Democratic Policy Implementation in an Ambiguous World - Hardcover

Fowler, Luke

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1438493592 ISBN 13: 9781438493596

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2023

Synopsis

Explains the complexities of policy implementation and why attempts to translate new laws into effective and enduring policy sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.

The hard part of government is not passing new laws but implementing those laws. Implementation is where high-minded ideas are pushed and prodded into the chaos that is the real world. Often, this leads to unintended consequences as ideas are transformed into actions. For better or worse, policy implementation occurs within organized anarchies marred by ambiguity where who pays attention to what and when is the most important determinant of outcomes. While the new law serves as a cue, implementers must figure out how to make it functional in the best way possible and how to institutionalize it to establish new norms that endure. In unpacking an argument of how and why patterns of policy implementation manifest as they do, Luke Fowler takes the reader through a journey of how policymakers, organizations, and entrepreneurs shape the way implementers understand policies and translate them into action under ambiguous circumstances. The result is a complex picture of why some policies work in practice and others do not.

About this title

About the Author

Luke Fowler is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Faculty Director of the School of Public Service at Boise State University. He is the author of Environmental Federalism: Old Legacies and New Challenges.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1438493592
• ISBN 13: 9781438493596
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248