text:
Policy Networks and Advocacy Coalitions: Explaining Policy Change
and Stability in UK Industrial Pollution Policy?
SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, Mantell Building, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RF, England; e-mail: A.G.Smith@sussex.ac.uk
Published in: Environment and Planning C - Government and Policy, Vol.18, No.1, pp.95-114
Policy network analysis (PNA) and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) are relatively recent additions to the toolbox of policy analysis. This paper explores the strengths and limitations of each through comparative application. The two frameworks are used to analyse policy change and stability in the UK industrial pollution sector over a period of more than twenty five years. Innovations derived from policy-oriented learning generated in the 1970s were initially rejected before being implemented 14 years later. The case study illustrates the limits of both theories. Change was not an open competition between advocates of different policy core beliefs. Nevertheless the ACF's analysis of contrasting, broadly defined beliefs can help explain some events beyond policy networks. Resource interdependencies in the policy network provides a good explanation for the stabilities exhibited in the case study. PNA can also explain why some actors were excluded from the policy process whilst others exercised decision and non-decision making power. In combination, the more fundamental, agency and structure oriented emphases on beliefs and resources, associated with the ACF and PNA respectively, can enrich policy analysis.
Policy networks and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) are two of the more recent additions to the toolbox of policy analysis. Neither model is so new that it has not attracted debate (Dowding (1995) and Schlager and Blomquist (1995) respectively), and both have undergone refinement as a result (Marsh, 1998; Sabatier, 1998). Both frameworks emphasise the analytical importance of inter-organisational relationships within policy sectors (John, 1998), though the bases for these relationships are conceptually very different. Applications have sought to explain policy in many sectors (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992; Sabatier, 1998), and have included pollution policy analyses (e.g. O'Toole, 1997; Sabatier and Pelkey, 1987). This paper compares the two models by applying them to the same case study of UK industrial pollution policy.
This case study is apt because it involves a combination of policy change and policy stability over the long term. Some commentators consider policy network analysis (PNA) more appropriate to policy stability than change (John, 1998), though PNA scholars have sought to explain change (Smith, 1993; Marsh, 1998). The ACF was developed to study policy change over the long-term, and to include technical knowledge and policy-oriented learning in this process (features relevant to pollution policy) (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). The empirical material in this paper, combined with the comparative analytical approach, should provide a test for these views. It needs to be stressed that the paper does not seek to identify the best model, but rather to explore the strengths and limitations of each.
A new regulatory framework, introduced in 1990, represented a modernisation of UK industrial pollution policy. It involved a shift in policy goals from the separate control of emissions to air, water and land, to an integrated and preventive control of releases to all three media. Regulation was also intended to become transparent and accountable (Allott, 1993). This system of 'Integrated Pollution Control' (IPC) would be implemented by a unitary regulator created for the task in 1987, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP). HMIP and IPC became new acronyms for UK industrial pollution policy and were supposed to signal a break from the past. The Government declared Britain to be in the vanguard of Europe (Secretary of State Chris Patten, M.P., Hansard House of Commons Debates, Vol.165, Col.35, 15/01/1990). It is these changes, and their implementation, which form the empirical focus for this paper.
The paper includes an extended account of implementation, something earlier studies were unable to do owing to the inchoate status of IPC (O'Riordan and Weale, 1989; Jordan, 1993). The paper is based on 48 interviews (and ongoing dialogue) with industry environmental managers, civil servants, pollution regulators, and NGOs, documentary evidence and a content analysis of the IPC public register. By bringing the entire policy process into focus we can address the question underpinning this paper: how completely does PNA and the ACF explain the origins of policy change and the sources of stability?
PNA and the ACF are introduced in sections two and three. In section four the IPC policy process is analysed to see how each can enlighten our understanding of change and stability. The final section draws some conclusions about PNA and the ACF. The analysis highlights the relationship between beliefs and resources in policy change, and the differing emphases the ACF and PNA place upon them. This derives from their respective roots in interorganisational (more structural) and US pluralist (more agency-oriented) literature.
2: Policy network analysis
PNA assumes policy-making is sectorised and takes place within networks of public and private policy actors. Each policy network ordinarily includes the relevant sectoral government department (though final delineation is an empirical task (Marsh, 1998)). That said, structure is important in policy networks. PNA illustrates how some actors are denied a voice in policy processes by structural means. This position echoes the intellectual antecedents of PNA: the US sub-governments literature and the European inter-organisational studies literature (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992). Whilst early theoretical development appeared pre-occupied with classifying networks (van Waarden, 1992), the significance of PNA for explaining policy outcomes has been a longer-lasting concern (Bressers and O'Toole, 1994).
