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Damien J. Wirths
1
A critical examination of the policymaking process and of
the lawmakers’ motivation for evaluations
A theoretical framework
DAMIEN JAMES WIRTHS*1
Abstract: There is strong evidence showing the rise of a culture of public policy evaluation in
Switzerland, and as a result, a huge amount of money is spent on more and more
evaluations. It triggers the need to know how to best make use of this investment.
Nevertheless, the existing literature on public policy evaluation is not able to satisfactorily
explain why policymakers require mandatory evaluations only in certain cases. Recently,
scholars, lawyers, and practitioners claim, under the label of evidence-based policy making,
that efficiency evaluations are related to policymaking improvement and that it would be a
panacea leading to better laws. However, evidence shows that most of the time evaluation
results are not addressed to the policymaker and the legal basis of the evaluation (evaluation
clause) is not precise enough to implement the evaluation. Using a game theoretic
framework from the actors of the policymaking process, I consider the most important forms
of institutionalized evaluation, the so-called evaluation clauses, to highlight the necessary
conditions under which they have appeared. The solutions of the games yield two empirically
testable hypotheses, distinguishing the policymakers’ willingness to adopt an evaluation
clause. The policymaker’s motivation to evaluate the policy could be either to actually
improve the policy efficiency (instrumental use of knowledge) or to expand their power and
legitimacy (symbolic use of knowledge). The paper assesses how well the theory and
hypotheses fit the actual “raison d’être” of evaluation clause, proposing a case study of Swiss
policymaking process using several lines of cases.
KEYWORDS: Evaluation, Legislature, Game theory, Policymaking.
1
* Phd Student at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration involved in the research project SynEval, funded by the Sinergia program of the Swiss National Science Foundation. SynEval analyzes the relationship between different attributes of political systems and the practice and institutionalization of policy evaluation. Therefore, SynEval addresses the fundamental questions of how policy evaluation in Switzerland is influenced by the Swiss political system, and how policy evaluation in turn influences the Swiss political system. These questions are answered with an innovative and fruitful research track, as attributes of policy evaluation are linked with policy, polity, and politics in a comprehensive approach. More information about SynEval: http://syneval.ch/index.php/en/ 2
Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
Introduction
Evaluation of public policies is growing and evaluation is currently a well-established,
systematic and institutionalized information instrument (Bussmann, 2008; Eliadis,
Furubo, & Jacob, 2011; Mader, 1990). A key aspect is to consider the legal basis
requiring
mandatory
evaluation,
the
most
important
form
of
evaluation
institutionalization (Hans-Ulrich Derlien, 1998). Because evaluation is not a fixed
term, I have to define that:
The notion of ‘Evaluation clauses’ is introduced to describe a legal
basis added since the draft or during the negotiation process into a law
and asking for an evaluation of the impact of the public policy.
It is an information instrument related to the implementation of public policy only
focused on evaluation in a strict sense (FOJ, 2005) meaning the investigation of
policy efficiency2 (Evaluation) – in contrast with other kinds of information instruments
highlighting process efficiency (controlling) or providing statistics (monitoring) (FOJ,
2004, 2007). Evaluation is, above all, related to the causes of the social
transformation (impact) and not only to the measure of effects produced by the law
(outcomes). What happens after a bill becomes a law? Are legal dispositions
implemented? What are the impacts and the outcome produced for a given law? Are
the legislator’s goals reached? Following Luzius Mader, I consider these fundamental
questions of public policy evaluation in a multidisciplinary framework named
“legislative evaluation”, defined as a scientific analysis of the implementation and
effects of laws (Mader, 1985, 1994).
The evaluation clauses are considered as an indicator of legislative evaluation
demand and their characteristic is to have been established without standards (FOJ,
2007). A recent study (Wirths 2014) has showed that the evaluation clauses can be
classified into two categories according to their normative density: the weak clauses
(very lacunar regarding the evaluation implementation) and the strong clauses (more
precise regarding who has to evaluate what, when, under which criteria and to whom
send the report). Most of the time, the clauses is introduced since the draft of the bill
(FAO, 2011; Wirths, 2014).
