Resumé

The article discusses central characteristics of the way in which western democracies their public policy. This is done by presenting a preliminary typology of policy styles. An attempt is made to classify some European countries to their dominant policy style as well as according to changes in this respect during the post-industrial period. Overcrowding and unconventional participation are identified as two important factors behind this development. The essay, which is mainly based on British and Swedish data, concludes with a discussion of the question of whether societies are able to exercise any choice in determining their policy style.

A number of writers have attempted to identify the central characteristics of the policy process in particular countries and to draw comparisons which may help to explain apiparent differences in the degree to which they produce 'successful' policies (Hayward 1974/1976; Anton 1969; Rokkan 1966; Kvavik 1976; Heisler led.) 1974; Richardson and Jordan 1979). For example, Hay ward has linked the comparative study of economic planningwith notion of 'hundmm' and 'heroic' approaches to policy-making (Hay ward 1974,388M-00). In practice humdrum and heroic roughly equate to the more familiar concepts of incrementalism and synoptic planning. It is not our purpose here to enter the debate whether incremental or synopticpolicies more 'rational'. Elsewhere we discuss the possible meaningsof and its organizational implications in the real world of the policy-maker (Gustafsson and Richardson 1979). Our task in this paper is to attempt to formulate a preliminary typology which will enable us to classify societies according to their dominant style (if indeed they have a dominant style) which their policy system exhibits. We go on to identify certain developments and trends in postindustrial societies¹ which appear to have a direct influence on the characteristic policy style which such

societies adopt. We conclude with a discussion on whether societies are
able to exercise any choice in determining their policy style. Can societies
really have policies about policy-making? (Dror 1973).

1. The Concept of Policy Style

Though difficult, we believe it should eventually be possible to identify the main characteristics of the way in which a given society formulates its public policies. This is, of course, not to suggest that in any one society public policies are always formulated in a particular way. Exceptions to a predominant style will almost certainly occur; as deviant cases they may serve to highlight just how well-established a given pattern of policymaking become. For example, the reorganization of the water industry in Britain can be seen as a very unusual departure from what Hay ward has identified as the main characteristic of the British approach to policymaking namely a predilection for consultation, avoidance of radical changes in policy, and a strong desire to avoid action which might challenge interests. In essence the 'good decision' in Britain has been generally seen as the decision which is 'acceptable' to those involved in the policy area (Hayward 1974, 399). Yet in the case of water reorganization we see a conscious determination to pursue radical policy change (by reducing the number of authorities involved in the industry from approximately 1,500 to ten Regional Water Authorities) in the conscious that conflict would follow (Jordan et al. 1977, 332). Water reorganization, then, should be seen as an exception to the welldocumented that in Britain it is remarkably hard to find a satisfactory of radical policy innovation (Brown 1974, 39). Almost without exception, observers of Britain seem to have identified a characteristic 'style' - an established 'way of doing things' which is probably rooted deep in long-established culural values.²

In contrast, Sweden has been identified as having a style which is quite different to the UK. Thus Sweden is seen as an example of a society manifesting a strong impetus towards radical policy innovation (Castles 1976). Various labels have been attached to the Swedish policy system, all suggesting that Swedish society has a rather special commitment to radical policy change. Thus one author has suggested that it is virtually impossible not to be impressed by the Swedish policy style which is characterized as being at one and the same time deliberative, rationalistic, open and consensual(Anton 94). We will return to the question of whether these characterizations of Swedish policy-making still hold true - but for the

moment let us assume that for a relatively long period Sweden's 'way of doing things' in the policy field was indeed like this. Thus Sweden, in contrast to Britain, had a predilection for radical policy change, yet somehow also shared Britain's liberal tradition of wide consultation and a desire for consensus.

