ECPR General Conference August 2015, Montreal. Paper for the Panel Monitoring Public Policy: The Uses and Abuses of NPM Techniques

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1 ECPR General Conference August 2015, Montreal Paper for the Panel Monitoring Public Policy: The Uses and Abuses of NPM Techniques Relieving Knowledge, Demanding Target Groups and the Interaction Dynamics of Policymaking Max Christopher Krapp darmstadt.de Technische Universität Darmstadt Institut für Politikwissenschaft Dolivostraße Darmstadt, Germany Preliminary draft comments welcome Abstract This paper focus on the varying interaction dynamic of policymaking processes, which may even be observable within one policy field. It investigates reasons for differing involvement of political actors (parliamentarian and party members), administrations, experts and interests groups at the stage of policy formulation and decision. The empirical analysis compares three case studies relating to the field of labour market policy in Germany (minimum wage, support of indigent children, reform of active labour market instruments). The explanation for the varying dynamic is on the one hand linked to the characteristics of suitable knowledge relating to the decision content, which refers under conditions of contingency and complexity to possible reliefs for political actors through legitimating expertise. On the other hand the explanation focuses on the interplay with recognition and construction of target groups, which shapes the need for political involvement in policy formulation and public justification. 1

2 1. Introduction Even though the patterns of policy formulation belong to the core issues of political science, and of policy analysis in particular, there is a lack of research regarding the relevance of policies for interaction patterns. The role of private actors as driving or hindering forces, the dominance of executive authorities vis à vis legislative actors or the involvement of experts in policy formulation are different characteristics of the complexity of political processes. This paper argues that recognition of the policies at hand is crucial for understanding interactions in policy formulation. Lowi s assumption (1964, 1972) policies determine politics has achieved wide recognition, but its development has stopped at a basic differentiation of policy types as encompassing distributive, redistributive and regulatory policies (for an overview cf. Heinelt 2006). In that perspective, different types of policies create different constellations of benefits and burdens and therefore evoke different degrees of conflict. On many occasions policy analysis has concentrated on the conflicting character of public debate and the involvement of actors in it. This paper argues that the internal patterns of policy formulation can be shaped by policies and qualities assigned to them. Consequently, the perspective of interpretative policy analysis underlies this investigation. What a policy stands for is not an objective fact, but rather involves characteristics attributed to that policy by political actors and the general public. As will be shown, the way policy issues are shaped as cognitive or normative struggles is crucial for policy formulation. The analysis is based on an investigation of a broad range of policy and party documents, newspaper articles as well as interpretation of 14 interviews with members of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and parliamentary parties. In the following, the understanding of cognitive and normative policy knowledge will be clarified as well as its role in the political process being discussed. A heuristic based on earlier conceptualisations (section 2) will be developed for the description of three cases from German labour market policy. In section 3 a short description of the three interesting cases will be carried out, which should allow systematic comparison of them. The following section 4 presents the main explanations for different patterns of policy formulation by establishing a link to the concept of target populations by Ingram and Schneider, as well as by referring to the novelty of policies and the form of suitable knowledge. This paper ends with some further conclusions. 2

3 2. Political processes and policy knowledge In political science political processes have been understood and reconstructed using several theoretical lenses and conceptual tools. Rational choice perspectives refer to a tight logic of successive phases often with an explicit or implicit normative orientation. Following the conceptualisations by Harold Lasswell (1951) and David Easton (1965), this perspective has been of enduring relevance for policy analysis and still contributes to handbooks in this field (cf. Jann/Wegrich 2006; Howlett/Giest 2013). Political processes are understood as sequence of problem definition and goal description, quest and selection of courses of action, implementation and evaluation and as a result were described as instrumental problem solving activity (Howlett 2011: 18). Incremental models describe political processes as a process of selection, in which bureaucrats concentrate on information regarded as central and thus reduce the set of possible political solutions (Lindblom 1959). Contributions such as the garbage can model (Cohen et al. 1972) or the multiple streams model (Kingdon 1984) emphasize the irrational nature of political processes and the active coupling of problem constructions and policy ideas by policy entrepreneurs. By contrast, this paper is aligned more closely with the assumptions of the argumentative turn (Fischer/Forester 1993; Fischer/Gottweis 2012) or interpretative turn (Healy 1986; Yanow 1995), which focus on the role of social construction of political issues and the struggle of ideas referring to conflicting images of social problems. Following such an interpretative reformulation of policy analysis, a wide range of concrete approaches can be identified, dealing with ideas (Hall 1989), epistemic communities (Haas 1992), learning (Hall 1993, Sabatier 1993) or argumentation (Fischer/Forester 1993). Nevertheless these approaches do not seem suitable for comparing the diverse patterns of policy formulation, as the following case study will show. Thus, in order to investigate the struggle over ideas (Stone 2002: 11), a knowledge based approach should be used. This makes consideration of norm driven versus expert dominated patterns possible. From this perspective, policy formulation can be understood as an expression and a result of knowledge based interpretation of policies. Of course, political processes are shaped by institutional rules, which can be of considerable importance. Nevertheless, the situational interpretations and actions of political actors are crucial in establishing how relevant these institutional rules are. Consequently, institutionally shaped policy formulation can differ from case to case. Even though the routines of political process are relevant, these routines can always be interpreted in new ways and thus produce different patterns of interaction. Normatively 3

