Dieter Grunow: Comparing EP-policy fields and their administrative logics

This paper will try to expand the view on policy implementation in the field of environmental (EP) issues - by taking an explicitly comparative perspective. After having looked at various examples of implementation practices in China, as well as its effects and failures in previous papers, two questions are still to be answered in more detail:

  1. Are the observations specific for China (or not)?
  2. And if not (in all respects), which role do specific features of the policy field play in explaining the empirical observations?

It is much easier to arrive at these questions than to answer them. Anyhow, it is necessary to look for a conceptual frame which allows for a comparison.

For the purpose if this paper the categories chosen for comparison will be taken from the analysis of policy fields. These policy fields are subsystems of the political administrative system (PAS). They are constituted by intensified communication (networks). In the scientific literature policy fields are described (in a rather static way) by specifying

  1. the (collective) problems that have to be solved
  2. the political-administrative programs/projects that define goals (public goods) and implementation procedures
  3. the ensemble of actors (of different kind), which take part in the program design and political decision making
  4. the ensemble of actors (of different kind), which take part in the implementation processes (and their evaluation)
  5. the ensemble of addressees (of different kind) which are specified by programs and decisions - including the effects that are sought and/or realized with regard to them.

When reviewing the existing literature it is important to note that policy fields are not identical with public policies; the latter are just elements of the former.

A policy field is the context of many single public policies. In the EP context there is a very broad spectrum of policies - relating to air, soil, water; waste disposal and clearing; preservation of flora and fauna etc. These public policies (laws, projects) are often analysed by referring to the dynamics of a policy cycle. Policy cycles, therefore, are embedded in two ways: in the policy field and in the basic polity/politics architecture. This also explains some features of the observed stability or path dependency of their development.

Although all the necessary complexity of the policy field  as the conceptual framework is evident, this paper tries to surpass it somehow. I just want to conclude, that three sets of analytical dimensions (background architecture of the PAS; policy field EP; policies) are interrelated not only in various but also in changing directions. Within this contribution I cannot sort out these topics in detail. I will follow a rather pragmatic path of argumentation - by referring to some selected conceptual aspects as well as to available empirical material. With this I hope to make my dimensions of comparison and the productive use of comparisons plausible.

The list of topics is the following:

  • I will start with very few comments about the policy field "EP"; much has been said about it already, so that I can be short on this topic. But I shall include some comparative arguments already at this point.
  • The next step is a more detailed description of the German implementation structure - concentrating on the local/regional level.
  • The last part is devoted to a summary and a comment on the possibilities of learning processes as a result of the comparative perspective.

It can be shown, that EP policymaking and implementation have more issues and problems in common than often is expected. This opens windows of opportunities for further research and cooperative practical projects.