The Politics of Monitoring: Information, Indicators and Targets in Climate Change, Defence and Immigration Policy

监测政治：气候变化、国防和移民政策中的信息、指标和目标

基本信息

批准号：
ES/K005170/1
负责人：
Christina Boswell
金额：
$ 42.35万
依托单位：
University of Edinburgh
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2013 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FK005170%2F1
关键词：
Politics Monitoring Information Indicators Targets

项目摘要

Monitoring is central to the policy process. Policymakers need to gather information in order to identify problems, and appraise whether their policies are working: How widespread is illegal immigration? Is defence spending efficient? Are CO2 emissions being reduced? Yet despite its pivotal role, monitoring has been neglected by scholars. Research has tended to focus on how policies get made, rather than how policy problems are tracked or how the impacts of policies are appraised. This is surprising, given the radical changes to government monitoring practices over the past three decades. Since 1981, successive Conservative and Labour administrations have expanded the use of performance indicators and targets as a method of monitoring policy. More recently, the 2010 coalition government vowed to reverse the 'target culture', criticising the distortions that arise from an emphasis on targets and delivery. These shifts in monitoring practices raise a number of key questions. What explains the appeal of targets and indicators, and in what ways have they been implemented across policy sectors? How has the 'target culture' affected policy outcomes and political debate? And once in place, how feasible is it to roll back such performance-based monitoring practices?Our study will provide the first ever attempt to systematically track, compare and explain UK government monitoring practices, focusing on three sectors - climate change, immigration control and defence procurement. These areas have been selected both because they have seen considerable change in monitoring practices; and because they allow us to test different theories about the factors shaping monitoring systems. (The Case for Support offers more detail on the case selection strategy.)Immigration policy has seen a series of attempts to measure immigration levels and their economic and social impacts. But such monitoring practices have been fraught with controversy and repeatedly adjusted in the face of political and media criticism, as well as internal Home Office restructuring. We would expect these factors to produce simplified monitoring practices designed to demonstrate government impact. The pressure to allay public concerns may also incentivise forms of 'gaming' among policymakers. By contrast, the monitoring of CO2 emissions has largely been left to experts and scientific civil servants. Unlike immigration, the meeting of targets is not the object of extensive media attention, but is closely scrutinised by the expert policy community as well as international and EU actors. Yet the focus on CO2 may crowd out observation of other aspects of climate change, potentially distorting policy prioritisation and resource allocation. Moreover, we expect that international norms may lead to other forms of 'gaming' designed to bypass externally imposed targets. Our third area, defence procurement, raises a rather different set of challenges. Despite continued problems (delays, escalating costs, poor operational performance) there has been a surprising lack of monitoring of either processes or outputs. We expect that issues of secrecy, industrial interests, as well as the unpredictability of conflict, have left the MoD relatively screened from pressure to introduce rigorous monitoring practices - though recent controversy over mismanagement and excessive costs may be challenging this lack of scrutiny. The comparative analysis of these sectors will enable us to better understand the factors shaping monitoring practices in general. It will also shed light on how different types of monitoring, including targets, may produce distortions in policy and political debate. It will thereby fill an important gap in our understanding of policymaking. The findings should also feed into political and practitioner debates about effective monitoring, especially ongoing discussions about the desirability of different types of targets in public policy.

监督是政策制定过程的核心。政策制定者需要收集信息来发现问题，并评估他们的政策是否有效：非法移民有多普遍？国防开支有效吗？二氧化碳排放量是否正在减少？然而，尽管监测发挥着关键作用，但它却被学者们忽视了。研究往往侧重于政策如何制定，而不是如何跟踪政策问题或如何评估政策的影响。考虑到过去三十年来政府监控实践发生了根本性变化，这一点令人惊讶。自 1981 年以来，历届保守党和工党政府都扩大了绩效指标和目标的使用，作为监督政策的方法。最近，2010年联合政府发誓要扭转“目标文化”，批评因强调目标和交付而产生的扭曲。监测实践的这些转变引发了许多关键问题。如何解释目标和指标的吸引力，以及它们在各个政策部门的实施方式是什么？ “目标文化”如何影响政策结果和政治辩论？一旦到位，撤销这种基于绩效的监控做法有多可行？我们的研究将首次尝试系统地跟踪、比较和解释英国政府的监控做法，重点关注三个领域——气候变化、移民控制和国防采购。之所以选择这些领域，是因为它们在监测实践方面发生了相当大的变化；因为它们使我们能够测试有关影响监控系统的因素的不同理论。（支持案例提供了有关案例选择策略的更多详细信息。）移民政策已经出现了一系列衡量移民水平及其经济和社会影响的尝试。但这种监控做法充满争议，并在面对政治和媒体批评以及内政部内部重组时不断调整。我们预计这些因素会产生简化的监测实践，旨在展示政府的影响。缓解公众担忧的压力也可能会刺激政策制定者之间的“博弈”。相比之下，二氧化碳排放的监测主要由专家和科学公务员负责。与移民不同，目标的实现并不是媒体广泛关注的对象，而是受到专家政策界以及国际和欧盟行为者的密切关注。然而，对二氧化碳的关注可能会排除对气候变化其他方面的观察，从而可能扭曲政策优先顺序和资源分配。此外，我们预计国际规范可能会导致其他形式的“游戏”，旨在绕过外部强加的目标。我们的第三个领域，即国防采购，提出了一系列截然不同的挑战。尽管问题持续存在（延误、成本上升、运营绩效不佳），但对流程或产出的监控却令人惊讶。我们预计，保密、工业利益以及冲突的不可预测性等问题使国防部相对免受引入严格监控措施的压力——尽管最近有关管理不善和成本过高的争议可能对这种缺乏审查的情况提出挑战。对这些部门的比较分析将使我们能够更好地了解影响总体监测实践的因素。它还将揭示不同类型的监测（包括目标）如何可能在政策和政治辩论中产生扭曲。因此，它将填补我们对政策制定理解的一个重要空白。研究结果还应纳入有关有效监测的政治和从业者辩论，特别是关于公共政策中不同类型目标的可取性的持续讨论。