4 loaded struggles reveal different characteristics such as technical or expert discourses. Thus, the following analysis systematically differentiates between cognitive and normative policy knowledge (cf. Nullmeier/Rüb 1993; Rüb 2006). Cognitive policy knowledge is linked with questions of the functionality of a specific policy. How a policy design looks, how policy goals should be achieved, which groups are affected, which resources are necessary for implementation, and so on, provide an orientation. Such descriptions of a policy and its selection and interpretation of suitable information can be shaped by criteria such as effectiveness, efficiency, quality, cost and similar aspects. Especially administrative actors and departmental research units, but also academia, think tanks, special interest groups, and practitioners could be relevant knowledge holders in the first place. In addition, some members of parliament with a specific interest in a particular policy field (members of specific committees) have an understanding as experts and are oriented to cognitive policy knowledge. This knowledge can be supplied by various sources. In the context of the labour market, policy reports (of practitioners/experts), econometric evaluations, qualitative implementation studies, benchmarks and best practice examples are often relevant in policy formulation (cf. for Germany and Britain Krapp et al. 2015). But political actors do not simply access such external knowledge sources and knowledge products. They also create their own cognitive understanding of policy contexts. From an interpretative perspective, this knowledge is the result of an act of selecting and interpreting data and information. It is never comprehensive and only decisive until further notice (cf. Strassheim 2012: 52). Normative policy knowledge refers to the knowledge stocks connected with questions concerning which policies are desirable, ought to be or must be implemented. Criteria of relevance could be acceptance, appropriateness, financial feasibility, pressure of social problems, enforceability, maintenance of political power, and so on. These categories are not objective givens, but derive from the understanding of the political actors. They are just exemplifying forms and can be of varying importance, depending on the policy. It can be assumed that actors such as people from the highest level of administration, in the cabinet, or from a parliamentary group have a stronger normative orientation than actors from administrative divisions. Nevertheless, bureaucrats also have such normative policy knowledge and are aware of the sensitive nature of policy issues. This knowledge also refers to the interests and preferences of political actors, but such factors also have to be understood as knowledge based 4

5 constructions. Parties and special interest groups can be important sources, as well as public polls and media. In this investigation these different forms of policy knowledge should be related to the process of policy formulation. Accordingly, a heuristic is inductively developed which guides the comparative analysis. The heuristic focuses on policymaking in a narrower scope, and begins with political agenda setting. Altogether, six dimensions are differentiated: a) Preliminary decision focus on the scope, which is chosen at the beginning of a political process. Already at an early stage of policy formulation quite concrete policy settings can be defined by political actors, so that policy alternatives are rather not considered. It is also possible for very few political requirements to be imposed, which can be understood as involving less dominating normative policy knowledge. b) Offers of policy knowledge: An extensive body of research, implementation experience, practical knowledge, etc. can exist in connection with a single policy issue and this provides cognitive and normative orientation. But sometimes only a small amount of policy knowledge exists. Furthermore, knowledge offers can be conflicting or rather consolidated. c) The Promoters of policy formulation and the involvement of actors differ from case to case. The varying importance of different actor groups can express normative or cognitive struggles. d) The political process can be shaped by different degrees of publicity. Normative struggles often understood as politicised settings often attract more attention from the mass media than other types of struggles. e) The progress of policy proposals and corrections: Policy formulations are usually characterised by multi stage development of policy drafts, differing in respect of the scope of corrections and the point in time when they came into effect. f) Finally public justification can be oriented to normative grounds or put as technical or evidence based solutions while making reference to cognitive policy knowledge. 3. Policy formulation in German labour market policy Three patterns The comparison of three cases from labour market policy reveals different patterns of policy formulation. They differ significantly along the dimensions of the analytical framework outlined above, and thus reveal three configurations. Nevertheless, they do not define a closed typology of policy formulation patterns, but rather represent a notable range of possible process variations within a single policy field. 5

