Acts Of Implementation: Turning Innovative Austerity Measures Into Reality

Innovation-oriented austerity measures are often proposed as solutions to run municipalities differently, and therefore better and cheaper. However, investing in innovation and organizational change when there is no budget, is... [ view full abstract ]

Innovation-oriented austerity measures are often proposed as solutions to run municipalities differently, and therefore better and cheaper. However, investing in innovation and organizational change when there is no budget, is extremely difficult. Evaluation research shows that a major Dutch city has implemented radical organizational changes in a short period of time. Drawing on the Policy Attributes Theory (PAT), this article hypothesizes that the municipality has managed to comply with multiple (five) ingredients of successful policy implementation. Based upon extensive documentary and interview data, however, this article shows that (a) not all of those ingredients were equally important, and (b) key participants had to enact these ingredients, stressing some and ignoring others. The municipalities’ capacity to anticipate the change implications, arrange appropriate courses of action, and accentuate particular ingredients has generated many immediate results. Evidence suggests that the focus now is changing from ‘quick wins’ to more sustainable reforms in the near future. The case evidence sheds a more nuanced light on PAT, stating that successful implementation is not so much a matter of complying with the five policy attributes, but in organizing targeted acts of implementation.