The EDA in Oakland: A Case That Catalyzed a Field

• Author: Laurence J. O’Toole
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02313.x
• Date: 01 January 2011
• Published date: 01 January 2011

Book Review

Essay

Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr., is Distin-

guished Research Professor as well as the

Margaret Hughes and Robert T.

Golembiewski Professor of Public Adminis-

tration in the School of Public and Interna-

tional Affairs at the University of Georgia.

Among his research interests are policy

implementation in complex institutional

settings, public management and perform-

ance, public management in networks, and

educational, health, and environmental

policy and management.

E-mail: cmsotool@uga.edu

116 Public Administration Review • January | February 2011

e ectively ignored virtually the entire  eld of public

administration and the many studies there that hold

relevance for those interested in investigating and

analyzing policy implementation.3

 e book took hold of people’s

attention and imagination not

only because of the authors’

(dubious) claims of virtually

complete originality, but also

because it told a gripping story

that was then  tted ex post facto

with an absorbing theoretical

explanation.  e volume tells

the case study tale of a project

funded by the U.S. Economic

Development Administration

(EDA) in Oakland, California,

that was intended to create

permanent jobs for minori-

ties through the construction

of a hangar and terminal and the subsequent leasing

of the terminal to a for-pro t company that would

expand and hire minority workers. Financial resources

had been appropriated, local actors seemed favorably

disposed, and con ict appeared minimal—and yet

after several years, almost nothing had happened on

the ground. Pressman and Wildavsky’s analysis of the

implementation process leading to such disappoint-

ing results concluded that the causes of failure “were

of a prosaic and everyday character. Agreements had

to be maintained after they were reached. Numerous

approvals and clearances had to be obtained from a va-

riety of participants” (xx).  e authors argue that im-

plementation is an exceedingly di cult challenge, and

they encourage readers to expect frequent problems,

perhaps occasionally punctuated by rare successes.

Why? In their e orts to generalize from the case, they

diagnose the principal di culty as what they refer to

as “the complexity of joint action” (see 87–124). Most

implementation settings, Pressman and Wildavsky

suggest, are marked by a multiplicity of participants,

Je rey L. Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementa-

tion: How Great Expectations in Washington Are

Dashed in Oakland (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1973, 1979, 1984). 304 pp.

$21.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780520053311.

Few books hold as iconic a

place in a  eld of learning

as does Implementation by

Je rey L. Pressman and Aaron

Wildavsky,  rst published in

1973 and since then a mainstay

among specialists on the subject

of policy implementation.  e

book was a best-seller in aca-

demic terms and was published

again through two more edi-

tions.1  e third edition, pub-

lished in 1984, remains in print

to this day.  e core initial study

contained the main empirical

and theoretical contributions and attracted widespread

attention. Indeed, the cover of the paperback third edi-

tion contains blurbs from the New York Times, National

Review, New Republic, and Virginia Quarterly Review.

Beyond such general publications, most serious

research studies of policy implementation in the

subsequent decades have continued to cite the

study—often in general terms, sometimes as a sort of

touchstone, much as Woodrow Wilson’s 1887 essay is

cited by scholars in public administration as the publi-

cation that symbolically launched a self-aware  eld

of inquiry. And, as with Wilson’s essay, attributing

such a role to Pressman and Wildavsky’s contribution

is somewhat misleading. For though it is true that

these two political scientists claimed that they were

creating a new  eld of study by focusing on policy

implementation—“no one else has apparently tried to

distinguish policy from implementation” (xxiii n. 4),2

“implementation in recent years has been much dis-

cussed but rarely studied” (xxi), “there is no previous

literature on which to rely for guidance” (xxi)—they

 e EDA in Oakland: A Case  at Catalyzed a Field

Hindy Lauer Schachter, Editor

Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr.

University of Georgia

[Je rey L. Pressman and Aaron

Wildaysky’s] book took hold

of people’s attention and

imagination not only because

of the authors’ (dubious)

claims of virtually complete

originality, but also because

it told a gripping story that

was then  tted ex post facto

with an absorbing theoretical

explanation.