ABSTRACT

This chapter starts by noting how a very distinctive vein of ‘implementation’ studies developed towards the end of the twentieth century. It goes on to explore briefly how that work was concerned to make a clear distinction between policy formulation and implementation, and suggests that this is now a source of difficulties. This leads naturally into a consideration of the ‘topdown’ studies that particularly emphasised that distinction. It is followed by an exposition of the ‘bottom-up’ evaluation of these studies. The next section, headed ‘Beyond the top-down/bottom-up debate’, provides an approach which then dominates the rest of the chapter. It suggests a need for an awareness that there is a complex mix of issues to be understood about the different ways actual policies are developed, about how they may best be studied, and about the normative arguments about who should be in charge which often dominate (and obscure) discussions about implementation. Subsequent sections then highlight issues about variations in the ‘policy rule framework’ and about ‘variations in the administrative system’.