REVIEWS
| Date | 01 June 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1984.tb00561.x |
| Published date | 01 June 1984 |
REVIEWS
THE
TOOLS
OF
GOVERNMENT
Christopher
C.
Hood
Mamillan,
1983.
178pp.
212.50.
Christopher Hood is the Linnaeus of policy analysis. With Andrew Dunsire he invented
bureaumetrics. In this latest essay in taxonomy he seeks to answer the question: what
does government do? From the conception of government as a 'tool-using
animal',
he shows
convincingly that it is possible to classify everything that government does as the use of
variants
or
combinations of a few basic policy-instruments
or
tools.
In his tool kit approach to government activity, Hood
fuses
several different strands
of political thought from the power debate to cybernetics and systems theory. There are
two basic types of tools: those for detecting, through which government takes and sends
out information; and those for effecting, through which government seeks to make an
impact on the world outside. These two types of tools are based upon the four basic
resources which government possesses: information which it acquires from the centrality
of its position ('nodality'); money
or
'fungible chattels' ('treasure'); the power officially
to demand, forbid, guarantee
or
adjudicate ('authority'); and the possession of people, land,
materials and equipment ('organization'). Each of these resources is used as the basis
for
the detecting and effecting tools, giving eight
types
in all.
The framework becomes
still
more elaborate
as
further analytical distinctions are made.
Each detecting
or
effecting tool can be used
in
a
particular
way, directed at specific
individuals, organizations
or
items; in a
general
way, directed at the world at large;
or
between the
two,
directed at
groups.
These three applications of the four basic effecting
tools give a total of twelve categories. Unsurprisingly these twelve breed, and by the end
of Part
I1
we have a framework of twenty-seven sub-types of effecting tools and eighteen
sub-types of detectors. Further refinement is infinite as these forty-five categories can
be
mixed, combined and used in a variety of different ways.
The purpose
of
this part of the book is to categorize and to exempldy, and Hood is
honest enough to admit that the collection of different varieties of tools is not much more
interesting than collecting stamps. However, in Part
111
he changes the mode of analysis.
He asks whether his classification
of
government activities is helpful to an understandug
of policy-making, and whether the analytical framework might
be
used to answer specific
questions about government. He postulates three possible 'pay-offs', and characteristically
tests each almost to destruction. First, he suggests that thinking of government as a tool
kit might help to make sense
of
the complexity of government, for example by helping
to idenhfy and generate possible ways in which government might go about tackling a
job. This is plausible but
begs
the question who might want to use the tool kit as an
analytical device? Would practitioners browse round the tool kit to help stimulate the
process of lateral thinking a bit, as Hood suggests?
Secondly, he
argues
that the framework might
be
used diagnostically to help
governments choose the right policy-instrument for the job. He formulates and tests four
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