ABSTRACT
In no phase is the effect that the interplay of contexts, institutions, incentives and agency has on the outcome of a policy more uncertain than during its implementation. Agenda-setting and policy formulation are very controlled processes involving only a manageable number of actors, but when the policy is implemented, a much larger cast of actors is involved. Furthermore, while the policy-formulators are intimately connected to the narratives they are creating and the rules they are passing, the implementers are faced with regulations they had no part in creating. Here, the difference between the solution that would have been necessary to solve the problem (if such a solution could be specified) and the policy that is the product of contending narratives and formalistic compromises becomes most apparent. In the RTFR this is even more the case as there was next to no prior consultation with the implementers, and implementation was hastened so much that careful planning was foreclosed. This chapter traces how the combination of a flawed policy and competition under hierarchy led to the outcomes sketched in the introduction to this volume. Although the policy itself bore scant incentives for enthusiastic implementation, cooperation with the central government did. Opportunities existed to ‘fix’ the policy in the course of implementation and thereby make it more attractive.
