Linking policy across sectors and levels The example of sport and health

Linking policy across sectors and levels The example of sport and health Version: 03/04/2006 10:41 Asbjørn Røiseland Associate Professor Dept. of Social Sciences Bodø University College asr@hibo.no Paper prepared for the workshop on «Sport and Politics, 2006 Joint Sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research, 25-30 April; Nicosia, Cyprus. 1

Abstract The paper outlines and discusses the concept of policy link. Policy links are understood as those mechanisms that links a policy across formal levels of government and main sectors. Inspired by the literature on governance and multilevel governance, a typology of policy links is derived, covering policy links ranging from formal bureaucratic positions and informal entrepreneurs to structure level mechanisms like budget and common beliefs. This typology ground a rough analysis of two public programs aiming to link sport and health policy. The two examples demonstrate that policy links are both complex and multitude, and some of them hard to influence by government. However, some authors dealing with institutional design argue that things like meaning and perceptions among actors involved in an implementation process can be influenced and managed by governments. To some extent, this is what happened in the two programs exemplifying my discussion, but in both cases, they more or less failed. Possibly, this was caused by the institutional gap still existing between sport and health. Consequently, the complex relationship between the two policies could be more or less permanent. 1. Introduction One of the common myths of public policy is that sport is evolving as a new field of public policy. In fact, sport has been a public policy for centuries, at least in Europe, where public arrangements for sport has been viewed as an important tool for general manners and decorum as well as an extension of the military capacity. In Norwegian bureaucratic history, this is expressed by the fact that sport, until 1929, was a sector administered by Ministry of Defence (Goksøyr 1992: 83; Mangset 2002). On the other hand, the arguments for keeping sport as a field of public policy have changed over time, as has the political and administrative responsibility of sport. After World War II, one tended to look at sport in a rather instrumental way. Sport was worth public funding because of its value for fostering and public health (Nordby 1989; Slagstad 1998). Slowly however, sport increasingly was viewed as a cultural activity, and this view was formally sanctioned by shifting Norwegian governments during the 1970 th, and since 1982, sport has been administered by the ministry responsible for culture (Goksøyr 1992: 69). Despite the strong integration between sport and culture in contemporary politics, there are reasons to believe that the pendulum in one way or another is about to swing back. Over the last few years, an increasing number of public sport programs seem to be legitimated by their presumed positive contribution to health. Increasingly, sport and health promotion/public health seem to get closer. However, this is not a copy of the integration from mean war-time and the years following 1945. In the period 1930-1970, sport and health were integrated as a part of the planned economic system of Norway (Mangset 2002: 195). This model lost its strength during the 1980 th, and the relationship today is more at the individual level, where sport contribute to each and ones individual 2

health (Selle 2000: 495). One main explanation for this shift stem from the health sector itself, where focus has shifted away from traditional infection diseases like tuberculosis, into lifestyle diseases like cardiovascular disease, fatness and diseases in muscles and skeleton, calling for public arrangements for individual actions rather than collective actions itself (WHO 1984). The increasing relationship between sport and health means that there probably are processes of institutionalization going on. These processes may be complex of at least three reasons: First, the hierarchical elements in sport are weak. Looking into the sector, one will find both public, semi-public, civil and market-organizations in action. Of this reason public policy will involve some elements of meta-governance, e.g. coordination and negotiations taken care of by public authorities, often by a local department for cultural issues. Second, sport and health belong to different institutional traditions, and the institutional arrangement of the two sectors does not necessarily fit into each other. Third, most sport activities are linked to local places in the sense that they take place in arenas or facilities owned by, or regulated in some way by local government. Consequently, different levels of government will be involved in nearly any public sport activity, indicating that the implementation of sport policy will take the form as multilevel governance. These vertical and horizontal complexities of sport policy have implications both methodologically and theoretically. Looking into one single public organization or one single level of government will not tell us much about the institutional processes going on. And theories developed for single organizations and government theory, like theories on organizations or bureaucracy, probably will not fully explain policy development in sport. The increasing complexity of public policies has been paid much attention to over the last years (see e.g. Bogason 1996; Pierre and Peters 2000; 2005). Although the vertical and horizontal complexities of sport policy are not necessarily outstanding compared to other areas of policy, the presumed complexity makes it a good illustration for some theoretical arguments. In this paper, I will deal with the concept of policy link, meaning the way policies are linked across sectors like sport and health and across levels like national, regional and local. The literature on governance will found the theoretical framework for such a discussion. To some extent, such questions have been on the agenda in the discussion of governance. Apparently, we are dealing with questions at the core of multilevel governance. To some degree this is true, but we will not, as presumed in the literature on multilevel governance, ignore the levels of government as expressions of hierarchy (Peters and Pierre 2004: 75). This may be truth for the level of governance from the state and above, but looking into a state and levels below the state, one would probably find that still there is strong formal institutions and hierarchy in action. To presume that governance appear independently of levels seem less likely than to presume that hierarchy structure the governance process. This paper will presume that, despite different institutional arrangement from sector to sector, there is a hierarchy of levels, but these levels differ in respect of their logic of action. Things happening at lower level do not necessarily mirror higher levels, and private and civil actors may be included in 3