Power-dependency theory forms the heart of PNA (Rhodes, 1986). Modern policy problems are complex, and no state agency has the resources to address issues single-handedly: they are interdependent upon the co-operation and resources of other actors. This is the core analytical device in PNA. 'Each player's room for decisional manoeuvre on an issue is constrained by the material and intellectual resources available to him, appropriate to that issue and which he is prepared to use, and by those possessed by other players, who may perceive their own interests differently' (Wilks & Wright, 1987, pp 4-5).
Well resourced actors form dominant coalitions within a policy network and co-evolve a shared appreciative system which influences how policy problems are perceived, makes some solutions more acceptable than others, and informs the rules of the game concerning behaviour between network members and between the network and non-members (Rhodes, 1986; Smith, 1993). The cohesion of policy networks can vary over time and from sector to sector. Analysts conceive a policy network continuum ranging from tightly knit policy communities to looser issue networks. Policy communities contain a limited number of well-resourced members enjoying a common appreciative system, and exhibiting regular interaction and exchange between members. At the opposite end of the continuum are looser issue networks, whose membership encompasses a wide range of interests, even though members may have only limited resources. Whilst agreement between issue network members is possible, conflict is ever present and interaction is consultative at best (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992).
A key debate in the literature is how to account for changes to the network and their impact on policy outcomes (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992). An important premise of PNA is that the proximity of network members to policy decision-makers privileges their interests and works to reinforce the status quo. A corollary is that policy change in tightly networked sectors ought to tend towards incrementalism, and to conservatism in sectors with more cohesive policy communities.
Nonetheless, some analysts have identified significant change to both networks and policy particularly when assessed over long periods. Jordan and Greenaway (1998) cite a number of studies in which closed policy communities have opened following pressure from new entrants, such as the environment lobby, with a concomitant impact on policy outcomes. Dowding (1995) argues these changes can be explained exclusively by the bargaining patterns between network members and with non-members. The network structure (i.e. the degree of cohesion) has no explanatory role as either an independent or intervening variable (cf. Bressers and O'Toole, 1994). Dowding stresses agency in driving policy and negates structural influence, an accent echoed in the ACF approach which Dowding cites favourably (1994).
A number of comparative studies do suggest that the structure of a network influences policy change and outcome. A comparison of national water policy networks indicated network structure during the policy formulation phase influenced the pattern of implementation (Bressers and O'Toole, 1994). Duagbjerg (1997) has demonstrated, through a comparative study of agricultural policy reform in Sweden and the EU, that the different degrees of cohesion in the policy networks influenced the content of the reform. In his study of acidification policy in Hungary, O'Toole found an absence of network structures contributed to a significant implementation gap (1997). Without denying agency a role, empirical contributions to the literature do claim that network structure is an influential variable intervening in the policy process.
More recent work conceives the interaction between the bargaining of members and the structure of the network as dialectical: 'policy networks are structures within which agents operate. Agents are, in a sense, bearers of those positions, but they interpret, deconstruct and reconstruct these structures' (Marsh, 1998, p 194). Network members can bargain over changes to the organisation, appreciative system and rules of the game (i.e. its structure), but they have to do so from within the given organisation, appreciative system and rules of the game which constitutes the network and influences member behaviour. It is a structure, moreover, which defines some aspects of an agent's interest (Marsh and Smith, 1996). An agent's orientation extends beyond commitments to their bureaucracy, profession and so on, to include past network interactions (Hanf and O'Toole, 1992) and their current position within the network structure. A dynamic interplay exists between the network structure and the agents within it. If policy networks do influence policy outcomes, then it will be through a complex product of bargaining between the membership, facilitated and constrained by network structure. Complicating matters still further is the recognition that policy networks do not exist in a vacuum. Context plays an important intervening role in policy network dynamics and outcomes.
