Implementation structures as institutions

Abstract

When Benny Hjern and David Porter announced (perhaps prematurely) the death of the “single lonely organization” in the study of implementation, they initiated the increasing recognition of the complexity of that fundamental policy process. The basic logic of their argument, and of a good deal of subsequent literature concerning implementation, is that making a program work effectively generally, and increasingly, involves multiple actors. Much of the initial spate of literature on implementation recognized the role of multiple public sector organizations in implementation but continued to assume a more top-down logic for implementation, meaning that the implicit question in implementation was why did all of these pesky organizations interfere in putting programs into effect as intended.