policy making processes to various extents and in different ways on different levels. This makes the links between and across levels and sectors complex. At first glance, to study the links across levels and sector appears equivalent to the study of governmental tools, which have been dealt with by a number of authors (e.g. Hood 1983; Schneider and Ingram 1990), or the literature on intergovernmental relations (O'Toole 1988; Marando and Florestano 1990; Parsons 1995: 304-306; May and Burby 1996). But these literatures, focusing on single organizations and inter-organizational networks, tend to presume that the governance process is under hierarchical control by government, and leaves no room for the theoretical possibility that private or civil actors may act as stronger links across levels than the government itself. Policy links may be formal and public, like legislation and budget, but may also spell out in informal ways, e.g. as socialization-processes, and by individual enthusiasts. By theoretical discussions and by using two programs for sport policy aiming to combine sport and health as illustrating examples, I aim to elaborate on the three following questions: 1. Policy links: How is governance on different levels and in different sectors linked together? 2. Efficiency: Are governance success and failure dependent or influenced by the mode of policy link in action? 3. Meta governance: Can government govern by designing policy links, and in case how? 2. Governance and multilevel governance Public policy-making often takes place within a multi-layered polity, formally organized by governments at central, regional and local levels. Several illustrating tendencies can be observed. One is that at all levels, executive administrators have become increasingly powerful, and policy-making do indeed involve more than elected politicians. Second, while the organization of public policy into main sectors like health, education and social affairs are relatively stable over time, the problems governments are dealing with are increasingly cutting across the formal policy sectors. There are a growing number of public programs on regional and local level that combine two or more policy sectors. Third, public policy also involves other actors like lower ranking administrators, interest organizations, private and public firms, popular movements and citizen groups. Such trends have led the public administration research away from the notion of government, and gradually replaced it by the notion of governance. Still, the term governance has many different meanings and features in multifarious expressions. For some authors, the shift from government to governance is primarily a change in methodology, in the sense that organizations as main units are replaced by the governance process itself. Such a shift will enable the researcher to study what is really going on in policy making and implementation, and opens a window into what has been conceptualized as the empirical constitution (Hjern and Hull 1982) i. However, a large bulk of the literature on governance uses the concept empirical, labeling certain 4

institutional forms like partnership and networks. In example, Rhodes (1996: 652-3) defines governance as a change in the meaning of government, referring to a new process of governing; or a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which society is governed. For Rhodes and others, governance is per se something opposite to the traditional, hierarchical steering by government (Rhodes 1999; Pierre and Peters 2000). And third, we may identify a normative literature on governance, searching for good governance (Rhodes 1997: 49) or discussing democratic implications of new modes of policy making (Sørensen and Torfing 2005). In this paper, the approach to governance is mainly methodological. Governance is perceived to be the study of policy making and implementation. Depending on empirical data, this means that formal organizations and hierarchy may turn out to be driving forces in the governance process, but the analytical frame does not presume this being the case. By studying processes of governance, the literature argue that, in many countries, politics and society are moving towards being intertwined in forms of interactive networks which in many cases are not prescribed by constitutions, legal frameworks and statutes. This we may call network governance: it is neither market nor government nor civil society, it is a hybrid organizational form. In this paper, network governance is understood as networks that integrates a number of interdependent, but autonomous actors performing negotiations based on a common understanding of factors like regulation, norms and common perceptions (Sørensen and Torfing 2005: 197). Such networks coordinate policy decisions, and they may to some degree be self-regulating. However, there will be some steering or controlling of the networks (by formal government), and such orchestration have been conceptualized as meta-governance (Jessop 2004: 62). Governance networks may take the form of local partnerships, regional policycommunities, or transnational networks. Some networks are formal and initiated by law, whereas others are less formal and more or less self-grown. According to the literature one may also distinguish between ad hoc and more permanent networks, open and closed networks, and inter-systemic, inter-organizational and inter-personal networks (Waarden 1992; Rhodes 1997: 38). As most states are organized into levels of government, typically based on geography, the notion of governance may be relevant to understand how levels of government interact in policy making and implementation. These processes can be very complex. In some way, the logic of action often differs across levels of government, making a condition for different kind of networks on different levels. At the national level, at a certain distance from the actual, concrete problems governments aim to solve, the organization into policy sectors, ministries and parliamentary committees seems to structure the policy processes in a rather decisive way. The closer one gets the street-level, the more important becomes a territorial logic of action, aiming to combine national policies to fit into actual local problems (Peters 1998; Fosse and Røiseland 1999). The possible tension between policy sectors and territorial defined (local) needs are among the questions that to a certain degree relate to the literature on multilevel governance, although the literature itself has been most preoccupied with policymaking above and between states (Jessop 2004), especially the relationship between European regions, states and EU. The analytical 5