The literature distinguishes between events endogenous and exogenous to the network. Endogenous sources of change arise amongst the network membership. Members seek to modify their resource attributes in an attempt to alter their position of influence within the network and over policy decisions (Read, 1989). Endogenous changes tend only to affect outcomes incrementally (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992). The literature suggests analysts look at factors exogenous to the policy network for major changes. Marsh and Rhodes (1992) classify these factors into three general categories: economic; political; and knowledge-based. These are very general (even vague) categories and surprisingly, considering the importance attributed to them for policy change, there is little explanation of the mechanisms by which the exogenous factors produce change in the policy network. Smith (1993) provides some elaboration. He suggests exogenous factors alter actors' perception of reality such that it diverges markedly from the network's appreciative system. This divergence either forces changes in the policy network or creates opportunities for non-members to gain access to the political agenda. Such challenges, working at the level of beliefs about policy problems, have parallels with the ACF concept of policy change.
In other instances a new problem or event can elevate some resources and render others obsolete, the balance of influence shifts as a result, creating an opportunity for change (Smith, 1993). This suggests networks mediate the affects of exogenous factors and 'any simple distinction between endogenous and exogenous factors is misleading' (Marsh, 1998, p 197). It also problematises the utility of PNA for policy change. If significant change does arise from factors outside policy networks, does this mean that PNA can only shed light on the response of actors already involved in a policy sector? Does it mean this particular analytical lens cannot bring the entire policy process into focus?
3: The advocacy coalition framework
Whilst PNA stresses the role of resources in structuring an actor's proximity to policy-making, the ACF emphasises belief systems and policy-oriented learning. The essential premise of the ACF is that policy-making occurs in a policy sub-system inhabited by several multi-actor advocacy coalitions which compete to influence policy in line with the policy beliefs which bind each coalition together (Sabatier, 1988). The ACF seeks to explain policy change by identifying the source of the beliefs supporting that change. The process of competition between advocacy coalitions generates policy-oriented learning. The ACF conceives policy change as a relatively open and competitive process between belief systems, reflecting its US pluralist lineage. It stresses agency over structure in explanations of change. That the ACF has its roots in the US political system does not, according to Sabatier (1998, p.103), invalidate its application to Westminster-style systems.
The ACF unit of analysis is the policy sub-system defined as 'the group of people and/or organisations interacting regularly over periods of a decade or more to influence policy formulation and implementation within a given policy area/domain' (Sabatier, 1998, p 111). Delineating the policy sub-system is an empirical task, though the position of actors without long term involvement in a sub-system is not clear. Interestingly, our study illustrates how actors may be involved only briefly yet generate long term consequences.
The ACF presents actors as boundedly rational, having limited time and computational ability to process data (after Simon, 1985), and instrumentally rational, in the sense that the heuristics they use are affected by their goals and belief systems (Sabatier, 1998). Over time, actors tend to coalesce into a number of advocacy coalitions competing for influence. Each coalition is bound together by the shared policy core beliefs of their members, though co-ordinated action is also an important defining feature (ibid). Policy core beliefs represent the coalition's basic normative goals for the policy area, their perception of causal mechanisms, and strategies for achieving their goals (ibid).
An actor's policy core beliefs are important since these glue the coalition together. However, each actor's overall belief system contains other levels. More entrenched are the deep core beliefs which include basic ontological and normative axioms. Policy core beliefs work at the next level. Less entrenched than these are secondary aspects - views on specific elements or issues in the policy sub-system and the instrumental decisions considered necessary for policy core maintenance. Secondary aspects are altered more readily with experience, in the light of new information or for strategic purposes (for example, to deflect criticism of policy core beliefs). So actors in the ACF hold a three-fold, nested belief system. They tend to associate in advocacy coalitions along policy belief lines whilst compromising over secondary aspects.
Policy core beliefs can change too, but only when they become seriously out of kilter with real world experience. This process of policy-oriented learning is instrumental: 'members of various coalitions seek to better understand the world in order to further their policy objectives. They will resist information suggesting that their basic beliefs may be invalid or unattainable, and they will use formal policy analyses primarily to buttress and elaborate those beliefs (or attack their opponents views)'(Sabatier, 1993, p.19). Hann (1995) notes the slippery task of mapping a belief system. She suggests beliefs are best inferred from what actors do rather than what they say (ibid); whereas Sabatier favours inference from content analyses. This paper adopts a combination of both, but also problematises the notion that actors have tightly defined belief systems.
A coalition must also co-ordinate member actions and seek to influence other institutions with sovereignty over the policy process (who are also the target of other coalitions) (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Competing coalitions will use persuasive testimony to alter rules or budgets, or seek to recruit or influence important government personnel, and try to shape public opinion. In this respect, the ACF is agency-oriented, since no mention is made of structural constraints preventing actors building coalitions and seeking influence.
