Implermentation as communicative action. An interpretative understanding of interactions between policy actors and target groups

Many social problems can only be solved through some form of governmental involvement. In this article, a model is formulated for policy implementation. The various criticisms against a top-down model of implementation can be taken into account by conceptualizing implementation as communicative interaction between policy actors and their target groups, each characterized by distinct rationalities (section 4) with important consequences for the likelihood of learning and behavioral change (section 5). As explained in section 3, ‘communicative action’ is being used to underline that we go beyond the top-down vs. bottom-up distinction, thus doing justice to empirical findings and adopting a post-positivist epistemology. Normatively, this expresses a critical approach to ‘implementation as the continuation of politics with different means.’

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