framework outlined below is inspired by multilevel governance in two ways: First, it discusses the linkages between formal institutional levels, and second, the governance perspective allows private and civil actors to be included in the analysis as well as governmental actors (Peters 1998: 299). But in contrast to multi level governance, which one of the pioneers defined as a system of continuous negotiation among nested governments at several territorial tiers (Marks 1993: 392; cited in Bache and Flinders 2004), this paper presume that there is a hierarchy in action, and we may talk about levels in the sense of hierarchy. Finally, the analytical perspective in this paper will include network governance more than multilevel governance are presumed to do (Peters and Pierre 2004: 78). This combination of analytical assumptions allows us to discuss policy links both vertically (level) and horizontally (sector) under one, common analytical framework. 3. Types of policy links Apparently, the question about policy links looks equivalent to the comprehensive literature on governmental tools, one of the standard references being Hood on the tools of government (1983; Pierre and Peters 2000: 41). But this literature is relatively strongly related to the notion of government, in that it tends to presume a well defined hierarchy of government, to look at the public separated from market and civil, and mainly directed towards the operational level of government (Bruijn and Heuvelhof 1997: 125). Such conditions do not fit well into the notion of governance, aiming to study the links between levels and sectors with lesser theoretical assumptions about the division into state, market and civil society. Similar objections can be addressed to the literature on intergovernmental relations. This literature is concerned with how the multiplicity of types of governmental unit interact with one another (Parsons 1995: 305). Although the literature is diverse and multi-theoretic, most contributions do not leave any room for informal institutional mechanisms and actors outside the public sphere one of the core elements in the governance literature. This section aims to develop a typology of so-called policy links. Policy links are defined as those mechanisms that link policy vertical and horizontal, meaning across levels and across sectors. As Peters and Pierre argue, the probably most important linkage after all is institutions, although individual actors occasionally can serve as linkage between levels (2004: 79-80). I agree that institutions are important in this sense, but aside from that, and since institution is a very broad concept, there might be a number of combinations in between the two alternatives (individual actors versus institutions) mentioned by Peters and Pierre. The simple typology below, making a conceptual tool for the following empirical discussion, represents an effort to expand the typology by the two rough dimensions degree of formality and the level of analysis. The four types are assumed to link both vertically (across levels) and horizontally (across sectors). 6

Table 1: Typology of Policy links Formal Informal Actor level 1. Byr. roles, positions, 2. Entrepreneurs, Enthusiasts, Fixers Structure level 3. Legislation, Rules, Budget, Monitoring, (Re-)organizing 4. Common beliefs, common meaning The first cell includes the cases where some individual actors have a formal responsibility to link policy. Horizontally, this type often appears as more or less temporary project groups or staff members that are positioned outside the hierarchical pyramid. At a national level, this may be e.g. inter-ministerial committees. Vertically, this type may appear as people that do have a responsibility to look after policymaking at lower levels, e.g. different kinds of monitoring, control of final approval or accreditation. Such roles appear both within and outside the government itself. Quite a number of people in voluntary organizations do in fact, as part of their formal duty, spend their time on monitoring public policy, and they may serve as links across both levels and sectors. Cell number two is the informal version of actor level mechanisms. This includes e.g. bureaucrats or politicians that, on a voluntary basis, link policy across levels or sectors. At a local level, such linkages might be triggered by e.g. friendship or marriage, while at the national level, different kinds of social networks might connect relevant actors across sector or level, and thus serve as a policy link. In literature, such roles are frequently referred to as fixers and facilitators (O'Toole 1988: 427). Cell three is the closest we get the literature on governmental tools, combining formality with the structural level. Obviously, these types of policy links appear in nearly all policies. The notion of levels is basically defined by legislation (e.g. the constitution) and operating rules, and budget allocations from higher to lower levels are extensive in some governmental systems. Legislation and rule making is pr. definition a governmental affair, but actors outside government may also link policy across levels by allocation of money. Foundations and voluntary organizations may fund projects involving two levels, and thus link policy across. Looking at the horizontal links, rules, budget and change in organizational borders may be used by upper levels to link policies at lower levels. This is frequently done by certain public programs, stimulating local actors to look across traditional sectors. Finally, cell four includes deep, informal structural mechanisms that can be said to constitute policy sectors. By the often strong interrelationship between policy, science and professionalism within sectors and across levels, we often will find strong common beliefs or common points of reference. Such mechanisms may be maintained by an institutionalized system of socialization, e.g. in the form of a well defined educational system or by professional associations and formal professional standards. For some 7

