Comparing blunders in government

Much attention has been paid to government ‘blunders’ and ‘policy disasters’. National political and administrative systems have been frequently blamed for being disproportionately prone to generating mishaps. However, little systematic evidence exists on the record of failures of policies and major...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of political research 2018-02, Vol.57 (1), p.238-258
Main Authors: JENNINGS, WILL, LODGE, MARTIN, RYAN, MATT
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative analysis
Disasters
Expectations
fsQCA
Fuzzy sets
Government
government blunder
large projects
policy fiasco
Policy making
Political science
Political systems
Politics
Prone
Public administration
Public policy
Qualitative research
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Summary:Much attention has been paid to government ‘blunders’ and ‘policy disasters’. National political and administrative systems have been frequently blamed for being disproportionately prone to generating mishaps. However, little systematic evidence exists on the record of failures of policies and major public projects in other political systems. Based on a comparative perspective on blunders in government, this article suggests that constitutional features do not play a prominent role. In order to establish this finding, this article (a) develops theory‐driven expectations as to the factors that are said to encourage blunders, (b) devises a systematic framework for the assessment of policy processes and outcomes, and (c) uses fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to identify sets of causal conditions associated with particular outcomes (i.e., blunders). The article applies this novel approach to a set of particular policy domains, finding that constitutional features are not a contributory factor to blunders in contrast to instrument choice, administrative capacity and hyper‐excited politics.
ISSN:0304-4130
1475-6765
DOI:10.1111/1475-6765.12230