Partial+Frames

=Partial Frames=

This page is a listing of partial political frames and ideas for additional frames. To develop these frameworks, add to the existing frames below. As frames become more developed, they will be added to the list of separate frames.

Title: Arena Model
Submitted by: Nicola Alexander Alternative Names:

The arena in which a decision is made will influence the likelihood of a substantive policy reform being adopted. Substantive reform is most likely to be adopted when generated in the leadership arena; somewhat likely from the macro arena; less likely from the commission arena, and unlilely from the subsystem arena. As a corollary to that tenet is the idea that external context and available revenues will also influence the likelihood of reform, where the presence of external factors calling for change will be more important than availability of revenues.

References:
Mazzoni, TT. Mazzoni. (1991). Analyzing state school policymaking: An arena model. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (Summer). Vol. 13. No. 2, pp. 115-138.

References applying framework:
F. C. Fowler. (1994). Education reform comes to Ohio: An application of Mazzoni’s arena models. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (Fall). Vol. 16, pp. 335-350.

Title: World Bank World Development Report 2004 Accountability Framework
Submitted by: Ben Meade Alternative Names: WDR04 Framework

Adapted from Meade and Gershberg 2008: There are four key entities in the WDR04 framework that, at least in a model framework, play distinct roles in service provision and work towards common goals of improving access and quality. First citizens or clients are the receivers of services. Their needs, in an ideal framework, will define objectives related to delivery. Also in an ideal framework, they will have information about quality of provision and means to influence action in accomplishing objectives. For instance, if a group of parents see that teacher absenteeism is a problem in their community, they will have the means to demand that the problem be addressed or to directly take action themselves. Second are the politicians or policy-makers. They have the power to make decisions regarding education particularly related the rules and objectives. They might be located in a local municipality or in a national government. Third are the organizational providers. They are the entities responsible for managing service implementation. They range from ministries of education with thousands of employees to individual schools. Fourth are the frontline service providers themselves. In education they are primarily made up of teachers, but also include the national and local-level administrators that manage teachers and perform other administrative responsibilities. In the WDR04 framework, the four sets of actors interact in a triangle. The first piece of the accountability triangle is the relationship between clients and politicians and policy-makers. This is a part of the long route to accountability in which citizens influence politicians who influence organizational providers. The WDR04 refers to the way citizens communicate their needs and preferences to politicians as voice. According to the WDR04, ‘Empowering poor citizens by increasing their influence in policy-making and aligning their interests with those of the non-poor can hold politicians more accountable for universal service delivery’. Voice is expressed through voting and voting with one’s feet, but also through advocacy, protest and other forms of political expression. The relationship between policy-makers or politicians and providers, known in the WDR04 as the compact, is the second part of the long route of the accountability relationships and relates to how policies are translated into relationships with service providers and, ultimately, outcomes. According to the report, the long route of accountability is often ineffective in developing countries due to the fact that public funding often does not reach the poor or services are provided in a way that are not in line with their needs and preferences. A way to address this issue is reforming institutional arrangements so that clients are provided more direct means of influence over service provision. The WDR04 refers to the relationship between clients and providers as the short route to accountability and to the influence clients have over service providers as client power. Client power, for instance, may involve direct client management of provision as in the case of autonomous schools or other forms of school-based management as is the case in our Brazilian case study.

References:
World Bank. (2003). World development report 2004: Making services work for poor people. Washington, DC: Author.

References applying framework:
Alec Ian Gershberg, Ben Meade and Sven Andersson. (Forthcoming). Providing Better Education Services to the Poor: Accountability and Context in the Cast of Guatemalan Decentralization. International Journal of Education Development. Ben Meade and Alec Gershberg. (2008). Making Education Reform Work for the Poor: Accountability and Decentralization in Latin America. Journal of Education Policy, 23(3), 281-304.

Ideas for New Frameworks:
Advocacy Theory

Elite Theory

Incrementalism

Iron Triangle

Marble Cake

Policy Borrowing

Policy Creep