The aim of this paper is not to provide legislative evaluations but, on the one hand, to
raise the question of the reasons why mandatory legislative evaluation is sometimes
required, and sometimes not and, on the other hand, to identify the necessary
2
Excluding the analysis of human resources, IT, products and supply (FOJ, 2005). Damien J. Wirths
3
conditions explaining why strong or weak evaluation clauses are introduced. Despite
a huge literature on the importance of public policy evaluation, little attention has
been paid to the actual lawmaker’s motivations for evaluation. However, in
Switzerland, a recent study from the Federal Audit Office highlighted several tricky
findings. On the one hand, evaluation clauses are most of time not enough clearly
formulated to be well implemented and that “these clauses tend to be very
inconsistent and often imprecise, leading to many ambiguities during implementation”
(FAO, 2011). On the other hand, they found that the addressees of evaluation results
were mainly not specified. At the international level, I can also highlight the Bush
Administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), that assessed all
programs “to make sure they are working well for the American people”3 but whom
the results were used by congressional chambers on a limited basis (Frisco &
Stalebrink, 2008) and that have been criticized “as overly political and a tool to shift
power from Congress to the President” (Brass, 2004). Hence, when politicians are
not the addressees of the evaluation results and when these results are not
reinjected in the policymaking process, how could policy improvement be the
reached purpose?
The absence of rigorous theory of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluation has made
difficult to explain the actual meaning of such a kind public expenditures.
Nevertheless, the question is of great practical relevance because either the
evaluation is a necessary requirement whom the success of the law is depending on,
or the evaluation serves private or organisational interest thanks to public money.
This paper would like to help policymakers to identify, when an evaluation clause is
proposed in the draft of a bill, if the related expenditure serves the public policy or an
other purpose.
At the Swiss federal level, a first evaluation clause has been introduced in 1984
(Bussmann, 2005), which has been followed by 114 clauses according to a
monitoring provided by the Federal Office of Justice4. Moreover, “The Swiss
Federation is, at the international level, a pioneer in the use of this technique. No
other country has established an evaluation requirement as a constitutional norm,
such as Article 170 of the Federal Constitution” (Jacob, 2005, p. 299) which
3
www.expectingmore.gov (consulted on May 2014) http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/content/bj/fr/home/themen/staat_und_buerger/evaluation/materialien_/uebersic
ht.html (consulted on August 2013) 4
Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
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stipulates that “The Federal Assembly shall ensure that effectiveness of the
measures taken by the Confederation is subject to evaluation” 5. The crucial issue is
to determine the roots of evaluation clauses. Even if several studies have studied
institutionalization of public policy evaluation, until now, this question has not yielded
an extensive literature (Jacob, 2005) an no studies have been devoted to the
reasons why public authorities have specifically institutionalized evaluation through
legal basis.
A multidisciplinary topic
This paper deals with legislative evaluation considering the field of law with the
unusual perspective of a political scientist. The specific question of who is allowed or
abled to study laws or legal basis has been a big disciplinary issue. From the 80’s,
Pierre Bourdieu challenged the jurist monopoly, highlighting that they are not the only
professionals allowed to deal with law and to analyse them - criticizing the illusory
monopoly of law interpretation and their tendency to hide how laws reflect existing
balance of power (Bourdieu, 1986, 1991).
I don’t want to open up the debate here and I prefer adopting a more consensual
perspective than opposing juridical science to political science. Following Jacques
Chevalier (2004), I focus on the interdisciplinary of the study of laws. In this paper, I
focused on the political dimension of the juridical phenomenon (Chevallier, 2004, p.
48) considering that the legal norm is not the product of a spontaneous generation
due to juridical field without any political input. This paper speaks about what
Chevalier would call “the political begetting of law”, and more specifically of legislative
evaluation.
Concerning this specific aspect of the study of law, Charles-Albert Morand (1999)
recognized that, since science of law is only focused on law implementation,
legislative evaluation (focused on law production and evaluation) adopted mainly its
knowledge and its method to political science, and specifically to public policy study.
Basically, legislative evaluation is now merged with public policy evaluation.
Mainstream conception of evaluation
For Jacques Chevalier, beside the distinction between political science and juridical
science, the legislative evaluation issue would be related to a law managerialization
since law is perceived through the lens of its efficiency instead of its regularity
(Chevallier, 2008). Raising this question, considering the law under the criteria of its
5
RS 101, art. 170. Damien J. Wirths
5
reached results would be synonymous of a penetration of the managerial thinking in
the field of law (Chevallier, 2008). Currently, bills would be submitted to a quality
control and they have to demonstrate their necessity, opportunity, and practicability
(Ost, 1999, p. 13).
