at the expense of other actors. The debate developed into discussions of major barriers to the ‘key choices’ stage: actors may exercise power to persuade/ reinforce the popular belief that the government should not get involved, or to keep an issue off a government agenda by drawing attention to other issues. This ability to persuade depends on the resources of actors, but also the beliefs of the actors they seek to influence.

11. We talk a lot about ‘context’ and events, and sometimes about ‘complexity’ and ‘emergence’.

Context’ describes the policy conditions that policymakers take into account when identifying problems, such as a country’s geography, demographic profile, economy, and social attitudes. This wider context is in addition to the ‘institutional’ context, when governments inherit the laws and organisations of their predecessors. Important ‘game changing’ events can be routine, such as when elections produce new governments with new ideas, or unanticipated, such as when crises or major technological changes prompt policymakers to reconsider existing policies. In each case, we should consider the extent to which policymaking is in the control of policymakers. In some cases, the role of context seems irresistible – think for example of a ‘demographic timebomb’ – but governments show that they can ignore such issues for long periods of time or, at least, decide how and why they are important. This question of policymaker control is also explored in discussions of ‘complexity theory’, which highlights the unpredictability of policymaking, limited central government control, and a tendency for policy outcomes to ‘emerge’ from activity at local levels.

12. It can inform real world policymaking, but you might not like the advice.

For example, policymakers often recognise that they make decisions within an unpredictable and messy, not ‘linear’, process. Many might even accept the implications of complexity theory, which suggests that they should seek new ways to act when they recognise their limitations: use trial and error; keep changing policies to suit new conditions; devolve and share power with the local actors able to respond to local areas; and so on. Yet, such pragmatic advice goes against the idea of Westminster-style democratic accountability, in which ministers remain accountable to Parliament and the public because you know who is in charge and, therefore, who to blame. Or, for example, we might use policy theory to inform current discussions of evidence-based policymaking, saying to scientists that they will only be influential if they go beyond the evidence to make manipulative emotional appeals.

For more information, see Key policy theories and concepts in 1000 words

To listen to the lecture (about 50 minutes plus Q&A), you can download here or stream:

You can also download the video here or stream:

To be honest, there is little gain to watching the lecture, unless you want to laugh at my posture & shuffle and wonder if I have been handcuffed.

 

Whatever happened to multiple streams analysis?

John Kingdon published his Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies in 1984. What has happened since then? Put simply, it is now a classic text, and it took off in a way that Kingdon did not expect. Put less simply, it contributed to the intellectual development of policy theory and inspired a huge number of studies under the banner of ‘multiple streams analysis’ (or the ‘multiple streams approach’, MSA).

In our PSJ article, Michael Jones and I sum up this theoretical and empirical contribution and give some advice about how to produce effective MSA analysis.

MSA’s intellectual contribution: 1. ‘Universal’ concepts.

Kingdon identifies many elements of the policy process that we describe as ‘universal’ because they are abstract enough to apply to any case study.

1. Ambiguity and competition for attention.

• There are many ways to understand and frame any policy problem, but the policy agenda can often be dominated by one ‘frame’.
• There are many problems to solve, but few reach the top of the policy agenda.
• There are many possible solutions to problems, but very few gain attention and even fewer gain support.

2. Decision-making processes are neither ‘comprehensively rational’ nor ‘linear’.

• New information is difficult to gather and subject to manipulation.

• Actors have limited resources such as time and cognitive ability. This limitation forces people to make choices before they have considered all possibilities and made sure that their preferences are clear.
• The policy process does not follow a policy cycle with ordered stages, in which (i) a policymaker identifies a problem, (ii) a bureaucracy produces many possible solutions, and (iii) the policymaker selects the best solution according to her aims and values.

These ‘universal’ insights underpin MSA’s specific contribution, in which Kingdon draws on the ‘garbage can model’ to suggest that we think of these three ‘stages’ (metaphorically) as independent streams which must come together at the same time, during a ‘window of opportunity’ before any major policy change will take place:

1. Problem stream – attention lurches to a policy problem.
2. Policy stream – a solution to that problem is available.
3. Politics stream – policymakers have the motive and opportunity to turn it into policy.

MSA’s intellectual contribution: 2. New theories and perspectives.

Let’s take one example of Kingdon’s influence: on the early development of punctuated equilibrium theory (PET). In their own ways, MSA and PET are both ‘evolutionary’ theories, although they identify different kinds of evolutionary metaphors or processes, and present somewhat different implications:

• Kingdon uses the evolutionary metaphor partly to help explain slow and gradual policy development despite lurches of attention and the importance of windows of opportunity. Note the importance of the idea of ‘feasibility’ and ‘softening’, as potential policy solutions emerge from the ‘policy primeval soup’. Kingdon is describing the slow progress of an idea towards acceptability within the policy community, which challenges the notion that policies will change whenever attention lurches to a new problem. On the contrary, a feasible solution must exist, and these solutions take a lot of time to become both technically and politically feasible, before policymakers develop the motive and opportunity to adopt them.
• Baumgartner and Jones identify the conditions under which Kingdon’s picture of slow progress, producing ‘partial mutations’ should be replaced by their identification of fast, disruptive, ‘pure mutation’. For example, major ‘policy punctuations’ may occur when issues break out of one policymaking ‘venue’. In such cases, more radical change may be acceptable to the policymakers – in other venues – that are less committed to existing policies and, therefore, less likely to select a policy solution only when it has been ‘softened’.

Such examples (explored in more depth in our article, and in my article on evolutionary policy theory) highlight the potential to trace the long term intellectual development of policy theory back to influential scholars such as Kingdon.

MSA’s empirical contribution: 1. How useful is the metaphor?

Michael and I identify a blessing and a curse, related to two aspects of Kingdon’s original work:

1. The barriers to entry are low. If you are looking for an easy way into policy theory, you can read some of Kingdon’s book and feel you have gained some insight.
2. The metaphor is flexible. You don’t have to learn a huge codebook or set of rules before you dive into empirical analysis.

The blessing is that both factors allow a lot of material to be produced in diverse and perhaps innovative ways. The curse is that it is difficult to see the accumulated results from all that effort. If the MSA is there to help explain one case, and one case only, then all is well. If we want more – to compare a lot of cases in a meaningful way – we have a problem.

MSA’s empirical contribution: 2. How have other scholars used the metaphor?

Michael Jones and his colleagues identified a huge number of MSA studies: over 300 applications, in over 40 countries, in 10 years. However, they also identify a high proportion of theoretical superficiality: scholars mention Kingdon, but do not go into much detail on the meaning of key MSA concepts, or explain how they used those concepts in a meaningful way to explain policy or policymaking.

Michael and I zoomed in to focus on the ‘state of the art’, to see how the best studies used MSA. We found some interesting work, particularly in studies which extended Kingdon’s original focus on the US federal government (in the 1980s) to subnational and supranational studies, and used MSA to explain developments in many other countries. The best work identified how the MSA related to wider policy theory discussions and/or how we might adapt MSA to deal with new cases. However, we also found a lot of applications which made cursory reference to theory or the MSA literature, or studies which used MSA largely as a way to identify their own models.

It all adds up to a lot of activity but it is difficult to know how to sum up its value. The flexibility of the MSA has allowed people to take it in all sorts of directions, but also to use it in a way that is difficult to relate to Kingdon’s original study or important new developments (put forward by scholars such as Zahariadis).

Where do we go from here? Some simple rules for you to consider.

So, we propose three simple rules to help maintain MSA flexibility but allow us to accumulate empirical insights or encourage conceptual development: demonstrate proficiency with MSA; speak to MSA; and, speak to broader policy research.

In other words, a lot has been written about MSA and policy theory since 1984. The world has changed, and so too have the ways in which we describe it. So, put simply, it would be weird if people continued to produce scholarly research based simply on one book written in the 80s and little else (you might be surprised about how much of this approach we found, and how few people explained MSA concepts before presenting their empirical analysis).

We don’t call for a set of rigid rules to allow systematic comparison (although I really like the suggestion by a colleague, presented with tongue firmly in cheek, that we have become the ‘multiple streams Taliban’). Instead, at the very least, we encourage people not to submit Kingdon-inspired articles for review until they have read and digested a lot of the MSA literature. That way, we’ll be able to go beyond the sense that we are all using the same conceptual descriptions without knowing if we mean the same thing or if my results can be compared usefully with yours.

Political science improves our understanding of evidence-based policymaking, but does it produce better advice?

