LEARNING POLICY, DOING POLICY INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PUBLIC POLICY THEORY, PRACTICE AND TEACHING LEARNING POLICY, DOING POLICY INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PUBLIC POLICY THEORY, PRACTICE AND TEACHING EDITED BY TRISH MERCER, RUSSELL AYRES, BRIAN HEAD AND JOHN WANNA Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: anupress@anu.edu.au Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760464202 ISBN (online): 9781760464219 WorldCat (print): 1241204119 WorldCat (online): 1241204699 DOI: 10.22459/LPDP.2021 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2021 ANU Press Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgements xi List of figures xiii List of tables xv Abbreviations xvii Contributors xix Part 1. Theorising, teaching and learning about policymaking 1 Public policy theory, practice and teaching: Investigating the interactions 3 Trish Mercer, Russell Ayres, Brian Head and John Wanna 2 A quixotic quest? Making theory speak to practice 29 David Threlfall and Catherine Althaus 3 What can policy theory offer busy practitioners? Investigating the Australian experience 49 Trish Mercer 4 Delivering public policy programs to senior executives in government—the Australia and New Zealand School of Government 2002–18 83 John Wanna 5 How do policy professionals in New Zealand use academic research in their work? 107 Karl Löfgren and Sarah Hendrica Bickerton 6 The dilemmas of managing parliament: Promoting awareness of public management theories to parliamentary administrators 129 Val Barrett Part 2. Putting policymaking theory into practice 7 Public policy processes in Australia: Reflections from experience 165 Meredith Edwards 8 Using the policy cycle: Practice into theory and back again 185 Russell Ayres 9 Succeeding and failing in crafting environment policy: Can public policy theories help? 205 Kathleen Mackie 10 Understanding the policymaking enterprise: Foucault among the bureaucrats 221 Craig Ritchie 11 The practical realities of policy on the run: A practitioner’s response to academic policy frameworks 243 Louise Gilding 12 Documenting the link between policy theory and practice in a government department: A map of sea without any land 259 Andrew Maurer Part 3. How can theory better inform practice and vice versa? 13 Taking lessons from policy theory into practice 281 Paul Cairney 14 Synthesising models, theories and frameworks for public policy: Implications for the future 299 Allan McConnell 15 Public policy theory, practice and skills: Advancing the debate 311 John Wanna, Russell Ayres, Brian Head and Trish Mercer vii Foreword To govern is to make policy. We can count generations of practical experience of government, but, until recently, little academic study of how and why choices are made. Indeed, it was not until the 1970s that the first academic research appeared in Australia and New Zealand with a specific focus on policymaking, and a decade later before the first textbooks emerged. Scholars were keen to demarcate the focus on organisation that characterised the older discipline of public administration, promising instead a new spirit of inquiry about the content of government decisions. Over time this would become a distinction without a real difference, as it became clear that policy is influenced by institutions, and institutions by the purposes they adopt. Those first textbooks were aimed primarily at undergraduate classes, and were written for students keen to understand the alchemy by which political imperatives translate into programs, and who, perhaps, might one day join the public service. And then, suddenly, the 1980s saw unprecedented dialogue emerge between academic and practitioner. Public sector reform in a number of state jurisdictions and in Canberra and Wellington sparked sudden debate between senior public servants and academic critics. Arguments about the nature and merit of ‘managerialism’ engaged scholars and officials alike, with passionate monographs, numerous conferences and animated controversy the result. National centres to study public management, funded by the Commonwealth, were established at Griffith and Monash universities in Australia, while an influential governance institute developed at Victoria University of Wellington. New Zealand scholars carried news to Australian gatherings of radical change to public sector practices across the Tasman. LEARNING PoLICy, DoING PoLICy viii This dialogue between practice and theory found practical expression in 2002 with the establishment of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), eloquently described by John Wanna in this volume. ANZSOG is significant for the vision it embodies: a desire to educate public officials across state and national jurisdictions, so creating a shared body of knowledge and concepts with deep networks informed by contemporary research. Nearly 20 years on, ANZSOG graduates occupy agency leadership positions in every jurisdiction served by the school. The ANZSOG governing board continues to attract the most senior officials in both nations, alongside vice-chancellors representing the 15 member universities. The school is an important conduit of ideas and publications. ANZSOG represents a confluence of academic and practitioner concerns. It must answer the question debated through all those symposia and journal exchanges: how do we understand policymaking, and what skills should be taught to a new generation of public servants? ANZSOG must write and deliver curriculum for its Executive Master of Public Administration and other executive programs; embedded in these courses are hypotheses about the nature of the policy process and the best ways to improve policymaking and administration. Appropriately, this volume arose from a workshop supported by ANZSOG, and has been edited with skill by a mix of academics and practitioners. Many contributors have worked on both sides of the theory–practice divide during their distinguished careers. They speak to debates about curriculum by exploring the interaction between ideas, case studies and teaching expressed in the classroom. As the chapters make clear, the debate is not resolved. Arguments continue about how to define policy, explain its variations and educate those entering the field. Here academic criticism meets practitioner need and, in turn, academic models get tested through trial and error in the field. So, even while contributors carefully delineate contending schools of theory, the volume also offers sharp judgements from senior public servants about what works when theory faces ever-shifting political and departmental circumstance. ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’ is a well-known military observation, but plan we must, and any plan contains an implicit theory of what will work. ix FoREWoRD In describing experience in the field, contributors find value beginning with an intellectual framework drawn from the academic literature, even if it must quickly be modified on the run. Policymakers are informed by scholarship, even as they deal with contingency, seeking defensible and robust policy proposals. Decision-making is never perfect but, thanks to theory, it can be better than ad hoc incremental drift. The dialogue between the academy and public services has enriched both sides, as most contributors to this volume agree. They find plenty to argue about still, in lessons deftly distilled by Allan McConnell in his chapter on synthesising theories and practice. These worlds overlap and yet diverge, sometimes informing each other, other times operating in parallel. Many students have asked about the value of studying a policy cycle when the circumstances are always different, the steps are often compressed, time is short and politicians are impatient. Yet, if you don’t know what ‘good’ looks like, you have no place to start, no way to proceed and no way to evaluate your recommendations. Certainly, in time, the cycle becomes second nature for those making policy, as they tailor each process to the situation, and learn what can be skipped and what is vital. But policy can be better when informed by theory and the self-awareness about process this provides. In the meantime, we can learn from movie making and an exasperated Francis Ford Coppola during the filming of Apocalypse Now . An actor refused to learn his lines on the grounds that he was better at improvising in the moment than slavishly following the script. Eventually Coppola exploded: ‘once you’ve learned your lines, then you can forget them!’ There is much in this volume to learn, and much that will be absorbed and thereafter forgotten because it is now instinctive. For reminding us of the journey, and providing this rich array of perspectives, academic and practitioner alike—and all who move between these worlds—we are indebted to Trish Mercer, John Wanna, Russell Ayres and Brian Head and the authors they present in this fine volume of reflections. Glyn Davis Chair, ANZSOG Research Committee Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University xi Acknowledgements The catalyst for this collection came from an Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) workshop held on 9 July 2018 at The Australian National University (ANU). The workshop explored how public servants access and respond to academic research in the form of frameworks and models designed to explain public policy processes. Despite the winter chill, the workshop audience, drawn from Australian and New Zealand academics and current and former public servants, engaged in stimulating and enthusiastic conversations on the day, and our editorial committee was set up as a post-workshop outcome. The editors would like to acknowledge the encouragement and support provided by Professor John Wanna (former Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration at ANU) and the support provided by ANZSOG through the participation of the Deputy Dean (Teaching and Learning), Professor Catherine Althaus. Organisation of the workshop was supported by Jessica Mason (executive assistant to John Wanna) and by Wendy Jarvie, David Threlfall and Isi Unikowski on the day. The book was informed by conversations both before and during the workshop and subsequently, not only with our contributors but also with a diverse group with interest in this area of public policy. In particular, we thank Michael Di Francesco, Wendy Jarvie, Paul Fawcett, Catherine To, Louise Gilding, Andrew Maurer, Duncan McIntyre, Craig Ritchie, Meredith Edwards, Serena Wilson, Marija Taflaga, Subho Banerjee and Kim Grey. We also thank our reviewers. Our thanks to Sam Vincent, our ANZSOG editor, for his patient and sage support and advice, to Rani Kerin for her meticulous and judicious copyediting, and the team at ANU Press. LEARNING PoLICy, DoING PoLICy xii The book benefited from a process of cross-fertilisation, achieved by providing other relevant chapters to individual contributors. We thank our contributors for their sustained commitment to the project and patience with our deadlines and publishing requirements. xiii List of figures Figure 2.1. The Australian policy cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Figure 3.1. Typology of theories investigated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Figure 3.2. The Australian policy cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Figure 3.3. Moore’s strategic triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Figure 5.1. Sources of academic outputs (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Figure 5.2. Useful academic disciplines in daily work (%) . . . . . . . . 