Regulatory Structures: Enforcement as Implementation

The implementation structure approach was developed for research in the area of human services delivery as an alternative to the traditional top-down model of implementation. A preliminary test of the general applicability of this perspective to other policy types and instruments is presented in this article, which describes the design and assumptions of an international comparison of the implementation of regulatory programmes in the area of air quality control. On the basis of field work and preliminary results, some observations are offered with regard to the contribution the implementation structure approach can make to that comparative analysis on which the cumulative knowledge of implementation processes across policy areas and in different institutional contexts depends. While it is suggested that more work must be done on conceptualizing the analytic unit ‘implementation structure’, experience in this project indicates that the level of analysis demarcated by the bottom-up perspective, and the general focus on the pattern of interactions through which regulatory outputs are produced, are useful points of departure for description and analysis of implementation in this policy area.