The Social Psychology of Organizations.

In the past few years several major reports highlighted the gap between our knowledge of effective treatments and services currently being received by consumers. These reports agree that we know much about interventions that are effective but make little use of them to help achieve important behavioral health outcomes for children families and adults nationally. This theme is repeated in reports by the Surgeon General (United States Department of Health and Human Services 1999; 2001) the National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH] National Advisory Mental Health Council Workgroup on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Intervention Development and Deployment (2001) Bernfeld Farrington & Leschied (2001) Institute of Medicine (2001) and the Presidents New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2003). The authors call for applied research to better understand service delivery processes and contextual factors to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of program implementation at local state and national levels. Our understanding of how to develop and evaluate evidence-based intervention programs has been furthered by on-going efforts to research and refine programs and practices to define "evidence bases" and to designate and catalogue "evidence-based programs or practices". However the factors involved in successful implementation of these programs are not as well understood. Current views of implementation are based on the scholarly foundations prepared by Pressman & Wildavskys (1973) study of policy implementation Havelock & Havelocks (1973) classic curriculum for training change agents and Rogers (1983; 1995) series of analyses of factors influencing decisions to choose a given innovation. These foundations were tested and further informed by the experience base generated by pioneering attempts to implement Fairweather Lodges and National Follow-Through education models among others. Petersilia (1990) concluded that "The ideas embodied in innovative social programs are not self-executing." Instead what is needed is an "implementation perspective on innovation--an approach that views postadoption events as crucial and focuses on the actions of those who convert it into practice as the key to success or failure". (excerpt)

Implementation research: a synthesis of the literature.

There has been a great deal of research in recent years concerning the use of substantive policy analysis in public policy-making. This paper seeks to integrate those findings - e.g., the ‘enlightenment function’ of policy research - into a more general model of policy-making over periods of a decade or more. The conceptual framework focuses on the belief systems of advocacy coalitions within policy subsystems as the critical vehicle for understanding the role of policy analysis in policy-oriented learning and the effect, in turn, of such learning on changes in governmental programs.

An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein

Education policy faces a familiar public policy challenge: Local implementation is difficult. In this article we develop a cognitive framework to characterize sense-making in the implementation process that is especially relevant for recent education policy initiatives, such as standards-based reforms that press for tremendous changes in classroom instruction. From a cognitive perspective, a key dimension of the implementation process is whether, and in what ways, implementing agents come to understand their practice, potentially changing their beliefs and attitudes in the process. We draw on theoretical and empirical literature to develop a cognitive perspective on implementation. We review the contribution of cognitive science frames to implementation research and identify areas where cognitive science can make additional contributions.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/3515992

Policy Implementation and Cognition: Reframing and Refocusing Implementation Research

This paper first reviews the implementation literature of the past fifteen years, with particular emphasis on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches. It also argues that the 4–6 year time-frame used in most implementation research misses many critical features of public policy-making. The paper then outlines a conceptual framework for examining policy change over a 10–20 year period which combines the best features of the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches with insights from other literatures.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0143814X00003846

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Implementation Research: a Critical Analysis and Suggested Synthesis

The Policy Implementation Process: A Conceptual Framework

An important collection of essays provides comprehensive, up-to-date coverage and analysis of the recent performance of state political institutions and processes, and examines the challenges ahead for state governments. Chapters on governors, legislatures, courts, bureaucracy, budgeting, the issues of welfare reform, and education policy highlight the profound changes that state governments have undergone, and point to what lies ahead.

The State of the States

Break with convention - An original look at policymaking. Policymaking is a messy business. It entails more than the traditional policy cycle discussed in most textbooks. And it involves more than presidents and members of Congress. Judges, bureaucrats, corporate leaders, journalists, and voters all influence and participate in the process, and at all levels of government. Each group practices a different kind of politics, which very often results in different policies and outcomes. By looking at six distinct, yet connected, policy domains, your students will see a more comprehensive and realistic view of policymaking: Boardroom Politics - decisions by professional and business leaders; Bureaucratic Politics - rule-making and adjudication by administrators; Cloakroom Politics - lawmaking by legislators; Chief Executive Politics - decision making by presidents, governors, mayors, and their advisers; Courtroom Politics - rulings by judges; Living Room Politics - opinions expressed by and through the mass media, grassroots movements, political activists, and voters; and, Policymakers are faced with tough choices. With this text, students are better prepared to evaluate their leaders' performance given the book's' unique framework linking how policies are chosen with what policy is chosen. Thoroughly updated to reflect the issues of the early 21st century, this new edition also incorporates new and important scholarship. It is recommended for classes in: Public Policy and American Government

Politics and Public Policy

TiHE RESPONSE OF CONGRESS to the events and troubles in the decade that began with a year (1963) ending in the assassination of a President, continued with the longest most frustrating war in our national history, and ended (1972) in an unfulfilled prophecy of "four more years" for the Nixon Administration, is told here-in a fashion. The fashion is not that of drama but of factual analysis. The purpose is not to write history but to understand the conditions for change or stability in the policy orientations of individual members of Congress. We are as interested in the ordinary members of Congress (MC) as in the well-known figures. While the perspective of the study is broad enough to dwarf the mass media

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2129646

Carl E. Van Horn

Papers

The Policy Implementation Process: A Conceptual Framework

The State of the States

Politics and Public Policy

The Congressional Response to a Decade of Change: 1963-1972

Policy implementation in the Federal system