France appears to provide yet another different case. France is seen (say in contrast to the United Kingdom) as a very assertive state. Thus in France '. . . assertive behaviour by government is taken for granted and provides the instruments for enforcing plan implementation...' (Hayward 400). In particular, the French state has been willing to enforce decisions which have been necessary in the broader public interest. Where public interest and sectional interest are in conflict, then sectional interests give way and should be 'pressurized' into compliance. The right of veto which the British accord to sectional interests has been far less evident in France, at least for large sections of the interest group 'population'. France may therefore be characterized as having a rather radical policy style, as claimed for Sweden, but also characterized as relatively willing to use the power of the state to enforce radical policy change against resistance. Again it is important to stress that there are exceptions to this predominant 'style'. Even at the height of Gaullism, the 'intermediaries' sometimes had to be bargained with and concessions had to be made. In this sense France appears to be the reverse of the UK case. Occasionally the groups won and prevented radical change. In Britain, occasionally the government won and achieved radical change. In Sweden radical change was achieved and all interests supported it.

What, if any, conclusions might we draw from these rather important differences which exist in the way in which societies characteristically formulate their public policies? Our necessarily brief review of what observers have identified as characteristic policy 'style' (though not necessarily using that term) suggests that it may be possible to categorize societies into four basic 'policy styles'. Thus some societies seem to be located in a category which we might see as stressing consultation and non-radical policy change (e.g. Britain). Others appear to be located in a category also stressing consultation, but designed to achieve radical policy change (Sweden). Others seemingly are not so concerned with consensus but see the role of the state as initiating what is often radical change and are not afraid of having to enforce this change in the face of opposition from affected interests (France). A fourth possible category (into which, we will later argue, many post-industrial countries may be moving) is where even non-radical change has to be enforced against the

resistance of affected interests. This typology is illustrated diagrammaticallyin
1.

Using this typology of policy styles it should be possible to categorize each society according to the main characteristics of its policy process and policy outcomes. The question to be asked for any given society is, over a range of policy issues and over a period of time, how often does it appear in A, B, C or D? The operationalization of the typology would of course demand further refinement. For example, it may not always be easy to classify any one policy - and in any case classification will always entail an element of subjectivity. What one observer may see as quite radical policy change, others might see as non-radical. And any one policy will almost certainly contain elements of the radical and the non-radical, and may involve consultation with some groups and enforcement on others or consultation followed by enforcement. The case of water reorganization in the United Kingdom, cited earlier, was in fact a mixture of the radical and the non-radical, although radical change was the predominant objective of the policy (Jordan et al. 1977, 333: Gustafsson and Richardson 1979, l^t). In the pursuit of radical policy change, policy-makers had to settle for some non-radical changes in parts of the total 'package' and did feel obliged to go through a process of carefully 'managed' consultation. And just as one policy may contain mixed elements, then so it might be difficult to demonstrate that whole policy systems have one policy style predominating.Thus bulk of miinisteries in one political system may be committed to radical policy change whilst a minority may be inclined to non-radical change. Because of these difficulties we would need a series of

studies, through time, before we can safely generalize about a given society's policy style (Richardson 1979, 353). The large number of case studies of policy-making which already exist, together with the developing interest in policy studies, ought eventually to enable us both to locate societies in particular categories, as well as monitor the extent to which, through time, a society's policy style might be changing.

Sweden is particularly interesting because it may be a case of a country which has gradually changed its policy style (Richardson 1979). Using our typology, Sweden seems to have moved from category C to category A. It seems that for some reason the consultation and consensus which Sweden has traditionally stressed are now producing non-radical change, rather than the radical policy innovation for which Sweden has become known. Another possible benefit of an attempt to categorize societies according to their policy style is that we might be able to draw some conclusions of a comparative kind. If styles are found to be changing, is the direction of that change the same for all countries? If it is, then what forces are at work which lead to the phenomenon?

In the following section we try to identify some of these forces such as
the overcrowding of policy sectors, the development of unconventional
participation and the impact of the growth of non-mate rial demands.