I’m sure that policy theory, based on political science, improves our understanding of evidence-based policymaking (EBPM), particularly when compared to atheoretical accounts in disciplines such as health and environmental sciences. Below, I present two key messages: respond to ambiguity as much as uncertainty, and focus on complexity, not linearity.

I’m less sure that I can offer more realistic advice about how people with full time jobs outside of lobbying can engage in policymaking.

So, in this post, I outline some broad implications, but note that my advice has major behavioural, ethical, and resource implications that may not always be feasible or attractive to scientists engaged primarily in science.

I can now tell a good story about the limits to EBPM studies when they are based primarily on the perspectives of health and environmental scientists. First, I provide a caricature of some scientists who express high frustration with politicians:

‘We know what the evidence is, so why won’t they do anything about it?’

‘Why do they only select the ‘evidence’ that suits their personal agendas?’

‘Evidence-based policy? More like policy-based evidence, am I right guys?’.

Second, I point to the problems with their proposed solutions:

• A focus on the better supply of evidence only helps reduce uncertainty, not ambiguity. You won’t persuade policymakers to act just by providing more evidence or reducing a 100000 word report to 1000 words.
• Instead of complaining about cynical or unscientific policymakers, recognise how unrealistic it is to expect one magic moment in which the policymaker in charge ‘gets it’ then sets in motion a radically new policy direction. Such hopes are based on the idea of a ‘linear’ policy process with well-ordered stages of decision making.

In short, policy theory helps improve such discussions by identifying important ways to think about policy, trying to clarify how policymakers think, and providing evidence of the ways in which policy processes work, rather than how we would like them to work (in some cases, with reference to ‘evidence based medicine’). This is the first step towards better advice on how to adapt to and seek to influence that process with evidence.

It’s harder to tell a good story about what you do with these new insights, particularly when we consider the implications on the scientific profession.

Let’s start with two key recommendations based on insights from policy studies:

1. Focus on ambiguity as much as uncertainty

Policymakers use two short cuts to turn infinite information into a manageable decision

• ‘rational’: limiting their options, and restricting information searches to sources they trust, to make their task manageable.
• ‘irrational’: making quick decisions by relying on instinct, gut, emotion, beliefs, ideology, and habits.

So, a strategy to reduce scientific uncertainty by producing more, and more accessible, evidence only addresses one short cut. Further, it may often be ineffective, because policymakers are more likely to accept ‘evidence’ from a wider range of sources. We know that not everyone reads, understands, prioritises, or appreciates the beauty of, a well-crafted peer-reviewed academic journal article. So, it is sensible to seek new ways to present information, using shorter reports and employing ‘knowledge brokers’, but also to recognise the limits to such processes when policymaking remains so competitive and policymakers draw on knowledge that they (not you) trust.

Policy advocates also need solutions based on ambiguity, to reflect a tendency for policymakers to accept simple stories that reinforce their biases. Many policy theories can be adapted to give advice on that basis:

• combine facts with emotional appeals, to prompt lurches of policymaker attention (punctuated equilibrium)
• tell stories which manipulate people’s biases, apportion praise and blame, and highlight the moral and political value of solutions (narrative policy framework)
• produce ‘feasible’ policy solutions and exploit a time when policymakers have the motive and opportunity to adopt it (multiple streams)
• interpret new evidence through the lens of the pre-existing beliefs of actors within coalitions, some of which dominate policy networks (advocacy coalition framework).

2. Focus on complexity, not linearity

Too many studies in (for example) health sciences portray policymaking with reference to a simple cycle with well-ordered stages and a single event in which ‘the evidence’ informs a game-changing decision made by an easily identifiable person in authority. In contrast, policy studies identify messier policymaking which takes place in a volatile policy environment, exhibiting:

1. a wide range of actors (individuals and organisations) influencing policy at many levels of government
2. a proliferation of rules and norms followed by different levels or types of government
3. close relationships (‘networks’) between policymakers and influential actors
4. a tendency for certain beliefs or ‘paradigms’ to dominate discussion
5. shifting policy conditions and events that can prompt policymaker attention to lurch at short notice.

This bigger picture shifts our analysis and gives us more realistic ways in which to adapt, to work out: where the action is; which actors are making the most important decisions; the rules of engagement with those actors; the best way to present an argument tailored to their specific beliefs; the language they use to establish criteria for feasible policies; how to identify and work with powerful allies with privileged access to policymakers; and, how to use crises or vivid events to prompt lurches of policymaker attention.

There are three main problems with such advice

1. Manipulation is a dirty word

Options A and B require you to be manipulative. I don’t really mean ‘Machiavellian’, but rather be prepared to propose simple messages, designed to influence debate, by expressing greater scientific certainty than you may be comfortable with and/ or with reference to emotionally-charged discussions that have little to do with your evidence.

It is customary for scientists to express uncertainty and a desire not to go ahead of the evidence. Yet, you are competing with people who do not have such sensibilities. They don’t play by your rules, and many will not even know that such rules exist. Further, they will win even though they are less knowledgeable than you. While you go back to produce and check ‘the evidence’, they will recognise that you need to make an impact now, with what you have, while the issue is salient and policymakers feel they have to act despite high uncertainty.

On the other hand, if you become an advocate, you may lose a key resource: some people think that you are an objective scientist, devoted to the truth. It is a legitimate strategy to choose to remain aloof from policymaking, to maintain your personal image and that of your profession. Fair enough, if you recognise that it is a choice with likely consequences.

It was a choice faced by advocates of tobacco control, many of whom felt that they had to go beyond the evidence to compete with powerful tobacco companies. It is a choice faced by organisations such as Public Health England, faced with their belief that too-many people think cigarettes and e-cigarettes are equally harmful, and the need to choose between saying ‘more evidence is needed’ (taking themselves out of the debate, and perhaps reinforcing the effects of poor public knowledge) or that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful (to influence behaviour while they gather more evidence). It is also a choice faced by food scientists competing to influence policy on GM food with (a) certain companies protecting their business, and (b) groups warning about Frankenstein foods.

2. It seems like a full time job

Options C and D require you to engage in policy advocacy for years, if not decades, to build up enough knowledge of the people involved (who is worth knowing? Who are your allies? What arguments work with certain people?) and know when to push a policy solution. There is not a clear professional incentive to engage in such activity. University incentives are changing, in countries such as the UK, but I’d still hesitate to advise a younger colleague to go for ‘impact’ instead of publishing another article in a prestigious peer-reviewed academic journal.

3. Policymakers don’t always act according to this advice

Policymakers will recognise that they make decisions within an unpredictable and messy, not ‘linear’, process. Many might even accept the implications of policy theories such as complexity theory, which suggests that they should seek new ways to act when they recognise their limitations: use trial and error; keep changing policies to suit new conditions; devolve and share power with the local actors able to respond to local areas; and so on.

Yet, such pragmatic advice goes against the idea of Westminster-style democratic accountability, in which ministers remain accountable to Parliament and the public because you know who is in charge and, therefore, who to blame.

Policymakers often maintain two faces simultaneously: the public face, to compete in elections and assert an image of control, and the less public face, to negotiate with many actors and make pragmatic choices. So, for example, there is high potential for them to produce ‘good politics, bad policy’ decisions, and you should not automatically admonish them whenever they reject the choice to produce ‘bad politics, good policy’. You’ll likely just piss them off and make them more reluctant to take your advice next time.

All three concerns produce a major dilemma about how to engage

Imagine a reaction to this well-meaning advice: you need to simplify evidence, and manipulate people or debates, when you engage in high level salient debates, while knowing that the big decisions take place elsewhere; you will have to influence different people with different arguments further down the line; it might take you years to work out who best to influence; and, by then, it might be too late.

Suddenly, the original advice – produce short reports, employ knowledge brokers, engage in academic-practitioner workshops – seems pretty attractive.

So, it may take more time to produce feasible advice based on the implications of policy theory. In the meantime, at least this discussion should help us clarify why there is a gap between scientific evidence and policymaking, and prompt some pragmatic advice: do it right or don’t do it at all; if you engage half-heartedly in the policy process, expect little reward; and, policy influence requires an investment that many scientists may be unwilling or unable to fund (and many investments will not pay off).

