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Incrementalism is a popular model of policymaking within contemporary British government. It has many strengths including disagreements never occur over objectives and it is practical and realistic. However this model is not universally applicable and may mean policymaking can be inefficient and ineffective. With regard to a policy area, much of the decisions in the run up to the Belgrano Affair were incremental. The government played for time and some of their actions were simply not rational.
The incrementalist approach to policymaking is simply policymaking in small steps. It emphasises the extent to which decision makes stick with the situation they have and deal with any problems as and when the occur. The decisions are not radical and do not move far away from the status quo for example the budget. Issues are dealt with as and when they arise (such as the beef crisis) there is not ideal future that they are trying to aim for. It is recognised that it is an ongoing process solutions will have effects of their own that need to be dealt with. According to Charles Lindblom, instead of specifying objectives and specifying what policies would fulfill these objectives, the decsionmaker reaches decisions by comparing specific policies and the extent to which these policies will help in achieving the aims.
The alternative strategy of small steps away from the status quo is labelled disjointed incrementalism this involves examining policies whic differ slightly from each other. There is a general consensus that disjointed incrementalism is a good description of how decisions are actually made in organisations. Incrementalism is a good description of how policies are actually made and a good example of how policies should be made. The advantages of this model of policymaking, according to Lindblom, is that this approach allows for flexibility and the expression of divergent views.
He believes it is well suited to policymaking in pluralist democracies as muddling through at least implies responsiveness and flexibility, consultation and compromise. When using the incremental model the objective is always clear cut; there are never any disputes over what exactly is trying to be achieved. Timing is very important concerning this model, and one strength of it is that all the information that is needed to make the decisions are readily available due to the timing. Incrementalism is generally effective, practical and realistic is todays world. With reference to the Falklands Disaster, the incremental model of policy making was clearly used. As aforementioned that model is many little steps of action to reach an objective.
The Thatcher government of the 1980 s it seemed almost dismissed the idea that the Argentinians may revolt so instead of dealing with the problem in hand, only small steps were taken which spanned several years. In his book about the situation Clive Ponting, claims that the Whitehall tradition was to play for time and hope that the situation may resolve itself. The government failed to take the necessary action and failure to do so resulted unnecessary war and unnecessary deaths. George Thompson, as described by Dick Crossman, wanted to play for time.
The government were very cautious when it came to discussing the problem with the Argentinians. Soon after the government decided that more caution would have to be taken but the caution simply turned to inaction, which is a recognised problem with the incremental model; if things are taken too slow, the process may stop altogether. Due to this, from the beginning of 1981 until the Argentinian invasion in April 1982 the Overseas and Defence Committee (OD) never met to discuss the Falklands and the government never attempted to have any full-scale review of the problem. In June 1981 there was a meeting held in the Foreign Office with all the relevant persons attending; Ministers, senior officials, the Ambassador in Buenos Aires and the governor of the Falklands. The conclusions of the meeting were pretty much the same as all of the other meetings had concluded that the immediate aim should be to play for time with Argentina. This was most definitly incremental and if anything, showed weak political leadership.
The Ambassador later stated that The decision (of the meeting) was to have no strategy at all beyond a general Micawberism The Argentinians went out of their way to accomodate the British but yet the model of policymaking didnt allow for the fact that the British had seriously underestimated Argentinian. Nothing was done, no military preparations were put in hand and no intelligence assessments were made of Argentinian intentions. The weaknesses of the incremental approach really show through in reference to the Falklands Affair. Perhaps if mixed scanning (with or without bounded rationality) was used to make even just some decisions, there may not have been a war. Mixed scanning would have allowed the government to scan all of the policy options available and then an assessment could have been made to see how far each option would have gone towards meeting their objective. This would have allowed decisions to be made upon the consideration of all of the available options and then a greater focus could have been made to the decision.
This model is basically a cross between the rational model and the incremental model but with most of the advantages of the two. The incremental model, although perfect in some situations, is not and can not be seen as universally applicable; for use in all situations. The rational-actor model however could be seen as just that. The problem is identified, the objective is selected from a range which will overcome the problem and then the method which will be used to achieve the objective are evaluated on the grounds of effectiveness, reliability, costs etc. This policy model is effective where as the incremental approach may not be as in the case of the Falklands.
This method of policymaking was and is still being used with the Europe issue, for example the stance wait and see. Incrementalism is a continuous, exploratory process and the policymakers tend to operate within an existing framework and adjust their position in the light of feedback in the form of information about the impact of earlier decisions. The whole Falklands episode illustrates the inability of Whitehall to plan any long-term policy and take and make decisions.
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Research essay sample on Play For Time Incrementalism Is A Good Description Model