professionals, the sector may represent a stronger identity than the actual level they are operating at. In example, a municipal doctor may be more health worker than municipal employee. These mechanisms are strong within sectors, but may also appear on levels, challenging traditional sectors. One example is when actors on lower levels face problems or challenges that do not fit into the traditional divisions into sectors, and over time develops a common understanding, common beliefs and points of reference that are perceived as relevant to local problems, involving more than one sector. Such a development can be initiated by bureaucrats or politicians, but may also stem from market actors or civil society. In real life, a certain policy will be linked across levels and sectors by a combination of the four types in table 1. To a varying degree, public authorities can influence on those links. This we might define as metagovernance:, the process whereby government can modify the relative weight and targets of exchange, hierarchy, and networking in the overall coordination of relations of complex interdependence (Jessop 2004: 62). This definition also includes attempts from the government to design and redesign policy links. This is frequently done by changes in legislation, e.g. to force local government to integrate former separate policies by law or by budget incentives, or by the establishment of project groups. Although to bring forth entrepreneurs and enthusiasts are hard for any government, there are examples of governments linking policies by informal mechanisms. One example is the integration of health and environment, which was put on the agenda by the WHOs declaration on Health promotion in 1986 and the environmental declaration Agenda 21 in 1992. In a number of countries, this intended integration led to the creation of new educational disciplines, which in the next turn gradually started raising a profession for health-environmental workers, slowly connecting the two sectors with respect to health promotion and environmental affairs. 4. A framework for studying policy links in multilevel governance So far, this paper has been dealing with the concept of policy links and governance. The concept of policy has not been explicitly defined, but the discussion on governance implicates that policy making and implementation often take place in governance networks. Therefore, policy links can take the form as links between governance networks. In section 2, I defined such networks according to Sørensen and Torfing (2005: 197), highlighting concepts like interdependency, negotiations, institutional framework, self-regulation and public purpose. This definition points to the institutional characteristics of networks, which is done even more explicit by Bogason (2000) and Klijn (2006), arguing that governance networks can be studied as institutions, allowing us to borrow concepts from the comprehensive literature on institutions and institutionalization. In the framework presented below, I will, more or less in line with Bogason, define four core institutional elements, and these elements will in sum be interpreted as a governance network ii. The framework is illustrated in the figure at the end of this section. Policy problem (P) Networks need to be understood in relation to an activity or a problem. According to Bogason, policy problems may be defined in different ways, e.g. in accordance with the 8

perceptions among involved actors, by the theory of externalities or by discourse analysis (2000: 111-118). In the empirical discussion to follow, I will perceive policy problems relative to the involved actors. Policy problem is the common understanding among network participants on what the network are trying to do. Such understandings may be easy to obtain from formal documents, but the policy problem can change during a process of policy making, and a policy problem on one level does not need to be mirrored by or fit into a policy problem at a different level. Norms and rules (N/R) Both participation and behavior within networks are heavily influenced by norms and rules. Certain formal rules and norms can be of great importance. There may be rules, e.g. by legislation, that prevent some actors to participate in the networks, while others, by the same rules, are obligated for participation. And there may be formal rules that put regulations on the activity in networks, e.g. the public norm about written case documents or rules concerning decision making by voting. On top of these basic norms and rules, there may be a number of informal norms and rules in action. Some logics of appropriateness (March and Olsen 1989: 23-24) will appear in most networks, connecting new decision points to historic experiences and culture. Actors and Positions (A/N) The bearing idea behind the notion of governance is that we can not assume per definition that formal public organizations are the sole actors in policy making and implementation. We can not even assume that formal organization is a meaningful unit for analysis. As Hjern and Porter argue, only seldom will a policy process involve a whole organization, and just seldom will only one organization be involved in a process of policymaking and implementation (1981). By actors and positions, we intend to make a description of the participants in the network. Who are they, what kind of position do they have, and who do they eventually represent? Order and meaning (O/M) Within a network there will be some kind of order and meaning in the sense that the network will give something back to its members (Bogason 2000: 129). In example, a network may be an arena for sharing, developing and maintaining common beliefs about the world, e.g. what kind of means are suitable for specific goals, how do different problems relate to each other, and where, in a hierarchy of problems that a society face, are a specific problem placed? The empirical discussion to follow will concentrate on policy links, indicated by the seven two-ways arrows in the figure below. But in order to understand how and why they are functioning in a certain way, I will also have to explore the content within each box, referring to a governance network. This will be done by the four elements discussed above. 9

