BEYOND POLICY NETWORKS: POLICY FRAMING AND THE POLITICS OF EXPERTISE IN THE 2001 FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE CRISIS
| Author | ANDREW DONALDSON,PHILIP LOWE,KATY WILKINSON |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2010.01831.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2010 |
| Date | 01 June 2010 |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2010.01831.x
BEYOND POLICY NETWORKS: POLICY FRAMING
AND THE POLITICS OF EXPERTISE IN THE 2001
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE CRISIS
KATY WILKINSON, PHILIP LOWE AND ANDREW DONALDSON
For the past decade, the policy community/issue network typology of pressure group interaction
has been used to explain policy outcomes and the policy-making process. To re-examine the
validity of this typology, the paper focuses on the UK government’s response to the 2001 Foot and
Mouth Disease (FMD) crisis, and in particular the decision to pursue contiguous culling rather than
vaccination to overcome the epidemic. Rather than illustrating the emergence of a n issue network
in agricultural policy, the decision-making process of the FMD outbreak demonstrates continuity
with prior crises. In addition, the politicization of scientific expertise is identified as an emerging
trend in crisis management. Policy framing is used to explain the impetus behind the contiguous
cull decision, concluding that the legacy of previous policy choices conditione d the crisis response
to a far greater degree than contemporaneous pressure group action.
Policy network analysis and the contrastingmodelsofpolicycommunitiesandissue
networks, as put forward by Marsh and Rhodes (1992, p. 251), continue to dominate
the literature on the relationship between organized interests and the policy process.
The distinction runs as follows. A policy community has a limited number of members,
and consciously excludes others. Economic and professional interests dominate, and as
a result, values and outcomes persist over time. As the relatively few participants all
have salient resources, there is a balance of power among them and they enter into
exchange relationships, enjoying frequent, high quality interaction on all relevant matters.
An issue network, in contrast, encompasses a large range of affected interests, and thus
conflict is ever present between members. As some lack resources, their relationships
are consultative and unequal, and access to policy making fluctuates significantly. Given
these fundamental characteristics, we might expect that a shift from one arrangement
of groups to the other would both be unusual and indicate a momentous change in the
workings of the policy process. The implications for policy choices would be great, as
all case studies suggest that networks affect policy outcomes. The existence of a policy
network, or more particularly a policy community, constrains the political agenda and
shapes the policy outcomes. Policy communities, in particular, are associated with
policy continuity. (Rhodes and Marsh 1992, p. 197)
The consequence of a shift to an issue network would be expected to be discontinuity
and increasing inter-organizational conflict, accompanied by a broadening of the policy
agenda. The resulting policy-making process, as groups compete for influence, would
likely be erratic and highly unstable.
Various analysts have diagnosed just such a transition in recent years in agricultural
policy-making (see, for example, Smith 1991; Jordan et al. 1994; Grant 2004; Woods
2005). Once deemed ‘the paradigm case of a closed policy community’ (Smith 1993,
p. 101), it is seen that a succession of high profile policy disasters – most notably food
Katy Wilkinson and Philip Lowe are in the Centre for Rural Economy, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Andrew
Donaldson is in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Public Administration Vol. 88, No. 2, 2010 (331–345)
©2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.
To continue reading
Request your trial