See also:

This post is one of many on EBPM. The full list is here: https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/ebpm/

The Scottish Question

Book review to appear in the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies 

The Scottish Question by James Mitchell (Oxford University Press, 2014)

I’d like to start by telling you what the ‘Scottish Question’ is, and how we might answer it. For example, maybe it is about Scotland’s constitutional future, which was to be solved by a simple referendum on Scottish independence. Yet, this didn’t happen. First, as we have seen since the 55% ‘No’ vote in 2014, the referendum only settled the matter for a few hours. It did not produce a decisive answer to a ‘once in a generation’ question. Instead, it merely stiffened the resolve of two sides of the debate, with advocates for No seeking, often in vain, to describe another new devolution plan (outlined in the Scotland Bill in 2015) as a final settlement, and advocates for Yes finding new ways to express their commitment to political change, such as when the Scottish National Party’s membership swelled to over 100000 members in a few weeks after the referendum.

Second, even a Yes vote would not have settled the matter. It would have produced major constitutional change, but not a clear sense of what Scottish independence is for (simply to enhance political autonomy, or also to change public policy?), or how it would impact on Scotland’s place in the UK, EU, and the wider world. It would not settle the question about the future role of the Scottish Government as, for example, a beacon of Nordic social democracy or a more British mix of support for extensive public services and social security but opposition to higher taxes, because such fundamental debates on the welfare state have played second fiddle to debates on the British state. Many people talked about independence as if it was synonymous with new forms of social democracy, but they were only able to do so – at least without too much criticism – because ‘Yes’ represented many things to many people; a box in which different people could invest their hopes and dreams, without needing to have the same hopes as other Yes supporters.

In other words, we were faced with a simple referendum question, but it was also a simplistic question, underpinned by a multitude of inter-related questions, which often remained implicit, or were articulated in very different ways by different people.

James Mitchell wrote ‘The Scottish Question’, and predicted this sense of perpetually unfinished business, well in advance of that referendum. He suggests that the same confusion and sense of uncertainty that we face now has been described and addressed in a multitude of ways in the past. Each time, we tend to call it the ‘Scottish Question’ even though:

‘There is little agreement on what the question is, far less its answer. It has involved a shifting mix of linked issues. These have included questions of national identity; Scotland’s constitutional status and structures of government; party politics; and everyday public policy concerns’ (p4).

As such, Mitchell describes the ‘Scottish question’ in a way that makes the subject familiar to students of public policy: many people are involved in making a notional decision, and they struggle to articulate their preferences, aims, or interests. Consequently, they struggle to compare their aims with those of the actors who do not share their preferences. Then, they make a decision that produces the vague sense that some people got what they wanted, at the expense of the preference of others, but without a clear sense of resolution. The issue keeps coming up, again and again, as new events unfold, more people with different perspectives become involved, and people think again and re-articulate their preferences. The process is messy and unpredictable and does not satisfy enough people to settle the matter once and for all. Any reference to an objective standard, or key principles to guide the debate, or a killer piece of evidence to skew the debate in the favour of one side, tends to fail, since the issue involves a mix of facts, values, and emotional appeals, and no single principle can guide what often appears to be an anomalous policy problem made more complicated by the accumulated effects of decisions made in the past. Instead, debates take place with reference to stories, constructed to turn a complex matter into a simple narrative involving heroes and villains, and a strong moral dimension, to exploit people’s emotions or help them translate a complex matter into a manageable solution.

In that context, Mitchell’s key point is that, if the Scottish Question is so difficult to frame and solve, and it has been approached in so many different ways, the current outcome was not inevitable and the future remains uncertain. More specifically, to better understand the present situation, we have to understand a series of historical decisions, based on the many ways in which people have tried to describe and solve the question over the past three centuries.

Mitchell’s book represents a vitally important examination of this historic record, partly through the lens of current debates, but with a challenge to consider the era-specific way in which we tend to interpret these developments.

First, for example, early chapters chart: the development of Scottish national identity before its ‘Other’ became ‘Thatcherism’ or ‘London’; the series of decisions that led to the development of Scottish governing institutions now controlled by the Scottish Government; the unsteady development of the now-dominant SNP; the crucial importance of Labour to devolution, coupled with its longstanding reluctance to embrace it until the 1970s; and, old encounters with contemporary questions, such as the ‘West Lothian Question’ (now addressed with English votes for English laws, or EVEL), which began as a dilemma prompted by Irish home rule.

Second, Mitchell shows us that Scotland’s contemporary default position – to consider all UK and many international political decisions through the lens of the Scottish constitutional debate – contrasts somewhat with historical debates, such as when the modern state developed, and raised new issues about the role of the welfare state, state intervention, and nuclear weapons, across the UK, without the constant sense that there was a distinctive Scottish angle. Even by the 1970s, SNP MPs new to Westminster discovered that ‘Finding a particularly Scottish angle was not always easy’ (p180).

Third, Mitchell identifies major generational shifts in thinking about the same issues. Perhaps the best example comes from Gordon Brown’s concern, in the early 1980s, that no-one had solved the dilemma of devolution through the lens of class: how do you maintain the role of the UK state, to redistribute income and maintain uniform levels of social security, and devolve policy decisions to Scotland? Notably, Brown maintained that the SNP were ‘tartan Tories’ because they were prepared to give up on redistribution and uniform entitlement to further Scottish autonomy (p165). This may seem remarkable to contemporary students of Scottish politics, since ‘tartan Tories’ has largely been replaced by the idea of ‘red Tories’ (which, for some, includes Brown) prepared to work with the Conservative party to obstruct Scottish independence and, in doing so, guarantee greater inequalities during a prolonged period of UK Conservative ‘austerity’ policies.

Overall, The Scottish Question is a welcome addition to the literature, and a useful antidote to the idea that we are in unchartered waters or that we will always think this way about the UK constitution. The dominance of the SNP in Scotland, and an increasing sense that there will be a second referendum, suggests to many people that Scottish independence is inevitable, but Mitchell’s book shows us that many other alleged inevitabilities did not occur. Such predictions, based on superficial contemporary analysis, are generally no match for historical explanation based on forensic examination.

Women don’t understand facts (and fracking)

A recent poll suggests that women are far less likely to support commercial fracking than men. For a while, the same divide was detected in relation to Scottish independence. The common factor is that you can learn a lot from people’s attitudes to gender by how they try to explain these divides.

A common starting point is that women are less likely to take risks (quick and cheap Google examples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Then lots of people make fools of themselves by adding to the explanation: women prefer security/ a ‘safety blanket’ because their role is to nurture, earth mothers are closer to the environment, men are buccaneers, men are more ‘rational’ when they consider risk, and so on.

Or, perhaps they are misreported. I don’t know.

For example, it is now being reported in the Times that Professor Averil MacDonald (‘the new champion of the shale gas industry’) says: ‘Vast numbers of women are opposed to fracking because they “don’t understand” and follow their gut instinct rather than the facts’ (the same interpretation can be found in the Guardian, Daily Mail, and Independent).

The message that I think MacDonald was presenting is this: people are less likely to support fracking if they didn’t study particular sciences at school; and, women are less likely to have studied those sciences at school. Maybe, at its core, is a good point about challenging the barriers to women studying, and choosing a career in, certain science subjects (i.e. these findings might give us a window of opportunity to discuss such barriers).

Turned into a newspaper headline it becomes this: “Fracking? Women ‘don’t understand the science’”.

Beyond this point, there are four other things worthy of discussion:

1. You can’t separate your values from your empirical studies and scientific explanations

Some people like to present themselves as objective truth-seeking scientists, but they are kidding themselves or trying to kid other people. Scientific study is infused with our values, from what is worthy of our study, to how to study it, and what counts as good research, evidence, and explanation. Normally, you just see the end without considering all the assumptions that people make at the beginning. Or, people engage in inductive science, then struggle with post-hoc explanation (‘umm, like, women are different, eh?’).

2. You can’t separate politics from explanation

Part of the problem with gender-based conclusions is that people jump to explanations based on the too-broad category ‘women’ (or ‘men’) without considering the political implications of treating one gender as one group of people. Maybe it gets you somewhere initially, as a way of efficiently identifying correlations, but it gets you nowhere if you then try and come up with one overarching explanation for what is going on. It’s quite bad science and it’s very bad politics, contributing to unsubstantiated stereotypes. The overall correlation also distracts us from more detailed explanations based on gender and a wide range of other factors, which contributes to a further political problem: it reinforces the argument that somehow the difference between a positive or negative political choice boils down to the attitudes of women.

3. People go beyond their expertise

It is common for people to develop an undeserved general reputation for expertise, built on specific expertise in one discipline or field. It’s always worth being particularly skeptical when people with a background in natural science pronounce on social behaviour, or indeed when political scientists try to explain psychology or how gravity works. Just as you wouldn’t ask me to give a lecture on the combustion engine, don’t rely primarily on STEM professors to explain the outcomes of surveys.

