Policy Alienation Amongemployees of the Labor Office of the Czech Republic

Abstract

Currently, there is intense debate about what determines the difference between a policy failure and a policy success. In this article we assume that top-down policy design is a poor manner of decision-making and that without the involvement of employees (public professionals) who identify with new policies, policy failure is likely. Therefore, we concentrate our attention on public professionals (and their opinions, perceptions, and feelings) applying the concept of policy alienation developed by Lars Tummers. In particular, this paper deals with the consequences of reform in the labor offices of the Czech Republic for the employees of these institutions. This reform was a top-down policy designed without communication or discussion with stakeholders. The reform led to a number of problems, some of which originated in the policy-making process, and others of which arose in the implementation of the reforms. In this article, we explore the hypothesis that employees who were not consulted or involved in the design and implementation of the reforms suffered from feelings of policy alienation. Our research is based on quantitative methods and we apply a reliable, validated policy alienation scale created by Lars Tummers. We also assume that there is a relationship between policy alienation and job satisfaction, and between policy alienation and commitment to the aims of the organization.