The ACF claims the competitive process is not simply a case of one grouping seeking to assert its interests over another and that policy-oriented learning takes place both within coalitions and between coalitions (Sabatier, 1998). This policy-oriented learning is problematic since the coalitions, with their contrasting policy beliefs, tend to engage in a dialogue of the deaf in which each attacks the premises and understandings of the other. The ACF contends that if conflict is low and debate mediated by a professional forum then learning can take place (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier, 1993).
The competition between coalitions is mediated by the policy broker - an actor which Sabatier likens to the British high civil service (1993). The policy broker's function is to find some reasonable compromise which minimises conflict (Sabatier, 1998). This compromise, shaped by the broker's own policy bent, affects the policy process, the outcomes of which feedback to fuel further, competing interpretations. The policy broker occupies an important role in ACF accounts of policy change. Yet the model has been criticised for lacking elaboration beyond an implicitly pluralist characterisation (Jordan and Greenaway, 1998).
Policy-oriented learning rarely results in major policy change, since it is the secondary aspects which tend to be modified by endogenous learning, whilst it is wholesale shifts in dominant policy core belief which are associated with major policy change. The ACF has been criticised for neglecting the mechanisms behind major policy change (Mintrom and Vergari, 1996). The ACF's response is to evoke a list of exogenous factors: socio-economic change, changes in public opinion, change in government, authoritative intervention and impacts arising from other policy sub-systems. There are a number of ways in which exogenous factors lead to such a change. First, the exogenous factor is exploited by a minority coalition such that it replaces the dominant coalition. Second, a minor coalition, strengthened by new exogenous conditions, creates a successful coalition of convenience with other groups. Third, an exogenous policy sovereign (for example, the European Union) commands the dominant coalition to change policy. Finally, all coalitions recognise the current situation is untenable and negotiate a compromise (Sabatier, 1998).
The recourse to exogenous factors sets the boundary for the ACF, just as it does for PNA. Nevertheless, each framework has a sufficiently rich model of dynamics within a policy sector for worthwhile application to UK industrial pollution policy. Moreover, the policy change which IPC presents is not major in the paradigm shifting sense evoked in the literature. IPC, like the regulatory framework it replaced, uses a technology-based regulatory principle as the tool for regulating emissions. Where IPC provides change is in its integrated approach, and in doing this with greater transparency than before. Some of this ought to test the more endogenous elements of the ACF and PNA.
In combination, the ACF and PNA suggest analysis proceed by identifying the resources, beliefs and interactions of policy actors interested in industrial pollution policy over the last 25 years. Table 1 summarises key aspects of the two frameworks and positions relevant elements of the IPC policy process against each aspect.
[INSERT TABLE 1 AROUND HERE]
4: Policy change and stability in UK industrial pollution policy
Events over three decades of industrial pollution policy are interpreted below within the ACF and PNA frames. The objective is to examine the various ways each contributes to understanding the IPC policy process.
4.1: A Long Tradition of Policy Stability
Industrial pollution policy in the UK dates back to the creation of the Alkali Inspectorate in 1863. This small, technical regulator worked in obscurity. Ministers at the Department of the Environment (DoE) were content to leave this low-level, technical policy area to the discretion of the Alkali Inspectorate (Secretary of State for the Environment, Peter Walker in Hansard H.C. Written Answers, 24th October 1972, Vol. 843, Col. 257). The legal framework required the Inspectorate to ensure that industrial process operators pursued the 'best practicable means' (BPM) to prevent or render harmless their air emissions. There were no statutory emission limits and it was for Inspectors to interpret what BPM meant for emissions from each regulated process. Process operators covered by the framework required a permit from the Inspectorate before they could operate legally.
The Inspectorate regulatory style has been described elsewhere (e.g. Vogel, 1986; Ashby and Anderson, 1981). It is captured best in a comment by the then Chief Inspector in the Alkali Inspectorate Annual Report for 1967:
Abating air pollution is a technical problem - a matter for scientists and engineers, operating in an atmosphere of co-operative officialdom. Great care has to be exercised by all to prevent the development of adversary attitudes.