PROGRAM 1 PROGRAM 2 LEVEL A A/P P N/R 1-2A A/P P N/R O/M O/M 1A-B 2A-B LEVEL B A/P P N/R 1-2B A/P P N/R O/M O/M 1B-C 2B-C LEVEL C A/P P N/R 1-2C A/P P N/R O/M O/M Figure 1: Analytic scheme. Abbreviations: P = Policy problem, N/R = Norms and rules, A/P = Actors and positions, O/M = Order and Meaning. 5. Two programs on sport and health In Norway, both the levels of state, regional and local level government are engaged in sport policy development. The regional level has been reformed during the last years, and their role today is a mixture of some health services, transport, culture, regional planning and economic development initiatives. Some of the now 18 regional governments have also made initiatives for policy development, in a way acting as a laboratory for new policies. Therefore, in search for initiatives that tries to link sport and health, regional government is a good starting point. The two programs that will illustrate the theoretical discussion above were both initiated by the regional government (county) of Nordland, aiming to develop activities at the local level. The formal administrative and political responsibility for both programs was placed upon a unit for sport, sorting under a department for culture. The VOI-program, which ran in the period 1998-2003, can be understood as an intention to put health into the sector of sport at the local level. The other program, FYSAK (1996-1999), quite opposite aimed to put sport into the health sector at the local level. 10

The following stories and plain analysis is based on different sources. The VOI-program was evaluated by a regional research institute, the author being one of the evaluators. The FYSAK-program was not evaluated as a single program, but elements were evaluated by a social-medicine research institute, and some parts of the program were carefully evaluated by the county government administration. And since the two programs were closely linked at the regional level, evaluating VOI, to a certain extend also meant to evaluate FYSAK. Although the different evaluations are not easily comparable, it still makes sense to derive some observations from the reports. The analysis in based on two traditional research reports (Anvik, Olsen et al. 2002; Magnussen 2004), one master thesis written by one of the administrative responsible bureaucrats (Lærum 2002), one published self evaluation based on empirical data performed by the regional administration (Lagestad 2003) and finally, an administrative report from the county administration (Nordland fylkeskommune 1999). These contributions are mainly dealing with policy making and implementation at regional and local level, paying lesser attention to the central level. Despite this lack of central level analysis, I will make brief descriptions of governance network at central level based on available sources like governmental white papers and research reports. The two programs trying to combine sport and health relates to three ministries on central level: Ministry of culture (responsible for sport), Ministry of environmental affairs (responsible for outdoor life) and Ministry of health and care (responsible for health promotion/public health). Although both programs were initiated regionally, they both were partly funded by national government. VOI The policy problem at regional level was formulated as to improve local governments policy for sport and outdoor life, so that inactive groups of the population could be engaged in sport and outdoor life. The inactive group was typically defined as people 40-50 years old. To fulfill this mean, a complex and tight regional network was in action, coordinated by the regional sport administration. The network members, most of them being familiar with each other from former projects and networks, represented different kinds of organizations. Some members represented regional state organizations like the county governor, the regional director for education and the regional director for health affairs. In the network, there were also members from voluntary and semi-voluntary organizations, like the regional association for sports, a regional organization for outdoor life and private institutions like a regional hospital for rehabilitation. And some members from the participating municipalities were included in the regional network. This regional network was uncovered by a snowball analysis, and the research team concluded that enthusiasm and strong beliefs was a major driving force among the participants (Anvik, Olsen et al. 2002). There was a relatively strong anti-bureaucratic culture in the network, expressed by e.g. an oral way of dealing with cases, and there was a strong belief in sport, being a value in itself, and outdoor life as the preferable way of physical activity. At the central level, the government few years ago published a whitepaper on sport and physical activity. From the paper we may derive the policy problem at the central level as being sport and physical activity for all (Anvik, Olsen et al. 2002: 17). According to the 11

