The gap between decision and implementation: decision making, delegation and compliance in governmental and organizational settings

Abstract

It is an unsettled question in implementation research how political disagreement translates into the behavior of implementation agencies. Whereas implementation literature predicts that political disagreement would heighten the level of deviation by implementation agencies, empirical studies do not corroborate this hypothesis. The present research aims to resolve this disagreement-deviation paradox by introducing the concept of policy polarization within the realm of implementation studies. Moreover, a new implementation model is developed, which aims to explain the conditions under which political disagreement leads to a higher level of deviation. We will comparatively test this model by comparing implementation of regional and local policies in the Netherlands, the U.K and the U.S.