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Behind the Veil of Vagueness: Success and Failure in Institutional Reforms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2010

PETER MUNK CHRISTIANSEN  and
MICHAEL BAGGESEN KLITGAARD
PETER MUNK CHRISTIANSEN
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 7, DK-8000 Århus C,Denmark e-mail: pmc@ps.au.dk
MICHAEL BAGGESEN KLITGAARD
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M,Denmark, e-mail: mbk@sam.sdu.dk
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Abstract

The difficulties of implementing large institutional reforms are legendary. Reform programs may face strong resistance from designated losers, falter at successive veto points, or stall when multiple decision makers have diverse goals. Institutional theories have successfully accounted for failure of reform in many settings, but scholars have paid less attention to how the strategic design of a reform process can have a positive effect on reform initiatives. We seek to fill this gap by studying the impact of planned ambiguity in reform processes. We hypothesize that reform proposals are more likely to succeed when policy entrepreneurs strategically hide the cost-benefit profile of a reform proposal behind a veil of vagueness until the final stages of the process. Designated losers with limited information about the impact of proposed reforms are less likely to succeed in thwarting the reform. We test the theory on four institutional reforms or reform attempts in Denmark.

Keywords

institutional reformpolicy ambiguitylocal governmentlabor market policyDenmark
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 183 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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