2. Overcrowding and Unconventional Participation

Even before the post-industrial period, interest groups in most western democracies exercised influence through informal contacts with decisionmakers.Thus on Britain have seen the role of interest groups as quite central to the policy process (Beer 1956; Eckstein 1960; Hayward 1974, 1976; Richardson and Jordan 1979). Observers of the United States have seen consultation, bargaining and negotiation with interest groups as a central feature of the American political system (Dahl 1967; Lowi 1969). In Scandinavia very similar labels have been used. Rokkan's description of numerical democracy and corporate pluralism is well known (Rokkan 1966, 107). His view was echoed in Kvavik's detailed study (Kvavik 1976) and by Christensen and Rønning (1977). In Sweden, El vander has concludedthat is possibly the strongest interest group system in the world (Elvander 1974). Lijphart's study of Holland, where he coined the term 'the politics of accommodation', clearly fits this pattern, and even in France there is a suggestion that we may all have underestimated the degree of group involvement in the policy process (Suleiman 1974). There is a possibility that we have been bemused by the more spectacular defeats

of groups in France, because these have been the object of so many
studies, and have missed the quieter activity of the organized interests.

What we have seen with the onset of post-industrialization is an intensification these developments - hence the flourishing debate on corporatism 1974; Schmitter 1974; Schmitter 1977; Panitch 1977; Cawson Cawson 1979; Pahl and Winkler 1976). In particular it appears that the number of groups seeking consultation, or indeed incorporation, has significantly increased. Alongside this development, there may well have been a change in the nature of some of the demands which decisionmakers to process. In particular, the development of non-materialistic may have rather important consequences for the policy process. Increasingly, conflict within 'policy communities' (Gustafsson and Richardson 1979) is not just about the distribution of material benefits to different sections of society, bu is also concerned with what Inglehart has identified as non-materialistic values (Inglehart 1977). For example, the act of participating in the decisions about, say, the provision of day-care centres may now be thought to be as important as the actual provision of the centres. A third development: is the increasing occurrence of what can be termed 'unconventional participation'. Put simply, many new groups, and following their example some long-established groups as well, have exhibited behaviour quite outside the rules of the normally well regulated consultation or remiss system.

2_.1 Overcrowding

It is not difficult to show that the number of interest groups seeking an active role in policy-making, at both national and local levels, has increasedvery We are all familiar with the range of environmentalist'groups have emerged in the late 1960s and 19705. In the United Kingdom, for example, it was estimated that the vast majority (85 per cent) of local amenity societies were formed after 1957 (Barker 1976). The number of groups nationally active in the environmental field also increased in the 1960s and 19705. Many of these groups brought a new holistic and ecological perspective to bear on environmental and pollution problems (Brookes and Richardson 1975). Even long-established preservationist'groups more active and determined to influence policy. By 1975 it was estimated that membership of the environmental movement had possibly reached two millions (Lowe 1975). In West Germany it has been estimated that the new 'grass roots' organizations (groups) have more participants than the political parties (Mayer-Tasch 1976). The officialDanish (Kommunernas Landsforening 1976) demonstrated

that the number of local administrations which had contact with grass roots organizations increased from 36 to 51 per cent between 1973 and 1976 (Gundelach 1978). Even in France, hardly thought to be the cradle of 'interest group liberalism', it has been estimated that during the period between 1967 and 1976., an average of 25,000 voluntary associations (mostly local) were established annually, compared with only 1,000 in the inter-war period (Hay ward 1979, p. 29). It is almost a truism to say that the arrival of these large numbers of groups on the political scene has made the task of the decision-maker much more difficult. For example, the leadtimefor development projects such as road building, power stations, airports has been adversely affected by the need to accommodate the demands of such groups. What might have been a routine and rather technical decision about, say, road construction in 1950, is now often a hotly debated issue, involving rather wide participation and quite new values in society. In the United Kingdom, the decision-makers became so worried (by the growth in groups in the field of road planning) that they commissioned outside cons ultants to advise them on procedures for identifyinggroups might have an interest in a given road scheme. Deliberately excluding some groups was not really a viable alternative, as they would force their way into the policy process one way or another.

Sweden is a particularly interesting example of the demand for participation. having a very well developed system for integrating groups through the use of the royal commission and remiss systems, it has nevertheless been an extreme example of what we see as potential overcrowding. strong demands for participation, which have characterized western democracies during the post-industrial period, have resulted in Sweden in extending the accommodation of both new and old groups to almost every decision-making situation.

