9.

The art of reform1

Key lesson: When policies fail, we would expect that policymakers learn about the causes of failure and
adapt the policy or create the circumstances to make it work. Structural failures need structural reforms.
We have seen plenty of policy failures and plenty of reform efforts. Policy scholars have studied these
reform efforts and have found that lasting reforms, which are both effective and legitimate, are very
hard to accomplish.

The reform riddle

A new election, an economic crisis and a policy scandal have one thing in common: they are usually
followed by a call to initiate reform. A changing environment, emerging preferences or long-standing
problems may all give rise to ambitious reform proposals that promise to turn things around and make
things better.

Policy scholars have studied all sorts of reform attempts in many countries. Their conclusion is a bit
grim: it turns out that it is very hard to successfully enact policy reform.

Examples galore: President Johnson’s Great Society programs, public health policies, financial regimes,
violent crime, climate change.

Policy scholars have assembled a shopping list of factors that work against effective reforms:

- Insufficient knowledge (Merton)

- Lack of money
- Resistance: culture & paradigms2
- Unintended and undesirable consequences

But we also know that in some cases reforms have worked remarkably well and made a huge difference
for a society (for better or worse). Think about these examples:

- The Treaty to prevent damage to the ozone layer

- Widening of voting rights
- Anti-smoking regulations
- Deregulation of air traffic

Why do reforms often fail and sometimes succeed? This is an important question. Fortunately, policy
scholars have done a lot of work to answer precisely this question. They single out two types of factors:
power and learning.

The challenges of policy learning

If you want to change something, you must have an idea what the problem is. You also must have an
idea what type of solution might work. In short, you must have learning capacity. Learning is, at heart, a
cognitive activity. It requires thinking and that thinking is performed by humans. But we can add two
factors to this simple statement. First, some problems are easier to analyze than others. Second, some
organizations are more open to learning than others.

1
Signatory case material: NYPD, EU after COVID, NL in the 1980s (‘sick man of Europe’), Thatcher
2
Add: Hirschman’s rhetoric of reaction (perversity, irrelevance/futility, jeopardy)

1
This would be a good moment to read Peter Hall’s (1993) article (see syllabus)

Policy scholars have proposed a simple yet convincing classification of problems that require different
forms of learning. Peter Hall has formulated an especially influential typology:

First-order learning pertains to the tweaking of available policy instruments. As we discussed in Chapter
5, policymakers select certain instruments that should make their policy work. For instance, they might
elect to impose a tax on the use of plastic. It turns out that the policy does not accomplish the
envisioned aim of using less plastic. First-order learning focuses on the use of the instrument (the
selection of the instrument is not in question). The lesson may be that the tax is too low.

Second-order learning pertains to the choice of instruments. Policymakers may conclude that taxes do
not work to limit the use of plastic. Their lesson may be that rules – a ban on certain types of plastic –
provide a better way to achieve the aim. This lesson is harder to implement than the first-order lesson
(tweaking is easier than replacing an instrument).

Third-order learning pertains to the problem itself. The lesson may that the goal of the policy is the real
problem. It may just not be impossible to limit the use of plastic. The lesson, then, may well be that it is
undesirable. The whole problem may require a paradigm shift. A third-order lesson is very hard to
achieve, because it demands a complete rethink of the issue, the policy and the way that policy should
be achieved. Policy scholars agree that paradigm shifts are incredibly hard to achieve.

A paradigm is defined as the framework of ideas that specify goals, instruments and the nature of the
problem (Hall, p. 279).

We should add that some organizations provide a better learning climate than others. In some
organizations, it is accepted that policies may not directly work. Policymakers actively monitor the
effects of their policy and do not hesitate to observe shortcomings and discuss how these might be
addressed. This may sound completely normal and unremarkable. Unfortunately, many policy
organizations do not have such a climate. In such organizations, a policy is viewed as a painful
compromise that should not be messed with because the first indicators are not positive. There is an
active resistance against learning, because learning implies change. In these organizations, change is the
enemy.

This brings us to the role of power.

Read the Baumgartner and Jones (1991) article

Institutionalized power structures

Political scientists have routinely pointed out that reform is likely to strand on the walls of a policy
domain (Hall, 1993; Baumgartner and Jones, 1991). They argue that many policy sectors have been
fortified against change. There is little ‘felt need’ to change things.