4. All people combine ‘rational’ and gut-level shortcuts

If you read something like Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, you won’t find him saying that only women make gut, intuitive, or emotional decisions. We’re all at it. In fact, in my forthcoming Palgrave ‘Pivot’ book The Politics of Evidence-based Policymaking* I use that basic insight to explain policymaking: Policymakers cannot consider all evidence relevant to policy problems. They use two shortcuts: ‘rational’ ways to establish the best evidence, and ‘irrational’ decision-making, drawing on emotions and beliefs to act quickly.

*Yes, I wrote this post largely to advertise my next publication.

The politics of evidence and randomised control trials: the symbolic importance of family nurse partnerships

I have reblogged this post on EBPM and the Family Nurse Partnership, with an update, at the bottom, on its first RCT-based evaluation (which did not recommend continuing the programme in its current form).

Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy

We await the results of the randomised control trial (RCT) on family nurse partnerships in England. While it looks like an innocuous review of an internationally well-respected programme, and will likely receive minimal media attention, I think it has high-stakes symbolic value in relation to the role of RCTs in British government.

EBM versus EBPM?

We know a lot about the use of evidence in politics – and we hear that politicians play fast and loose with it. We also know that some professions have a very clear idea about what counts as evidence, and that this view is not shared by politicians and policymakers. Somehow, ‘politics’ gets in the way of the good production and use of evidence.

A key example is the ideal of ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ (EBM), which is associated with a hierarchy of evidence in which the status of the RCT is only exceeded by…

View original post 1,421 more words

Early thoughts on the SNP conference: 2 speeches postponing independence and social democracy

The SNP describes itself as ‘a social democratic political party committed to Scottish independence’. However, two key speeches at the SNP’s annual conference in 2015 suggest that both aims will have to be postponed. Instead, the political dynamic in Scotland and the UK will continue to contribute to a strange and often inconsistent social and economic strategy that would not be chosen in a fully reserved UK or fully independent Scotland.

The first speech, by Nicola Sturgeon, confirmed that, although she believes that support for Scottish independence may have risen since the referendum, she does not foresee a second referendum in the near future (unless the UK population votes to leave the EU on the back of votes in England and opposition in Scotland). Instead, Scotland will enjoy further devolution in some areas, such as a greater ability to set income tax rates and vary some social security benefits, and continue to deliver most public services, without having complete control in either.

Consequently, it is not possible for the Scottish Government to take a ‘social democratic’ approach, often linked to the idea of ‘Nordic’ social democracy, to combine (a) spending decisions based on an appeal to universal service provision, and (b) redistribution through taxation. Instead, there is great potential for inconsistent UK/ Scottish strategies: the Scottish Government to oversee a spending regime that favours the wealthy and middle classes (on universal free services with no means testing) while the UK Government maintains a tax and benefits policy that many people will perceive to be insufficiently redistributive.

These issues arise infrequently on the Scottish political agenda, partly because Scottish independence has drawn attention away from serious debates on budget priorities. Further, a continued sense of constitutional uncertainty – built on the SNP leadership’s short term acceptance of devolution, but long term hope for independence – may help minimise economic debate and maintain an economic system that few would design.

The second speech, to be delivered by John Swinney, Scotland’s equivalent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, confirms that the SNP likes to combine ‘social democratic’ ideas on spending, but strategies on taxation that would generally not look out of place in George Osborne’s Red Box. Swinney will propose to give local authorities the power to reduce rates of business tax (well in advance of Osbourne granting the same powers in England). This initiative follows a series of speeches by Alex Salmond, while First Minister, which suggested that the SNP would also like to reduce corporation taxes and airport charges, to increase economic competitiveness and encourage inward investment. It also reinforces the SNP Government’s decision to (effectively) ‘freeze’ the rates of council tax, which remain the more regressive option than its previous plans to introduce a local income tax, and likely aversion to raising income tax (the most toxic taxation instrument) in any meaningful way (although compare my account with John Swinney’s).

In that context, the economic lines between a Conservative UK government and SNP Scottish Government are far less clear than we might deduce from the vociferous debates that took place during the referendum debate in 2014 and were repeated in the run up to the UK general election. Indeed, the biggest dividing lines were in areas that the SNP knew it could not control – when it argued for an alternative to ‘austerity’ and a slower rate of budget cuts to allow for economy boosting investment – which make the differences seem more rhetorical than substantive.

In cases where the SNP has demanded more powers successfully, its actions tend to relate to ‘hot button’ issues, such as its intention to mitigate the effects of the ‘bedroom tax’. Rather than propose a major reform of tax and benefit provision to get to the ‘root causes’ of socio-economic inequalities via redistribution, it talks instead about the use of public service delivery to mitigate their effects. This strategy relies largely on public service reforms, localism, and the idea of ‘prevention’ policies – to intervene as early as possible in people’s lives to improve their life chances, through interventions such as parenting programmes – which are also promoted by the UK Government. Further, these strategies generally come in second place behind the higher profile spending decisions which often exacerbate inequalities. For example, the SNP Government maintains free tuition fees in Universities which, in the absence of redistributive fiscal policy, and the continued presence of an attainment gap, doubly reinforces major inequalities in education.

These decisions sometimes receive critical attention, but from opposition parties which remain remarkably unpopular in Scotland, and a media that many supporters of the SNP or independence view with incredible mistrust. As long as independence remains the main reported story of SNP conferences, and the SNP remains unusually popular, few will pay meaningful attention to these socio-economic policy issues.

Intergovernmental relations and shared policymaking #POLU9SP

In the previous lecture we discussed multi-level governance and a tendency for policy responsibilities to overlap, even when they look separate on paper. In this lecture, we discuss how governments deal with the overlaps. The ‘take home’ message is that UK-Scottish Government relations have been generally informal and remarkably smooth, largely because they resolve potential disputes behind closed doors and have found a way to turn potentially controversial funding and legislative issues into dull routines.

To make sense of intergovernmental relations (IGR) in the UK, it helps to compare them with IGR in other countries. This comparative literature prompts us to ask the following questions:

Is the UK a unitary or union state?

Devolved territories have subordinate status, but the terms of the union protect (to some extent) some Scottish institutions (which ones?).

Can it be meaningfully compared with federal or quasi-federal states?

We can identify: the distribution of some legal, executive and fiscal powers to allow devolved territories a level of autonomy; ‘umpires’ to rule in disputes between levels of government (examples?); and territorial representation at the national level (examples?). However, UK devolution is asymmetric (in what three ways?) and it lacks a supreme constitution to protect subnational bodies.

What is the role of key organisations/ institutions?

Until 2007, UK and Scottish Labour party links were important (an issue that we can revisit when discussing ‘policy convergence’). Also note that the coordinating role of the executives is far more important in the UK than the role of parliaments or the courts.

How are issues generally resolved, and how often do governments resort to formal dispute resolution?

The short answers are ‘quietly’ and ‘not’.

The UK-Scottish Government has been remarkably smooth, when measured with reference to the number of high profile disputes:

• Guiding documents, such as the Memorandum of Understanding between the governments, and individual concordats between departments, reinforce a sense of IGR resolution through convention/ cultural practices.
• Formal mechanisms for dispute resolution, such as Joint Ministerial Committees, are used rarely and Scottish bills are not opposed by the UK Government (compare with the process in Wales).
• Instead, both governments have preferred to use ‘bilateral’ and less formal links.
• When policy overlaps involve legislation, the governments relied heavily on ‘Sewel motions’ or ‘legislative consent motions’ (LCMs), passed by the Scottish Parliament to allow Westminster to legislate on its behalf. Scottish ministers would identify expediency, heavily entangled responsibilities, the need to avoid loopholes, and the need to set up UK-wide public bodies, as reasons to pass LCMs. Or, the legislation would devolve more responsibilities to Scottish ministers.

What happens when each government is headed by a different party?

From 1999-2007, very few issues arose in public between the UK Labour government and Labour-led Scottish Government. A small number of exceptions, such as on free personal care, were perhaps linked to policy divergences promoted by the Liberal Democrats.

There were differences when each government has headed by a different party, such as when the SNP headed the Scottish Government from 2007, but not as many as you might associate with this image or my description of early expectations (p234):

Why were UK-Scottish Governmental relations so smooth from 1999-2007?

One reason is that the arrangements suited both governments: Labour Party links allowed them to keep issues in-house; civil servants were able to conduct negotiations out of public spotlight; and, the ‘Barnett formula’ (next lecture) and Sewel convention allowed them to deal with financial and legal issues routinely.