The strengthening of participation in Sweden at the end of the 1960's coincided with a drive on the part of the trade unions to widen their activities. The trade unions have strengthened their position in two ways. Firstly, Sweden has adopted wide-ranging new laws in which the unions play an important role (A. Gustafsson 1978). Secondly, union representatives become directly involved in central government committees. Important examples of legislation in this context are the 1977 Industrial Democracy Act (MBL), and the law defining the position of the trade union representatives in places of work (which took effect in 1974). The Industrial Democracy Act makes it the responsibility of the employer, on his own initiative, to negotiate with the union before decisions involving important changes are made.

Those interest groups directly affected by the activities of the government represented in the civil service departments on lay-committees. The larger unions (i.e., SAF, LO, TCO, and SACO/SR) are often among these interest groups. Quite frequently, interests other than union interests represented. In the Central Social Committee, for example, there are eight members besides the Director-General. The central government four of these, two by recommendation of the Local Authorities' Association (Kommunförbundet) and two by recommendation the Country Councils' Association (Landstingsförbundet). Over the years, a greater proportion of Swedish civil service departments have been given lay-committees. Thus in 1946 only approximately 25 per cent of the departments had lay-committees, whereas in 1968 this had risen to 64 per cent and by 1974 had reached 74 per cent (Molin et al. 1975).

In 1972, the Swedish parliament passed legislation giving the employees of private companies employing more than 200 people the right to appoint members to the boards of directors. The two union bodies, LO and TCO, referring to the principle that employees should receive equitable benefits across the whole labour market., petitioned for broad representation on national and local government bodies. The representation demanded in this case concerned only the employees, not the trade unions. These demands for employee representation were seen as quite separate from the question of union representation. In 1974, the parliament decided on a system whereby employees would be represented on government authority The employee associations appoint two or three members to managing committees of such government authorities that have the right to participate in decision-making on all matters, with the exception of those matters governing the nature of the activity to be pursued by the committee; for example, financial and budgetary matters.

During the 1970'5, in addition to the new legislation and the committee representation, the trade unions, together with other large interest groups, have also come to be represented in Sweden on another type of joint body. Under the direction of the Delegation of Administration Democracy (DEFF), a trial-scheme of joint bodies has been taking place among 31 authorities, including 7 departments. Approximately 1000 decision-makingbodies, at least 5000 employees, have been directly involved in this trial-scheme, which is closely linked to the tradition of works councils, that has existed within the public administration sector in Sweden since the 1940' s. Within the framework of the trial-scheme, these works councilshave expanded and given increased authority and decisionmakingpowers for example, matters concerning the hiring and promotionof

otionofemployees, education, employee welfare, and working conditions.

A fourth type of interest representation has come into existence in the higher educational system. Students, teachers and other personnel have, during a trial period, been represented on decision-making bodies, generally full members, with full voting rights on all matters. In 1977, this trial period was complete, and the system has been made permanent (G. Gustafsson 1978). The pattern of increased group participation in the Swedish case is outlined in Figure 2.

In Britain, the British Institute of Management (BIM) decided in 1976 to take on what it called a 'representational role'. Its traditional role had been to act as a centre of excellence in management, but it decided also to adopt the role of representing managers collectively vis-å-vis the Government. It had reached the conclusion that the interests of managers were being neglected or ignored by governments and that it was time that managers became part of the consultative process. As a result, they have become involved in consultations over personal taxation, industrial democracy, national pay determination machinery, and a number of other issues. Another British example illustrates the fact that British policy communitiesare by overcrowding. The weight and dimensions of heavy lorries using Britain's roads have been governed by what are called 'construction and use' regulations. Historically, the content of

these regulations had been decided in a small policy community of officials within the relevant ministry and representatives of the directly affected producer groups. The latter included such organizations as the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Road Haulage Association. The policy area was a technical issue having no political salience. However,in early 1970's developments took place which led to a widening of the existing policy community. This was because the environmental movement (in this case in the shape of the Civic Trust, which represented local amenity societies) had become interested in the affects which heavy lorries were having on Britain's historic towns. When they discovered from press reports that new 'construction and use' regulations were about to be agreed between the ministry and the road transport interests, they applied parliamentary pressure in order to obtain 'consultation rights' on the issue. This was duly granted by the government (reflecting the fact that 'the environment' had by then arrived on the political agenda), and immediatelythe of construction and use regulations became a rather difficult process. This was because a quite new interest' had to be accommodated',and interest was in conflict with those of the road transport industry. Basically, the manufacturers and the hauliers wanted bigger lorries and the environmentalists did not. The conflict is still unresolvedeven (1979), largely because of the arrival of these new groups on the scene. Moreover, the conflict is not simply the 'old game' of slicing the materialistic cake. A completely new dimension has been added - the concept of the quality of life.