For scholars working on legislative evaluation (mostly considered as an evaluation
institutionalization), evaluation is mainly considered as a neutral and scientific
activity, supporting parliamentarian oversight, building strong knowledge bases for
policymaking or helping agencies develop improved capabilities for politics and
program planning, implementation and analysis of results (Chelimsky, 2006, p. 39). In
the policymaking process, evaluation demand is perceived as a panacea leading to a
more rational policymaking (Mader, 1985, p. 119), increasing law quality (evidencebased policymaking, legitimizing the law and supporting implementation oversight.
Evaluation is also seen as a response to the complexity of the post-modern State
(FOJ, 2004), promoting accountability and improving governmental management
(Davies, Newcomer, & Soydan, 2006, p. 165). Most scholars consider evaluation
demand as a means of improving the quality of public policy outputs and they reduce
evaluation demand either as incorporating information of evaluations into the
legislation process, or as fulfilling the legislature’s oversight function.
Nevertheless, these studies do not consider sufficiently the fact that, during a
policymaking process, decision-makers can, in every step of the policy cycle,
mobilize institutional rules and resources (such as the introduction of evaluation
clauses) to impact the content of the concerned step in their favour (Knoepfel,
Larrue, & Frédéric, 2002).
The notion of symbolic use of knowledge
The recent findings regarding the formulation weakness of evaluation clauses tend to
contradict the assumed willingness to improve laws and policies (FAO, 2011). It can
be related to the research question developed by Christina Boswell (2009). She
noticed that “the typical explanation given for this increased demand for expert
knowledge is proffered by what is termed the ‘problem-solving’ or ‘instrumentalist’
approach. According to this account, governments and civil servants recognize that
expert knowledge is crucial for improving the quality of their outputs (Boswell, 2009,
p. 4). Such a kind of consideration can be found in the stakeholder argumentation,
related either to a juridical approach (Aubert, 2003; Bussmann, 2005; Mader, 1985;
Charles-Albert Morand, 2001), highlighting clause significance, or to a functionalist
Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
6
approach (Bussmann, Klöti, Knoepfel, & Varone, 1998; Chelimsky, 2006; Hans-Ulrich
Derlien & Rist, 2002; Mader, 1985), giving a framework related to the governmental
need for evaluation results (Davies et al., 2006)6.
Christina Boswell highlighted that ”it has frequently been observed that in many
policy areas, political debate and decision systematically fail to take into account
research findings” (Boswell, 2009, p. 5). In her book, she challenged what she called
an instrumentalist account of evaluation. My starting point is that, under certain
cases, evaluation clauses are related to such a kind of political use, or, using
Boswell’s terminology, “symbolic use” (rather than an instrumental one). Even though
“research is in fact highly valued by policymakers, and it plays a crucial role in
policymaking and political argumentation”, she considered that “the value of expert
knowledge does not lie exclusively, or even predominantly, in its contribution to
policy. Research does (indeed) play an important political function, but this is not
necessary an instrumental one” (Boswell, 2009, p. 7). For the purpose of this paper,
the following terminology is adopted. On the one hand, the instrumental use of
knowledge considers the evaluation clause as a means of “improving the quality of
the outputs or adjusting the social impacts of the public actions” (Boswell, 2009, p.
61) through legislative revisions (Frey, 2010). On the other hand, the symbolic use of
knowledge considers rather evaluation clauses as a means of “enhancing the
legitimacy of an organisation or as a way of lending credibility to its policy
preferences” (Boswell, 2009, p. 61).
Bussman and Knoepfel (1998) recognized already in the 90’s that evaluation can be
strategically used by politicians to strengthen a strategic position or at least to
neutralize an opponent position. In their text, Bussman and Knoepfel presented
cases where administration required an evaluation to motivate credit request, and
where interest groups tried to influence decision-makers’ knowledge. More recently,
Karsson and Conner (2006), in their chapter on the relationship between evaluation
and politics, highlighted how far evaluation is inextricably linked to the phenomena of
6
Even though the first category of works does not investigate the cause of evaluation clause introduction, the second is also insufficient. On the one hand, they do not present empirical evidence to support their claims and, on the other hand, they do not propose independent variables involving a causal link between political behaviour and evaluation clause introduction. Moreover, most of these studies focused on the use of evaluation results rather than evaluation demand. However, research has consistently shown factors that have fostered evaluation institutionalization (whose evaluation clauses are a form). In this paper, I will consider these highlighted factors as control variables, exogenous to the policy-­‐making process as the fiscal situation, the political constellation and the constitutional features (Derlien/Rist 2002, Derlien 1990, Derlien 1998) as well as the federalism (Mader 1994). Damien J. Wirths
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conflict and consensus. They claim that “this context means that there are multiple
actors and institutions with power and interests to influence the evaluation, from the
choices of criteria, standards, and methods, to the choice of an evaluator” (Karsson &
Conner, 2006, p. 237). They proposed three views on the relationship between
evaluation and politics. One of them sees politics as driven by many influences other
than evaluation, protecting its own interests, and harmful to evaluation. Moreover, in
a paper devoted to factors influencing the introduction of evaluation demand in the
United States, Hamm and Robertson (1981) have shown that conflict between
government and parliament was a key factor.
