Abstract
The professional community of policy experts takes it for granted that all governments seek to strengthen their policy capacity, considering it a key indicator and requisite of their success. Yet this assumption is far from universal, even in some European Union countries with long and complex institutional histories. If we look at the informed and explicit use of policy analysis tools in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, we have to conclude that this paradigm is not completely integrated into their governmentality. In these countries, three disciplinary approaches warrant especial attention as generators of competencies recognized as usable knowledge for public decisions: ‘law,’ ‘public finance’ and ‘public administration.’ Where the standard operating procedures of democratic institutions appear to be fully defined on the basis of these three categories, the inclusion of the policy perspective encounters major difficulties. In these contexts, the most important obstacle is the fear that the new paradigm will threaten the balance among the constitutional bodies, especially to the detriment of the legislature, and that it will constrict the political leadership. This explains why some countries, such as France and, most recently, Italy, have attempted to resolve the impasse by resorting to the strongest of legitimations: inclusion in their constitutions of public policy evaluation as a function of Parliament. This choice is certainly important, but in itself it does not guarantee recognition of the policy paradigm as a science for democratic institutions.
Highlights
Brian Hogwood, one of the authors who has contributed most to the spread of policy analysis in Europe, wrote: ‘Often American authors write as though the United States were the only place in the universe which had public policy’ (Hogwood 1984: 27)
The capacity of governments to effectively formulate, implement and evaluate their public policies is part of the better known and more standardized indicators of ‘good governance.’1 In these comparisons, it is taken for granted that the activities through which governments seek to change the status quo can be universally defined as ‘policy making.’
This assumption is fully consistent with Thomas Dye’s well-known definition: ‘Public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do’ (Dye 1972: 1). This indeterminate definition has the advantage of allowing the inclusion of all countries in the comparison, even when the self-representations provided by their institutions make no reference to the categories of policy analysis and evaluation and describe the activities of their governments in terms of value affirming, reassignment of rights and duties, or conflict resolution
Summary
Brian Hogwood, one of the authors who has contributed most to the spread of policy analysis in Europe, wrote: ‘Often American authors write as though the United States were the only place in the universe which had public policy’ (Hogwood 1984: 27). Policy analysis and evaluation refers not to generic problem-dealing practices—in this general sense, a tribe that performs animal sacrifices to obtain rainfall is a policy-making institution—but to specific strategies of logical reasoning, with their phases and techniques of verification, albeit adapted to the complexity of situations This paradigm claims that it is able to integrate the other analytical perspectives to furnish more meaningful criteria for action and assessment: well-written laws, but solutions that can be evaluated for their impact; balanced budgets, but value for money; administrative efficiency, but results.
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