It is not that policymakers are principally opposed to change. It is just that they work in an organizational
environment that is dominated by a certain way of thinking that prioritizes certain problem definitions
and certain types of solutions. Many policy sectors are governed by a policy paradigm. And the
paradigm reaches deep down into the DNA of the organization. In the language of political scientists:
many policy domains are heavily institutionalized. In such domains, policymakers are convinced they are

2
doing the right thing, the right way. It follows that there is no real need to consider reform initiatives,
certainly not those proposed by outsiders.

In fact, political scientists tend to believe that only a crisis can break down those institutionalized
structures and create room for reform. Politicians and policymakers tend to agree: ‘never waste a good
crisis’ is the often-heard slogan. Peter Hall (1993) provides a good example of this ‘crisis-reform thesis’.
Hall contends that first-order and second-order learning can lead to gradual change, which may add up
to structural change over time. But only a crisis can dislodge a policy paradigm, paving the way for
immediate and full-scale reform.

Two American political scientists, Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones, have offered a sophisticated
theory of policy change that explains how individual actors may break through the institutionalized walls
of a policy sector. Their theory is based on the common insights described above. They agree that policy
sectors are dominated by a certain ‘policy image’, which is produced by a long-standing interaction of
beliefs and values concerning a particular problem and its solutions. This policy image is very influential.
It shapes “how public policies are discussed in public and in the media” (p. 1046). It also shapes the
common idea of “which institutions have jurisdiction over particular issues” (p. 1047). Baumgartner and
Jones refer to these institutions as ‘policy venues’.

The starting point of their discussion is that policy is likely to be very stable over time. The policy image
is dominant and change can only be enacted in defined policy venues, which happen to be dominated by
the reigning policy image. This means that these policy domains function as policy monopolies. A select
set of actors, who typically benefit from the status quo, control any discussion about change. They
control access to the decision-making venues. In short, outsiders with new ideas never make it to the
table where such proposals would be need to be discussed and decided upon.

Baumgartner and Jones wryly observe that there are many ‘losers’ – people or organization who suffer
the consequences of a certain policy but cannot do anything to change the situation. But they also note
– and this is critical – that the apparent stability of these institutionalized structures is only that:
apparent. Even seemingly super-stable systems can be de-stabilized. In fact, they argue that the more
institutionalized a system is (and thus the more stable), the more susceptible the system has become for
a ‘sudden punctuation’.

Rather than waiting for a miracle to make that happen (crisis!), Baumgartner and Jones explain how
actors can make that happen. They offer two strategies, which they have identified in their empirical
research.

First, it is important to change the policy image. This can be accomplished by changing the rhetoric
around a problem and its entrenched solutions. It is impossible to introduce new terms, new
perspectives, that provide an opening for a shift in the discussion. The media can play an important role,
as it is not controlled by policy elites (the rise of social media has made this strategy even more
relevant). Baumgartner and Jones show that the change in ‘tone’ – shifting the discussion by introducing
negative indicators and terms – helps to dislodge the policy image. But that’s not enough. Action is
needed.

Second, it is critical to involve other venues. A change in rhetoric opens up possibilities to place the
problem and its solutions on the agenda of other policy domains. The proponents of change can go

3
‘venue shopping’ (a key term proposed by Baumgartner and Jones). 3 If a new venue takes up the issue,
the dominant policy image can be actively undermined. After all, the adherents to the standing policy
image do not rule in this domain. When the proponents of change succeed by introducing a new policy
image, they ‘punctuate’ the institutional ‘equilibrium’ – the status quo – that kept ‘losers’ outside the
policy domain. This is why Baumgartner and Jones’s framework is known as the punctuated equilibrium
theory.

Key literature

Hall, P. (1993). Policy paradigms, social learning and the state. Comparative Politics, 25(3), 275-296.

Baumgartner, F. & Jones, B. D. (1991). Agenda dynamics and policy subsystems. Journal of Politics, 53(4), pp.
1044-1074.

Heyse, L., Resodihardjo, S.L., Lantink, T. & Lettinga, B. (eds) (2006). Reform in Europe: Breaking the
barriers in government. Aldershot: Ashgate.

3
Schattschneider speaks of “conflict expansion”.