Consequently, this paper considers that sometime the required evaluation is
necessary for the good implementation of the law (which will otherwise suffer
implementation-failures or programme-failures), represented as an instrumental use
of knowledge, and sometimes the evaluation aims to support a symbolic use of
knowledge and is not necessary to the law implementation.
Research question
The existing literature on legislative evaluation is not able to satisfactorily describe
the causes of evaluation clauses in a particular law and why they ask sometimes for
a weak clause, and sometimes for a strong clause. The two investigation purposes of
this paper are (1) to understand why public authorities have introduced mandatory
evaluation, and (2) to explain the great heterogeneity of the clauses (which have a
very variable normative density) and the fact that, most of the time, their formulation
is incomplete and not enough precise (too low normative density) to be well
implemented (FAO, 2011; FOJ, 2012; Wirths, 2014).
Considering that the evaluation clauses are most of the time introduced since the
draft of the bill, the paper has as a priority to address the question of: which causal
factors are necessary conditions for explaining why administration proposed strong or
weak evaluation clauses into a draft? The question is of great practical relevance
since when Parliament is facing a bill containing an evaluation clause, how can it
know if the induced costs are justified to guarantee the correct implementation
(instrumental use of knowledge) or are rather serving the administration’s or
government’s interest? This is the point of this article that aims to determinate if the
evaluation clauses could be an indicator of the administration’s motivation.
Since all collectable data will contain an evaluation clause (constraint on the case
selection), the causal links will highlight necessary conditions to infer evaluation
Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
8
clause instead of sufficient conditions (Dion, 1998). Thus, the paper aims to highlight
factors that always exist when the dependant variables occurs (weak or strong
evaluation clauses), event if these factors do not necessarily lead to the introduction
of evaluation clauses. The findings are of great theoretical significance for political
science, public administration theory and law because, until now, empirical research
on the relationship between politics and the practice and institutionalization of policy
evaluation has been missing.
The evaluation clause dilemma
I begin by presenting a game theoretic analysis of the strategic environment affecting
interactions between the administration and politicians in the policymaking process.
This theoretical framework yields empirically testable hypotheses thanks to the
identification of logical scenarios (equilibria) leading to the introduction of an
evaluation clause (dependent variable) and of conditions under which such equilibria
are possible (independent variables). Hence, game solutions ensure the plausibility
of the causal argument and the logical validity of the theory. Asserting the
policymaking process is strategic is no longer controversial and it is well established
that game theory models, considered as rigorous deductive analytical tools, have
been successfully deployed in all the subfields of political science. In political
interactions no actor can alone determine the outcome of the situation and all actors
must think about what the other actors will do when choosing their own actions
(Morrow, 1994). A game is generally thought of as a situation in which individuals are
aware that their actions affect one another. This is particularly relevant for policy
formulation analysis.
Recent works have considered “evaluation games” (Eliadis et al., 2011) but it was
mostly a misuse of language rather related to the balance of power due to the
interaction between evaluators, mandators, and evaluated. These scholars have too
focused on the evaluators and underestimate the keyplayer of the evaluation: the
ones who ask for it. This paper does not deal with the game of the evaluators who try
to maximize his room for manoeuvring, but about the evaluation clause dilemma of
deciding to require an evaluation, or not. Scholars working on evaluation often
explain why people should ask for evaluation, but they have never demonstrated why
they actually do it.