whitepaper, the slogan points to especially children and youth. But, although the VOI program was half funded by the Ministry of Culture, we can not say that the regional network mirrored an equivalent network at central level. The actual network on central level did not include sectors like education and health in the same manner as at the regional level. On the other side, the links between the central government administration for sport and the major organization for sport was and is very strong, making some researchers labeling the relationship as a state corporative system (Rommetvedt 2002: 16). The program itself was directed towards the local level. From the start, only 7 municipalities were formal participants in the program, but through out the program period, this number raised to 37. The participating municipalities were expected to work out a local plan for sport and outdoor life and then implement actions. In an effort to raise local accountability to the program, the plan was assumed to be sanctioned by the local council. The policy problem at the local level therefore was to work out a plan to motivate inactive groups, sanction the plan and then implement necessary actions. The local network engaged in this policy problem differed a lot from place to place. Some places, there were no network to observe, other places there were a quite small network made up by the administrative responsible person, some representatives from local sport clubs and representatives from local schools. Most places, they failed to involve health workers and health sector in the network, and local politicians were absent in most local networks. One possible reason for this lack of networks is the fact that most of the municipal administrators engaged as local project managers, only had a minor share of their work hours available for the project, and few of them were strongly integrated in the municipal leadership and/or planning system. To some degree, they were civil soldiers in the public, paid by the public (Anvik, Olsen et al. 2002). As a possible result of the weak networks, it was hard to identify any common understanding or beliefs about sport and health among the different actors at the local level. The final outcome from VOI is hard to measure since just some of the possible outcomes are measurable. For example, there may have been extensive learning on all levels through out the program period. And the weak local networks may represent a premature start of something that will grow big over time. None of these possible outcomes are visible. On the visible side, however, we may measure the planning and the action that took place. According to Anvik et.al. (2002), carrying out extensive studies of four participating municipalities, only in one case did they make a real plan, while the other three either made symbolic plans, or failed to work out the plan. In the study of Magnussen, looking at the various local actions, a large number of actions were implemented as part of the program, but a number of these were either ongoing activities or activities that most likely would have been implemented independently of the VOI program, and some of the actions were not directed towards the defined target group (2004: 73). FYSAK The program FYSAK was initiated by the same administrative unit as the program above, and it was sanctioned by the regional council in 1996. According to the program plan, the 12

program aimed to develop tailored physical activities as an instrument for local health authorities health promotion work. Tailored means that, while most sport activities are common to one group, activities in FYSAK were adapted to single individuals needs. The policy problem meant that the sport administration aimed to produce activities for somebody outside their own sector. The formulated policy problem was dealt with by a regional network that was very like the network of VOI, but regional health authorities were more involved. And like VOI, both public, civil and private actors were engaged. Looking into the network, one gets the impression of strong common beliefs regarding the causal link between physical inactivity and life style diseases, and the need to strengthen the level of activity among certain population groups. Most of the FYSAK program was funded by the regional government, but the national ministry for health and a national council for culture (Norsk kulturråd) both granted 0,7 mill NOK each, which in sum counts for 14% of FYSAKs total costs. Like VOI, there was no national network equivalent to the regional one, but in a governmental whitepaper from 1998 on public health, the close connections between culture and health promotion was pointed out. However, the whitepaper did not pay much attention to sport and physical activities and the way sport can contribute to health promotion. Still, in a later report to the parliament (2003), the national government emphasizes the necessary contribution from physical activities on health. From this we may derive that, at the time when FYSAK was implemented, there was hardly any policy problem on central level that paralleled the regional policy problem, but during the last few years we can see the contours of such a policy problem. Like VOI, FYSAK intended to develop actions at the local level. Participation was voluntary, and during the program period, the number of participating municipalities rose from 6 in the start to 24 at the end in 1999. The ambition of developing tailored physical activities was made concrete by a request that the participating municipalities should develop plans and actions, sanctioned by the local council. To deal with this policy problem, the local project leaders were supposed to set up a local project group with a mix of municipal staff and volunteers from local organizational life. The processes whereby a local project leader was recruited were managed by the municipalities themselves. In most municipalities (60%), the project leader turned out to be a physiotherapist. The network varied a lot from place to place, but in general, the culture sector was the easiest one to engage in the program, while, except for the physiotherapists, the health sector most places was reluctant. The composition of participants in local project groups may have influenced on the common beliefs and meaning that the local implementation processes were associated with. In general, people under medical rehabilitation and under long term sick notes became the main target group, and a lot of activities were implemented aiming to activate those groups. Although this local profile is consistent with the overall goal of the project, it can be argued that what happened was a narrowing of the program, probably influenced by the physiotherapists role in the program. 13

