engleski

Diversity Of Policy Goals: Cross-Sectoral Comparison Of Croatian Public Policies

This paper reports on a research project that falls with the approach of cross-sectoral comparative public policies. Cross-sectoral comparison is still quite neglected in the policy research. Comparing across several sectors within the same country provides a fruitful basis for refining theoretical propositions and for developing empirical policy theory. This is especially important for the policy research in eastern European countries, as they greatly differ in historical development and current context of policy- making from US and other western countries whose practice dominantly inspires policy theory. To somewise contribute to the aim of developing empirical policy theory by systematic comparison, this research project focuses on variations of policy goals. Policy goals, as formal manifestations of a desirable future, statements declaring what the governments will do, are basic element of any public policy. As they vary so greatly across different policies, in policy research and literature solid classifications of policy goals are almost non-existent and quite poorly connected to real-world policy cases. Still, policy goals are fundamental guidelines for policy-making, they predominately justify all action in policy-making and make prime normative element in policy-making, so their empirical relevance is unquestionable. Such an important policy features can reveal much valuable insights on the policy phenomenon and make notable ground for intriguing comparisons of diverse sectors. So, the project on Croatian public policies strives to contribute to this research gap through enhancing policy goals classifications by insights from empirical examples through cross-sectoral comparison. The comparison is conducted by coding strategic documents of Croatian government within qualitative content analysis procedures (Schreier, 2012) and by NVivo processing. Croatian strategic documents and goals they stress were never scrutinized by a systematic comparative analysis. As policy literature and previous research on Croatian public policies give little input on the research topic, and as this paper makes initial efforts in the development of policy goals classification, descriptive purpose of the research is convenient. Therefore, the aim of the research project lays in determining and describing basic types of policy goals. Research question is by which types policy goals vary. The documents were sampled to ensure representation of sectors from all major policy areas: from defence and foreign affairs, law and order, economic, social, and sectoral policies (Compston, ed, 2004). Also, sample includes multisectoral policies, targeted at specific social groups, that “cut-across” standard sectors. Sample includes security, justice, employment, transport, education, gender equality, disability and youth policy. For processing and analysing data on the goals of Croatian public policies, the project developed an original coding scheme with five types of policy goals: sector-oriented, process- oriented, evaluation-oriented, instrument- oriented and value-oriented policy goals.

comparative public policy ; Croatian public policies ; cross-sectoral comparison ; qualitative content analysis ; policy design ; policy goals

nije evidentirano