Gazing Up at the Bottoms: Problems of Minimal Response in the Implementation of Manpower Policy

Abstract

Abstract The paper discusses the implementation of manpower policy as viewed from below, and is a partial critique of ‘bottom-up approaches’ to implementation studies. It reports on a Social Science Research Council financed study at the School of Advanced Urban Studies which employed both bottom-up and top-down methods, and explored the hypothesis that the nature of the employment problem tackled by policy affected implementation. Restructuring policy would be easier to implement than policy designed to ‘mop up’ the effects of restructuring, the least easy to implement being policy designed to redistribute rewards in the labour market. The research attempts to include the view from below the ‘bottom’ usually referred to by bottom-up theorists. The paper reports, from the point of view of those affected, the failed implementation of the multiple responses at central and local level to the creation of large-scale redundancies. It shows the presence of ‘garbage can’, ‘symbolic’, ‘crisis-response’, and ‘ambiguity’ elements in the implementation process. It also shows ‘mobilization of bias’, reluctance to assume responsibility for policy decisions, and the power of the market in implementation. It concludes that ‘economic’ is a quality akin to ‘magic’ which makes its manipulation in implementation extremely difficult, and suggests that powerful implementation institutions are needed if those below the ‘bottoms’ are not to suffer from restructuring in the labour market.

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