What are we researching?
We examine the implementation of policies. We are particularly interested in the tenability of presumptions on how policies will affect behaviour. This involves questions about the legitimization of policies and how frontline workers make decisions in their own organisation, in policy networks, or in interaction with policy subjects.
Why are we doing this research and how are we doing it?
It has been known for a long time that policy devised on the drawing board usually turns out very differently in practice than originally intended. However, it remains relevant to show why this is the case.
We study implementation practices using a variety of methods. These include observing and questioning frontline workers about how they deal with organisational reforms, questioning the general public about their support for different policies, and conducting experiments about how professionals make decisions in executing policies, or reviewing literature about the efficacy of specific policies.
How does our research make an impact?
Accident reports help to learn from accidents. When schools have to compete to attract pupils, school performance improves. Apologies for inflicted personal injuries lead to forgiveness. Our research has shown that these seemingly obvious presumptions are open to question. Punishment of mistakes can hamper learning from accidents; school performance does not improve through competition between schools but through parental involvement and the obligation to publish school performance; because perpetrators usually attach less importance to the injuries they have caused than victims, their excuses are often incomplete, hence forgiveness is not forthcoming.
These three randomly chosen examples illustrate that research into the tenability of the presumptions on how policies will affect behaviour offers points of departure for re-evaluating policies. Moreover, it prompts critical reflection on the policy theories from which these presumptions are derived and the political-administrative climate in which they thrive.