Included closely in this 'atmosphere of co-operative officialdom' was industry. Operators collaborated with Inspectorate research, identifying BPM for different types of industrial process. The tendency was to pursue abatement measures which operators would take up voluntarily: formal enforcement measures and prosecution were a device of last resort and were utilised very rarely (National Audit Office, 1991). This continues under IPC, as Table 2 illustrates. Conflict was avoided through confidential working practices and little consultation with other interests (Hill, 1982).
Through the ACF lens we see a technocratic advocacy coalition dominating policy. Inspectors and industry were united in their policy core belief that pollution is an engineering problem to be solved by the regulator working in partnership with industry. Secondary aspects, such as permit conditions, were up for negotiation, but not the style of working relationship. This suited industrial interests because it meant they could influence the pace and direction of abatement measures (and hence compliance costs). The Inspectors shared the policy core belief, and whilst they might have wished improvements to proceed more rapidly, they nevertheless understood the practical need to attend to industry's compliance problems.
It is the regulator's continued policy to recruit engineers or scientists with industrial experience, reinforcing common regulator-industry policy core beliefs. A shared background reinforces their deep core belief in the primacy of the industrial economy. Inspectors and operators are both concerned for the competitiveness of UK plc. Here we have a description of the dominant advocacy coalition. But it does not say much about the source of this dominance beyond the observation that Inspectors and operators have a shared background and often think alike.
PNA recognises the same regulator-operator interests influencing policy output, but the accent is on their resource interdependency rather than solely due to shared beliefs. Whilst some Inspectors genuinely did believe the voluntary approach was the best, there were also resource constraints restricting their ability to adopt alternative regulatory styles. To set and enforce BPM standards along strict command-and-control lines would require the regulator to have robust technical and economic information about each process. The source of such information is the operator, and, as with technology-based regulations in general (Weale, 1992), this puts the operator ahead of the regulator. PNA positions the regulator on the weaker side of an asymmetry in information resources.
Even if robust standards could be established, the regulator's small size limits its ability to police such standards. Self-monitoring is necessary, backed up by regulator inspection visits (Environment Agency, 1997). The voluntary approach signifies an exchange between the regulator's authority resources, to issue a permit, and the operator's information and organisation resources. Whilst it is true that this policy sector has been dominated by policy beliefs common to the regulator and industry (a shared appreciative system in policy network parlance), there was also a resource interdependency structuring and reinforcing the bond.
Industry's structural position as the source of information and organisation resources bestows privilege and influence in a way not identified in the more pluralist ACF account. Understanding industrial pollution as the domain of a resource interdependent policy community captures dimensions of the policy sector missed by the term technocratic advocacy coalition.
4.2: The 1970s: Pressure for Policy Change
The first wave of modern environmentalism which broke in the 1960s and early 1970s swept industrial pollution policy out of obscurity and into the public eye. Journalists, researchers and politicians criticised the Inspectorate's 'self-convinced role as an agency to help industry to get on with the job, rather than an air pollution control agency' (Bugler, 1972). A failed Private Member's Bill in 1973 sought to introduce transparency and accountability into the work of the Inspectorate. However, criticism subsided with mass environmentalism generally after the mid-1970s.
Policy change in another sector did affect industrial pollution policy and held implications for change in the 1980s. In 1975 the Government created the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as part of its reform of industrial health and safety. A pollution incident, arising from a workplace accident near Bristol, convinced the Government that the Alkali Inspectorate should be included under the HSE umbrella. The independent-minded Inspectorate was at the margins of health and safety institutions, yet responsibility for industrial pollution administration was taken away from the DoE and became subsumed under the health and safety responsibilities at the Department of Employment (DEmp). Any procedural reform to industrial pollution policy would have presented an undesirable complexity for the Government (O'Riordan and Weale, 1989). Cross-sectoral effects, identified in the ACF, retarded possibilities for sectoral reform.
However, the criticism of the early 1970s did leave a mark. In June 1974, Secretary of State for the Environment, Anthony Crosland, invited the standing Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) to investigate the air pollution issue in response to its critics (Ashby and Anderson, 1981). The RCEP's report recognised the need for transparent regulation (RCEP, 1976). They felt, moreover, that pollution control required expertise from a variety of disciplines and should account for local opinion. The RCEP recommended the wider consultation called for by the Inspectorate's critics.
