How Policy‐Making Affects Implementation: The Decentralization of the Danish Disablement Pension Administration*

Abstract

‘Presidents are more likely to be punished for not making promises of administrative reform than for not implementing them.’ (March & Olsen 1983, 291) Policy‐making and implementation have usually been treated as two distinct disciplines. In this article it is argued that implementation is affected by the prior policy‐making process. Hypotheses regarding such impacts are derived from the policy‐making theories resting on a) the rational decision‐making model. b) the conflict‐bargaining model, and c) the garbage‐can model: Implementation failures are more likely 1) if goals are absent or vague and if alternatives and their consequences have not been considered; 2) if the policy‐making process involves participants with conflicting interests and compromising; 3) if there are many and changing participants with limited attention and if symbols are important in the poky‐making process. These hypotheses are tested and discussed in relation to a reorganization case, the decentralization of the disablement pension administration in Denmark in 1976.

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