Another explanation is that the UK government is more powerful: the Scottish Executive struggled to get the UK to engage, and was reluctant to challenge UK authority. Although a focus on power generally dramatizes these innocuous IGR arrangements, their relationship on EU matters is instructive: the UK government saw EU affairs as reserved UK responsibilities, ‘rebuffed’ former First Minister Henry McLeish when he sought a stronger Scottish Government role (p134), and often ignored Scottish Government concerns (p100).

Why was there no ‘boom and bust up’ from 2007?

A lot of the same explanations still applied under SNP government. My article suggests that we can draw on ‘British policy style’ discussions to explain a ‘logic of negotiation’: imposition is costly for the UK and the SNP often adopts an ‘insider strategy’ (generally making reasonable demands, negotiating quietly, and accepting the imbalance of power). The SNP also supported the use of ‘Barnett’ implicitly (it argues for reform in public) and the Sewel convention explicitly:

Further, during minority SNP government, the more contentious issues between opposing parties – including the Scottish Government’s budget settlement, and the implications of a local income tax – played out in the Scottish Parliament, while the biggest bone of contention – a referendum on Scottish independence – had been delayed by opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament, not the UK Government.

Did Conservative-led UK Government make a difference?

A Tory government might be handy for the SNP’s electoral ambitions, and its favoured story on the need for independence, but Conservative ministers did not make it easy to portray them as aloof or top-down minded. Instead, David Cameron pursued a ‘respect’ agenda and gave his support to more regular formal meetings between UK and Scottish ministers via the JMC process. The SNP government has also been generally non-confrontational. Indeed, can you give me any examples of public disputes between the two governments?

Independence is the exception?

We might point to Scottish independence as the biggest and longest-running bone of contention between the SNP and Conservative or Labour governments. However, if you look at the way the referendum was designed and run, it has the hallmarks of negotiation and respect that we can identify in most other areas, including: Conservative government respect for the SNP’s mandate to hold a referendum, UK support to ensure the legality of the referendum and allow the Scottish Government to coordinate much of the process, and UK and Scottish Government negotiations on the wording and timing of the question.

Indeed, the UK/ Scottish process may become an international standard, or model for similar countries to follow.

In the next lecture, we will delve further into the Barnett formula, as one of the things that keeps IGR smooth, and then consider the likely effect of further constitutional change on these practices.

 

Scottish policymaking in the context of multi-level governance #POLU9SP

This is the first of two lectures in which we consider MLG, as the diffusion of power from central government to other governments and non-government actors, and IGR, as the ways in which those governments share power and cooperate. These concepts can represent two different ways to study the same thing: MLG often describes fluid and unpredictable policy processes, while IGR often focuses on formal powers, the role of institutions, and the resolution of disputes. Referring to MLG and IGR, the subsequent two lectures examine Scottish public expenditure (and the ‘Barnett formula’) and the likely effect of the new Scotland Act.

When I describe multi-level governance (MLG) in the UK, I contrast it with the ‘Westminster model’. The comparison allows us to identify a diffusion of power in two ways:

1. Vertically – at supranational, national, regional and local levels (hence multi-level).
2. Horizontally – shared between ministers/ government departments and many non-governmental and quasi-non-governmental organisations (hence governance rather than government).

An initial focus on the UK allows us to challenge (again) the idea that its policy process is ‘majoritarian’, in which power is concentrated at the centre, and governments tend to make policy in a ‘top down’ and uncompromising way. Our previous discussions of policy networks/ communities/ styles already helped us question this image and the idea that its political system contrasts with Scotland’s alleged ‘consensus democracy’. A focus on MLG reinforces this argument, by identifying a tendency of many governments to share power and policymaking responsibility with other actors in and out of government.

MLG also helps us understand the wider context of Scottish policymaking. We have already discussed the idea of ‘horizontal’ power diffusion by identifying the role of interest groups in territorial policy communities, and one aspect of ‘vertical’ diffusion by identifying:

• the links between a ‘Scottish approach to policymaking’ and new forms of governance and accountability, based on the Scottish Government sharing power with local public bodies and encouraging them to form new strategies with their stakeholders
• complexity theory and the idea of ‘emergence’ from local level activity.

So, imagine MLG as the formation of policy networks that span more than one level of government, and the ‘emergence’ of policies and practices from multi-level activity. It is important to identify which actors are responsible for those outcomes in theory, to inform discussions of accountability, but difficult to know who to blame in practice when there are blurry boundaries between the actors who make or influence policy.

As we discuss next week, this problem may be exacerbated by further constitutional change, which is built on a level of shared responsibility, between the UK and Scottish Government, not envisaged in the original devolution ‘settlement’.

Multi-level policymaking: the division of responsibilities

For now, let’s start with the original settlement, set out in the Scotland Act 1998, which stated which policy areas would remain reserved to the UK Government (why does it matter if the legislation sets out reserved or devolved responsibilities?). Reserved areas are in the left hand column, which allows us to work out the main responsibilities of the Scottish Government (which it inherited largely from the old Scottish Office – devolution did not prompt a major review of its responsibilities). In the middle are some examples of UK/ Scotland overlaps, followed by examples of policy issues that are devolved and ‘Europeanised’.

If we simply compare the left/ right columns, the divisions seem fairly clear. Indeed, compared to many other systems – in which, for example, national and regional governments might share control over healthcare or education – they are.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of policy

Yet, many policy areas were becoming controlled or influenced increasingly by the European Union as they were being devolved. Further, the UK Government is the Member State, with three main implications:

1. It is responsible for the implementation of EU directives across the UK, which gives it a monitoring role on Scottish policy in devolved areas.
2. It tends to treat the EU as an extension of foreign affairs/ international relations – a reserved issue – rather than a collection of policy areas which can be reserved or devolved.
3. It is difficult to consider constitutional change without taking into account key EU rules, in areas such as corporation tax and renewable energy obligations (next week).

Outside of the obvious areas, such as EU rules on free trade and the free movement of people, the most Europeanised and devolved areas tend to be in:

• Agriculture and fishing. The Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy are negotiated and set at the EU level, often with minimal Scottish Government involvement but with some discretion during implementation.
• Environmental regulation. Similarly, Scotland’s environmental policies begin with the need to be consistent with EU rules in areas such as water quality and environmental protection.

Then, there is a miscellany of EU advice and regulations with the potential to have a major impact on otherwise devolved policies. For example, the ‘working time directive’ (do you know the details?) has an impact on doctors’ working conditions, while the habitat directive impacts on planning processes. This is on top of a more general sense that EU rules on trade and the free movement of people have a major impact on any policy area.

The blurry boundaries between reserved and devolved issues

There are many examples of areas in which at least two levels of government are involved. In some cases, this potential for multi-level involvement produced uncertainty about how to act:

• In the very early years, Scottish ministers expressed uncertainty about their role in issues such as industrial policy and a register of sex offenders.
• The ‘smoking ban’ raised interesting issues about the ‘purpose test’ to determine who is primarily responsible for key policies. It is part of a larger set of tobacco control policy instruments produced by Scottish, UK, and EU policymakers.
• Scottish Parliament legislation to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol has been delayed by court action (it is currently being considered by the ECJ).

In some cases, there were tensions about the overlaps of responsibilities:

• The Scottish Government’s policy on ‘free personal care’ for older people reduced many people’s entitlement to UK government social security payments. It faced similar issues when proposing a local income tax.
• The UK’s Home Office policy on ‘dawn raids’ on unsuccessful asylum seekers was carried out in Scotland by a devolved police force.

In others, an overlap of responsibilities seems inevitable, since many policy areas are ‘cross-cutting’; they involve many policy instruments and government departments:

• Fuel and child poverty are addressed with a mix of taxes, benefits, and public services.
• Cross-cutting UK initiatives – such as the New Deal and Sure Start – require a degree of cooperation with devolved public services.
• The Scottish Government’s ‘Fresh Talent’ initiative required Home Office approval.

In other words, overlaps are inevitable when any government tries to combine devolved discretion with national control. In the next lecture we can discuss how the UK and Scottish Governments dealt with these overlaps.

 

 

Localism, partnerships and new forms of governance beyond the centre #POLU9SP

Local government in Scotland is important. It employs 45% of the Scottish public sector workforce, (245,700 of the total 545,600), spends a similar proportion of the Scottish budget, is the main delivery body for key devolved policy areas (including education, social work, housing, leisure, planning, roads, and social inclusion/ justice), and is an often-influential partner in other areas, such as police, fire, mental health, and public health services.