Sweden, again, provides an important example of the significance not only of 'simple' overcrowding, but also of the potential impact of new groups bringing new, non-materialistic values with them. There is now a very real debate in Swedish society over the nuclear energy issue, and this debate has rather clear post-materialistic overtones. Gradually, the debate has come to include discussion, not just of the safety or economics of nuclear power generation, but also of the issue of what kind of society the Swedes really want. If society decides to stress the provision of nonmaterialistic for example more time with one's family, as much as or more than purely materialistic objects such as more Volvos, then the whole nuclear question may be quite irrelevant - or so the argument goes.

2.2 Unconventional Participation

We recognize, of course, that the term 'unconventional' participation
contains a degree of ambiguity. For example, at what point does a form of
participation become so common and well established that it is no longer

unconventional? Also, what may be quite common (and hence conventional)in country may be regarded as very unconventional in another. For example, French farmers have traditionally resorted to direct action, for example blocking roads or pouring milk down the street, in order to force the government to grant higher prices or better subsidies. British farmers have generally adopted very well ordered behaviour to achieve their aims through the annual farm price review type procedure, but even they have occasionally copied the French model and have resorted to unconventional direct action. But for the purposes of this paper we see unconventional participation as behaviour which does not conform to the regularized processes of consultation, considered argument and debate, presentation of evidence, acceptance of rules and procedures for handling conflict or indeed respect for the law. Thus the sit-in, though clearly a form of participation, is unconventional in this sense. In the 1960s students concluded that consultation with university Vice-Chancellors and Rectors was unlikely to bring about the desired change. University administrators throughout the world found themselves having to deal with occupied offices, rifled filing cabinets, and even arson.

As it turned out, the mass media gave such 'participation' a great deal of publicity - the non-traditional always being more newsworthy. This publicity the effect of causing the spread of this form of participation throughout society and indeed across national boundaries. New forms of participation of this unconventional nature thus become quickly internationalized' as do the issues with which they are concerned. Because of the media attention, 'sit-ins' and other forms of direct action had arrived on the political agenda as an issue in themselves, whether decision-makers liked it or not. Even workers came to see the effectiveness of the sit-in and the work-in as additions to more conventional trade union behaviour and bargaining.

Public authorities have, of course, faced similar situations and have had to cope with such examples of unconventional participation as mothers blocking roads in support of their demands for children's crossings and day care facilities. In the United Kingdom the public inquiry system was placed under great stress in the period between 1970 and 1979 by the quite unprecedented behaviour of anti-road groups in disrupting the hearings. Whilst quite 'disapproved of, these actions nevertheless secured concessionsin form of changed procedures and rules, allowing the presentationof broader arguments against new road schemes. Thus unconventionalparticipation be quite effective in producing procedural and structural change in the policy process. It is no accident that we have seen

the greatest number of experiments in participation in countries such as Sweden (Gidlund 1978), Denmark (Tonboe et al. 1977), and the United Kingdom (Richardson 1978). It has been in the area of physical planning that we have seen the most examples of unconventional participation. Public authorities have therefore had to respond with new procedures, new structures for consultation, and by recognizing more groups as having a legitimate interest, in order to return to a more stable policy-making environment.

It is not always the case that procedural or structural change is sufficient to stabilize the policy-making environment. Some situations are not so easily managed and it is not so easy to negotiate order from the chaos caused by unconventional participation.³ Unconventional participation may in fact create a situation where the decision-maker has to accept defeat. Stockholm's famous 'battle of the elms' is a good example of this. At the end of the day the subway station could not be built on the planners' desired location. Today the trees continue to grow in the threatened park and the new subway station is located at a site where it is little used by travellers! In other cases, of course, the decision-maker neither introduces change nor accepts defeat. He decides to enforce his decision.

