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As Lewis Gunn has recently pointed out, academics have hitherto been preoccupied with policy formulation, leaving the practical details of policy implementation to administrators. This situation, as he suggests, is rapidly changing. There is now a growing concern with problems of implementation and indeed with policy 'failures'. We have gradually come to realize that there is considerable truth in the saying that he who implements, decides policy. There is also a greater awareness that the type of system selected to deliver or administer policies may be an important determinant of the 'success' or 'failure' of many policy programmes. An added complication is that measurement of success or failure is itself difficult and at times impossible. What may seem failure to the central policy-maker (be he politician or civil servant) may be seen as success by the regional or local implementor. The results of evaluation studies of public policies will vary according to whether the evaluator adopts a 'top down' or 'bottom up' view of the policy process. In any event the researcher must be aware of differing objectives both in terms of the policies themselves and in terms of personnel involved in delivering those policies.

This paper is concerned with examining the extent to which governments in West Germany and the UK have attempted to achieve linkages between these adjacent policy areas. As a result of traditional labour market and educational practices, Germany enjoys comparatively low levels of youth unemployment and of IT skill shortages, and there has been no great imperative to 'link' these policy areas at the Federal level; a mainly 'decentralised rationality' has persisted. By contrast, the UK's record on youth unemployment and skill shortages is poor, prompting attempts to achieve a 'co-ordinated rationality' by linking these areas. The paper examines reasons for these differences and discusses possible implications thereof.

IT IS NOW GENERALLY ACCEPTED THAT WESTERN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACIES HAVE EXHIBITED THE TENDENCY OF SECTORISED OR SEGMENTED POLICY-MAKING. IN THE BRITISH CASE THE CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF SECTORISATION WAS PROVIDED BY THE LATE LORD BOYLE WHEN HE DESCRIBED THE NATURE OF THE EDUCATION POLICY PROCESS-NAMELY THAT THE STARTING POINT FOR EDUCATION POLICY WAS IN THE EDUCATIONAL WORLD ITSELF; A VIEW CONFIRMED BY A FORMER LABOUR SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION, THE LATE ANTHONY CROSLAND. ALTHOUGH SOME STRAINS HAVE BEEN NOTED IN FARMER-STATE RELATIONS, IT REMAINS THE CASE THAT MUCH AGRICULTURAL POLICY OWES ITS ORIGINS TO THE AGRICULTURE POLICY COMMUNITY - PRIMARILY, IF NO LONGER EXCLUSIVELY, DOMINATED BY THE NFU. THE PHENOMENON OF SECTORISATION IS BY NO MEANS SOLELY A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM.

In this article we analyse the successful attempt by a group of interests concerned with water reorganization during the early 1970s to prevent a radical change in administrative arrangements concerning land drainage. Despite the apparently esoteric nature of the policy area, the 'politics of land drainage' was fundamentally concerned with the important matter of what has been called 'the business concept' of government. The case study also provides a useful insight into the way in which established interests may have succeeded in 'colonizing' certain central government departments. This suggests that a model of pressure group activity depicting pressure on the centre may be misleading for certain areas of policy. We also suggest that the evidence provided by a study of the politics of water reorganization sheds some light on contrasting departmental styles of policy-making.