Consequently, the model proposed here is a game between the policymakers, and
the presence of the clause into the draft of the bill is considered as a signal (Cho &
Damien J. Wirths
9
Kreps, 1987) emitted by the drafter. Signalling games allow for representing a
situation when some players are better informed about variables than other players
(Osborne, 2004, p. 331). Hence, the informed players (the sender) will take action
(the potential signal) observed by the uninformed parties (the receiver) before the
latter take actions. For the receiver, the main issue is to determine if the signal is
relevant and, if so, how to interpret it. In signalling games, one can identify two kinds
of scenarios (pure strategy equilibria): first, whatever the information is, the signal
doesn’t inform the receiver about the variable (pooling equilibrium). Second,
observing the sender’s action will clearly signal the sender’s information (separate
equilibrium).
Basic component of the game
The present modelling (fig. 1) of the policymaking tends to be as robust as possible in
the setting of the game and to avoid baroqueness (Allan & Dupont, 1999). Basically,
the model is related to an important class of game, named “signalling game”
(McCarty & Meirowitz, 2007, pp. 214-250) between two players involved in a dynamic
noncooperative game where players choose strategies sequentially on a single issue
(the debated policy). The first player (the sender) is the administration7 (S) which
drafts a bill that he will later implement (at least partially). As highlighted above, the
law can either require additional knowledge to be well implemented or not. In the first
case, requiring efficiency evaluation is considered as a willingness to do an
instrumental use of knowledge (t1). In the second case, evaluation is considered as a
willingness to do a symbolic use of knowledge (t2). Hence, S is type t ∈ {t1 , t2} and p
represents the probability for S being t1, and 1-p the probability of being t2. The
parliament is the receiver (R).
Before the parliamentary phase, the administration drafts the bill and moves first.
During this first opportunity, (preparliamentary phase) the administration knows his
type and chooses whether to include an evaluation clause (strong or a weak), or not8.
This first move represents a message m ∈ {strong, weak}. When the parliament has
the opportunity to play, he does not know what administration’s type is and has
simply the choice between refusing the bill (N) adopting it with a clause (Y) and,
adopting it without clause (Λ).
7
Even if we know that the government leads administration, the term “administration” will be used to globally represent this player whom we consider the same interest. 8
Here I simplify the model and I do not take this action into account because the empirical corpus available is focused on laws with evaluation clauses. Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
10
Fig. 1 : Extensive form of the evaluation clause dilemma
Concerning the measurement of sender’s utilities, according to the setting of the
game, I distinguish between type t1 which have no interest in the adoption of the bill
(and which is indifferent regarding the payoff, always equal to 0) and type t2 which
have an organisational interest in the adoption of the bill (payoff = ΠS in case of
adoption rather than 0 if the bill is rejected), and more particularly with a weak
evaluation clause that will allows for a reward9 (payoff = ΠS + a). It means that
playing weak clause is a dominated strategy for type t210. Even though type t1 is
insensitive to his own payoff, the fact to propose an evaluation clause is not for free
and is logically related to a perceived risk of implementation-failure (that would be
decreased thanks to the evaluation results). This risk doesn’t exist with type t2 since
he has an interest in the success of the law. This potential failure impacts the
measurement of receiver’s utilities. On the one hand, one has to consider that the
evaluation implementation will be costly (payoff reduced by – c). On the other hand,
either there is a risk for the law implementation (and the evaluation clause is
justified), or there is no risk and the clause is useless. If the implementation required
additional knowledge (t1), the parliament runs a risk of implementation failure
9
Because the room for manoeuvring allowed : « Because the phrasing of the evaluation clauses is often imprecise, the responsible federal authorities tend not to critically question their activities, but to use an evaluation to try and legitimise them » (FAO, 2011) 10
Introducing a strong clause is always at least as good as and some times better than introducing a weak clause. Damien J. Wirths
11
adopting the law without evaluation (payoff = 0). If the law implementation does not
require additional knowledge to be performed (t2), the parliament would earn the best
payoff without evaluation clause (payoff = ΠR) rather than paying for a useless
evaluation (payoff = ΠR - c). In any case, all is better than refusing the bill, in other
word the status quo (payoff = S), as long as ΠR > S.
Separate equilibrium?
The first scenario is very intuitive: the type t2 administration will propose weak clause
to maximise its payoff and type t1 administration will propose strong clause to
maximise the implementation efficiency. The inverse is not plausible (since strong
clause is a dominated strategy for t2). Hence, the scenario assumes that each
administration type chooses a different message. The first question is: can the
parliamentarian logically identify the administration type observing the clause type?
More specifically, can we assume a first strategy σ1, so that weak clauses are related
to willingness to do a symbolic use of knowledge, and that strong clauses are related
to the willingness to do an instrumental use? In other words,
!! (!)
