Public policy and territories: teachings from public policy

Abstract

This article reproduces a paper delivered at the Conference entitled « Gestion des territoires ruraux: connaissances et méthodes pour la décision publique », in Clermont-Ferrand on April 27-28, 1998. It deals the issue of the spatial incidence of public policies. There is a complicated overlapping of the territories concerned with public action due to the fragmentation both horizontal and vertical of public decision. This fragmentation leads to a difficulty to recognize where decisions are taken and questions the effectivity of public policies. However, the main factors of success for policies with spatial incidence can now be determined because of the development of public policy analysis these last ten years. Among them: networking politico-administrative actors : facilitating the overlapping of the different tiers of government appears to be more important than strengthening any one of them; the concensus needed to achieve public action: the current logics of public policy « co-production » requires the differents partners to support a common policy; the last factor is the importance of public policy evaluation : it is necessary for the different actors to develop their ability to assess the process in progress. The article develops these three points and presents some recommandations as concluding remarks.