In addition, the RCEP believed control of emissions overlooked cross-media impacts: air emissions could have impacts in other media (e.g. acid rain), and efforts to control releases to one environmental medium might simply shunt them into another (e.g. filtering dust emissions converts them into solid waste). On this basis, a unitary Inspectorate (free from the HSE) should identify the 'best practicable environmental option' for the integrated control of releases to all environmental media.
Did the critics constitute a competing advocacy coalition? It depends how closely we stick to definitions. The critics did not seek to alter the policy core belief that pollution control was an engineering problem. Their criticism focused upon secondary aspects of transparency and enforcement. Nor did criticism persist for the period necessary to constitute an advocacy coalition. Viewed less strictly, the critics did advocate change. Did the official RCEP inquiry play the role of an impartial policy broker? It would appear not, since the RCEP made its own recommendations over and above those sought by critics. The ACF acknowledges that brokers can possess their own policy bent but this implies the distortion of the resultant of competing coalitions' demands. In this instance, the RCEP introduced its own agenda for reform: the integrated control of industrial releases. This was policy-oriented learning for which neither the policy community nor its critics had called. The RCEP played a role more akin to policy advocate. Finally, whilst calls for reform were short lived, they did have longer term consequences. The environmental benefits articulated by the RCEP were cited by officials as a reason for the introduction of IPC in 1990 (Department of the Environment, 1988). Perturbations like this sit uneasily with the ACF view of policy change.
PNA sees the policy community weathering the storm of popular criticism from vocal outsiders. A lack of authority and political resources prevented the critics from opening the policy community. An alternative explanation sees the episode simply as an incidence of general, transient environmental concern finding a focus in industrial pollution. Oil shocks and recession soon eclipsed this concern, which re-emerged a decade later.
A recognition common to all these interpretations, however, is the belief amongst excluded actors that something was wrong with policy as it stood. Crucially, it was a lack of political resources which prevented the transformation of those beliefs into practice. The Government, which has authority to broker, was busy pursuing its HSE reforms and did not wish to complicate matters. Here too, the policy broker concept becomes problematic because the ACF underplays the non-decision making influence enjoyed by such actors: it took the Government six years to respond to the RCEP report (an indication of its low political priority). Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Hesletine, rejected the RCEP's recommendations (Department of the Environment, 1982) despite research done jointly by the DoE and the Inspectorate, shortly after the RCEP report, which estimated over half of the regulated processes might benefit from cross-media controls (cited in Department of the Environment, 1988).
Industry, fearing added bureaucratic burdens also rejected the RCEP's recommendations. The Government's delayed response illustrates how policy-oriented learning does not automatically transmit into policy: it can be ignored and rejected by decision-makers. In deliberately seeking to develop an ACF free from the policy stages heuristic (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier, 1993b), the issue of implementing new policy lessons nevertheless remains important.
Advocates of change were excluded because they did not fit in with government priorities nor business interests. The PNA accent on exclusion explains why the critics were unable to pursue other avenues for change. Regulatory secrecy, for example, excluded them from scrutinising regulator-operator decisions. Information resources, in addition to political resources, were unavailable to them. Undaunted, the RCEP returned to its theme of integrated pollution control on a number of occasions in the 1980s. Eventually, exogenous factors combined with internal responses to produce circumstances which facilitated change. When these arose, the RCEP's recommendations provided the Government with an off-the-peg rationale to justify and partly steer change.
4.3: The 1980s: Policy Change
Reforms in the 1980s belatedly mirrored the RCEP's recommendations. Transparency was introduced to the system and procedures for public consultation established. Standards continued to be derived from a technology-based regulatory principle, but now that principle is the European 'best available techniques not entailing excessive cost' (BATNEEC). The BATNEEC standards written into each permit are more clearly defined and legally-binding. Prior to this, prosecution had to be on the grounds that the BPM principle had not been applied. In practice this was very difficult to prove. Finally, an integrated approach was adopted, requiring operators to use the 'best practicable environmental option' overall. The sequence of change was, first, administrative reform in 1987, which created HMIP from existing regulatory bodies including the Alkali Inspectorate. Second, procedural reform with the IPC framework introduced in the Environmental Protection Act, 1990.
IPC presented a new policy goal: a more preventive and integrated approach to industrial pollution. The policy setting became more transparent, and illegal behaviour more clear-cut. On the other hand, the policy instrument remained the same: a technology-based regulatory principle and a permit-to-operate system of regulation.