Sweden provides us with a good example. In the beginning of the 1970's it was decided to build an additional school in Umeå. The decision-process was conducted in an unexceptional manner, as usual stressing consultation. when the actual building programme was due to start in the middle of the 1970'5, the local community's values appeared to have changed. At the planning stage the relevant groups had wanted to locate the new school in the centre of the suburb, where it would be convenient for handicapped children. This was part of a prevailing ideology that schools should be central to the society. But by the implementation stage new self-defined groups opposed the central location and pressed for a site on the edge of the suburb. One reason for this was that, since the planning stage, the problem of drunkenness and drugs in the suburbs had increased. Furthermore, the new building would involve the destruction of trees - a value not thought important at the earlier planning stage. After massive unconventional participation the authorities called in the police, whereupon broke out. The school was in fact built on the planned site and radical policy change was thus achieved by abandoning the consultative style. Using our typology the style was shifted from box C to box D in Figure 1.

3. Choices of Policy Style?

What, then, are the consequences of the developing trends which we have outlined above? If we take the Swedish case as an example, we find that the response to the growth in the number of groups demanding a role in the policy process seems to have produced a shift in the policy style from box C in Figure 1 (consultation/radical change) to box A (consultation/nonradical The alternative moves to either box D (enforced/radical change) or box B (enforces non-radical) were unlikely to be acceptable in Sweden for cultural reasons - namely that there is a strong historical commitment to consultation, seeking the agreement of the affected interests. has thus probably joined the United Kingdom in box A. But the real dilemma is that societies run the risk of total 'immobilism' in box A. (Hayward 1974, Gustafsson and Richardson 1979). This is because, in many policy areas, there may be just too many interests for the system of accommodation to work as it used to in less crowded days. It is increasingly difficult to mobilize the now crowded policy communities behind even non-radical change. The greater the number of groups admitted a given policy community, the more likely it is that at least some of them will object to any change. And, increasingly, those that do object, be they old or new groups, are willing to resort to what we have described as unconventional participation. A further difficulty is that some of the new groups are in any case articulating a rather new type of demand - namely non-materialist - which may be incompatible with the more traditional materialistic demands being pressed by others.

But of course 'real' problems (Gustafsson and Richardson 1979) still have to be solved. So how are societies to do this? Can societies have policies about policy-making? Is it possible, to use Dror's term, to have metapolicymaking? (Dror 1973). In fact we would predict that there will be a tendency to shift the policy style, as the costs of 'immobilism' become more apparent, to at least box B (enforced non-radical change). This would reflect the belief of the broader electorate that at least 'something should be done' by government to solve the more pressing problems in society. It might, for example, be argued that the election of the Thatcher Government in the United Kingdom in May 1979 illustrates both this public desire for some 'action' and the arrival of a government seemingly intent on moving the British policy style from box A to box B or even box D. The difficulty is that as societies try to shift the style from A to B, this is likely to produce considerable conflict, not least in the form of yet more unconventional participation and probable conflict between materialiststs

and non-materialists. The central task, therefore, for the political system is how to manage the conflict, if Indeed it can be managed. It is, of course, conceivable that societies will attempt to move not into box B but to box D (as we suggest for Britain above). This might be more logical. If conflict is going to occur, then let it be over radical policy change. But as the French have found, this is a very rocky road to travel.

