Salami tactics and the implementation of large-scale public projects

ABSTRACT

This article builds on the literature on policy failure and blame management to analyse the implementation of large-scale public projects, which frequently suffer from cost overruns and delays. The article addresses a hitherto neglected blame management strategy used by politicians overseeing implementation: the stepwise announcement of delays and/or cost overruns, often referred to as ‘salami tactics’. I assert that politicians apply salami tactics in order to reduce and deflect the blame for a project that turns out to be more expensive, or takes longer to complete, than initially communicated. The empirical section examines the use of salami tactics in two large-scale public projects that resulted in delays and cost overruns: the Berlin Brandenburg Airport in Germany and the Swiss National Exposition Expo.02. Both cases confirm my arguments regarding the blame-reducing and blame-deflecting effects of salami tactics and reveal that this strategy can cause projects to lock-in on a self-undermining path.

KEYWORDS:

• Blame avoidance
• blame management
• framing contests
• policy failure
• policy implementation
• public projects

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Tobias Arnold, Karin Ingold, David Kaufmann, Doina Radulescu, Fritz Sager, Eva Thomann, the three anonymous referees, and the editors for insightful suggestions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Markus Hinterleitner is a postdoctoral researcher at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern.

ORCID

Markus Hinterleitner http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9909-2715

Notes

1 I thank Tobias Arnold for pointing me to this phenomenon.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation: [grant number 100018_153111].