Policy Implementability in Public Sector Innovation: Reconstructing Classical Implementation Theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26740/jpsi.v10n2.p1-12Abstract
This article reconstructs classical determinants of public policy implementation into a policy implementability framework for contemporary public sector innovation. Drawing on Van Meter and Van Horn, Edwards III, and Sabatier and Mazmanian, this article uses an integrative conceptual review to reorganize variables that are often treated separately in the top-down tradition. The main argument is that implementation failure should not be understood only as a downstream administrative weakness, but also as an outcome of low implementability embedded in policy design. The synthesis identifies four interrelated dimensions of policy implementability: policy design clarity, administrative capacity, institutional structuring, and socio-political support. These dimensions explain how policy decisions are transformed into implementation outputs, target-group compliance, and policy performance. By linking classical implementation theory with studies on policy capacity, public sector innovation, digital transformation, local governance, climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and implementation gaps, the article offers a diagnostic framework for assessing implementation readiness before policies are carried out. The contribution is to shift the analytical focus from asking why policies fail after adoption to asking whether policies are designed to be implementable from the outset. The framework is relevant for analyzing innovative, digital, collaborative, and cross-sectoral policies that require interorganizational coordination, behavioral change, technological capacity, and sustained political legitimacy.
Keywords: policy implementability, policy implementation, policy design, public sector innovation
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