6 I. The first case, a reform of the instruments of active labour market policy (Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Eingliederungschancen am Arbeitsmarkt) in 2011, involves a political process shaped by a de politicisation by mechanisation. The struggle over this legislation was dominated by the cognitive dimension of policy knowledge. The preliminary decision contained in the coalition agreement between the Conservative and the Liberal party involved a reduction in tools of active labour market policy and emphasis on the relevance of the efficiency and effectiveness of the various policy instruments. Which instruments should be cancelled was declared to be a question requiring a systematic review an evaluation of the instruments was to distinguish those instruments which were working well from those which were not. Corresponding normative questions were not emphasized in the context of this first positioning, except for the governmental goal of cost savings in active labour market policy. The policy knowledge offer in this case was characterised by the high degree of evaluation especially quantitative and micro econometric evaluation of reintegration results for several tools. The research findings were quite complex and differentiated, so that clear implications for policy formulation were not possible. Nevertheless, many interviewed actors emphasised the comprehensive and convincing amount of research. The committee statements of special interest organisations referred quite often to those results, too even though they came to quite different conclusion. According to these conditions the dimension of actors and promoters was dominated by the narrow policy community. In the first phase policy formulation was dominated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales). In cooperation with the research unit of the Federal Employment Agency (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung) the department responsible developed a report presenting a meta analysis of evaluation research on each instrument of labour market policy. After presenting its findings at an open policy community event in January 2011, the department formulated a legislative draft on this basis. Even though the parliamentary parties had the opportunity to initiate some minor changes within the obligatory interdepartmental coordination, their influence was rather restricted. Nevertheless, after starting the parliamentary process and the consideration by the committee of labour and social affairs in July 2011, which took a rather long time (3 months), some significant changes have been made. Referring to the publicity of this legislative process, several actors emphasised the high degree of transparency of this legislation. Comparing the evaluation results with the political decisions would make quite clear which settings are motivated by political interest. Nevertheless this process 6

7 attracted little interest among the public. Only a limited number of newspaper articles dealt with legislation focusing on the effectiveness of individual labour market instruments. Examination of the progress of policy drafts reveals that the main decisions were made during the ministerial preparation of this legislation. Nevertheless, some specific corrections were made during proceedings in the parliamentary committee. It must be pointed out that this legislation was a broadly applied law amendment and, as a result, the modifications of policy drafts affected many paragraphs without significantly changing the legislation s overall orientation. The public justification in parliament was on the one hand shaped by the majority parties reference to their approach involving policymaking based on substantial evaluation, while on the other hand the opposition parties criticised the normative goal of cost reductions as savings coming at the expense of the long term unemployed and furthermore single parts of the legislations as conflicting with results of the evaluation. II. The second process deals with the introduction of a new benefit for children from lowincome households in This so called education and participation package (Bildungs und Teilhabepaket) included financial support for school lunches, learning support, culture, sport, school supplies and class excursions, etc. The process of policy formulation was characterised by the fact that preliminary decisions were not taken by the majority parties, but by the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) instead. The court declared the intransparent procedure for demand calculation for persons drawing benefits as well as the determination of standard rates of support for children unconstitutional. The judgment demanded a correction of the procedure by the end of 2010, so that the common processes of forming a political stance within parties did not occur. The majority parties were only anticipating a quick recalibration without changing the concrete amount of benefits. An additional support package was not foreseen by the parliamentary parties. With regard to policy knowledge offers single prototype for such a new benefit system already existed at the local level. In particular, a best practice solution from Stuttgart, using a chip card as payment method, attracted attention in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Furthermore, an old unresolvable dissent was of importance in dealing with the question of whether benefits should be allowances in kind or cash benefits. As promoter and involved actor the head of the ministry played a crucial role in this specific process. The minister and her close staff had the idea of using the judgment as a political opportunity and introducing a new separate albeit with a rather low level of financing benefit system. At an early stage, the minister decided to add the new 7

