This chapter is part of a larger project on relationships with the Warwickshire landscape between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. That work aims to establish how and why people passed through the county’s green spaces, what physical interactions they had with them – for instance walking (primarily, but also more broadly moving through on horses, barges, trains, cars and planes), digging (for crops and archaeological finds), surveying and quantifying (mapping, photographing and assessing the landscape and its minerals, water, flora and fauna) – and how people represented those interactions in words or images. In what follows, I focus on a small part of those larger concerns, temporally and generically: the development of touristic travel books across the nineteenth century. My aim is to address, through an analysis of the range and focus of such publications, the role that Warwickshire’s landscape played in making the identity of the county more tangible, through the efforts of those artists who wrote and drew it into public consciousness.

In considering such questions, this chapter traces two arcs that meet as the Dugdale Society was being set up – the development of the genre of travel books on the Warwickshire landscape, expanding to reflect new modes of transport and touristic behaviour, and the emergence of academic study of the landscape which has got under way in the century since. It is this latter subject to which the chapter first turns. In the space available it is possible to offer only a swift outline of five broad areas in two broader groups, focused on key publications within them: writing on maps, agrarian change, the social consequences of that change, the aestheticisation of landscape and the rise of tourism.

In the Preface to Harvey and Thorpe’s 1959 Printed Maps of Warwickshire, R. A. Skelton of the British Museum stated that,

Introduction

In this chapter we look at the legacy of a set of Connected Communities (CC) projects which made connections between the ‘research community’ of academics and the ‘policy community’ of civil servants based at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), UK. They had the potential to leave behind something which might have significant effects at a national scale, – ‘impact’ in the current policy jargon. We make a distinction here between ‘legacy’ in a very broad, everyday sense of ‘anything handed down by … a predecessor’ (OED, online edition) and ‘impact’ with its specific policy meaning of ‘an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’ (HEFCE, 2015). Colloquially, the ‘impact agenda’ refers to the increasingly insistent pressures on the academy to achieve demonstrable impact; in this sense it is an external pressure which may reinforce or conflict with academics’ own commitments to achieving social change through their research.

The three interdisciplinary projects created ‘policy briefs’ for the DCLG, the UK government department responsible for localism, local government, housing, planning and related functions in England. As a central government policy-making body, DCLG is continually in search of robust, research-based evidence to support its work. The policy briefs were to be short and accessible reviews of research relevant to policy on localism. In particular they were intended to identify novel insights from the Arts and Humanities in order to broaden the range of ideas available to policy makers.

Chapter One set out heuristics that illuminated the underpinning and interlocking elements of policy design – power, vision and grammar – and contrasting policy designs, conventional and co-productive. It focused on the first of these elements – power – and how differing interpretations of power informs contrasting notions of policy design. This chapter builds on these heuristics to consider the vision and grammar of conventional policy designs. Vision reflects the recognition that policy design is political and value-based and provides a basis to inform, mobilise and channel action towards desired policy outcomes. If vision is the politics and values that inform the desired policy outcomes to be pursued, then grammar is the institutional practices employed in the pursuit of those goals.

The Introduction outlined some of the failings and consequences of conventional constituted policy design. In this chapter we develop the heuristic to try and explain the causes of these failings and consequences. Decisions are made about where to build new houses, waste incinerators, wind farms and roads which make citizens angry or suspicious of policy makers’ intentions. Public services seem to be stretched to capacity and fail to offer quality tailored care. Or there might be disparities in life chances and quality of life between those at the top and those at the bottom which make us worry that some are left behind. What is going wrong in cases like these? Is it that decision makers do not understand the situation well enough? Is it that decisions are made based on party politics? Is it that the loudest voices have dominated? How can we get a deeper understanding of these issues? Just as the specifics of good policy design vary depending on context, so do suboptimal policy designs – each problem has its own unique features. While this is true, it is also possible to identify some common aspects of conventional approaches to policy that hamper their problem-solving capacities. Figure 3 shows the most salient and problematic negative features of vision and grammar that characterise the limitations of conventional policy design. This chapter will look first at these specifics of vision in conventional policy design, then of grammar, in order to understand the characteristics which generate some of the limitations of conventional policy design.

Introduction

Complex social and governance problems have engaged academic researchers ever since the closely linked emergence of public welfare policy and associated academic disciplines in the post-Second World War era (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979; Fischer, 2003). In the UK's recent past, governments’ demand for research rose as both New Labour and the post-2010 Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition sought to portray their policies as being based on objective analysis, rather than ideology (Nutley et al, 2007; HMG, 2013). In parallel, pressure rose on academia to demonstrate the utility of its research, constructed as having ‘demonstrable economic and social impacts’ (HEFCE, 2009: 7) and requiring the planning of ‘pathways to impact’ (RCUK, 2011). The 2007 economic crisis, and ensuing public sector austerity measures, further increased the pressure on academia to justify its cost to the public purse through its contribution to solving society's problems. As discussed in Chapters One and Three, this prompted new relationships between academics and policymakers: programmes such as ‘Connected Communities’ were devised with government priorities in mind, and cuts in government research budgets reinforced other trends promoting the co-production of policy-relevant knowledge.

