Introduction

Policy analysis has been commonly acknowledged as one of the most important processes for avoiding policy failure, as well as for improving policy efficiency. This is especially true during the process of adopting highly uncertain new policy ideas. However, what are the analytical processes and assessment tools used by local governments to guide their adoption/rejection of innovative policies? By reviewing three cases of innovation adoption in Taiwan's local government, this chapter not only addresses this question, but also integrates theories of policy analysis with the theories of innovation adoption. This chapter is structured around five sections: the first three identify the common theoretical basis for innovation diffusion literature and policy analysis; the fourth section describes the policy analysis of Taiwan's local government innovations. The final section concludes the chapter and offers suggestions for the decision-making process regarding policy innovations.

Approach of Policy Analysis

Following the separation of public policy research from political science and public administration in the 1950s, policy analysis became an important academic topic within a relatively short period of time. One of the main reasons for this importance is that such analysis is required in policy implementation. Both pre-implementation assessments and overall post-implementation outcome reviews require the participation of policy analysts. However, due to its vast scope of application and the divergent emphases placed on policy analysis by different scholars, policy analysis itself is broadly defined. Given its objective of analysing a targeted issue from an overall perspective, Dunn (1993) stated that policy analysis belongs to the applied discipline. It employs multiple investigation methods and policy argumentation methods to create and transform policy data so that it can be applied in a political environment in order to analyse policies. Williams (1971) believed that policy analysis generates policy proposals via integrated data, and in turn determines the future demand based on such data. It is therefore similar to pre-implementation and feasibility assessments. Dye (1995) placed the focus of his study on the causal inferences of a policy. He claimed that the function of policy analysis is to describe and explain the causes and effects of implementing a certain policy, and that therefore the policy analysis procedure requires objective and precise methods, so that its explanatory power can be enhanced. Burt (1974) also believed that policy analysis is a pre-implementation assessment of a policy.