The dynamics of policy arrangements: Turning round the tetrahedron

Abstract

The overall objective of the policy arrangements approach is to analytically link changes in day to day policy practices to broader, structural changes in contemporary society. The theoretical conceptualisation of this link and the character of the structural transformations in contemporary society were worked out in the previous chapter. The present chapter brings us down to the level of policy practices. The central question of the chapter is how to analyse and understand change and stability within policy arrangements. This question involves, among other things, the definition of the policy issue at stake, the identification of actors taking part in policy making and implementation, and the written and unwritten rules governing their behaviour. Several 'meso level' theories are available to this end, such as discourse analysis (Hajer, 1995), various policy network approaches (Glasbergen, 1989; Marsh and Rhodes, 1992) or the advocacy coalition approach (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Building upon these the policy arrangements approach offers four dimensions to describe and analyse day-to-day policy processes: actors and coalitions, resources and power, rules of the game, and discourses. We will define these four dimensions hereafter. The former three deal with the organisation of policy arrangements, the latter one with their substance. Our approach, more than most other meso-level policy theories which tend to focus on only one or two of those dimensions, provides an excellent basis for an encompassing and dynamic analysis of policy processes. The primary goal of this chapter is to demonstrate and further develop this feature of the policy arrangements approach. The first section below goes into this approach and stresses that all four dimensions of the policy arrangement are indissolubly interrelated, i.e. that a change in one dimension seldom stands alone and tends to have an impact on one or more of the other dimensions. This is visualised with the help of a tetrahedron, in which each corner represents one dimension. The analysis of a policy arrangement usually makes sense only if all dimensions are interconnected. This, in turn, makes it possible to describe how changes in one dimension affect other dimensions, i.e. to capture the full dynamics of change within a given policy arrangement. The four-dimensional analysis of policy arrangements also allows for four different analytical perspectives on one and the same policy arrangement, dependent on the research question. Each perspective will highlight different aspects of the arrangement and requires its own methodology. One can for instance start the analysis from (a change in) actors/coalitions, or one can scrutinise the arrangement-wide consequences of altered rules of the game. The next section systematically describes these four possible analytical perspectives and specifies which types of research questions they are able to handle. Both theoretical and more practical, policy-oriented questions are taken into account. In addition, methodological consequences are explored. The exercise is illustrated with a case we already know from the previous chapter: the development of organic farming in the Netherlands. The previous chapter (Arts and Van Tatenhove, this volume) stressed the structural changes affecting or not the contemporary and future situation of organic farming, restricting itself to what is called an institutional analysis. This chapter will develop a more strategic analysis, starting from the aforementioned dimensions of a policy arrangement. The same policy game is thus watched from four different angles. In the final section the four-dimensional view on policy arrangements will be used for developing a basic typology of policy arran gements, building upon the well-established trichotomy of etatism, liberal-pluralism and neo-corporatism. Since in those types of arrangements the role of the state remains central, it is proposed to add 'sub-politics' as a fourth type. This type is, as indicated in the previous chapter as well, loosely based on the notion introduced by Beck (1994), and refers to arrangements that are dominated by private actors and that develop outside formal political institutions. Apart from that, three additional features of policy arrangements are addressed: their degree of formality, the basic political character of the issues addressed by them, and their relationship with cognate arrangements. These features can be used to further specify the basic typology referred to above. © 2006 Springer.