Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T14:03:16.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Paradigm Shifts and Policy Networks: Cumulative Change in Agriculture*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

William D. Coleman
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McMaster University1280 Main St. W Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada Fax: 1-905-527-3071 E-Mail: coleman@mcmaster.ca
Grace D. Skogstad
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
Michael M. Atkinson
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McMaster University

Abstract

This article presents an alternative trajectory to policy paradigm change to that outlined by Peter A. Hall's social learning model, in which unsuccessful efforts by state officials to respond to policy failures and anomalies in the existing paradigm eventually trigger a broader, societal, political partisan debate about policy principles. From this society-wide contestation over policy goals, problems, and solutions, a new policy paradigm emerges. Drawing on the conceptual tools of policy feedback and policy networks, this article describes an alternative route to paradigm shift in which change is negotiated between state actors and group representatives. Discussions of change are largely confined to sectoral policy networks and the result is a more managed series of policy changes that culminate in a paradigm shift. This argument for a second, cumulative trajectory to paradigm shift is developed by examining agricultural policy change in three countries: the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agriculture Canada (1989) Growing Together. Ottawa: Agriculture Canada.Google Scholar
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (1995) Agenda: Jobs and Growth. Securing our future in agriculture and agri-food. Ottawa: AAFC.Google Scholar
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (1994a). Federal-Provincial Task Force on Orderly Marketing, Discussion Guide: Towards an action plan for the renewal of the dairy, poultry, and egg industries, 01 28, 1994.Google Scholar
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (1994b). Federal-Provincial Task Force on Orderly Marketing, Action plan towards the implementation of sustainable orderly marketing systems in the Canadian dairy, poultry, and egg industries, 03 23, 1994.Google Scholar
Atkinson, M.M. and Coleman, W.D. (1989) Strong States and Weak States: Sectoral Policy Networks in Advanced Industrial Economies, British Journal of Political Science, 19, 1, 4767.Google Scholar
Belzile, André (1994). ‘Uniformiser les programmes canadiens.’ La Terre de Chez Nous, 713 avril.Google Scholar
Booz-Allen, and Hamilton, (Australia) Ltd. (1995) A report commissioned by the Grains Council of Australia's National Grain Marketing Strategic Planning Unit. Canberra, 01.Google Scholar
Brooks, Jonathan C., and Carter, Colin A. (1994) The Political Economy of US Agriculture. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, ABARE Research Report 94.8.Google Scholar
Browne, William P., (1988) Private Interests, Public Policy and American Agriculture. Lawrence, KS, University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Canada (1995) Budget Plan. Ottawa: 02 27.Google Scholar
Canadian Dairy Commission (1995). Annual Report, 19941995.Google Scholar
Canadian Dairy Commission (1996). Bulletin, 07.Google Scholar
Cochrane, Willard W., and Ryan, Mary E. (1976) American Farm Policy, 1948–1973. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, W.D. and Skogstad, Grace (1990) Policy Communities and Policy Networks: A Structural Approach. In Coleman, and Skogstad, (eds.) Policy Communities and Public Policy in Canada: A Structural Approach. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman.Google Scholar
Coleman, W.D. and Skogstad, Grace (1995) Neo-Liberalism, Policy Networks, and Policy Change: Agricultural Policy Reform in Australia and Canada, Australian Journal of Political Science, 30: 242263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Consultation Committee on the Future of the Dairy Industry (1992a), Working Document. Ottawa.Google Scholar
Consultation Committee on the Future of the Dairy Industry (1992b). Report. Ottawa.Google Scholar
Culpepper, Pepper D., (1993) Organisational Competition and the Neo-Corporatist Fallacy in French Agriculture, West European Politics, 16, 295315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Bruce L., (1995) Practical Policy Alternatives for the 1995 Farm Bill. In Sumner, Daniel A. (ed.) Agricultural Policy Reform in the United States. Washington, DC: The AEI Press.Google Scholar
Grains Council of Australia (1993) Newsletter to all Wheatgrowers. Canberra: GCA.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A (1993) Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain, Comparative Politics, 25, 275297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooke, Mitchell (1993) The Australian Grains Industry: Planning for the Future, Agricultural Science, 01.Google Scholar
Jobert, Bruno and Muller, Pierre (1987) L'État en action. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Keeler, John (1987) The Politics of Neocorporatism in France. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lehmbruch, Gerhard (1984) The Logic and Structural Conditions of Neo-Corporatist Concertation, in Goldthorpe, John (ed.) Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marin, Bernd (1985) Austria: The Paradigm Case of Liberal Corporatism? in Grant, Wyn (ed.) The Political Economy of Corporatism. London, Macmillan, 89125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New South Wales Farmers' Association (1993) The Grain File. Sydney: NSW Farmers Association.Google Scholar
North, Douglass (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul (1993) When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change, World Politics, 45, 595628.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul (1994) Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment. New York, Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul (1996) The New Politics of the Welfare State. World Politics, 48, 143179.Google Scholar
Piggott, Roley (1990) Agricultural Marketing, in Williams, D.B. (ed.) Agriculture in the Australian Economy. South Melbourne: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas (1996) Exploring the Nature of the Beast: International Relations Theory and Comparative Policy Analysis Meet the European Union, Journal of Common Market Studies, 34. 5380.Google Scholar
Scharpf, Fritz W., (1988) The Joint Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration. Public Administration, 66, 239278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharpf, Fritz W., (1989) Decision Rules, Decision Styles and Policy Choices, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 1, 149176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitter, Philippe C., (1979) Still the Century of Corporatism? In Schmitter, and Lehmbruch, Gerhard (eds.) Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation. London: Sage, 752.Google Scholar
Skogstad, Grace (1987) The Politics of Agricultural Policy-Making in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skogstad, Grace (1990) The Farm Policy Community and Public Policy in Ontario and Quebec, in Coleman, and Skogstad, (eds.) Policy Communities and Public Policy in Canada: A Structural Approach. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman.Google Scholar
Tower, Courtney (1994) Opinions vary at safety net talks; little progress is made. The Western Producer, 04 14, 8.Google Scholar
Trebeck, David (1990) Farmer Organisations, in Williams, D.B. (ed.) Agriculture in the Australian Economy. South Melbourne: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
United States General Accounting Office (1992) Canada and Australia Rely Heavily on Wheat Boards to Market Grain. Washington, D.C.: USGAO.Google Scholar
van Waarden, Frans (1992) Dimensions and types of policy networks. European fournal of Political Research, 21, 2952.Google Scholar
Weir, Margaret and Skocpol, Theda (1985) State Structures and the Possibilities for ‘Keynesian’ Responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States, in Evans, Peter B., Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, (eds.) Bringing the State Back In. New York, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, Peter (1989) Corporatism in Perspective. London, Sage.Google Scholar
Wilson, Barry (1995a) New national farm safety net ‘teeters on the edge of a cliff’. The Western Producer, 04 27, 5.Google Scholar
Wilson, Barry (1995b) Safety net may have too many holes: CFA. The Western Producer, 05 11, 1.Google Scholar
Young, Brigitte, Lindberg, Leon, and Hollingsworth, J. Rogers (1989) The Governance of the American Dairy Industry: from regional dominance to regional cleavage, in Coleman, W. D. and Jacek, H. J. (eds.) Regionalism, Business Interests and Public Policy. London, Sage.Google Scholar