Consequently, we often talk of an interdependent relationship between central and local government: local authorities enhance the legitimacy of Scottish Government policies by providing important policy advice, tailoring delivery to local areas, and supplying an additional electoral mandate; and, the Scottish Government largely determines the levels of legal, financial and political autonomy that they enjoy.

Sometimes, we also highlight a tense relationship regarding the levels of autonomy afforded to local authorities, measured in terms of the extent to which they are subject to (a) detailed legislation and regulation, and (b) limits to their ability to raise revenue and decide how their budget is spent.

Two images of central-local government relations in Scotland

The first, summed up in the phrase ‘Scottish approach’, discussed in the previous lecture, suggests that the Scottish Government devolves a meaningful level of authority to local authorities, which increasingly make policy in cooperation with their public sector partners and non-governmental stakeholders.

The second suggests that Scottish local authorities are subject to Scottish Government control, through financial and legal instruments.

You can see these images play out below, in a discussion and qualification of the devolution effect on central-local relations.

A key part of the first story is that things are better than they once were, either after 1999 or after 2007. To reinforce this image, we can refer to:

Post-1999 developments

Devolved central-local relations are often compared to the period of UK Conservative government (1979-97), in which central-local tensions arose following many central government reforms, including a broad challenge to the primacy attached to public sector delivery, and specific measures, including: the introduction of the ‘poll tax’ to limit local authority spending, ‘compulsory competitive tendering’ (the delivery of public services), the enforced sale of/ ‘right to buy’ (council housing), public/ private partnerships (e.g. to build schools); and, the reform of local government boundaries and functions (e.g. the 1996 reform which introduced 32 unitary Scottish local authorities).

In that context, there is some evidence of:

• a better central-local relationship in Scotland (than in the UK) before devolution, based on closer personal networks and a sense that some ‘wet’ Scottish Office ministers often tried to reduce the impact of reforms;
• a sense of common purpose, during the campaign for Scottish devolution between the leaders of local authorities and the parties which were to form the first Scottish Government (‘Scottish Executive’)

Both factors may have contributed to a ‘honeymoon period’ in which devolution enhanced or replaced previous relationships, the Scottish Government became more open and consultative, local authorities and COSLA became more involved in policy formulation, and this relationship helped produce reforms – such as the replacement of compulsory competitive tendering with ‘Best Value’, and the development of local government community planning powers – that suited local authorities.

However, many policies associated with the Thatcher government were maintained or extended under Labour (such as the ‘right to buy’ and PPP), the Scottish Government maintained control over most sources of local authority income and, although the Scottish Government used performance management in a less punitive way than the UK government, it still held local authorities to many short term targets (what about the introduction of STV in local elections – is it relevant to this discussion?). Opinions on the central-local relationship were mixed, and the idea of a partnership was often ‘aspirational’.

Post-2007 developments

Some accounts use the latter argument to suggest that most of the big changes only happened when the SNP entered government in May 2007, highlighting:

• The Scottish Government’s Concordat with COSLA in 2007, which suggests that the former will not seek to micromanage local authorities or use regulations, performance management, and funding to produce compliance with short term, specific proxy targets.
• A proposed reduction in 2007 – from 22% to 10% – of ‘ring-fenced’/’hypothecated’ funding (the proportion of local authority budgets which they have to spend in accordance with specific Scottish Government requirements).
• Alex Salmond signalling a ‘culture change in the relationship between central and local government in Scotland. The days of top-down diktats are over’ (p130).
• Former COSLA President Pat Watters talking in 2007 about local government now having greater responsibility and ‘the freedom and flexibility to respond effectively to local priorities’ (p130).
• The development of the ‘Scottish approach’

However, many of the same caveats apply: the Scottish Government still provides about 80% of local government budgets, it still has a major influence on the rate of local authority council tax (to ensure its ‘freeze’ since 2007), and its proposed local income tax would have increased its budgetary control.

Further, have a look at how some people in local government describe the new relationship:

• Current COSLA President David O’Neill in 2014, as chair of the Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy: ‘Over the decades, we’ve seen a culture in which more and more services and decisions been taken away from local communities and put into the hands of distant bureaucracies’
• The Improvement Service’s Mark McAteer: ‘Scotland continues to operate a largely centralised, top-down and de-localised local government system’. McAteer’s paper identifies an unusually low number of local authorities per head of population and high Scottish Government control over its budget, and suggests that low electoral turnout reflects low levels of local government power.

So, local government is important, and the Scottish Government tells an important story about its crucial role, as part of the ‘Scottish approach to policymaking’, while others tell a story of continued Scottish Government control and limited local government subsidiarity. We can discuss in the lecture which story seems most convincing.

Further reading: to combine our discussions of complexity theory and the limits to local government/ public sector discretion, see The language of complexity does not mix well with the language of Westminster-style accountability

 

 

The Scottish Government and the ‘Scottish approach’ to policymaking’ #POLU9SP

A ‘Scottish approach’ to policymaking can refer to two things. The first is an academic description of the ‘Scottish policy style’, in a lot of the academic literature, which describes the Scottish Government’s reputation for two practices:

1. A consultation style which is relatively inclusive and consensual (see previous lecture).
2. A ‘governance’ style which places unusually high levels of trust in public bodies such as local authorities.

The second is called the ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’ (SATP) by the Scottish Government. It largely describes its approach to ‘governance’, which developed from 1999 but appeared to change markedly in 2007 and 2013.

See Greer and Jarman for an interesting account of the period from 1999-2007, which I summarize here:

My summary of the post-2007 developments draws on accounts by the former and current Permanent Secretary (the most senior civil servant) of the Scottish Government: John Elvidge’s Northern Exposure and Peter Housden’s ‘This is us’.

The ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’

An early version of the ‘Scottish approach’ developed before 2007. Elvidge (2011: 31-5) describes a ‘Scottish model of government’, linked to the potential to exploit its relatively small size, and central position in a dense network of public sector and third sector bodies, to pursue ‘holistic’ government, in which ministers – and their equivalents in the civil service – had briefs which spanned traditional departmental divides and came together regularly to coordinate national strategies.

Elvidge (2011: 31) describes ‘the concept of a government as a single organisation’ and “the idea of ‘joined up government’ taken to its logical conclusions”. He links this agenda to his belief that ‘traditional policy and operational solutions’ based on ‘the target driven approach which characterised the conduct of the UK Government’ would not produce the major changes in policy and policymaking required to address major problems such as health and educational inequalities and low economic growth. Instead, they required:

more integrated approaches, such as the approach to the early years of children’s lives … which looked across the full range of government functions [and] offered the scope for some significant and unexpected fresh policy perspectives (2011: 32).

Elvidge (2011: 32) suggests that this approach took off under the SNP-led Scottish Government, elected in May 2007, partly because his ideas on joined up government complemented the SNP’s:

manifesto commitments to: i) an outcome based approach to the framing of the objectives of government and to enabling the electorate to hold the Government to account for performance; ii) a reduced size of Cabinet, which was an expression of a commitment to an approach to Ministerial responsibilities that emphasised the collective pursuit of shared objectives over a focus on individual portfolios with disaggregated objectives.

By 2007, the ‘Scottish approach’ combined the pursuit of joined up government with the SNP’s ‘outcomes based approach to delivering the objectives of government’, a ‘single statement of purpose, elaborated into a supporting structure of a small number of broad objectives and a larger, but still limited, number of measurable national outcomes’ (2011: 34).

The Scottish Government introduced a government-wide policy framework, the National Performance Framework (NPF), based on a single ‘ten year vision’ and a shift towards measuring success in terms of often-long term outcomes. The NPF has a stated ‘core purpose – to create a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth’. It seeks to turn this broad purpose into specific policies and measures of success in two main ways.

First, it articulates in more depth its national approach via a ‘purpose framework’ – linked to targets gauging its economic growth, productivity, labour market participation, population, income inequality, regional inequality and (emissions based) sustainability – and five ‘strategic objectives’:

1. Wealthier and Fairer – Enabling businesses and people to increase their wealth and more people to share fairly in that wealth.
2. Healthier – Helping people to sustain and improve their health, especially in disadvantaged communities, ensuring better, local and faster access to health care.
3. Safer and Stronger – Helping communities to flourish, becoming stronger, safer places to live, offering improved opportunities and a better quality of life.
4. Smarter. Expanding opportunities to succeed from nurture through to lifelong learning ensuring higher and more widely shared achievements.
5. Greener. Improving Scotland’s natural and built environment and the sustainable use and enjoyment of it.

