MANAGeMeNT

Management

Management

The main thrust of research in the area of Public-policy implementation has been to analyze the problems of implementing public policy. In other words, what accounts for the differential success of public policies in the implementation process? Few researchers have sought to examine the impact of implementation problem definition on the analytic frameworks they use. This is important because how one defines the implementation problem shapes both the analysis of key issues in the process and the recommendations that result from the analysis. If the implementation problem is incorrectly defined in a model, the results of any analysis that uses this model will be flawed. Thus it is important to step back and examine the adequacy of different definitions of the implementation problem. Doing so will result in implementation research that provides a better understanding of the process.

The implementation problem can be defined in two basic ways (Stoker 1983). The first and more traditional focus of implementation studies is on problems of organizational management. This approach concentrates on the ability of single authority structures (i.e., an organization or central authority) to effectively manage the implementation process. According to this view, policy managers see goal specification and control of subordinates as the essential implementation problems (p. 6). Factors that inhibit effective management include such things as "(1) technical incompetence ... of bureaucratic agents, (2) the enforcement of illegitimate political preferences by the agents, (3) the structural characteristics of the implementing institutions, and (4) communication failures between policy makers and subordinates" (p. 10). Policy makers and managers are seen to have legitimate control of the process. The politics of implementation is viewed in terms of the administrative process, not as a basic contradictions of values. Therefore, any conflict that might arise in the implementation process is not viewed as legitimate. The solutions that result from this definition of the implementation problem focus on creating more effective ways to manage communications, resources, and bureaucratic dispositions. effective management is the key to solving the implementation problem.

The implementation problem also can be conceived of as a conflict of interest in the process. Given the existence of this conflict, such a conception of the problem would focus on how to elicit cooperation from those who participate in the implementation process. Thus "management of potential interorganizational conflict would be an essential part of the policy making process ..." (Stoker 1983, 7). Power in the implementation process is seen as disbursed so that participants must bargain in order to gain a capacity to act. This makes the strategic contexts in which actors participate an important element of the implementation process. Since power is shared, this perspective suggests that conflict of interest in the process is a legitimate struggle over basic values (Stoker 1989). Thus it is conflict over values that more often than not hinder the implementation of a policy. Problems of generating cooperation in situations of conflict of interest are likely to stymie implementation before issues of organizational management become an ...