Program Implementation Versus Program Design: Which Accounts For Policy “Failure”?

Many influential implementation scholars now argue that “street‐level” bureaucrats, rather than legislators or high‐level administrators, make public policy in the U.S. Such authors as Pressman and Wildavsky cite creaming in employment and training programs as an especially clear example of well‐meaning programs that fail when implemented. This paper argues that two of the most significant and lasting of these programs, the U.S. Employment Service and the Manpower Development and Training Act, were designed to encourage creaming. The essay asserts implementation scholars overstate the disconnection between program design and program implementation because they assume there is little disconnection between program legitimation and program design. A better conception of design permits one to perceive that these programs were legitimated on the grounds they would serve a large number of constituents, but were designed to do so by serving employers. The combination of these premises made creaming an imperative of program operation, and the implementors who cream remain faith ful to original program strategy. This finding suggests a redirection of policy research toward a more rlgorous analysis of program design and a better understanding of the relationship between legitimation, design, and implementation.