Policymaking doesn’t work the way Westminster thinks

“There is a prevailing story in Westminster about how policymaking works. According to this story, power resides in central Government from which policy ideas flow and implementation take place. Paul Cairney argues that this story is a myth , but it still matters. Enjoying this post? Then sign up to our newsletter and receive a weekly roundup of all our articles. There is a strange disconnect between two dominant stories of policymaking in the UK. The official Westminster story of how policy is made is so wildly inaccurate that it may as well be fiction. Despite that, it still dominates British political debate. No UK government or minister could live up to its ideals, but they must look as though they are trying. When describing how policymaking really works, the dominant academic story is more accurate but also difficult to narrate (or even imagine what it looks like ). It struggles for traction outside of a small group of academic trainspotters and, within that small group, we rarely agree on what exactly that story is. So, my ambition is to explain why the official story is impossible to live up to, then present an alternative academic story that is a bit more accessible and useful to political commentary than usual. Why the Westminster story is inaccurate and misleading Here is a simple account of the official story of UK politics: political parties present manifestos to compete for public votes in general elections, the winner forms a Government, and Government ministers oversee the delivery of their manifesto by civil servants and public bodies. I could go on, but the take-home message is clear: power and responsibility resides in central Government, in the hands of a small group of ministers. Academics use simple variants of this account as a narrative device, to explain that this is not how British politics really works. Ministers can only really pay attention to a tiny proportion of their responsibilities and must ignore the rest. If you focus on what they do, it might seem that they are capable of doing great things, or cause a lot of damage. The trick though is to explain what happens to all of the issues that receive minimal ministerial attention. Policy emerges from a huge number of disparate centres making choices in different ways for different reasons. The academic explanation boils down to a story in which a remarkably high number of people and organisations make, influence, and deliver policy across a political system. Instead of one all-knowing and all-powerful centre, think of many “centres” with enough knowledge and power to make key choices. They were once called “ policy communities ” to describe the informal relationships maintained by UK civil servants and interest groups, but now these ‘centres’ are more difficult to pin down if they are spread across policy sectors, jurisdictions, or levels of government. Each “centre” has its own rules and ways of understanding and addressing a problem and maintains its own networks or relationships between the groups outside of government informing policy and officials in government. Some of these centres are spread across policy sectors like health and education. Some of their networks spread across jurisdictions or levels of international, national, devolved, or local government. Add up this activity and you have a complex system in which policy emerges from a huge number of disparate centres making choices in different ways for different reasons. Crucially, most of these outcomes emerge routinely and out of the control of central government ministers who can only pay attention to a small proportion of overall activity. Why the Westminster story endures The official story, even if removed from reality, still matters because it performs a second role: to capture how UK politics should work and help elected policymakers to describe what they should do: we are responsible and need to act responsibly. Yet, it also contributes to disenchantment with British politicians: if they can’t perform the role they describe, they are destined to disappoint. Each time they narrate their governing competence and strength, they are destined to look incompetent and weak (at least to their critics). If so, the Westminster story’s role in maintaining a political ideal may also be unrealistic. The official story, even if removed from reality, still matters because it performs a second role: to capture how UK politics should work and help elected policymakers to describe what they should do Nevertheless, it seems like the academic story cannot compete on those terms: building strategy, responsibility and accountability on the foundation of messy complexity and multiple actors outside of government is a difficult sell. Yet, it is essential to try: if many centres matter, we need to support them to collaborate and coordinate, to turn a fragmented system into something more integrated and coherent , and ultimately something that is accountable to voters (or performs an equivalent accountability function). Why this clash of stories matters There are two unfortunate consequences of this gap between the official story and policymaking reality. First, UK ministers perform their power when making and describing choices, but their limited powers and evergreen policymaking constraints exacerbate policymaking fragmentation and policy incoherence. They seem destined to make big claims about their policies, then witness – along with voters – the lack of delivery of their policies. They do not – and cannot – live up to their promises. Second, even though ministers should be able to tell a better, more accurate story about the government’s policymaking, they don’t know how. That story should involve humility, describing ministers’ limited attention and low understanding of complex problems, but instead ministers fall prey to the pressure of having to look like they know what they are doing. Their story should involve pragmatism, accepting the need to rely on and cooperate with many other centres of policymaking, but instead ministers want to look like only they are in charge. UK governments seem destined to tell the same old fictional story of their powers and responsibilities. There are many good ideas out there , on how to improve on policymaking reality, but as long as the official story remains in denial of how policymaking actually works, they won’t be able to gain traction. Enjoyed this post? Sign up to our newsletter and receive a weekly roundup of all our articles. All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Image credit: Evikka on Shutterstock The post Policymaking doesn’t work the way Westminster thinks first appeared on LSE British Politics .

Summary generated from the RSS feed of LSE British Politics and Policy. All article rights belong to the original publisher. Click through to read the full piece on blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy.