Welfare Interagency Relations at the Local Level: A Policy Implementation Perspective
Author: Tsuey-Ping Lee
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This study intends to explore the difficulties embedded within interagencyinteractions in implementing social welfare policies at local level. Taiwan’sgovernment has placed an emphasis on social welfare policies over the last decade.However, welfare tragedies still show no sign of reducing. The author believes thatproblems with interagency interaction during the policy process may offset theintended effects of a welfare policy. Through conducting comprehensive literaturereview and face-to-face interviews with 19 local social welfare civil servants of bothTaipei and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan, this research analyzes interagency relationsvia four dimensions including accountability, communication, resource exchange,and interagency culture. This study finds that the institutional design makesinteragency cooperation difficult and thus causes ineffective communication anddistrust of interagency culture. In addition, how agency members perceiveinteragency cooperation in turn affects their attitudes toward and recognition ofeach other. Compared with Kaohsiong city, interviewees from Taipei city viewedinteragency cooperation as more of a partnership and accordingly, they expectedmore effective communication and resource exchange.