In 1993, Hall famously introduced the construct of a policy paradigm as a: "Framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and kind of instruments that can be used, but also the very nature of... [ view full abstract ]
In 1993, Hall famously introduced the construct of a policy paradigm as a:
"Framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and kind of instruments that can be used, but also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing" (279)
Hall drew strongly upon Kuhn’s (1962) concept of a scientific paradigm within which ‘normal science’ is ‘practiced’ using a coherent set of cognitively accepted norms and rules. Both Hall and Kuhn have been criticized for the relative ambiguity of the concepts they developed, and recent debate has focused on what exactly is a policy paradigm, and what constitutes paradigm shift?
Kuhn’s (1974; see also Hacking 2012) own response to the charge of ambiguity was that paradigms operate at global and local levels. Nested within the global community of scientists can be found local communities of the main scientific professional groups such as physicists. Within each of these local communities are nested further groupings distinguished by area of study. Each of these local communities has their own local paradigm but shares an overarching scientific paradigm.
Translating this to the policy sphere, this paper begins from the premise that an overarching neoliberal political-economic frame, where a coherent set of ideas have been institutionalized, approximates to Kuhn’s notion of a global paradigm. Even ‘grand-strategy issues’ such as welfare policy, that can be conceptualized as ‘general paradigms’ impacting on policy decisions across different sectors (Béland 2005: 8), are nested within, and framed by this political economic frame. Smaller-issue or local ‘paradigms’ such as the social enterprise paradigm that is unpacked in this paper, are further nested within, and framed by general paradigms.
At each level a paradigm will consist of different elements of legitimating ideational material (cognitive, normative, pragmatic and regulatory). This paper develops a framework to help distinguish between institutional material that can be seen as macro-level values and ideas (cognitive) and those that are merely consistent with societal or political frames of reference (normative). This framework is ‘tested’ by an analysis of the ideas and policies that drove the formation and implementation of the ‘smaller issue’ social enterprise paradigm in England over a time period (1999-2012) that saw economic crisis, a change of government and, perhaps most importantly, a change in governing philosophy from the Third Way of New Labour to the Big Society of the Conservative dominated Coalition Government. While it is possible to identify significant change along the ideational dimensions of the social enterprise paradigm – suggesting a paradigm shift – the actual policies remained remarkably consistent.
The key contribution of this paper, therefore, is to demonstrate the utility of analytically separating normative from cognitive ideas. This reveals that while the normative policy principles shifted considerably, the cognitive framing of policies remained relatively unchanged. Returning to the conceptualization of nested paradigms suggests that the cognitive and normative material within both local and general paradigms is constrained and shaped by the wider political-economic frame. Paradigm shift in a Kuhnian sense requires substantive change in the cognitive policy frames within which normative policy principles are embedded. This is unlikely to occur in local (i.e. social enterprise) or even general (i.e. welfare) paradigms without a shift in the higher-level (neoliberal) political-economic frame.
References
Béland , D. (2005) ‘Ideas and social policy: An institutionalist perspective’, Social Policy and Administration, 39(1):1-18.
Hacking, I. (2012) ‘Introductory essay’ in T. Kuhn. The structure of scientific revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Hall, P. (1993) ‘Policy paradigms, social learning, and the State: The case of economic policy making in Britain’, Comparative Politics, 25(3): 275-296.
Kuhn, T. (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago.
Kuhn, T. (1974) Second thoughts on paradigms, http://eu.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Second_Thoughts_on_Paradigms.pdf
