Value Conflict and Policy Change

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Value Conflict and Policy Change

• Jenny Stewart
• CRPSM
• 19 October 2005

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Key question ( an answer)

• How does policy change occur?
• No one answer, but an important part of the story
  lies in responses to value conflict
• I want to concentrate on that part of the story
  that is normally hidden from view the
  nine-tenths of the iceberg that is below the
  surface

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To be clear

• So, not talking about explicit responses to
  conflict eg Industrial Relations Commission, or
  even forms of governance such as those discussed
  in Renegotiating the environment
• Rather Im talking about implicit conflict the
  fact that new directions (new values) are simply
  piled on top of old ones when policies are turned
  into organisation

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Some clarifications

• Values Berlins definition what we think good
  and bad, important and trivial, right and wrong,
  noble and contemptible
• Policy in this context, a settled course of
  action by government
• Legislation, organisation, decision, resources
• What happens to values at this level?
• Berlin, Isaiah (1998) The proper study of
  mankind an anthology of essays. London Pimlico.

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Values and value conflict

• Values often a cloak for interests
• But also distinguishable from interests (eg I may
  favour public education from a value position,
  whereas my interests might suggest I should
  favour private education)
• Conflicting values are what politics is all about
  the way they shape policy is much less well
  understood

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Theory (of policy change)

• My approach (very eclectic)
• A systems model in which public policiesoutputs,
  but outputs also become inputs
• With some institutionalist dimensions ie what
  happens inside the black box

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Why this approach?

• More useful than relying exclusively on one of
  the alternative explanations
• Institutionalist (rational actor)
• Advocacy Coalition Framework
• Multiple streams
• Of these, the ACF has most to say about value
  conflict, but is very difficult to use in
  Westminster contexts

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Six responses to value conflict

• Structural separation
• Hybridisation
• Casuistry
• Incrementalism
• Bias and
• Cycling.
• Thacher, D. and Rein, R. (2004) Managing value
  conflict in public policy Governance, vol 17, no
  4, pp 457-486

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Structural separation

• Firewalls
• Conventional government works by dividing up its
  complex systemic reality into functional chunks
• But produces stresses and tensions elsewhere in
  the system.
• Consider environmental policy the green dept
  separated from the industry dept

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Hybridisation

• co-existence of two policies or practices with
  different values-bases.
• A good example of hybridisation is the
  values-mixture that constitutes new public
  management
• And the palimpsest effect in legislation eg Tax
  Act

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Casuistry

• Casuistic rule-based responses to the problem
  of values choice
• Eg budgetary processes keep major categories of
  expenditure strictly segregated, and employ a
  mixture of rule-based methods and strategic
  behaviours to cross values-divides.
• When cuts are necessary, they are invariably
  imposed from the top down

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Incrementalism

• Keeps us safe (eg incremental responses to
  climate change keep big conflicts at bay)
• But can precipitate bigger change when reaches
  its limits (eg when entrenched bureaucracies make
  limited responses to demands for change)

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Bias

• Values, as well as ideas, are organised in and
  organised out through biased processes
• Dominant paradigms
• Economic analysis
• Technicisation
• the language of managerial engagement this is
  typically the outcome of compromise based
  governance processes

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Cycling

• Policies oscillate between value-pairs
• Flip-flops
• Inherent instabilities eg when organisations
  centralise, then devolve
• Backlashes
• Eg demolition of multiculturalism mutual
  obligation in welfare policy

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Conclusion

• Whats new about this?
• Suggests that much of the institutional structure
  of policy is shaped by the need to avoid and
  contain value conflict post politics
• May be particularly true of Westminster systems,
  where (at least between elections) much of this
  value conflict is trapped inside the executive

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Is this good or bad?

• Westminster systems highly insulated from civil
  society and have strong political executives
• Arguably, there is less room for values-based
  negotiation (eg in the Swedish style)
• Result - bureaucratic processes under enormous
  stress?