Dilemmas and Paradoxes of Regional Cultural Policy Implementation: Governance Modes, Discretion, and Policy Outcome

• Author: Katja Lindqvist
• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095399715621944
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399715621944

Administration & Society

2019, Vol. 51(1) 63 –90

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399715621944

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Article

Dilemmas and Paradoxes

of Regional Cultural

Policy Implementation:

Governance Modes,

Discretion, and Policy

Outcome

Katja Lindqvist1

Abstract

Bad policy design affects public service delivery and the conditions for

providing public services at operational level. Fragmentation of public

management due to governance reforms becomes visible in policy failure; a

problem for governments, public service providers, and citizens. The poor

outcome of a reformed regional museum education policy is the starting

point for a study of paradoxes of regional cultural policy implementation.

The article opens up the black box of policy implementation and identifies

goal conflicts in regional development policy, conflicting expectations among

stakeholders, as well as governance paradoxes resulting in gaps between

policy intentions, output, and outcome.

Keywords

governance, cultural policy, policy implementation, museum education,

development, regional policy

1Lund University, Helsingborg, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Katja Lindqvist, Associate Professor, Department of Service Management and Service Studies,

Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, P.O. Box 882, 251 08 Helsingborg, Sweden.

Email: katja.lindqvist@ism.lu.se

621944AASXXX10.1177/0095399715621944Administration & SocietyLindqvist

research-article2016

64 Administration & Society 51(1)

Introduction

Collaborative policy implementation entails dilemmas and paradoxes for

involved parties, as expectations on roles and decision-making power differ

between actors. This has effects on several aspects of the policy process, not

least policy outcome. Therefore, policy learning becomes increasingly impor-

tant both from a government and public management perspective (Toens &

Landwehr, 2009). Politicians have for more than a decade urged the public

sector to “join up” based on the assumption that coordination and collabora-

tion with external parties improve public policy and service delivery

(Christensen, Fimreite, & Lægreid, 2014; Downe & Martin, 2006). Evidence

of such benefits is not concordant, however (Hupe, 2011; Kalu, 2012; Lynn

& Robichau, 2013). Collaborative policy implementation is complex

(McGuire, 2006) and is even claimed to demand inconsistent governance

(Bannink & Ossewaarde, 2012). Governments are held accountable for pol-

icy output and outcome, whether delivered in collaboration or not, something

which makes collaborative implementation risky. Policy development

demands furthermore add complexity to policy implementation over time,

for example, in creative industries policy (Cooke & De Propris, 2011; Lee,

Hesmondhalgh, Oakley, & Nisbett, 2014; Taylor, 2015). To enable policy

learning with the aim of improving governments’ and public administration’s

future policy making and implementation, evaluation of previous implemen-

tation is vital. This article addresses dilemmas and paradoxes in collaborative

policy implementation in the cultural sector (Moon, 2001; O’Brien & Miles,

2010), an area poorly researched from a policy implementation and gover-

nance perspective. In particular, it explores not only the impact of governance

mode and development criteria on policy outcome in collaborative policy

settings but also expectations on relationships between collaborative parties

linked to governance modes. This will be done through an analysis of regional

museum education policy in Skåne, Sweden.

Policy implementation is here understood as a process characterized by

inherent insecurity and conflict, generating genuine ambiguity in the policy

process, and a process containing several steps, in which policy intentions

affect outcome and vice versa (Lindblom, 1959; Matland, 1995). The analy-

sis of the case study shows that strong control in collaborative policy imple-

mentation is suboptimal as it does not allow the utilization of expertise of

implementing parties. This is because centralized (authority-based) gover-

nance disregards the expertise of external implementation partners, some-

thing which may well result in poor policy outcome and discontent with

governance relationships. Furthermore, the development element of regional

cultural policy introduces continuous change to implementation, which may