The Second Edition of this popular textbook introduces students to the major themes in the study of public policy implementation and relates them to contemporary developments in thinking about governance. Fully revised and updated, the book stresses the continuing importance of a focus on the implementation part of policy processes. Michael Hill and Peter L Hupe suggest strategies for future research on implementation and identify modes of managing implementation as operational governance.
Designed for an international audience, this is a core text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students studying or conducting research in public policy, social policy, public management, public administration and governance.
Michael Hill is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Visiting Professor at the Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
Peter Hupe teaches Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He was previously Visiting Professor at the Public Management Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
Praise for the First Edition:
′An excellent and much needed book. Hill and Hupe have provided a well written and highly accessible account of the development of implementation studies which will be immensely valuable to everyone concerned with understanding implementation in modern policy making′ - Professor Wayne Parsons, University of London
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Structure of the Book
Some Matters of Definition
Positioning Implementation Studies
Concerns about Implementation: Historical Origins
The Rule of Law
The Implications of the Idea of Democracy
Public Administration and Public Management
Institutional Theory
Postmodernist Theory
The Top-Down/Bottom-Up Debate
The Discovery of the ′Missing Link′
The Classical Top-Down Authors
The Bottom-Up Challenge
Implementation Theory
The Search for a Synthesis
Where does Implementation Begin
Layers in Policy Processes
Networks: Broadening the Horizontal Dimension
Managing Performance: Redefining the Vertical Dimension
Differentiating Policy Types
Including Responses of Affected Actors
Implementation and Governance
The Age of Interventionism
The Age of the Market and Corporate Government
The Age of Neo-interventionism
Assessment
Implementation Theory and the Study of Governance
The Stages Model of the Policy Process
Alternative Analytical Frameworks
The Multiple Governance Framework
Studying Implementation as Governance Research
Researching Implementation
Defining Studies of Implementation
Explaining What Needs explanation
Isolating Implementation
Dealing with Layers
Specifying Inter-Organizational Relationships
Differentiating Agency Responses
Identifying Stakes
Recognizing Macro-Parameters
Quantitative Versus Qualitative Studies
Implementation in Context
Implementation in Practice
The Quest for Appropriate Action
Policy Settings
Institutional Environments
Operational Governance in Context
The Future of Implementation Studies
The Objective of Studying Implementation
The Study of Governance in Operation
Promising Developments
About the Author :
Michael Hill is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of Newcastle, UK. Before entering academic life at the University of Reading he was a street-level bureaucrat in a local social assistance office. He later worked on research at the Universities of Oxford and Bristol on the implementation of social policy. Since retiring from Newcastle he has held part-time visiting professorships in London University at Goldsmiths College and Queen Mary College and also in the London School of Economics and the University of Brighton. His long-standing text The Public Policy Process reached its eighth edition in 2021 in a joint version with Frédéric Varone of the University of Geneva. In 2020 he published Exploring the World of Social Policy with Zoë Irving of the University of York.
Peter Hupe is Visiting Professor at the Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium. He is also Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, UK. While teaching Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, he had academic affiliations in Leiden, Leuven, London, Oxford and Potsdam. The major part of his research regards the theoretical-empirical study of policy processes, particularly implementation and street-level bureaucracy. He discovered the relevance of the latter during an earlier career as a policymaker in the Dutch national civil service. Publishing regularly in journals like Public Administration, Public Policy and Administration and Public Management Review, in 2019 he composed the Research Handbook of Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Ground Floor of Government in Context. With Tony Evans he edited Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom (2020).
Review :
The second edition of this key text by two of the leading scholars in the field makes it the primary guide to the study of implementation
Martin Powell
Professor of Health and Social Policy, Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham
′The second edition of Implementing Public Policy builds on the extremely useful first edition, and is an excellent and timely contribution to the literature on implementation. As well as providing a thorough review of the literature on implementation it makes a number of important contributions to that literature. This volume represents the most extensive and useful treatment of implementation available
B. Guy Peters
Professor of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh
′This is by far the best textbook ever published on the topic of public policy implementation... Thus, it gives a much needed up-to-date and complete state-of-the-art review of this research field for graduate students and teachers while at the same time serving as an excellent introduction on the topic for those at the undergraduate level
Harald Saetren
University of Bergen, Norway
′Greatly enriched by recent scholarship, this second edition is even more valuable to students of public policy theory and governance and to a subfield of public administration and political science whose ranks are growing owing to efforts such as this one
Laurence E Lynn, Jr.
Emeritus Professor, University of Chicago
′Implementing Public Policy
…not only gives a detailed overview of state-of the-art theory and research in policy implementation, but also discusses the profound implications of implementation studies for our understanding of the policy-making process. This book is a must-read for all scholars and students interested in public policy
René Torenvlied
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
This book is based on the authors′ well-acclaimed first edition of the same title. Considerable work has gone into updating and re-contextualizing some of their earlier arguments and analysis in the light of an updated research and literature base. The second edition should be as valuable and well received as the first... This is a very useful publication, likely to be the main guide to implementation for some time
Duncan McTavish
Public Management Review
I consider this book to an excellent summary of the core debates in implementation studies. I am very impressed by the care the authors have taken to update some of the key references and respond to current developments in theory. I will be reccomending this text to my students as an essential text that they should buy. If they buy one book, they should buy this one.
This is a quality text which is sometimes very specialised. It nonetheless can be used right through to dissertation.
Very useful text for key parts of the course. Excellent for library stock
I shall be recommending this book to students. Whilst it is quite specialised and is not the easiest read it does provide much needed insight into the the complexities involved in moving from formulation to implementation of policy.
Very theoretical book that only deals with discussions within theoreticians, and, contrary to its title, does not eal with implementation of public policies.
No interest for practitioners.
I found the book an ideal complementary reading for an introductory course in public management and governance. The concept of implementation is analyzed from multiple perspectives, which is particularly useful for student in the management area that tend to be offered the rather monolithic view of implementation in business strategy.
Received this book on instructions of authors. A useful book that I will use in my research, but do not teach an appropriate course for it currently.
