The 1991 Child Support Act

Failure Foreseeable and Foreseen

Leanne McCarthy-Cotter

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan
• Jahr: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319987613
• Thema: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Thema: Öffentliche Ordnung

This book assesses the 1991 Child Support Act and demonstrates how its failure was 'foreseeable' and 'foreseen'. It provides an understanding of the creation, and failure, of the Act, as well as providing an examination of the British policy-making process. The book re-introduces the 'stages approach' as an appropriate framework for examining policy-making in general, and analysing policy failure in particular. It draws on evidence gained through interviews, official documents, unpublished consultation responses, Parliamentary debates, and materials from pressure groups and think-tanks, as well as academic literature. The 1991 Child Support Act is seen as one of the most controversial and notorious policy failures in Britain. However it has received relatively little academic attention. An in-depth analysis of the policy-making process that led to the development and passage of this deeply flawed policy has largely been neglected: this book fills that gap.

© The Author(s) 2019

Leanne McCarthy-CotterThe 1991 Child Support Acthttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98761-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Approaches to Policy Analysis and the Stages Heuristic

Leanne McCarthy-Cotter¹

(1)

University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Leanne McCarthy-Cotter

Keywords

Stages heuristicPolicy analysisFrameworkPolicy processPublic policyTheory

End Abstract

Introduction

This first chapter provides the intellectual introduction to policy analysis, as well as an explanation to the methodological approach taken in this study of the policy-making process of the 1991 Child Support Act. The chapter emphasises the need for a holistic understanding of the field of policy analysis and its plethora of methods, frameworks and models. In order to do this, the chapter will map the history of policy analysis, discussing the developments within the field, and addressing the various debates between scholars, particularly regarding attempts at creating an overarching causal theory. It discusses the various approaches to policy analysis before explaining the approach taken in this book: the stages heuristic. It introduces the stages heuristic, accounting for its position in the field, before examining the criticisms that the approach has been subject to by various academics. It then rebuts these criticisms and argues that the ‘stages heuristic’ has not outlived its use in policy analysis. Instead, we argue that its usage facilitates a multitheory and multimethod approach, therefore providing a multidimensional insight into policy analysis.

Approaches to Policy Analysis

Before we engage in our study, it is important to define our approach to what is generally termed ‘policy analysis’. This allows us to highlight the way that policy analysis is addressed in this book, to indicate what literature it will be drawing upon, and stress the purpose of the study. Lasswell stated that within policy analysis, there are two ‘separable though entwined frames of reference’: knowledge of policy and the policy process and knowledge in the policy process (1970, 3). This distinction has remained in policy analysis, yet has largely been re-termed and advanced by Gordon et al. (1977). They point towards a typology of seven classifications of policy analysis, which fall under the category of ‘analysis of policy’ or ‘analysis for policy’. These distinctions are illustrated in Fig. 1.1.

Fig. 1.1

Types of study of public policy-making (adapted from Hogwood and Gunn 1981)

This study of the 1991 Child Support Act is concerned with three elements. Firstly, assessing the process by which the policy was made; secondly, providing an understanding of how a policy whereby failure was foreseeable and foreseen was able to obtain cross-party support, and lastly; highlighting what lessons about our policy-making process we can draw from this (‘information for policy making’ and ‘process advocacy’). Although our main focus is a ‘study of the policy process’, we are inescapably required to also study the ‘policy content’, as the latter is the result of the former (Ham and Hill, 1993, 9). Whilst frequently insightful, analysis of policy content, which focuses on the origins, objectives, operation and impact of a policy, remains highly descriptive and detached (Hogwood and Gunn, 1984, 26). We also acknowledge that an understanding of ‘policy outputs’ is also required, to assess where the policy process allowed the passage of a flawed policy, we need to address the policy’s outputs in order to assess its failure. Therefore, we believe that we cannot disregard insights that can be obtained through these classifications. Yet this book’s approach moves beyond merely describing the content and outputs of the policy, and instead aims at providing a conceptualised understanding of the process by which it was made.

Therefore, this book does not situate itself under the category of ‘analysis of policy’ or ‘analysis for policy’ (as highlighted in Fig. 1.1). Whilst it notes the practicality of the separation, it instead views the above seven typologies, and two categories, as entwined, and the separation artificial. Instead, it suggests that the field of policy analysis should be reconnected, as figure suggests (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2

Reconnecting the study of policy analysis

Figure 1.1 suggests that the only unifying section is evaluation; however, the approach adopted in this book suggests that there is, and in most cases should be, overlap between all seven categories. Whilst separation is a useful conceptual tool, the study of policy analysis should incorporate both ‘analysis of policy’ and ‘analysis for policy’. The field of policy analysis should use its knowledge of policies, and the policy-making process, to improve the policy-making process and/or policies. This book uses a study of the policy process, drawing on policy content and policy outputs, to gain information for policy-making. What this book does not attempt to do is enter the realm of ‘policy advocacy’. Whilst our study does contain normative and prescriptive ideas regarding the policy-making as a general process, it does not contain normative ideals regarding child maintenance policy.

The Emergence of Policy Analysis: The Shaping of a Discipline

The origins of public policy analysis, which focused primarily upon the policy process, can largely be linked to four scholars: Harold Lasswell, Herbert Simon, David Easton, and Charles Lindblom. Each of these scholars promoted the creation of the field and authored influential works that provided the foundations of the field, and remain highly influential in policy analysis today. It is therefore important to provide an overview of their work, as tracing the origins of the field enables us to understand the range of methodologies utilised, the conceptual changes that have occurred, and the continued development of approaches to theory-building within the field.

Harold Lasswell is commonly seen as the founder of public policy analysis, and certainly his influence on the development of policy analysis has been vast. Lasswell called for an approach that was multimethod, multidiscipline, problem-orientated, and which was concerned with mapping the contextuality of the policy process, policy options, and policy outcomes (1951, 1970, 1971). Lasswell advocated the creation of an approach to the study of public policy that was not confined by disciplinary or methodological boundaries, but instead utilised whatever approach appeared appropriate in order to gain both knowledge of and knowledge in the policy process. In his 1956 book The Decision Process, Lasswell proposed the ‘stages approach’ as a conceptual map to aid policy analysis.

Herbert Simon also produced one of the most influential and far-reaching theories in policy analysis, that of ‘bounded rationality’ (1957, 1982); a theory that is deemed influential across various disciplines. Simon approaches policy analysis in a similar vein to that of Lasswell, by breaking the decisions process into a sequence of stages, arguing that rational thinking was the key component driving the policy process.

David Easton’s contribution is also highly significant and frequently referred to in the introduction of most textbooks on policy analysis. Easton’s (1953, 1965) ‘black box’ model focused on conceptualising the relationship between external inputs and policy outputs in the policy process.

Charles Lindblom (1959, 1968, 1979) rejected the approaches put forward by Lasswell, Simon, and Easton and instead suggested that the policy process could best be conceptualised by an act of ‘muddling through’. Lindblom rejected the view that rationalism was the driving force of policy-making and that we could divide the policy process into stages, instead suggesting that we view the process in terms of ‘incrementalism’. Lindblom argued that policy-makers were restrained by values, context, and past decisions. To Lindblom, this was not simply how policy was made, it was also how policy should be made (1959, 1968, 1979). Alongside Lasswell’s ‘stages approaches’, Lindblom’s ‘incrementalism’ can be seen as one of the most influential approaches in poli...