Unexpected Dispositions: What Models of Implementation Can Teach Us about Policy Transfer

Wildavsky and Majone (1979) characterized implementation as guided by the “bundle of dispositions” embodied in any policy initiative.  Le Gales and Lascoumes (2005) analyze policies  as “instruments” of government.  Both imply that outcomes can be influenced – if not determined – by the policy tools provided, without close monitoring, much less direct control. While applied initially to national implementation dynamics, this approach predicts indirect but effective transfer of policy models – and outcomes – across national or organizational borders, central both to the EU’s “soft harmonization” and initiatives encouraging adoption of “best practices.”

We revisit these propositions through detailed analysis of implementation in a low-income neighborhood of Istanbul of an income-support system developed and sponsored by the European Network of Living Labs. We trace the relevant instruments from the intent of conception in Brussels to the reality of implementation in Istanbul. We are interested particularly in the, possibly inadvertent, creation through this program of a potent tool for partisan organization and mobilization, as activists for the ruling party assist, and often supplant, municipal civil servants in assessing eligibility, processing applications and more generally serving as gatekeepers for the program’s highly desirable material benefits.

Our purpose is neither to denounce “implementation failure” nor systematically to apply normative labels such as “clientelism” – much less “corruption” – to observed behavior. Rather we seek better and potentially generalizable understanding of how the “dispositions” embodied in policy instruments are understood and transformed as these move from one institutional and cultural setting to another.