116 Figure 5.3. Enabling factors (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Figure 5.4. Constraining factors for using academic arguments (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Figure 5.5. ‘At what stage in the policy process should academics get involved?’ (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Figure 5.6. Perceptions on the most important informers of policy expertise (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Figure 5.7. ‘What prevents you from using academic outputs?’(%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Figure 8.1. Step 1: The two things public servants do . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Figure 8.2. Step 2: Add ‘decide’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Figure 8.3. Step 3: Complete the basic problem-solving model. . . . . 194 Figure 8.4. Refining the cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Figure 8.5. Australian policy cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Figure 8.6. ‘Complexifying’ the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Figure 10.1. Foucault’s dispositif . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Figure 10.2. Jäger’s dispositif . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 LEARNING PoLICy, DoING PoLICy xiv Figure 10.3. Foucault’s concern (from Deleuze 1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Figure 10.4. The Policy Enterprise Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Figure 10.5. The anatomy of the paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Figure 11.1. The four questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Figure 11.2. Moore’s strategic triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Figure 11.3. What is the problem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Figure 11.4. Visualisation of balance sheet data and social investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Figure 12.1. APSC model of capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 xv List of tables Table 3.1. Investigating four major policy theories taught in Australia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Table 9.1. Targeted federal environmental policies and programs 1993–2013. Success–failure per Marsh and McConnell framework vs success–failure per interviewees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Table 13.1. Bounded rationality in a complex policymaking environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Table 13.2. How should you combine evidence and governance to ‘scale up’ policy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 xvii Abbreviations ACT Australian Capital Territory ANZSOG Australia and New Zealand School of Government APC Australian policy cycle APS Australian Public Service APSC Australian Public Service Commission BRANZ Building Research Association New Zealand Ltd CEO Chief Executive Officer DPS Department of Parliamentary Services DSS Department of Social Services EBPM evidence-based policymaking EECA Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority EFP Executive Fellows Program EMPA Executive Masters of Public Administration EPSDD Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate EQC Earthquake Commission HNZ Housing New Zealand IPAA Institute of Public Administration Australia IPANZ Institute for Public Administration New Zealand IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPENZ Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand MHUD Ministry of Housing and Urban Development MSA multiple streams approach NPM new public management LEARNING PoLICy, DoING PoLICy xviii NZCIC New Zealand Construction Industry Council PC Productivity Commission PET punctuated equilibrium theory PM&C Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet PMCSA Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor PMO Prime Minister’s Office PSA Public Service Association RCT randomised control trial SEMP Senior Executive Management Program SES senior executive services TSL Towards Strategic Leadership xix Contributors Catherine Althaus is Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Chair of Public Service Leadership and Reform, Public Service Research Group, University of New South Wales, Canberra, and ANZSOG Deputy Dean (Teaching and Learning). Catherine held a number of policy posts with the Queensland Treasury and Office of the Cabinet. Russell Ayres is a policy consultant and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra’s Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis. His career spanned 30 years in and outside the public sector, including senior policy roles in early childhood education and care, mental health, disability, Indigenous affairs, higher education and research, and research and evaluation. Val Barrett was recently awarded her doctorate at The Australian National University for her qualitative and interpretive study of the United Kingdom and Australian parliaments from 2015 to 2019. Val held executive and senior management roles in the Parliament of Australia and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) legislative assembly. Sarah Hendrica Bickerton was a doctoral candidate with the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington, her PhD research being political participation construction among Twitter users in New Zealand, which she completed in 2020. She also undertook graduate study in sociology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Public Policy Institute, University of Auckland. Paul Cairney is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling, UK. He specialises in British politics and public policy, often focusing on the ways in which policy studies can explain the use of evidence in politics and policy.