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'Mixed economy' we take to refer to the complex institutional arrangements of resource allocation in modern society; mixed economy policy analysis is concerned with a positive administrative theory for steering resource allocative processes. The present article reviews some basic definitions, dimensions and models of mixed economy and discusses several formal reasons for why so little progress has been made towards an administrative theory of mixed economy. A policy implementation perspective is used to provide an alternative conception of mixed economy allocative processes and a method for researching them. Data from a current research project on mixed economy strategies for 'Helping Small Firms Grow' are used to illustrate arguments in the article.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this introductory article is to set implementation research in a political science setting. We understand it as having a distinctive and central place within the discipline. We argue that implementation research is not public administration research in disguise. Its frame of reference is not formal constitutional organization but the arrangements and procedures of the living constitution. And implementation research is not just public policy analysis by another name. Its ordering principle is not policy problems as defined and addressed by the 'political system' but policy problems as defined and addressed by relevant societal actors. The importance of implementation research for political science is that it offers scope for empirical constitutionalism: to ask, first, what are the organizational arrangements which generate policies and their effects, in order to ask, second, which of those various arrangements are or could be made optimal forms from a prescriptive constitutional perspective. Implementation research acknowledges the written constitution‐but also the living constitution. It is a mind‐set for sceptical enquiry into the structure and functions of policy processes, and to confront these manifestations of the living constitution with the prescriptions of the written.

ABSTRACTThe article describes the design of, and presents some first results from, the West German component of a four‐country comparative study of organizational arrangements for providing small firms with assistance to help them overcome their problems of development. In describing the research design, particular attention is given to the unit‐of‐analysis problem and to a method for inductively reconstructing the unit of analysis. An analytic 'grid', based on a simple model of problem‐solving, is proposed which would seem well suited to the project's cross‐cultural frame of reference. Preliminary results provided in the latter part of the article should serve to illustrate some of the analytic possibilities which may be expected from the project.

THE INITAL AIM OF THE PROJECT IS TO RECONSTRUCT, DESCRIBE AND ANALYZE SMALL FIRM ASSISTANCE STRUCTURES, UPON WHICH LOCAL POPULATIONS OF SMALL FIRMS DRAW IN ORDER TO FIND SOLUTIONS TO THEIR PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT. THE OBJECTIVE IS THEN TO EXAMINE HOW WELL LOCAL POPULATIONS OF FIRMS FARE IN COPING WITH THEIR PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT AND TO ASK WHETHER ANY DIFFERENCES CAN BE EXPLAINED BY THE VARYING ACTOR AND RESOURCE COMPOSITION OF THE ASSISTANCE STRUCTURES.

IT IS BY NOW A TRUISM OF THE IMPLEMENTATION LITERATURE THAT THE OBJECTIVES OF PUBLIC POLICY ARE OFTEN VAGUE AND EVEN ABSENT; MORE THAN THAT, EVEN WHEN INTITIALLY SPECIFIED THEY ARE FREQUENTLY REDEFINED DURING THE COURSE OF IMPLEMENTATION. HENCE THE OBJECTION OF HOW CAN ONE SPEAK MEANINGFULLY OF IMPLEMENTATION IF THE VERY THING TO BE IMPLEMENTED IS INDETERMINATE IN THE FIRST PLACE.