Confirming PNA and ACF limitations, the interplay of a number of exogenous factors were at work. Within the policy domain, but at a level beyond regulators and operators, was the Europeanisation of pollution policy. Concurrently, domestic pollution was being incorporated deeper into the HSE administration (HSE, 1984). This second factor threatened the distinct pollution regulatory function precisely when new European environmental legislation needed implementing by the DoE. Pressure was building. The policy changes were finally triggered by a third factor: the Thatcher Government's desire to cut red tape and reform public management.
4.3.1: The Europeanisation of environmental policy
To the Inspectorate and industry in the 1980s, the European approach to pollution stood in stark contrast to the domestic situation. Where they took a pragmatic and flexible approach, Europe was perceived (critically) as imposing uniform emission limits based more on precaution than on sound-science (HSE, 1984). A growing body of European legislation, including the 1984 Air Framework Directive on industrial air emissions, needed transposition into UK law. It was this Directive which required transparent regulation and introduced BATNEEC terminology. Significantly, it also provided for daughter Directives establishing uniform emission limits. In practice, only a few daughter Directives have been issued, but at the time the threat of uniform emission limits was palpable.
This exogenous threat concerned the domestic policy community. New institutional arrangements at the European level were forcing policy change, and regulators and operators responded defensively. Similar to the 1970s, we see some evidence of competing belief systems driving calls for change: this time between the precautionary (and interventionist) EC and the sound science (and consensual) domestic policy community. Indeed, the domestic believers in sound science did form a coalition in the Sabatier sense because they co-ordinated their advocacy and sought to recruit the DoE.
4.3.2: The domestic response
Experience with mounting environmental pressure generally was teaching industrial leaders to adopt a sophisticated approach. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) shifted its policy toward transparency of industrial emissions over the period 1979 to 1986, realising too much secrecy fuelled public distrust (CBI, 1986). In Fisher and Schot's terms (1993), they moved from a position of resisting change to seeking to manage change. In 1984, concerned about Europeanisation and further Inspectorate incorporation within HSE structures, the CBI and the National Society for Clean Air (NSCA) - whose membership was predominantly pollution experts from the regulatory and industrial sectors - lobbied the DoE to reclaim the Inspectorate. They hoped reform might act as a bulwark against the incipient Europeanisation of industrial pollution policy (CBI, 1986; ENDS, 1986).
4.3.3: A deregulatory agenda
Environment Minister William Waldegrave was sympathetic to reforming industrial pollution administration (O'Riordan and Weale, 1989). As a Deputy Chief inspector recalled, pressure from Europe together with domestic greening 'stiffened DoE's resolve to get the Inspectorate back' (interview evidence). However, to explain this only as the effort of a domestic advocacy coalition seeking to damp down Europeanisation would be incomplete. The DoE's resolve derived from domestic bureaucratic interests too. A Whitehall wrangle ensued between Ministers at the DoE and the DEmp over control of the Inspectorate (ENDS, 1986b). It was at this juncture that the Cabinet Office became interested. The conflict brought industrial pollution policy to Cabinet Office attention at a time when it was seeking to progress its Whitehall Efficiency Scrutiny programme. Efficiency Scrutinies sought to inject private sector management ethos into Departments (which tended to accept Scrutinies reluctantly) (Metcalfe and Richards, 1987). The Cabinet Office used the DoE-DEmp tussle as an opportunity to launch an Efficiency Scrutiny into industrial pollution regulation in 1985 (Owens, 1989).
It is important to note that neither the DEmp nor the Efficiency Scrutiny had experience in the industrial pollution policy sector, but each nevertheless had commitments which influenced their perspective on issues and different policy prescriptions. Officials at the DEmp had commitments to their bureaucracy. The DEmp did not wish to lose a regulatory unit within the HSE. Perhaps they saw potential for empire building in a high profile policy sector. Conversely, the DoE's bureaucratic interest was to reclaim the Inspectorate it had lost in the 1970s. The Efficiency Scrutiny, in contrast, had a general commitment to deregulation and a private sector management ethos. This was not purely a competition between policy core beliefs about industrial pollution. Factors additional to the ACF clash of policy beliefs were driving change. It seems a complex of the interaction between prior interests, experiences and beliefs gained in different policy areas and institutions was driving the process.