Like the VOI program, final outcomes from the FYSAK program can be hard to measure. But an internal report based on a statistical survey among people in the participating communities concludes that the program and its activities directed towards appropriate target groups. According to the statistics, 12 % of the population in the actual communities had been participating in one or more FYSAK-activities in their community. By all means, this is quite a large share of the population. 6. Policy links - analysis The two stories above are not complete or fully understandable unless we explain how the two programs and the three levels are linked together as illustrated in figure 1. In section three above, I argued that policy can be linked across levels and sectors in different ways. As the discussion below will demonstrate, the two programs are good illustrations that, not only does the links vary, so do the influence links has on policies. In the following, I will split the discussion into respectively horizontal and vertical links. 1: VOI 2: FYSAK A: National Weak/ Absent 1-2A Byr. Roles Positions Weak Budget Monitoring 1A-B 2A-B Budget Monitoring B: Regional Budget Monitoring Entrepreneurs Common beliefs Strong 1B-C 1-2B Organization Enthusiasts Common beliefs Strong 2B-C Budget Monitoring Entrepreneurs Common beliefs C: Local Weak 1-2C Enthusiasts? Weak to moderate Figure 2: Institutional strength of governance networks and policy linking mechanisms in action 14

Horizontal policy links At the regional level, from where the two programs were initiated, the policy link (1-2B) was very strong. Three linking mechanisms were in action, among them organizing. This formal and structural linking mechanism was expressed by the fact that the two programs were both coordinated by the same administrative unit the unit for sport and physical activity in the regional administration for culture affairs. But looking closer into this unit, there were obvious more mechanisms in action. There were a number of entrepreneurs and enthusiasts engaged in the two partly overlapping networks in the two projects, some of them from the public administrative unit, some of them representing voluntary organizations. Among these actors, there also seemed to be a strong common belief about the relationship between sport and health. At the local level, one could possibly argue that there was an intention to make the horizontal link (1-2C) into a copy of the equivalent link at the regional level in those communities that were part of both programs (most of them were). But if this was an intention, it more or less failed. There were weak organizational mechanisms in action, as the two programs became addressed to different sectors at local level: VOI for the sector of culture and FYSAK for the health sector. Still, some places, there probably were some enthusiasts trying to link the two activities together. At the national level, the two programs turned to different sectors or ministries (respectively Culture and Health). Although both these units are part of networks that to some extent are representative to the regional networks, the link between the two networks (1-2A) was weak. There was no organizational mechanism in action and reading governmental whitepapers indicates few and weak common beliefs. But few years ago, after the end of the two programs discussed here, a national council for physical activity and health was set up, most likely serving as a policy link at the moment. Vertical policy links The two vertical links linking the national and regional levels (1A-B and 2A-B), are both expressed by budget. In both cases, the regional level applied for funding from national government. In the case of VOI, the regional level was granted ca. 4,5 mill NOK over the program period from the Ministry of Culture, counting for ca. 50% of total costs. The FYSAK program was given a much lesser share of central government funding, in total 14% from respectively Ministry of health and the National council for culture. In both cases, the grants from the national funding organizations were dependent on certain monitoring mechanisms. The two programs were assumed to undergo external evaluations, and during the program period, the regional project leaders annually reported to the two ministries. Despite these linking mechanisms, the overall link between national and regional level was relatively weak. The FYSAK program was hardly dependent on the national funding to be implemented, and VOI, half-funded by the national level, most likely would have been implemented in a limited version without the national funding. The vertical links between regional and local level (1B-C and 2B-C) were much more complex and manifold. In both cases, and like the links between national and regional, 15

there were budget allocations and some monitoring mechanisms in action. In the VOI program, every participating municipality was given a small grant to cover their costs when working out a plan. Then, they were welcomed to apply for co-funding of specific actions. In both cases, the municipalities had to report back to the regional level annually. In the FYSAK project, the allocation logic was nearly equal, but the general grant to each participating municipality was larger. Beside budget and monitoring, informal linking mechanisms was given high priority. The most enthusiastic local project leaders were included in the regional network, and they linked the regional network to local networks and local project leaders by network meetings several times a year. By such meetings, they prepared for a process of socialization and developments of common beliefs across the two levels. Whether they succeeded is hard to measure, but one get the impression that this process of socialization was more successful in the case of FYSAK then in VOI. A possible reason is that the persons that were recruited as local project leaders in FYSAK, most of them physiotherapists, had more in common with the overall idea from the start than what the project leaders in VOI had. 7. Conclusion: Meta-governance by designing policy links? The analysis above illustrates that the assumption of policymaking and implementation being a hierarchical process, whereby policies are initiated at the top, and then implemented on lower levels, is questionable. In this case, the regional level initiated and mainly developed policy with the national level at a distance through out the process, even if one could well argue that what happened was in some line with intensions formulated at the national level. Such an observation may also challenge the underlying assumption in this paper that hierarchy gives analytical sense in a study of policy links. However, there was no mixing of levels similar to what has been observed in some studies of multilevel governance. To the extent that the national level was involved in the policy making process, it was involved via the regional level. There was no direct link between national and local level in these two programs, indicating that, still there was more hierarchy involved than what is presumed in the multilevel governance literature. The two programs illustrate that policy links can be very complex and multitude. The complexity in linking sport and health policy can be explained in different ways. One possible explanation points to the different institutional character within each sector. First, in health, being a cornerstone in the welfare state and a major task for local authorities; the hierarchical elements are relatively strong. Not much room for local discretion is left for local decision makers, as a result of legal requests and the fact that access to certain services increasingly has become organized as individual rights. Although these hierarchical elements are weaker in the subfield of public health, with fewer and more abstract requests from national government, most activities will have to be implemented by actors deeply anchored in traditional health services. Looking into the sector of sport, these institutional characteristics are very different. There are few legal requests put on local authorities, and most of their activities are self-imposed. Second, the degree of professionalism differs between the two sectors. Health service, being grounded in the medical science, includes a well-defined set of regulations for 16

education, positions and professional qualifications. In sport, there is no obvious profession involved, and the base of knowledge is diverse, ranging from local everyday knowledge to attempts to construct a science of sport. Of such reasons, linking health and sport is immensely complex horizontally caused by the different institutional characteristics, and vertically because sport involves a number of relatively strong actors outside the public hierarchy. If policy links are complex, it also means that it may be hard for a government to influence effectively on policy links. In both cases above, the regional authorities had strong ambitions to strengthen the links at local level. Their main instruments was funding incentives, persuading local actors to make plans involving both sport and health. In theoretical terms, this may be interpreted as an attempt to establish some kind of regional meta-governance over local governance networks. In the literature on networks and governance, there are several contributions discussing how a government can influence on the linkage between both levels and sectors. Peters (1998:298-299) argue that when there is a common logic across organizations, the need for authoritative coordination is lesser, implicating that the informal linking mechanisms of common beliefs is both efficient and potentially strong. But how can things like common logics and common beliefs become influenced by government? Bruijn and Termeer both argue that it is meaningful to conceptualize the management of meaning (Bruijn and Heuvelhof 1997: 131) or the management of perceptions in networks (Termeer and Koppenjan 1997), arguing that this can be understood as a strong mechanism for linking networks together. They suggest a number of different strategies to develop such meanings, e.g. to furthering a common language, to prevent the exclusion of new ideas and to further reflection among core actors. And governments can facilitate processes in which common beliefs are changed (Termeer and Koppenjan 1997: 87), for example by reframing strategies, aiming to influence on actors perceptions and behavior (Klijn and Koppenjan 2006). One possible interpretation of the two programs above is that the mechanisms that were established to link policy at the local level, intended or not, was part of a hidden agenda. The written plan, that was assumed to be the final result of the incentives directed towards the local level, was not necessarily important in itself, but by local planning processes, the regional government aimed to develop local networks constituted by common beliefs. As the two examples demonstrate, this was only partly a success. If this observation is right, it raises a series of interesting theoretical questions about the role of planning in co-ordination and policy linking. To what extent can processes of planning function like this, and if they can, what kind of prerequisites do planning processes have to meet to fill such a function? These questions go beyond our analysis, but they should be at the core of governance networks and network theory. Although, as pointed out in the introduction, there are processes of institutionalization in the field of sport and health, the direction of these processes appears uncertain. Slowly, one can imagine that the national level develops a policy like the regional level. If so, it demonstrates how policy initiatives and developments may stem from lower level 17