Serving the Public Interest?: Federal Experiences with Participation in Strategic Planning
A clause in the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 instructs federal agencies to “consult with stakeholders during strategic plan development.” This requirement is a type of institutional control designed to ensure access to government operations and to keep government responsive to the public interest. Through structured interviews with representatives of the federal, cabinet-level departments, this research examined agency reactions to the Results Act in four areas: What process did agencies use to develop the strategic plan? Who participated? What mechanisms were used for participation? and What were the impacts of including stakeholders? The results suggest that despite minimal impact on the substantive content of federal agency strategic plans, the consultation requirement may have unintended benefits that, if institutionalized, will make government more responsive to the public interest.
Introductory Remarks 2 Part I. National and Regional Context of Policy-Making 2 Section 1. National context of policy-making 2 Section 2. Regional context 6 Section 3. SNA implementation 9 Part II. Europeanization Processes 11 Section 1. Adaptational pressures 11 Section 2. Resistance to change 13 Section 3. Evolution of central state policy-making structures 16 Section 4. Non-state actors 16 Section 5. Civic culture 18 Part III. Assessment of Learning Capacity 18 Section 1. Outcome 18 Section 2. Patterns of learning and adaptation 19 Section 3. Policy recommendations 21 References 22 Appendix 1: Interviewed actors / stakeholders and quantitative SNA results 25 Policy Area: Regional Policy. Case Study Region: Southern Transdanubia 25 Policy Area: Environmental Policy / Waste Management. Case Study Region: Central Hungary 29 Appendix 2: Map of Hungary with the two case study regions 24