This chapter draws on four ‘Connected Communities’ projects: three that produced ‘policy briefings’ (Connelly et al, 2013; Durose et al, 2013; Richardson and Durose, 2013) for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the ‘Translation Across Borders’ ‘legacy’ project (2014–15). All reflected the DCLG's desire for new knowledge to guide post-regeneration policy development and delivery. The move away from area-based initiatives towards the decentralisation of budgeting and planning, as part of a fundamental rescaling and reimagining of the relationships between citizens and the central and local state, has heightened the importance of grappling with some very old political theory problems of how to understand and reinforce accountability and representation. This has provided fertile ground for new relationships with the academy, and some researchers – ourselves included – have stepped into this arena, aiming not only to help solve problems, but also to shape agendas by influencing how key issues are understood.

However, the emphasis on evidence-based policy and impact has brought to the fore long-standing mutual frustrations over academics’ perceived inability to produce usable outputs, and policymakers’ perceived inability to use academic research in appropriate and responsible ways (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979; Owens, 2005; Smith and Joyce, 2012).

Over the past decade or more, we have constructed our individual and joint research projects to create spaces for deep engagement with policy actors who want to do things differently. We work closely and sympathetically with policy makers, politicians and citizens, who are willing to work with us. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of these turn out to be sensitive, thoughtful human beings who are committed to behaving as ethically as possible in the service of good policy. Dark things do happen, established interests can drive decisions, but mostly there are just people muddling through trying to do the best for citizens, customers, users and colleagues. If at any point in this book, we have fallen prey to easy caricatures then this is not our intention or true perspective.

Our preferred mode is to work collaboratively and hands-on where we can. This book comes out of our respect for colleagues in central and local government, local public services, and in third sector organisations. Managing complex sets of issues, people and practices is tough, and anyone who suggests they could do better is at risk of foolishness without very careful thought about how the whole thing might actually work. Carping from the sidelines is not helpful; our efforts aim to be constructive even when being critical. While some of our schemes and suggestions may look unwarrantedly foolhardy at first glance, innovation requires some degree of targeted and strategic risk-taking. Our admiration goes to all those represented in this book and others not here engaged in co-production who have had the nerve to lead and experiment.

In our own organisations in higher education, we are exposed to similar pressures and tensions, organisational stubbornness and resistance to change, politicking, and the responsibilities of leadership. While we attempt in this book to apply co-productive approaches to our research practice, we are at a much earlier stage in attempts to apply similar principles and methods more broadly within universities. So far, our efforts have been focused outwards, showing us the gritty realities of public policy work – albeit for intense bursts. Change is a mammoth task and we are under no illusions about the dangers, and potential for serious mishaps.

Working alongside 30 individual contributors, the authors are two researchers working in research-intensive higher education institutions in the UK. We are long-standing collaborators whose research interests convene around the politics, policies and practices of participation, particularly at the neighbourhood or local level. The scholarship of individuals such as C. Wright Mills, Harold Lasswell and J.K. Gibson-Graham inspires us in claiming a role for research in building public value and generating new democratic potentialities. We see ourselves as engaged scholars, who want to promote democratic and progressive values through our work, particularly through our collaboration beyond the academy with policy makers, practitioners, activists and ordinary citizens. Our work is informed and, we would argue, strengthened by recognising the value of different forms of expertise and by actively seeking to contribute and have appeal and resonance outside of academia.

We are conscious of – and indeed, have sympathy with – the accusation of a ‘relevance gap’ (British Academy, 2008) which is oft made regarding academic research. We recognise that the ways that research is weighted and valued within the academic community can serve to perpetuate a particular hierarchical ordering that disincentivises collaborative, transdisciplinary and applied work (Dowling, 2008). This ordering speaks to a wider debate in the social sciences and humanities about the purpose and value of research. Research that involves collaboration outside academia, that is problem centred and seeks to address real-life concerns is too often dismissed or devalued within the academy. Such work is perceived as simply fulfilling a technocratic demand for ‘evidence’ for policy making or as a naïve co-option or collusion with a wider neoliberal project. The work of Gibson-Graham presents a more hopeful position. Drawing from theories of performativity, Julie Graham and Kathleen Gibson assert the constitutive possibilities of research in shaping ‘worlds that exist and in bringing new worlds into being’ through collaboration inside and outside of the academy. We share their questioning of how as academic researchers we may ‘become open to possibility rather than limits on the possible?’ (Gibson-Graham, 2008, p. 614).

So, what have we learnt from the experiences of authoring this book? The book continues our critical reflection about the participatory nature of our own practice (Durose et al, 2011; Beebeejaun et al, 2013, 2014; Richardson, 2014).

The aim in this book is to frame a debate on how policy making may be better able to address some of the wicked and squishy problems facing societies. The intention has not simply been to offer an empirical description of how policy making works, though many of the contributions are illuminating in that regard. Rather, the aim is to initiate a conversation driven by theory and informed by practice, about how policy actors can imagine and realise a co-productive alternative to conventional policy design.

