Different but equally plausible narratives of policy transformation: A plea for theoretical pluralism
| Published date | 01 January 2013 |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512112453604 |
International Political Science Review
34(1) 57 –73
© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512112453604
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Different but equally plausible
narratives of policy transformation:
A plea for theoretical pluralism
Jeroen van der Heijden
Australian National University, Australia; and University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract
Theories of institutional change help us to understand policy transformation, and provide us with a framework
for presenting transformation narratives retrospectively. By telling the transformation narrative of a single
case through the lenses of three different institutional change theories, this article highlights the potential
shortcomings of a single lens, and the value of using complementary lenses. It argues for a pluralist approach
to provide a richer understanding of policy transformation.
Keywords
historical institutionalism, incremental change, policy change, punctuated equilibrium, punctuated evolution
Prologue
New Year’s Eve 2000. A typical party in a typical pub in a typical Dutch town: teenagers, Christmas
decorations, step-gabled houses. Suddenly, there is panic. Fire! People struggle to escape the over-
crowded pub. Most make it out alive but 14 do not. Many of those who survive are maimed for life.
The incident provokes vast media attention. Within a few days the guilty party is found: the munic-
ipality is to blame, claim the newspapers. It has not fulfilled its duty to provide sufficient enforce-
ment of construction regulation. It is found that a stack of boxes blocked the emergency door, the
Christmas decorations were not fireproof and the pub held more people than was authorized.
Consequently, the responsible minister (Minister for Housing, Urban Planning and the Environment)
faces severe criticism in the House of Representatives, and, as is so often the case with such inci-
dents, there is a promise of swift action to prevent future tragedies.
A little over two years later the Dutch Housing Act (regulating the construction and use of build-
ings) is amended to make construction regulations easier to understand and easier to enforce:
Corresponding author:
Jeroen van der Heijden, Australian National University and University of Amsterdam, Australian National University,
Regulatory Institutions Network, #8 HC Coombs Extension Building, Canberra, 0200 ACT, Australia
Email: j.j.vanderheijden@anu.edu.au
453604IPS34110.1177/0192512112453604International Political Science ReviewVan der Heijden
2012
Article
58 International Political Science Review 34(1)
Dutch construction regulation is fully restructured, rewritten in less legalistic language and ‘unnec-
essary’ regulations are scrapped.
Introduction
This anecdote provides a typical example of policy transformation. Questions that arise are: to
what extent is the policy change related to the pub fire? How significant is the policy transforma-
tion or, for that matter, the pub fire? Or, alternatively, to what extent is the pub fire used as an argu-
ment to support the need for policy transformation? The answers to such questions may be decisive
in steering the course of (future) policy transformation, as they can provide post facto legitimiza-
tion of, as well as justify the need for, future transformation. It matters, for example, whether or not
a policy narrative causally associates the fire with the policy transformation. If a causal narrative
is plausible, the responsible Dutch minister may legitimize the financial burden of the transforma-
tion as a way to prevent future human suffering; or a US politician may use the pub fire and the
swift promise of action in the Netherlands as an argument for strengthening fire codes in his or her
own jurisdiction – note that the fire attracted vast international media attention (see news archives
on http://news.bbc.co.uk and http://articles.cnn.com). If a non-causal narrative is persuasive, how-
ever, a member of the Dutch opposition may criticize the responsible Dutch minister for wasting
public funds and seek to revoke the policy change (or have the minister replaced) or promote yet
another policy change. In other words, policy narratives about the policy transformation process
could be relevant drivers of the direction of the ongoing policy process (e.g. McBeth et al., 2007;
Schmidt, 2011). This burdens scholars with a substantial responsibility in terms of presenting nar-
ratives of transformation – and provides policymakers with a substantial opportunity to select a
narrative that suits their needs.
The questions related to policy transformation can be addressed through the lenses of institu-
tional change theories. Various institutional change theories and heuristic frameworks have devel-
oped over time (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993; Hall and Taylor, 1996; Pierson, 2004; Rhodes et al.,
2006; Streeck and Thelen, 2005b). This article aims to show something obvious: by using diverse
theoretical lenses, different, yet equally plausible, policy transformation narratives can be told of a
single example of policy change. Yet the value of demonstrating the obvious should not be dis-
missed. This article asks scholars to be aware of the pitfalls of using single lenses. It does so by
applying three well-established lenses (punctuated equilibrium, historical institutionalism and
punctuated evolution)1 to a relatively simple and bounded case (the pub fire). Studying a relatively
small and self-contained case may resolve some of the problems encountered in studies of trans-
formation in large policy programmes: the focus on macro-level variables and the difficulty of
containing and analysing them (cf. Zehavi, forthcoming).
In the following section, the different lenses are introduced. This section aims to show how each
lens informs the contours of the narratives that may be told through them. Next, the lenses are
applied to the pub fire, and three different, but complementary, narratives are told. Finally, the
article concludes with some of the major lessons learned and a plea for a more pluralistic use of
theories in explaining policy transformation.
Different theories of institutional change
Rhodes et al. (2006), and a special issue of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis edited by
Capano and Howlett (2009), present excellent overviews of various theories of institutional change
that can be used to study policy transformation. In reviewing the use of these theories, two
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