8 allowance in kind. Small expert groups consisting of members with a practical background and from academia discussed possible approaches, together with members of the ministry. The parliamentary parties did not become important until the interdepartmental coordination stage. Within the parliamentary procedure also including the second chamber as a relevant actor they emerged as crucial actors and made significant changes. The level of publicity in this case was shaped by a fairly low level of media coverage at the beginning of the process apart from the first public comments in response to the judgement. When the draft was approved by a coalition committee and more public claims for modifications were raised, this political process attracted more and more attention from the mass media. When representatives of the two chambers intensively negotiated the legislative package behind closed doors intense publicity developed. For that reason, increasing and more intense publicity is observable in that case. The original policy drafts were significantly changed, especially at the end of the process, as a result of negotiations among the dominant actors from the two chambers. Even though the new benefit system was adopted as allowance in kind, the number of persons receiving the benefit was clearly extended and the bodies involved in implementing the system radically changed. Accordingly, public justifications were shaped not only by a declaration of the constitutionality of the solution adopted. It was also a manifestation of the normative dispute between the conservative liberal coalition and the Social Democratic Party (dominating the second chamber) regarding the scope of the new benefit system. III. The third process investigated, the introduction of a statutory minimum wage (Gesetz zur Regelung eines allgemeinen Mindestlohns) in 2014, is characterised by the dominance of normative policy knowledge. The preliminary decision by the coalition agreement included detailed agreements regarding the amount of the minimum wage, the scope and possibilities for a transitional period, as well as the procedure for future adjustments. This agreement was an important demand by the Social Democratic Party, while the Conservative Party pleaded for a minimum wage based on agreements among social partners and differing among individual business sectors and possibly between eastern and western Germany. The policy knowledge offers were quite extensive and very conflict laden. International research revealed findings which diverged very widely regarding the effects of minimum wages on employment rates, while domestic evaluations of existing minimum wages in specific business sectors indicated small effects. Furthermore, reports from groups of social partners as well as think tanks argued 8

9 in opposite directions. The dimension of promoters and involved actors in this process is characterised by the importance of interactions among actors from outside the inner policy community. First, the ministry executed a so called dialogue of business sectors where serious implementation problems could be reconsidered, which was in line with the coalition agreement. Even though the agreement was quite detailed, the first policy draft provoked a great deal of struggle. Consequently, party leaders instead of the party members in the Committee of Labour and Social Affairs agreed in a summit on specific regulations in minimum wage legislation before a draft was presented to the parliamentary party members. While these fixed sections of the draft were considered non negotiable, other parts were the subject of intense wrangling within interdepartmental coordination as well as in the parliamentary discussions afterwards. The publicity of the rationale for the decision was criticised by the opposition parties. They suspected the majority parties of deciding on a transitional rule for a specific sector (delivery of newspapers) not for professional reasons but because of the strong influence of the print media lobby. In addition to that criticism, it can be seen that the results of the party leadership summit as well as of the dialogue with business sectors were not made public. Nevertheless because of the extensive reporting in the mass media this process achieved strong publicity, which was concentrated on the struggle concerning who should benefit from the statutory minimum wage. The progress of policy drafts and corrections was characterised by negotiations right from the beginning to the end of this process. Modifications mainly focused on the range of people affected by this legislation as well as on transitional arrangements and future adaptions. The public justification of this regulation was dominated by the strong statement of intent and the high importance which was attributed to this policy. A significant step was claimed to have been taken to stop wage dumping and to increase social justice. The opposition parties, on the other hand, strongly criticised the specific exclusion of some groups, and questioned the political will to help those people. These three cases reveal different patterns with regard to the role of cognitive and normative policy knowledge. While the first case was regarded as a technical matter, where the mode of evaluation is of great importance in estimating the effectiveness and efficiency of labour market instruments, and the parliamentary parties act reluctantly, instead preferring to wait for the ministerial policy draft. Subsequent discussion in the parliamentary procedure including the struggle within the Labour and Social Affairs committee is clearly shaped by a dispute within a narrow policy community with only limited media coverage. The second case 9

