Governance, performance, and chronic capacity stress in public policy systems

Public policy systems often betray signs of capacity stress. Supply factors seem to lag behind demand, and as a result these systems sustain what appears to be chronically sub-optimal performance neither completely excelling nor completely failing in what they do. How should we interpret these syndromes? Although competing theoretical explanations can shed partial light, potential ‘blind spots’ between them mean that they are not able to capture capacity stress in its entirety. In this paper I introduce the concept of ‘chronic capacity stress’ (CCS) as a holistic governance-style approach. I show how capacity stress is closely associated with four interrelated factors: 1) misalignment between policy goals and the external environment; 2) cultures of coping and adaptation; 3) direct and benign resistance to change; and 4) sustained obsolescence and inefficiency. The CCS heuristic provides a useful way of understanding dialectical dynamics of stress and equilibrium in UK policy systems.