The book was conceived as a conversation between theory and practice. It started by generating theoretical tensions, highlighting the limitations of conventional policy design. It then set out some tentative framings of different elements of vision for co-productive policy design and the practices, or ‘grammar’, which may help to realise vision. Specific contexts for these broad theoretical ideas were provided by a series of diverse contributions. Through their grounded efforts to do policy design differently, these contributions offer insightful reflections from policy makers, practitioners, researchers and activists who are actively engaged in this debate.

This chapter reflects on the challenge, creativity and inspiration provided by the contributions to challenge, deepen and develop the theorising of the opening chapters. Challenging, because there remain many lively debates between ideas, stances and tactics advocated by the group which has produced the book. If each of the 12 sets of contributors (made up of 30 individuals) do not necessarily agree with each other, nor do they all entirely accept all aspects of the arguments set out in the opening chapters, or at least some of the nuances of those arguments. As part of the attempt to ‘model’ some of the very ideas we advocate, this chapter reflects on these debates. Deepening, because specific examples in specific contexts reinforce and illuminate the broader theoretical points. Developing, because the contributions prompt amendments, additions and changes in emphasis from the original heuristic. As befits the iterative, incomplete and inclusive ideas advocated, the book is structured so that this chapter critically reappraises the ideas set out at the start. This is a relatively unusual approach to the structure of a book.

Design is about ‘designing schemes for designing institutions’ (Goodin, 1996 p. 28 cited in Lowndes and Roberts, 2013, p. 187). But design is ‘not a cookbook’; there is no simple fail-safe recipe to follow (Bobrow and Dryzek, 1987, p. 207; Boyer, Cook and Steinberg, 2011, p. 87). The stagist model of the policy process has been rejected in favour of an acknowledgement that policy is messy, political, chaotic, with many unforeseen and/or uncontrollable contingencies affecting outcomes (Bovens and t’Hart, 1996). However, a commitment to the potential for policy to be more than a ‘fuzzy gamble’ (Dror, 1986, p. 168) on outcomes and the lives of citizens can be retained. Building on the heuristics of policy design in the opening chapters, this chapter returns to the notion of power as positive sum, non-dominating and relational set out in Chapter One to explore the vision and grammar of coproductive policy design. Chapter Three considers the possibility of introducing co-productive elements into conventional policy design through vision and grammar.

Thinking through the vision and grammar of co-productive policy design and the possibilities for introducing such elements resonates with wider debates on co-production. In its origins, and in the sense used in this book, co-production is a term associated with the research of Elinor Ostrom. In her work on the management of common-pool resources, such as access to water, Ostrom (1996, p. 1073) used ‘co-production’ to describe a process through which ‘inputs from individuals who are not “in” the same organisation are transformed into goods and services’. The term ‘co-production’ suggests a relationship between ‘regular producers’ (policy makers and practitioners) and ‘clients’ (service users) (Ostrom, 1999), specifically where the ‘client’ acts not as a ‘consumer’ of services, but as a ‘co-producer’ of them. The implication here is that citizens can play an active role in producing public goods and services of consequence to them (Ostrom, 1996, p. 1073). Co-production has become a ubiquitous term in contemporary policy, which builds on a rich, diverse and contested lineage of theory and experimentation. Chapter Three considers this background before looking at how ideas of co-production can help to inform the vision and grammar of more co-productive policy design.

Taking a design approach to addressing policy failings is about having a strong sense of what the alternatives could be; it is an inherently optimistic approach. Design principles have clear appeal in the current policy context. Design presents an alternative to mass-processing, allowing user adaptations to facilitate differentiation and deal with complexity. Rather than being wedded to a ‘policy presumption’, design opens up the possibility to experiment and learn through doing and possibly failing. Moreover, design places the citizen or user at its core. These principles have a broad appeal to those seeking greater democratic legitimacy for policy. But this normative thrust is not naive. A design approach is fundamentally about the substantive and instrumental ambitions to achieve better policy outcomes. Grounding this approach in the work of Herbert Simon means that design is not about generating an optimal prescription of policy in a perfect world, but about questioning that ‘policy presumption’. If we understand policy design as ‘the pursuit of valued outcomes through activities sensitive to the context of time and place’ (Bobrow and Dryzek, 1987, p. 19), it both opens up the inner workings of policy making, allowing us to understand the interrelations and interreliance of different elements of current policy, but also provides a means of generating alternatives.

This chapter considers the parameters of debate on policy design before setting out its key elements of power, vision and grammar. These elements are common to different policy designs, but are manifested differently. The chapter begins to build a heuristic as a means of understanding policy design. The heuristic sets out contrasting policy designs – conventional and co-productive – based on the notions of power that underpin them. This contrast encourages lateral thinking about how policy design works and the potential for redesign. Power is often a hidden struggle in policy design, but it fundamentally informs and shapes the vision – the valued outcomes pursued – and the grammar – the activities used in this pursuit. To bring this hidden element out into the debate, we develop our heuristic further by setting out the contrasting ways in which power is interpreted in conventional and co-productive policy designs.