10 is characterised by a lack of normative and cognitive policy knowledge at the beginning when the court declared the previous benefit calculation procedure to be unconstitutional. When the head of the ministry used this opportunity to develop a policy idea with the help of practitioners and actors from academia, the parliamentary parties gradually developed their own positions on this topic. Consequently, this process quite slowly, but nevertheless quite intensively, developed into a politicised arena which received more and more media attention. By contrast, the third case is shaped by the normative struggle (regarding the scope of the statutory minimum wage that was introduced) right from the beginning. Preliminary decisions were defined in detail. Conflicts about concrete policy were partly resolved in a summit of the party leaders, but remaining questions were the subject of debate throughout the entire process, which was accompanied by intensive publicity in mainstream media. 4. Explanations Explanations of the varying patterns of policy formulation are twofold and interrelated. They are related to the questions of which target populations are affected by a policy, on the one hand, and what degree of policy innovation is proposed, on the other. The role of target populations Schneider and Ingram s approach of target populations describes and explains relations between the social construction of target groups and the formulation of policy designs (Schneider/Ingram 1993). They combine the assumptions of Berger and Luckmann (1966) concerning the sociology of knowledge with Lowi s approach regarding the relevance of policies for political struggle. Even though their approach is focused on the explanation of political decisions instead of the explanation of political processes it can be fruitful for this task by offering a concept of target populations. Target populations are defined as cultural characterizations or popular images of the persons or groups whose behavior and well being are affected by public policy (Schneider/Ingram 1993: 334). Different target populations have unequal political resources at their disposal (such as size of group, concertation, ability to mobilise, etc.). But they are also the subject of public attributions as deserving or undeserving and are thus constructed as a group which should receive support or bear burdens. Following this two dimensional approach, (resources and construction) Schneider and Ingram define four groups advantaged, contenders, dependents and deviants which can be arranged in a 2 X 2matrix. 10

11 Political actors will try to design policies in favour of especially the advantaged groups. Contender groups are likely to receive benefits because of their political power, but these benefits are often sub rosa that is, buried in the details of legislation and difficult to identify (Ingram et al. 2014: 111). Dependents, who have only limited power, will only receive benefits which tend to be inadequate and limited by rules such as means testing, by funding shortfalls, or by receipt of student loans instead of scholarships (Ingram et al. 2014: 112). Deviants, who also have limited political resources and, in addition, are perceived negatively, will have burdens imposed on them. Not every political decision is shaped by the social construction of target groups in similar ways. Schneider and Ingram distinguish between degenerative politics and professionalized or expert politics as two different patterns or contexts of policy formulation. Degenerative politics are characterised by the fact that the attribution of deserving and undeserving is at the core of the process of policy formulation. These contexts are characterized by a hyper competitive policymaking setting containing negative, divisive, and demanding modes of communication, deception, and long term factions with highly negative views of one another (Ingram et al. 2007: 118). Professionalized or expert politics are shaped by the dominant role of (scientific) expertise delivering universally accepted policy knowledge. These contexts are more likely to develop when a policy does not have visible and vocal target populations that carry negative or positive social constructions (Ingram et al. 2007: 118). The dominant pattern depends on the characteristics of a policy or the perception of it. When positive and negative constructions are present, policymakers may quickly realize the political capital to be gained and institute degenerative patterns of policymaking (Ingram et al. 2007: 118). By transforming the separation of target populations and other assumptions regarding the dynamics of the political process and the role of cognitive and normative policy knowledge, it can be assumed that processes will develop predominantly normative policy knowledge when constructions of deserving or undeserving groups are present. In such cases political parties will be more influential in the early stages of policy formulation and their preliminary decisions will be more influential. They will justify their (final) decisions on normative grounds, referring to the role of deserving and undeserving groups, and will attract close attention from the mainstream media. 11

