Conceptualizing punctuated and non-punctuated policy change: tobacco control in comparative perspective
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852313517997 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2014, Vol. 80(3) 513–531
!The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852313517997
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Conceptualizing punctuated and
non-punctuated policy change:
tobacco control in comparative
perspective
Donley T. Studlar
University of Strathclyde, UK
Paul Cairney
University of Stirling, UK
Abstract
How should we conceptualize major institutional and policy changes that take place in
the absence of crises, shocks or big bangs? This article uses the case study of tobacco
policy (in 23 democracies) to highlight the concept of phased transition towards paradigm
change. It recognizes the importance of fundamental policy change while going beyond
the binary distinction between the world at one point in time replaced by a fundamen-
tally new political world in the next. It uses multiple measures of policy change over
time to identify the magnitude and speed of change and considers how the current
literature conceptualizes such outcomes.
Points for practitioners
Major policy change need not be associated solely with crisis or a major event. Rather, it
can follow a series of steps or phases during which a series of key factors change and
those changes reinforce each other to produce momentum. The case of tobacco con-
trol highlights the potential for relatively coherent policy change over three decades.
Keywords
cumulative change, evolution, new institutionalism, public health, punctuated equilibrium
Introduction
How should we conceptualize major institutional and policy changes that take
place in the absence of crises, shocks or big bangs? The effect of such events on
Corresponding author:
Donley T. Studlar, Professor of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, McCance Building,
16 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XQ, UK.
Email: donleystudlar@gmail.com
institutional and policy change is well documented in the political science and
policy analysis literature. However, major studies of ‘punctuated equilibrium’
also highlight their rarity: a very small number of major changes are accompanied
by a very large number of small changes (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993, 2009; Hall,
1993). Further, we can identify a trend in the literature to seek new ways to con-
ceptualize, and account for the pervasiveness of, non-punctuated change with pro-
found long-term results, including: ‘punctuated evolution’ (Hay, 2002: 163);
‘gradual change with transformative results’ (Streeck and Thelen, 2005: 9) and
‘gradual but profound’ change (Palier, 2005: 129).
In that context, this article highlights the concept of phased transition towards
paradigm change. ‘Paradigm change’ involves a fundamental shift in the way that
policymakers understand and address a policy problem. ‘Transition’ refers to the
importance of fundamental policy change in a series of phases (or eras, which are
often decades apart) during which different policymaking environments help pro-
duce different outcomes. The aim is not to point to a date in the calendar when one
era of policy ended and another began but, instead, to divide time into a series of
phases to compare along the following lines: different actors, with different prefer-
ences, may be involved; the organization responsible for policy has changed, or the
existing organization’s ‘standard operating procedures’ have changed; policymakers
understand, and seek to solve, the problem in a different way; a government’s know-
ledge of the problem, and its knowledge of the ways in which other governments
have sought to address it, has changed; the relationship between interest groups and
governments has changed; and the socioeconomic context provides new opportu-
nities or constraints (Cairney et al., 2012). This arrangement allows us to examine the
manner in which policy changes in different cases, identifying, for example: the
linear, gradual accumulation of change over time; disjointed periods of policy
change over a number of phases; or, the relatively sudden and dramatic replacement
of one era by another. While the manner and extent of change will differ by case, the
framework does not. Rather, it helps us focus on the most important causal factors –
‘institutions, networks, socioeconomic process, choices, and ideas’ (John, 2003: 488)
– as a means to gauge and explain policy change. This approach to understanding
policy change is universal, not case specific, and it represents a valuable tool to
inform theories of policy and institutional change.
We use the case study of comparative tobacco policy to illuminate the value of
this framework. Tobacco control is a fundamental global issue partly because of
the size of the policy problem: there are 1.35 billion smokers and smoking contrib-
utes to one in ten deaths worldwide (Cairney et al., 2012: 2). It is an example of
major post-war policy change that may have taken place (in many ‘developed’
countries) in the absence of a major punctuation (Cairney et al., 2012; Lopez
et al., 1994; Studlar, 2002). In the mid-twentieth century, cigarette smoking was
‘normalized’; an accepted part of social behavior reinforced by governments pro-
tecting tobacco production and demand. By the early 2000s, tobacco as a product,
behavior, and industry had become denormalized, with policy changes introduced
that would have been inconceivable 50 years earlier. The article draws on data from
514 International Review of Administrative Sciences 80(3)
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