European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 138

The Role of Theories in Policy Studies and Policy Work

of hard and not-so-rational, downto-earth “work” that makes policy. In
other words, policy analytic professional
training omitted important aspects of
policy practice; precisely those aspects of
association and interactive involvement
that were highlighted in the second
academic approach to policy process
studies—that is, not just puzzling and
cooperation for consensus formation, but
patient institutionalization of (new) policy
practices, and powering, competition, and
political struggle for action in concert,
frequently for continued domination or
hegemony (Haugaard 2014). Briefly, the
notion of “policy work” caught two birds
with one stone: in performative studies of
the policy process it brought back both
the nonanalytic and the agonistic (de
AlameidaFortis 2014; Mouffe 2000).

Empirically, these views were
amply justified. Debunking the popular
prejudice that only top-level civil servants
and politicians in executive roles were
actually making policy, Page and Jenkins
(2005) were able to show that, actually,
thousands of civil servant of middle
ranks were deeply involved in policy
design and the preparation of policy
proposals for adoption in parliament.
This confirmed insights from the
Netherlands (e.g., Colebatch, Hoppe, and
Noordegraaf 2010; Hoppe 1983; Hoppe,
Van de Graaf, and Besseling1995; Hupe
1992; Woeltjes 2010). Reconstructing
the policy formulation of some 20 policy
white papers in the Netherlands, Mayer
and his fellow researchers identified
six styles of policy design and analysis,
only three of which (rational, client
advice, and argumentative styles) bore
clear resemblances to traditional views
of policy analysis; the other three,
process management, interactive, and

participatory-democratic styles, were
falling outside this purview (Mayer, Van
Daalen, and Bots 2004). Echoing Radin’s
observation that process expertise had
become one of trained policy analysts’
most prominent practical assets, an entire
“school” of public administration and
policy analysis in the Netherlands turned
to governance network theory (Kickert,
Klijn, and Koppenjan 1997), placing
process management and attendant
skills as key in policymaking processes.
Recently, Roe (2013) focused on the
practical knowledge and skills in real time
required of middle-management policy
workers as “mess managers”, who act as
indispensible “facilitators” or “mediators”
between grand-design policy visionaries
at the apex of organizations and day-today practices of “street-level” bureaucrats
at the bottom, in order to safeguard the
reliable functioning of the huge sociotechnical infrastructures of electricity
generation, water provision, sewage
processing, and internet services.

A similar story of relative neglect
of certain skills in policy work can be told
about the dimension of political strife
and struggle, or the agonistic aspects of
ordinary policymaking practices. This
is in spite of the fact that Lindblom
(1968) already stressed the dual nature
of policymaking as “thinking out” and
“fighting about” policy; and Wildavsky
(1979)
characterized
policymaking
as both cogitation and (competitive)
interaction; and Heclo (1978) famously
showed that policymaking entailed
both intellectual puzzling and political
powering between competing interests.
These agonistic dimensions of policy
work definitely give it the feel of being
interactive, erratic, and relentlessly
iterative, like many practitioners describe

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