12 The case of the introduction of the statutory minimum wage fits this hypothesis particularly well. The target population for the minimum wage was identified as powerless employees in the low pay sector, and was thus portrayed as a group which is vocal in making demands about pay because they work hard for little money. The Social Democrats wanted to positively construct this policy as an instrument to reduce the low pay sector and thus help powerless employees in this sector. While the opposing Conservative party explained the decision to exclude specific groups (under 18 years, long term unemployed, internships and newspaper delivery workers) as based on cognitive grounds, the opposition parties criticised these specific regulations as stigmatisation of specific groups. The case of the so called education and participation package for children in low income households was shaped by a process of describing a group as dependent. The court judgement already implied greater need of support, but when the minister started to promote an additional benefit for this group, this created an image in the public of a group which places demands. The parliamentary parties, which had not intended such a policy, adopted this portrayal and struggled only over the appropriate scope of the policy. In the case of the reform of active labour market instruments, where the political parties wanted to reduce the amount of money and avoid single instruments, a target group was only mentioned sub rosa. A target population was only quite seldom and implicitly defined as the agencies, which make profits from not very efficient support for the unemployed. This field of providers was described in interviews as a social industry, which has a lot of resources for pressuring political decision makers and was consequently regarded as contenders. Nevertheless, the provision of their services should be curtailed in order to reduce costs. Consequently, the ruling coalition defined this political project as involving the cognitive issue of verifying the effectiveness and efficiency of the instruments of active labour market policy. The political opposition as well as the special interest groups affected tried to locate the discussions in a more conflict laden normative arena, and defined the long term unemployed assumed to be dependents as losers of the reforms. The novelty of policies and the characteristics of policy knowledge Halls differentiation of first, second and third order change has been of significant importance for policy research to describe the degree of policy change. While first order changes just concern the settings of specific instruments, second order changes affect policy instruments in 12

13 total (skipping old or introducing new ones) while third order changes regard the level of overarching goals (Hall 1993, 278). Hall described processes of first and second order changes as cases of normal policymaking, furthermore, first order changes were put as likely to display the features of incrementalism, satisficing, and routinized decision making that we normally associate with the policy process (Hall 1993, ). In contrast, second order changes may move one step beyond in the direction of strategic action, while third order changes are to be understood as paradigmatic shifts which result from a more disjunctive process associated with periodic discontinuities in policy (Hall 1993, ). For that reason, paradigmatic shifts are more likely to be controversial: Because each paradigm contains its own account of how the world facing policymakers operates and each account is different, it is often impossible for the advocates of different paradigms to agree on a common body of data against which a technical judgment in favour of one paradigm over another might be made (Hall 1993, 280). Hall concludes three assumptions which can be instructive for the argument of this paper. First, third order changes are assumed to have more political character: [ ] although the changing views of experts may play a role, their views are likely to be controversial, and the choice between paradigms can rarely be made on scientific grounds alone. The movement from one paradigm to another will ultimately entail a set of judgments that is more political in tone, and the outcome will depend, not only on the arguments of competing factions, but on their positional advantages within a broader institutional framework, on the ancillary resources they can command in the relevant conflicts, and on exogenous factors affecting the power of one set of actors to impose its paradigm over others (Hall 1993, 280). And in addition to that, it can be argued that under circumstances of contingency and complexity the configuration of policy knowledge is almost inevitably characterised by expertise and counter expertise when new policy goals are under consideration. The novelty of policies, its goals and instruments refer to the need of policy knowledge with reference to future social conditions (Zukunftswissen (Rüb 2006: 348); such as simulations) and thereby is more likely to be controversial than policy knowledge based on experience (Vergangenheitswissen (Rüb 2006: 349); such as evaluations). Second, Hall argues that a paradigmatic shift is likely to come along with shifts in the locus of authority over policy (Hall 1993: 280). When paradigmatic changes are characterised by conflicting opinions from the experts, political actors will have to decide whom to regard as 13

14 authoritative, especially on matters of technical complexity (Hall 1993: 280). It can be assumed that a stronger politicisation of the selection of relevant policy knowledge leads to a broader discussion than the closer policy community and involve media and the public in a different manner. Third, it is referred to the importance of policy failures that gradually undermine the authority of the existing paradigm and its advocates even further (Hall 1993: 280) a hint regarding the driving forces for policy change, which should be faded out for this investigation. Putting the previous argumentation in context of the three analysed cases of German labour market policy its suitability gets obvious. The reform of active labour market instruments in 2011 represents a case between first and second order change, because some instruments of the huge bunch of promotion tools were modified in their settings while others were abolished. The policy community could revert to former experience and take the (meanwhile) consolidated evaluation findings to develop drafts and to justify their decisions. Therefore this in Halls words normal policymaking is shaped as a rather cognitive struggle within a closed policy community. The introduction of a statutory minimum wage was rather more assessed as a third order change in regard to politically defining a minimum instead of continuing a rather unrestricted autonomy of wage bargaining. Connected with the introduction of new policy goals and a new instrument, this policy was cognitively and normatively disputed. The political process was underlain by confrontation of expertise and counter expertise. Furthermore, the policy authority shifted from a narrow policy community to an involvement of the party leaders as well as to a broad and public debate. The case of the education and participation package was rather understood as a case of second order change. The goal of inclusion of children in low income households wasn t considered as a new one, even though the court judgement and the idea of a new benefit system emphasised it in a new way. This second order change represents virtually how a policy along the way moves one step beyond in the direction of strategic action (Hall 1993: 280). Starting with a policy formulation shaped by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in cooperation with experts with experience with such a benefit system from the local level, this process involved more and more political actors claiming further expansion of affected children. 14

