Redirecting the Implementation of a Law: The Reagan Administration and Coal Surface Mining Regulation

Abstract

There now exists a large collection of empirical studies and theoretical essays which, collectively, define implementation as an important and legitimate field of study.' The rapid growth of interest in this area is largely due to a growing realization that the way in which a law or policy is implemented can determine its success or failure. This awakening, which Hargrove has labeled the missing link in the study of public policy,2 has fostered considerable scholarly interest in identifying and assessing the factors, conditions, and influences which structure the implementation process and, consequently, yield better or worse policy outcomes. Although a dominant theory of implementation is yet to emerge from this research, our knowledge of policy implementation is improving. Despite this progress, implementation scholars have overlooked an important issue. There currently exists little systematic research on the conditions, circumstances, and pressures which bring about significant intended changes in the implementation of a policy. Moreover, we probably know even less about how implementation change is carried out in a more or less successful fashion. This blind spot is not, however, all encompassing. After all, implementation is by definition a dynamic, change-driven process, and every theory of implementation recognizes this fact. It is axiomatic that adjustments are necessary in the course of implementing a program/policy. Bardach, for example, argues that a fixer (usually a person not directly involved in implementing a program) must intervene from time to time to help keep things moving in the right direction.3 And Berman's imaginative writing on implementation strategies stresses the importance of the relation-

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 17 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.