Patterns Of Reinvention

Patterns of Reinvention: The Nature of Evolution During Policy Diffusion (Scott P. Hays, 1996.)

Scott Hays' 1996 article, Patterns of Reinvention, looks at three (3) different policy innovations, comparing and contrasting their rates of change and dispersion: reinvention. Reinvention is defined by the author as "the process of evolution of an innovation during diffusion Ð'... and the changes adopters make to an innovation" (p. 551.) The three (3) policy areas focused upon Ð'- child abuse reporting laws, crime victim compensation laws, and public campaign funding laws Ð'- are used by Hays in a comparative analytical approach and questions whether the scope of the laws become more strict when adopters modify them over time, or if the laws are weakened as they are changed and implemented. Further, Hays considers whether the reinvention patterns are arbitrary, or whether policy diffusion is the result of an expected "second round of reinvention" (p. 551.)

In his examination of these questions, Hays' study compares patterns of reinvention "by coding the substantive effect of individual provisions comprising each of the [three] laws" (pp. 551-552.) He poses two hypotheses, which he tests against available relevant data on the three categories of regulation. First, he theorizes that the comprehensiveness of the laws has increased over time. Second Ð'- after a length of time for amendments to be adopted Ð'- Hays posits that the comprehensiveness of the laws fails to correlate to the time interval since the law's initial approval.

Hays' findings and conclusions are varied. He finds evidence that policies do indeed evolve as they diffuse, but not necessarily in a more comprehensive fashion. On the other hand, the data upholds his second postulation regarding the relationship of time to the comprehensiveness of the law. Hays broadens his conclusions based on these findings and argues that reinvention of public policies can embrace new, innovative aspects; that reinvention can lead to either a strengthening or weakening of a policy, usually inversely related to its level of controversy; that all adopters Ð'- initial and subsequent Ð'- play a role in a policy's reinvention; and that states, in their role as initial policy adoption laboratories, play and will play a more extensive role in formulating local answers to national domestic concerns such as poverty, crime and health care (pp.564-565.)

Critique

Hays provides a unique approach and examination of the three (3) policy areas he has chosen. By integrating and expecting change, the