15 5. Conclusion Political processes reveal different categories of normative struggles so to speak degrees of politicisation. But what is new about this finding? This investigation shows that the whole political game can vary according to specific policy issues. It is not only the intensive mainstream media coverage or conflicts among political actors which have made it possible to draw distinctions among policies, as Lowi and his followers have argued. It is rather that the whole process of policy formulation is shaped by remarkable differences. The formulation of preliminary political agreements, the role of external expertise, or the involvement of experts (of any kind), the activities of parliamentary parties as well as divisions on policy responsibility within parliamentary groups differ significantly according to the dominance of cognitive or normative policy knowledge. The dominance of cognitive or normative policy knowledge is not objectively bound to the characteristics of a policy. Rather this is a result of the images of the policy, of its goals and targets, constructed (by political actors and the public) within political processes. This depends on the one hand on perceiving and depicting target populations as deserving or undeserving of being supported and thus purporting to express normative policy knowledge. On the other hand, the novelty of policies and, related to this, the structure of suitable policy knowledge is crucial. If policies have an innovative character introducing new instruments or even new policy goals policy knowledge is more likely to involve conflict and be diffuse as a result of the general conditions of contingency and complexity of social systems. Policies following policy paths by merely changing policy settings have a better chance of being guided by previous experience and consolidated cognitive and normative policy knowledge. Nevertheless, the differentiation of policy formulation patterns is not to be understood as identification of some kind of best practice of politics. Rather, these patterns indicate different demands and opportunities in political processes connected to single policy issues, which are interrelated to both explanatory approaches. Innovative policies which are a response to the articulation of social problems (by pluralistic actors) need to be shaped by a dominance of normative struggles (implying their own rules of interaction) caused by the uncertainty and contentious nature of policy knowledge as well as the relevance of (new) target populations. Political parties have to correspondingly make more preliminary decisions, become more involved in the earlier stages of the policy process and may possibly have a greater necessity to 15

16 negotiate. The locus of policy authority is moving away from closer policy communities to more central actors. Policies regarded as instrumental reforms and as apparently being ineffective for targeting populations are more likely to be shaped by more comprehensive and possibly less conflict laden policy knowledge. This kind of policy knowledge configuration can have a legitimating function for policy decisions and thereby relieving decision makers. References Berger, Peter L./Luckmann, Thomas 1966: The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, London: Penguin Press. Cohen, David K./March, James G./Olsen, Johan P. 1972: A garbage can model of organizational choice, in: Administrative Science Quarterly 17, Easton, David 1965: A Framework for Political Analysis, Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice Hall. Fischer, Frank/Forester, John (eds.) 1993: The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, Durham/London: Duke University Press. Fischer, Frank/Gottweis, Herbert (eds.) 2012: The Argumentative Turn Revisited. Public Policy as Communicative Practice, Durham/London: Duke University Press. Haas, Peter M. 1992: Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination, in: International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1, Hall, Peter A. (ed.) 1989: The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hall, Peter A. 1993: Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain, in: Comparative Politics 25 (3), Healy, Paul 1986: Interpretive policy inquiry: A response to the limitations of the received view, in: Policy Sciences 19 (4), Heinelt, Hubert 2006: Do Policies Determine Politics?, in: Fischer, Frank/Miller, Gerald J./Sidney Mara S. (eds): Handbook of Public Policy Analysis. Theory, Politics, and Methods, CRC Press: Boca Raton, Howlett, Michael 2011: Designing Public Policies. Principles and Instruments, Routledge: Abingdon. Howlett, Michael/Giest, Sarah 2013: The policy making process, in: Araral, Eduardo/Fritzen, Scott/Howlett, Michael/Ramesh, M/Wu, Xun (eds): Routledge Handbook of Public Policy, Routledge: Abingdon, Ingram, Helen/Schneider, Anne/deLeon, Peter 2007: Social Construction and Policy Design, in: Sabatier, Paul A. (eds.): Theories of the Policy Process, 2. Aufl., Boulder: Westview Press,

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