!"#$%& !" ! = !!
!"#$ !" ! = !!
Regarding the beliefs for Parliament, let µ (ti|A) be the probability receiver assigns to
type i after observing action A. If Parliament sees that administration plays strong, he
will assign probability 1 to t1 (and 0 to t2). In contrast, seeing a weak evaluation
clause, he will assign probability 1 to t2 (and 0 to t1). Bayes’ rule applies and the
resulting Parliament’s beliefs are:
µμ (!! | !"#$%&) = (!! | !"#$) = 1
µμ (!! | !"#$) = (!! | !"#$%&) = 0 In these conditions, Parliament’s expected utilities (EUP) from playing A, Λ or R
against weak are:
!"! !, !"#$ = 0 • 0 − ! + 1 • Π − ! = Π − !
!"! Λ, !"#$ = 0 • 0 + 1 • Π = Π !"! !, !"#$ = 0 • ! + 1 • ! = !
Since,
Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
12
!"! Λ, !"#$ > !"! !, !"#$ > !"! !, !"#$
Hence, the best response11 against weak is !" !"#$ = Λ. In contrast, Parliament
expected utilities (EUP) from playing A, Λ or R against strong are:
!"! !, !"#$%& = 1 • Π − ! + 0 • Π − ! = Π − !
!"! Λ, !"#$%& = 1 • 0 + 0 • Π = 0 !"! !, !"#$%& = 1 • ! + 0 • ! = !
And since,
!"! !, !"#$%& > !"! !, !"#$%& > !"! Λ, !"#$%&
Thus the best response against strong is !" !"#$%& = A. Nevertheless, his strategy
(type t1 plays strong and type t2 plays weak) is an equilibrium (in other word, a
credible scenario) if and only if neither type of administration has an incentive to
deviate considering the best responses calculated. Type t1’s payoff is always the
same (whatever is the receiver response) and it has no incentive to deviate. Along
the equilibrium path, type t2’s payoff Π + a. Playing strong instead of weak, receiver’s
response will be A instead of Λ and his payoff becomes only Π. Since it is less than
the payoff earned along the equilibrium path, type t2 has no incentive to deviate. It
means that at least one type of administration has an incentive to deviate, and that
this is not equilibrium. Consequently, the following hypothesis can be made:
H1: A strong evaluation clause is proposed when the administration’s willingness is
an instrumental use of knowledge; otherwise, the evaluation clause is weak.
Pooling equilibrium?
In this case, the scenario assumes both administration types choose a same
message and their willingness (instrumental or symbolic) cannot be distinguished on
this basis. Since only two possibilities exist (everybody play weak or everybody play
strong) and since (as explain above) playing strong is a dominated strategy for type
t2, the only plausible pooling equilibrium would be both administration type play weak.
!! (!)
!"#$ !" ! = !!
!"#$ !" ! = !!
As previously, let µ (ti|A) be the probability the receiver assigns to type i after
observing action A. If Parliament sees that administration plays weak, he will assign
11
The action that gives the highest payoff against the first player’s strategy Damien J. Wirths
13
probability 1 to t1 and to t2. Bayes’ rule applies and Parliament’s beliefs are:
! (!! | !"#$) = ! !"# ! (!! | !"#$) = 1 − ! If, however, government plays strong, which shouldn’t occur along the equilibrium
path related to the pooling equilibrium (weak, weak), Bayes’s rule does not apply and
beliefs have to be assigned. However, since type t2 will not deviate (because strong
is a dominated strategy) and since type t1 is insensitive (payoff always equal 0), we
do not need to take this possibility into account.
! (!! | !"#$%&) = ! !"# ! (!! | !"#$%&) = 1 − ! This time, Parliament’s expected utilities (EUP) from playing A, Λ or R against weak
are:
!"! (!, !"#$) = ! • (Π − !) + (1 − !) • (Π − !) = Π − !
!"! Λ, !"#$ = ! • (0) + (1 − !) • (Π) = Π − !Π !"! (!, !"#$) = ! • ! + (1 − !) • ! = ! !
And, as long as Π > ! ,
!"! !, !"#$ > !"! Λ, !"#$ > !"! !, !"#$
Hence, the best response against strong is !" !"#$ = A and the strategy (weak,
weak) is a pooling equilibrium. Hence, following hypothesis can be deduced:
H2: A weak evaluation clause is introduced whatever the administration’s willingness
is (instrumental or symbolic use of knowledge).
