Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T08:37:29.822Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Instruments of Government: Perceptions and Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Stephen H. Linder  and
B. Guy Peters
Stephen H. Linder
Affiliation:
Public Health, University of Texas, Houston
B. Guy Peters
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of Pittsburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Government uses a wide variety of instruments to reach its policy goals, ranging from indirect methods, such as moral suasion and cash inducements, to more direct ones involving government provision of services. Although there has been a fair amount of writing on the nature and use of various policy instruments, there is very little work on either the meaning ascribed to these instruments by the decisionmakers who use them (or the experts who design them) or the processes by which some come to be favored over others. Characteristics of the political system, such as national policy style, the organizational setting of the decisionmaker, and the problem situation are all likely to have some influence over the choice of instruments. The relative impact of these variables, however, is likely to be mediated by subjective factors linked to cognition. Perceptions of the proper ‘tool to do the job’ intervenes between context and choice in a complex way. Efforts to account for variation in instrument choice, then, must focus not only on macro level variables but on micro ones as well.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 35 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, M. and Chandler, M., eds. (1983). The Politics of Canadian Public Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Bobrow, D. and Dryzek, J. (1987). Policy Analysis By Design. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Braybrooke, D. and Lindblom, C. (1963). A Strategy of Decision. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. (1989). Afterward on Policy Communities: A Framework for Comparative Research. Governance 2: 86–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, M., March, J. and Olsen, J. (1972). A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17: 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, R. and Lindblom, C. (1953). Politics, Economics and Welfare. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Diver, C. (1983). The Optimal Precision of Administrative Rules. The Yale Law Journal 93: 65–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doern, G. B. and Phidd, R. (1983). Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process. Toronto: Methuen.Google Scholar
Doern, G. B. and Wilson, V. S., eds. (1974). Issues in Canadian Public Policy. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Downs, A. (1967). Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, W. (1982). Policy Analysis: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Dunn, W. (1986). Policy Analysis: Perspectives, Concepts and Methods. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, W. and Holzner, B. (1988). Knowledge in Society: Anatomy of an Emergent Field. Knowledge in Society 1: 3–26.Google Scholar
Elmore, R. (1985). Forward and Backward Mapping: Reversible Logic in the Analysis of Public Policy. In Policy Implementation in Federal and Unitary Systems, Hanf, K. and Toonen, T., eds. Dodrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Gormley, W. (1986). Muscles and Prayers: Coercive and Catalytic Controls over Public Policy, Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Greenberg, G. D. et al. (1977). Developing Public Policy Theory: Perspectives from Empirical Research. American Political Science Review 71: 1532–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, C. (1984). The Tools of Government. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hood, C., Dunsire, A. and Thompson, S. (1988). Thatcherism, Fraserism and the Bureaucracy, Governance 1: 243–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoppe, R., van de Graaf, H. and van Dijk, A. (1987). Implementation Research and Policy Design. International Review of Administrative Sciences 53: 581–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingraham, P. (1987). Toward More Systematic Consideration of Policy Design. Policy Studies Journal 15: 611–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingram, H. and Schneider, A. (1988). Behavioral Approaches to Policy Design, Unpublished Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
Jones, C. (1977). An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy. N. Scituate, MA: Duxbury.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, F., Majone, G. and Ostrom, V. (1986). Guidance, Performance and Evaluation in the Public Sector. New York, NY: Walter deGruyter.Google Scholar
Kelman, S. (1981). What Price Incentives? Boston: Auburn House.Google Scholar
Kettl, D. (1987). Government by Proxy. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Kingdon, J. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policy. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Kirschen, E. et al. (1964). Economic Policy in Our Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Linder, S. and Peters, B. G. (1984). From Social Theory to Policy Design. Journal of Public Policy 4: 237–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, T. J. (1972). Four Systems of Policy, Politics and Choice. Public Administration Review 32: 298–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, L. and Seidl, J. (1975). Policy Analysis at HEW. Policy Analysis 1: 232–273.Google ScholarPubMed
Majone, G. (1975) The Feasibility of Social Policies. Policy Sciences 6: 49–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, J. and Olsen, J. (1984). The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life. American Political Science Review 78: 734–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, P. (1981). Hints for Crafting Alternative Policies. Policy Analysis 7: 227–244.Google Scholar
Mayntz, R. (1981). The Changing Conditions of Effective Public Policy, University of Bielefeld, ZiF Research Group.Google Scholar
McDonnell, K. and Elmore, R. (1986). Getting the Job Done: Alternative Policy Instruments. Paper presented at the Annual Research Conference of the Association of Policy Analysis and Management, Austin, Texas.Google Scholar
McKelvey, R. (1982). Organizational Systematics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meltsner, A. (1975). Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Miller, T. (1984). Conclusion: A Design Science Perspective. In Miller, T., ed., Public Sector Performance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Mohr, L. (1973). The Concept of Organizational Goal, American Political Science Review 67: 470–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosher, F. (1980). The Changing Responsibilities and Tactics of the Federal Government. Public Administration Review 40: 541–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Toole, L. (1986). Policy Recommendations for Multi-Actor Implementation. Journal of Public Policy 6: 181–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, B. G. (1986). American Public Policy: Promise and Performance. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phidd, R. and Doern, G. B. (1978). The Politics and Management of Canadian Economic Policy. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. (1982). The Comparative Study of Political Elites. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. (1982). Policy Styles in Western Europe. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Ripley, R. (1966). Public Policies and Their Politics. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Sabatier, P. (1987). Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Implementation Research. Journal of Public Policy 6: 21–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salamon, L. (1981). Rethinking Public Management. Public Policy 29: 255–275.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1947). Administrative Behavior. New York, NY: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Spitzer, R. (1987). Promoting Policy Theory. Policy Studies journal 15: 675–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberger, P. (1980). Typologies of Public Policy: Meaning Construction and the Policy Process. Social Science Quarterly 61: 185–197.Google Scholar
Tinbergen, J. (1956). Economic Policy: Principles and Design. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, M. et al. (1982). The Choice of Governing Instrument. Ottawa: Ministry of Supply and Services.Google Scholar
Torgerson, D. (1985). Contextual Orientation in Policy Analysis. Policy Sciences 18: 241–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, J. (1989). Introduction: Policy Communities as Global Phenomena. Governance 2: 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar