Between rule-makers and rule-takers: policy change as the interaction of design, compliance and feedback

ABSTRACT

How do policies change? The article argues that dominant public policy theories overemphasize the stage of adoption of new policies and disregard the discrepancies that often take place between formal and substantive change. But can we really speak of change if formal changes do not trigger change in actors’ behaviour? And how can policy-makers achieve substantive change? Building on the comparative political economy literature, the article conceptualizes policy change as the interaction between rule-makers and rule-takers. It is argued that (i) rule-makers can use policy design strategically to minimize reliance on non-compliant rule-takers and (ii) the scope for rule-makers to side-line non-compliant rule-takers is greater if non-compliant behaviour produces negative policy feedback. Systematic process analysis of reform of German higher education over two decades lends support to the proposed approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• institutional change
• policy change
• policy design
• policy feedback

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Chiara Benassi, Marina Cino Pagliarello and Richard Freeman as well as three anonymous reviewers and the editor Jeremy Richardson for most insightful comments. All errors are, however, the author’s.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘University’ refers to both institutional types; ‘traditional’ and ‘research’ universities are used interchangeably; ‘universities of applied sciences’ and ‘Fachhochschulen’ are used interchangeably.

2 Toens (2009) identifies HRK-based policy entrepreneurs that promoted a ‘modernization’ agenda along the lines of that advocated by the BMBF too.

3 Next to lower transition rates, bachelor degrees at Fachhochschulen have lower per-student costs than research universities, standing respectively at 5,300EUR and 7,000EUR (Gillmann, 2018), making the Fachhochschulen option overall even cheaper and, therefore, more attractive from the perspective of public finance.

4 The KMK is the designated institution in which ministries of education of the Länder meet and major decisions on higher education policy are taken. It proved particularly important since the late 1990s (Witte, 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service [grant number 57214227].

Notes on contributors

Niccolo Durazzi

Niccolo Durazzi is Lecturer in Political Economy of Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh.