CHAPTER TWELVE: Implementation
Review
1. Jeffery L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky's 1973 book titled Implementation discussed how many government programs embark with expansive goals but in the end, the government is simply unable to administer the programs to meet programmatic goals. They attribute failure to a complexity in the implementation process where the greater the complexity the greater the failure, as each strand in the "seamless web" depends on all of the others. What do you think of this idea? Do you agree with Pressman and Wildavsky? Can you give examples of government programs you've witnessed in which an increase in administrative complexity has led to a failure to reach goals? What do you think the government should do to combat this phenomenon? Plan programs with objectives that are more tentative or implement their programs with bold objectives more effectively? Why?
2. What do you think about the rise of formula-based programs over project-based programs? Do you think this represents a positive trend in the design of federal grants or do you think the trend is a negative one? Explain your answer.
3. Describe the different programs listed in the chapter, from CompStat to CitiStat to others, and evaluate them. Which do you think are the best? Do you think such programs are worth the financial and implementation costs on the front end for the efficiency they produce in the long run? Do you think such programs can only work in certain places like big cities, or do you think they could work just as well in rural, poorer communities? In short, how versatile are these programs? Is there a one-size-fits-all model due to the advances in technology, or is the United States just so diverse a place that we must expect lots of different kind of program designs?
4. Discuss the five different "problems of performance" listed in the text. Which one do you think is the most problematic? Which the least? Why do you think so? Again, do you think all of these problems will have equal weight regardless of their geographic location? In other words, will these problems manifest more or less in urban versus rural areas, or in state versus local governments?
5. Read the following excerpt from the text and discuss the questions listed below it.
"Federal agencies issue numerous regulations and guidelines, and state and local officials complain about their proliferation. Paradoxically, federal control of state and local implementation is weak, and in block-grant programs, it is intentionally weak because broad discretion is a central federal goal. The federal government may require each state and local government to plan for the use for the grant and to report how the grant was allocated and spent, but it cannot question the use of money unless the usage clearly violates the law or regulations. In fact, illegal as well as trivial uses of block-grant funds may go undetected and unpunished because of federal reliance on self-reporting by recipient governments, inadequate auditing and enforcement staffs, and the overriding commitment to shift decision making downward in the federal system".
What do you think of this lax federal control as it applies to block grants? As a citizen who pays taxes, do you think it is just that money can be misused or even illegally used and that this can go on without intervention from the federal government because of their "goal of broad discretion" in the management of these kinds of grants? Do you think that the benefits of using proxies (and you can list them) are worth the costs of using them? Discuss.