These objectives are mapped onto sixteen ‘National Outcomes’ and fifty ‘National Indicators’.

Second, it works in partnership with the public sector to align organisational objectives with the NPF. In some cases, this involves public sector reform and/or some attempts at centralisation: it obliged non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs, or ‘quangos’) to align their objectives with the NPF, after reducing their number, and it created a single police force and single fire service.

In the case of local authorities, its approach was different. It required them to produce ‘Single Outcomes Agreements’ (SOAs), in partnership with their stakeholders (and public sector partners), but with local government discretion to determine the balance between a range of priorities as long as their outcomes were consistent with the NPF’s vision.

The Scottish Government reinforced this sense of discretion by signing a Concordat with COSLA which contained a package of Scottish Government aims, but also its agreement to halve the amount of ‘ring fenced’ budgets (from 22% to 11%) and reject a tendency to ‘micromanage’ local government – albeit within the context of a system in which the Scottish Government controls almost all of local authorities’ total budgets (we can discuss this in the next lecture).

Since 2013, the Scottish Government has sought to reinforce the ‘Scottish approach’ with reference to three broad principles:

1. Improvement. The pursuit of ‘improvement’ in public services, to help it deliver on its holistic government agenda, in partnership with stakeholders. For example, it has overseen the development of the ‘Early Years Collaborative’, in which the Scottish Government identifies promising policy interventions and asks practitioners to experiment with their own projects in their local areas. This approach is designed partly to address the idea that local policymakers are more likely to adopt interventions if they are developed locally and/ or tailored to local circumstances.
2. Assets. A focus on people’s ‘assets’ rather than their ‘deficits’. Housden (2014: 67-8) suggests that, ‘we look always to build on and strengthen the assets and resilience of individuals, families and communities. Community grant schemes and devolved budgets can build assets and stimulate local action and decision-making. Recovery programmes for those seeking to exit drug use look to draw on the resources and potential of those in recovery themselves to assist others on the journey’.
3. Co-production. Housden (2014: 67) suggests that, ‘we put a real premium on the idea of co-production, with services designed and delivered with service users and organisations. This ranges from self-directed care for elderly people and those managing chronic conditions or disabilities, to the networks of support for children with learning difficulties with parents and voluntary organisations at their heart’.

Overall, the ‘Scottish approach’:

• began as a broad idea about how to govern by consensus in a new era of devolved politics
• developed into a way to pursue: holistic government, an outcomes-based measure of policy success, greater local authority discretion in the delivery of national objectives, and several governance principles built primarily on localism and the further inclusion of service users in the design of public policy.

According to Elvidge and Housden, this approach contrasts markedly with UK policymaking and, in particular, the UK Labour Government’s approach from 1997 (as described by Greer and Jarman, above).

In the lecture, I will try to describe these developments and principles, and we can discuss the extent to which they are specific enough (in other words, not too vague, and specific to Scottish policymaking) to describe a distinctively ‘Scottish approach’. For example, don’t other bodies care about coproduction?

 

Pluralist democracy and the ‘Scottish policy style’: the role of ‘pressure participants’ such as interest groups #POLU9SP

A key theme of the course is that we can explain policymaking, in most political systems, with reference to ‘universal’ concepts such as policy networks. These concepts help us identify: (a) the policy processes shared by most systems, before we examine (b) how to best understand those processes in specific systems. For example, we can link closely, but recognize key differences in, descriptions of subsystems in the US and networks in the UK.

In Scottish politics, that kind of comparison tends to be with UK policymaking: can we identify the same basic processes, or did devolution prompt a ‘Scottish policy style’ that differs significantly from the ‘British style’?

While Box 8.1 highlights a ‘logic’ of policy communities that is common to Scottish and UK government, it does not suggest that their processes are identical. Rather, much of the literature recounts an important story, told by participants and policymakers in Scotland, that their ‘territorial policy communities’ have distinctive features. Some participants describe ‘cultural’ differences in consultation, which can relate to our discussions of ‘new politics’ and ‘consensus democracy’, or more practical factors such as Scotland’s size, the scale of the Scottish Government’s responsibilities, and its resources to make and fund policy. This takes place in a multi-level system in which it is often difficult – particularly for pressure participants*– to identify a Scottish process of policymaking, separate from developments at EU, UK, and local levels.

Devolution and new policy networks

Keating et al (2009: 54) use the term ‘territorial policy communities’ to describe the development of new networks in Scotland, prompted by the devolution of new responsibilities to the Scottish Government and significant levels of UK interest group devolution (or the proliferation of new Scottish groups). These new arrangements were characterised initially by:

• a period of adjustment, in which ministers and civil servants adapted to their new policymaking role and groups sought new opportunities or felt obliged to lobby Scottish political institutions
• ‘cognitive change’, in which policy problems became defined increasingly from a territorial perspective
• a new group-government dynamic, in which groups formed new relationships with their allies (and competitors).

Perhaps more importantly, groups increasingly follow a devolved policy agenda. Gone are the days of the old (pre-1999) Scottish Office, responsible primarily for policy implementation, and the tendency of groups to form coalitions to oppose or modify UK Conservative government policies at the margins. Now, groups respond to Scottish Government demands for new policy ideas, and often compete as well as cooperate with each other to draw the attention of that captive audience.   The evidence suggests that some groups addressed that task more quickly than others: some groups improved on links that were already partly established (in which areas?), some reinforced the links that they developed with the Labour government from 1997 (which ones?), some maintained dual UK and Scottish links, to reflect limited devolution in their areas (which groups?), and others took time to get over their opposition to devolution and find a clear role (which ones?). Devolution perhaps gave all groups more opportunities to engage, but this did not diminish a tendency to consult with ‘the usual suspects’.

Distinctive elements of the ‘Scottish policy style’: a new policymaking culture?

Box 8.3 describes interest group perceptions of policymaking in the early years of devolution. They describe their shift of attention to Scottish institutions, and a sense that they generally enjoyed regular and meaningful access to policymakers in the Scottish Government and politicians in the Scottish Parliament (although, do their links to MSPs matter much if the Scottish Parliament is often peripheral to policymaking?). Many groups also describe this process as better than the UK equivalent. This is the sort of statement that we should be wary of: how might we explain it, beyond simply saying that they are right? Some possibilities include:

• Many groups, which supported devolution, ‘would say that, wouldn’t they?’
• Many describe UK processes of which they have limited experience.
• Many describe their experiences of consultation, not influence.
• Some describe their greater ability to compete with other groups in Scotland, compared to their experiences in the UK.
• Some conflate their experiences with their attitudes to a Conservative UK government, which they opposed, and Labour-led Scottish Government, which they supported.
• Not all groups reported positive experiences.

Still, we should not ignore completely the general feeling that something has changed, for the better.

Explanations for the Scottish policy style: new politics or pragmatism?

The most immediate and obvious explanation for these developments is ‘new politics’: devolution went hand in hand with the expectation that politicians and policymakers would open their doors, and their minds to new ideas. Politics would be more participative and deliberative, and policymaking would be more open and based on more regular and meaningful consultation.

However, consider three practical reasons for Scottish Government policymaking to differ from its UK counterpart:

1. Scotland’s size, and the scale of Scottish Government responsibilities, allows closer personal relationships to develop between key actors. You can get all the key players in one room.
2. The Scottish Government has limited resources, prompting civil servants to rely more – for information, advice, and support – on experts outside of government and the actors who will become responsible for policy implementation.
3. Devolution went hand in hand with a significant increase in Scottish public expenditure.   It is easier to generate goodwill or consensus on policy innovation and greater investment than on how to cut public services.

Further, we can discuss another possibility next week, in relation to the ‘Scottish Approach’: if the Scottish Government was relatively keen to delegate policymaking responsibility to local public bodies, maybe it moved the trickier decisions to other policymaking venues. Maybe everyone gets together at the national level to support a vague strategy, only to struggle to influence or secure agreement on its delivery.

How do groups try to influence Scottish policymaking in a multi-level system?

In weeks 6-7, we can discuss the extent to which the idea of a ‘Scottish policy style’ makes sense when so many policies affecting Scotland take place at other levels of government. This complication provides a major dilemma for interest groups seeking influence but recognizing the need to maintain multiple channels of access. How do they do it?