But if we assume that box B is the most likely location for Western democracies, then how will the conflict be made tolerable? Or, more bluntly, how are the policies to be enforced? One increasingly common solution is, paradoxically, to increase participation both quantitatively and qualitatively. Denmark provides an extreme case of this, where very high levels of participation have been achieved in some policy areas, with very nearly a quarter of the population, in certain geographical areas, 'participating' in some form or another (Tonboe et al. 1977). Thus if all interests are admitted to a given policy community, can societies mobilize the collective strength of these interests to deal with the inevitable recalcitrant (Richardson and Jordan 1979, 180-187). One might argue that just as governments have often been brought to their knees by the action of groups, then so they should not only recognize the group power that has achieved this, but also borrow and use it: in other words, organize and mobilize the groups behind a policy and use the groups themselves to do the 'policing' and enforcing of the policy. This is exactly what the British Government did in 1977/78 during the so-called 'social contract' between the Government and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The TUC was in fact given the task of enforcing the 'contract' on its member unions, instead of the Government itself taking power through a statutory income policy. Highly participatory policy systems might thus possess the degree of legitimacy which so many modern governments seem to lack and might be more able to avoid a policy style relying more on enforcement. A policy of high levels of participation (which might involve structural change) could even permit a shift to box D, i.e. occasionally, given the new legitimacy, a chance might be taken with a radical policy change. This increased participation, which on the one hand causes overcrowding, could on the other eventually lead to more radical policy change, if 'managed' with considerable political skill.

In this situation we would need to refine and extend our typology to include a policy style which is predominantly consultative (all groups participating in the formulation of policy), but which often results in enforcement. Whereas styles A and C in our original typology occasionallyresult enforcement, in the new situation outlined above enforcementcould

mentcouldbecome the norm, rather than the exception.

If societies want to move back to a situation characterized by much less enforcement, i.e. to box A or C, more fundamental change might be needed. One tentative hypothesis is that if societies can find ways of managing the conflict between materialists and non-materialists, this could go a long way to defusing a conflict-laden situation. This in turn might make groups more willing to moderate their demands for participation they see other structures able to present their basic viewpoint. One possible way of achieving the representation of the newer, nonmaterialistic is to bring about change in the nature of the political parties. Political parties currently represent the social and economic divisions societies in the industrial period. They reflect the old social structures which have in part created the parties and interest groups. Societies have changed, but the parties have not - in the sense that the latter may be out of phase with the social and ideological developments in post-industrial society. The old party divisions remain, yet we see the possibility that the electorate is beginning to divide along quite new lines. Thus Petersson, on the basis of Swedish election data, classifies the Social Democrats and the Conservatives as mainly stressing material values, technological achievement, and large-scale production of goods and services. the other hand, foe classifies the Centre Party and the Communists at least partly stressing what Inglehart (1977) calls non-material values, e.g. community feeling, non-technical solutions etc. (Petersson 1978). A similar suggestion is made by Vedung in discussing the energy question and the fall of the Fälldin Government (Vedung 1979). Thus in order to articulate non-materialistic values, there might be a need for a fundamental re-alignment of parties. Part of the overcrowding and unconventional discussed earlier could thus be explained by the fact that existing party systems have not adequately represented the new interests and values which have developed in post-industrial societies.

Finally, it might be argued that though party systems have been slow to reflect the newer values, the bureaucracy has been even slower to respond - particularly where long-range planning is involved. In societies where values change rather rapidly, there may always be conflict and unconventionalparticipation plans made under one set of value assumptions come to be implemented at a time when a new set of value assumptions has gained popular currency. Groups will then emerge to resist the 'old' plans (as in the Umeå school case), and unconventional participation is likely to result if planners insist on sticking to the original plan. Thus we may

expect a continuing problem of managing conflict, unless planning in
particular and policy making in general can take account of rather rapid
value change in society as a whole.

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NOTES

1 We recognize that the term post-industrial is often used rather loosely. For the purposes of this paper, by 'post-industrial' we mean societies in which service industries have come to outnumber workers in manufacturing and 'productive' industries. In practice we see the period from approximately the mid 1960's onwards as marking the arrival of the post-industrial in Western Europe.

2 Thus Hay ward attributes (in part) the failure of economic planning in the United Kingdom to 'deeply entrenched liberal attitudes' (Hayward 1974, 100).

3 The reader will recognize an underlying assumption at this point in the discussion - namely that we assume that decision-makers are 'disturbed' by unconventional participation. We think it reasonable to assume that this is normally the case and that as a result the decision-maker will act in such a way as to achieve a 'negotiated order' or a negotiated environment. (For a discussion of the relevance of these concepts to interest groups/decision-maker see Richardson and Jordan 1979, 101-103.)

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