The Swiss context
The Swiss political system is well known to be ideal for within-system comparisons
thanks to his high degree of internal heterogeneity. The 26 cantons of Swiss
Federation have retained state sovereignty, far-reaching competences and rights of
self-determination. Since they dispose of their “own territories, constitutions and legal
systems, organisational sovereignty and sovereignty to employ and dismiss staff, the
division of the political institutions into executive, legislature and judiciary and their
extensive legislative and fiscal competences, the cantons dispose of numerous
properties and characteristics of a State” (Vatter 2006: 198) and are equivalent to
small nations with its own policy-making agenda which is not set by the central
government (Wälti/Bullinger 2000).
In every canton, the process can be described in four formal steps: (1)
Critical examination of lawmaker’s motivation for evaluations
14
preparlimentary, (2) parliamentary, (3) referendum and (4) implementation. This
paper focuses on the first two involving basically, two kinds of players are involved:
(1) the implementing actors (mainly the government and the administration) and (2)
the parliamentarians. Thanks to the median voter concept (Downs 1957), given that
every step is under the majority rule, we can consider that each actor represents the
median position of its body and we are allowed to simplify the choice of each body to
that of a single actor.
Preparliamentary phase
The Government has a two main function in the process (1) drafting the bill and (2)
leading implementing actors. The «State Council» (Conseil d’Etat) is the highest
executive and administrative authority of the canton and is in charge of implementing
the laws. The citizens directly elect it and each member leads a department. The
number of departments depends on the size of the canton, on how developed the
administration is and on how professionalized the government work is (full-time or
part-time) (Felder 1993: 23). The divisions (offices) are the administrative units
subordinated to the departments, and on average we can find 48 divisions in a
canton (Vatter 2006:206). Switzerland has a very decentralized administration (by
international comparison), since 39% of the civil servants work at the cantonal level
(Linder 2005). Nevertheless, one has to keep in mind that the implementation phase
can involve several kinds of other actors, either public or private.
Most of the time, the decision-making process starts with the drafting of a bill by the
administration and the cantonal government (who leads the departments). The
parliament itself has the possibility to draft a bill (through a parliamentary initiative
proposed by an individual or a group of parliamentarians) but, for instance, at the
federal level, the administration takes the lead over the Parliament in the legislative
process and initiates almost half of the bills (Sciarini & al., 2002: 11). During a
consultation procedure, which usually consists in a written reply, principal parties and
interested organizations are consulted to express their point of view on the draft and
on the policy aims. Opinions are gathered, eventually integrated into the legislative
act, and a final draft is submitted to the parliament with an explanatory note.
Parliamentary phase
At the cantonal level there is only one parliamentary chamber named « Grand
Council » (Grand Conseil). The significance of interest groups is less formalized and
Damien J. Wirths
15
the political relationships between parties are more homogeneous, simpler and
clearer than at the federal level (Vatter 2006: 200). According to Vatter (2006: 208),
the size of the cantonal legislatures varies between 49 (Appenzell Innerhoden) and
200 seats (Bern until 2006). Being a parliamentarian on the legislative level is a
volunteer job that involves attending meetings, most of the time for , less than 200
hours per year (with the exception of Ticino, Vaud and Geneva) (Bolchsler et al.
2004: 45). Half of the cantons have between five and nine permanent commissions
but this number of ad hoc committees may vary between 0 (Appenzell Innerhoden
and Lucerne) and 450 (Vaud) within one legislative period (Heierli 2000:32).
In the policymaking process, the draft is discussed by the responsible legislative
committee (parliamentary commission). Under a majority rule it proposes either
accept or reject the proposal, or to accept it with certain modifications. The committee
have the possibility of suggesting dismissing the proposal without debate or to send it
back to the government. If the parliamentary commission modifies the draft, the floor
adopts on average 95% of the committee proposals. If a parliamentarian is outvoted
in the committee, he has the possibility to state his opinion writing a minority request
addressed to the floor.
Afterwards, during the plenary session, each parliamentarian has the right to call for
modifications. It could be minor corrections and, for instance, at the federal level, the
parliament modified only 44% of the proposals submitted by the Federal Council and
only 3% of the cases concerned questions of principle. As far as we are concerned,
evaluation clauses introduced in these steps are clearly not questions of principle
and can be considered as minor corrections.
Research design
Working progress
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