• Some groups only have the resources to lobby the Scottish Government, and rely on their networks with other groups to lobby UK and EU bodies. Others are regional branches of UK organizations.
• Much depends on the policy issue or area. For example, major banks, businesses, and unions maintain Scottish links but focus their attention largely on issues – such as macroeconomic policy, export regulations, and employment laws – reserved to the UK Government and/ or influenced by EU bodies. Groups seeking influence over environmental or agricultural policy recognise that they are heavily ‘Europeanised’. This leaves key examples of devolved areas, such as education, health, local government, and housing, in which groups are most likely to direct their attention primarily to the Scottish Government.

In some cases, such as tobacco and alcohol control, policy consists of a series of measures produced by Scottish, UK, and EU bodies:

Finally, next week we can consider the effect of the ‘Scottish Approach’ on interest groups. What will they do if the face the need to shift their attention from 1 Scottish Government to 32 local authorities and their partners?

*Note: ‘Pressure participants’ is a term used by Jordan et al (2004) partly to show us that terms such as ‘pressure groups’ or ‘interest groups’ can be misleading because: (a) they conjure up a particular image of a pressure group which may not be accurate (we may think of unions or membership groups like Greenpeace); and (b) the organisations most likely to lobby governments are businesses, public sector organisations such as universities and other types of government.

New politics: a central or peripheral role for the Scottish Parliament? #POLU9SP

In many ways, the Scottish Parliament became the alternative to ‘old Westminster’ described initially by the Scottish Constitutional Convention. Its electoral system is more proportional, it contains a larger proportion of women, it has a more ‘family friendly’ and constituency friendly design, and it has no House of Lords.

In other ways, Holyrood became part of the ‘Westminster family’ (to reflect the UK Government’s influence on its design). The executive resides in the legislature, it produces and amends the vast majority of legislation, and it generally controls parliamentary business with a combination of a coalition (1999-2007) or single party (2011-16) majority and a strong party ‘whip’. Scottish parliamentary committees have performed a similar scrutiny function to Westminster. Holyrood is a hub for participatory and deliberative democracy, but more in theory than practice. The Scottish Parliament enjoyed minority government from 2007-11, but this made far less of a difference than you might expect.

Overall, it is a body with unusually strong powers in relation to comparable legislatures such as Westminster, not the Scottish Government. It is often peripheral to the policy process. Further, two aspects of devolution may diminish its role in the near future: further devolution from the UK to Scotland, and from the Scottish Government to local public bodies.

Distinctive elements of the Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament’s electoral system, mixed member proportional, combines 73 constituency seats elected by a plurality of the vote, plus 56 regional seats elected using the D’Hondt divisor:

You can see its more-but-not-completely proportional effect in Scottish Parliament electoral results since 1999. Since there are more constituency than regional seats, the system still exaggerates the size of the party which dominates the plurality vote: Scottish Labour in 1999, 2003, and 2007, and the SNP in 2011.

Still, from 1999-2011, the system had the desired effect. In 1999 and 2003, Labour was the largest party but it required support from the Scottish Liberal Democrats to form a coalition majority government. In 2007, the SNP was the largest party by one seat, and it formed a minority government. Only in 2011 did we see a single party SNP majority built on approximately 45% of the vote. This is likely to rise in 2016.

The representation of women

There was a clear devolution effect on the election of women in the Scottish Parliament. At its peak in 2003, 40% of MSPs were women (35% from 2011) while 18% of MPs were women (29% from 2015). This level relied heavily on Scottish Labour which, in 2003, had 50 seats, of which 28 (56%) were women.

Family and constituency friendly working

The Scottish Parliament has restricted working hours, with committee and plenary business restricted largely to business hours Tuesday to Thursday, which provides more opportunity for MSPs to (for example) combine work commitments with caring responsibilities than MPs in Westminster, which conducts business on more days and longer days. Holyrood was also designed to allow MSPs to spend a meaningful amount of time in their constituencies. We can discuss in the lecture how you think MSPs actually use their time.

A unicameral Scottish Parliament with significant powers

The SCC’s rejection of an unelected House of Lords did not come with a desire for an elected second chamber. Instead, the Scottish Parliament’s unicameral system is designed to make up for the lack of a ‘revising chamber’ by ‘front loading’ legislative scrutiny: specific committees consider the principles of a bill before it is approved, in principle, in plenary (stage 1); and, they amend a bill (stage 2) before the final amendments in plenary (stage 3).

Many of these specialist committees are permanent (such as the audit committee). All committees combine the functions of two different kinds of Westminster committee – Standing (to scrutinise legislation) and Select (to monitor government departments, including, for example, the ability to oblige ministers to report to them). They also have the ability to hold agenda setting inquiries, monitor the quality of Scottish Government consultation before they present bills to Parliament, and initiate legislation (the process for MSPs to propose bills is also simpler).

The idea is that committees become specialist and business-like (leave your party membership at the door) and their members become experts, able to hold the government to account in a meaningful way, and provide alternative ideas or legislation if dissatisfied with the government’s response.

Part of the Westminster family

Yet, the operation of the Scottish Parliament is similar to Westminster in key respects. It is set up to allow the Scottish Government to govern and for the Parliament to scrutinise its policies. It does not have the resources to act routinely as an alternative source of legislation or to routinely set the agenda with inquiries. When engaged in scrutiny, it relies heavily on the Scottish Government for information, has few resources to monitor the details of public sector delivery, and tends to focus on, for example, broad strategies and principles. Turnover is high among MSPs, who struggle to generate subject-based expertise. The party whip is strong, and a government with a majority of MSPs tends to dominate both committee and plenary proceedings.

This imbalance of resources between government and parliament is reflected in key measures of activity: the government tends to produce and amend the vast majority of legislation. Committees had a clear influence on some bills (can you give me some examples?), and MSPs have passed some of their own (what were the most important?), but we might say something similar about Westminster.

Did coalition, minority, and single party government make a difference?

The Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition operated, from 1999-2007, in a way that you might associate with a majority party in Westminster. It dominated the parliamentary arithmetic, produced and amended most legislation, and won almost all votes. Both parties signed up to a ‘partnership agreement’ that set a 4-year policy agenda each term, and the whip was remarkably strong (more so than in Westminster). There were many examples of cooperative working between government and parliament, bills produced by MSPs, and agenda setting inquiries – particularly during the initial ‘honeymoon’ period – but these cases should be seen in the overall context of a fairly traditional relationship.

Minority government changed things, often significantly, but not as much as you might expect. Crucially, it was unable to gain support for a bill to hold a referendum on independence (doesn’t that seem like such a long time ago?). It also had insufficient support for its legislative plans to reform local taxation and introduce a minimum unit price on alcohol (what has happened in these areas since then?). It lost more parliamentary votes, albeit mostly in relation to ‘non binding’ motions (although it responded in a major way to the motion to fund the Edinburgh trams project), and had to think harder about how to gain the support of at least one other party.

On the other hand, it continued to produce and amend the bulk of legislation. It was also able to pursue many of its aims without legislation or significant parliamentary consent (such as capital finance and public service reforms). The Scottish Parliament did not pursue a new role: it produced few memorable inquiries and very few bills.

So, the notable effect of single party majority government should be seen in this context. Clearly, the SNP has the ability to influence parliamentary proceedings in a way not enjoyed by any other single party in the Scottish Parliament’s history. However, there was not a fundamental shift of approach or relationship following the shift from minority to majority government. The government continues to govern, and the parliament maintains a traditional scrutiny role with limited resources and minimal willingness to do things differently (we can explore this point in more depth in the lecture).

Future developments: will greater devolution diminish the Scottish Parliament’s role?

In a Political Quarterly article, I identify two aspects of devolution that may diminish the Scottish Parliament’s role in the near future:

1. further devolution from the UK to Scotland will see the Scottish Parliament scrutinise more issues with the same paltry resources
2. further devolution from the Scottish Government to local public bodies will see the Scottish Parliament less able to gather enough information to perform effective scrutiny.

Both issues highlight the further potential for the Scottish Parliament, heralded as a body to ‘share power’ with the government and ‘the people’, to play a peripheral role in the policy process. To all intents and purposes, the new Scotland Act will devolve more responsibilities to Scottish ministers, without a proportionate increase in parliamentary resources to keep tabs on what ministers do with those powers.

Perhaps more importantly, the Scottish Parliament can only really keep tabs on broad Scottish Government strategies. What happens when it devolves more policymaking powers to local public bodies, such as the health boards that give limited information to committees and the local authorities that claim their own electoral mandate? Who or what will the Scottish Parliament hold to account on behalf of the public?

Further reading: this final point about the tensions between traditional notions of democratic accountability and new forms of public service delivery are not unique to Scotland.