After consultation with affected interests, including sections of industry now favourable to an integrated regulator (provided it reduced the number of regulatory bodies and consequent burdens), the Efficiency Scrutiny (1986) recommended the creation of a unitary inspectorate. Their justifications were threefold: (1) building upon the Alkali Inspectorate, a unitary regulator could operate on a similar budget; (2) a unitary regulator reduces the burden upon industry by providing a one-stop-shop; and (3) the environmental benefits of integration, identified by the RCEP, would more likely be achieved. The Efficiency Scrutiny's interpretation that integration reduced red tape made the reform attractive to industry and Cabinet. Such support was a powerful political resource, and the Government used its authority to deliver the recommendations.
Whilst the Government was unwilling to provide the DoE with Parliamentary time for a Clean Air Bill in 1986 (DoE, 1986), it was happy to perform the relatively straightforward task of reforming its administration. The acid rain issue was climbing the agenda, and the Inspectorate's close relationship with industry was attracting renewed criticism from the green lobby (Boehmer-Christiansen and Skea, 1991). In April 1987, an election year, the Government created HMIP from the Alkali Inspectorate, the Radiochemical Inspectorate (RCI) and some smaller waste and water regulators. HMIP was the responsibility of the DoE.
After the election, in 1988, Mrs Thatcher launched her populist response to continued and growing public environmentalism with green speeches to the Royal Society and her Party conference, and by calling an international ozone layer conference (hosted in London the following February). This contrasted with her 1982 speech to the Scottish Conservatives, in which she contrasted the 'excitement' of her Falklands war with the 'humdrum' issues of the environment. The July 1989 appointment of a relatively green and effective Chris Patten as Secretary of State for the Environment helped secure time in the 1989/90 Parliamentary session for a wide ranging Environmental Protection Bill (McCormick, 1991), which included IPC legislation. As a DoE civil servant recalled, 'Margaret Thatcher's famous speech was one thing. That had a quite extraordinary affect on projecting the environment. Our then Secretary of State was Chris Patten who was a strong personality and rode the political wave for all it was worth and got us a big slot' (interview evidence). Fourteen years after the RCEP had called for it, a legal framework for integrated pollution control was created.
The picture of policy change which emerges is one in which beliefs are important, but which does not portray the open, long-term competition within the policy sector suggested by the ACF. A number of beliefs (even some from different policy sectors, and defined broadly to include interests and prior commitments) confronted across a number of institutional levels. Some beliefs were engaged only briefly in the industrial pollution policy sector, such as the deregulatory beliefs emanating from an election conscious Cabinet Office. Others were longer standing but underwent change, like the CBI's pollution policy.
The PNA view suggests the importance of resources in delivering change. The domestic policy community did convince the DoE that administrative reform was necessary. Ministers like William Waldegrave may even have believed the benefits to be more in line with the RCEP position than solely as a defensive measure against Europe. Yet the DoE did not have the agency to reform the sector unilaterally. It was structurally constrained by the HSE and Cabinet because it needed the latter's support and authority resources. Yet, contrary to the predictions of the ACF, the Cabinet made these resources available not because it shared policy core beliefs with the DoE, or with the policy community for that matter. Rather, broader beliefs converged upon a similar policy decision - administrative reform - for different motives and cemented by resource interdependence. This is different to the rational mode of learning postulated by the ACF, which would expect lessons about pollution policy to trigger change. The DoE dependency upon Cabinet authority resources has been pointed out. The Cabinet, conversely, though less dependent, hoped the DoE's new organisational resource in HMIP would become a concrete case delivering its deregulatory ideology, whilst also providing some green political resources for the electorate.
4.4: The 1990s: Implementing Policy Change
The DoE was determined for HMIP to break from past regulatory practice: transparency and formality became the new touchstones (DoE, 1993). Senior staff from the RCI filled the leading posts within HMIP rather than from the Alkali Inspectorate, the former having past experience in breaking away from a close regulatory relationship with industry (Coleman, 1992). Under the leadership of Frank Feates, HMIP announced it would regulate at arms' length from industry (HMIP, 1991). Interviews with senior Inspectors from the Alkali Inspectorate confirm their past association with industry denied them influence over HMIP's approach. The ACF identifies this as a change in the leading coalition with a concomitant shift in secondary aspects; PNA presents it as a unilateral attempt by new entrants to redraft the rules of the game.
The new approach required operators to apply for an IPC permit without prior consultation with Inspectors. Moreover, all communication would be transparent and auditable in contrast to past informalities. Operators would be required to meet generic pollution standards written into 'Process Guidance Notes'. Older processes would have to upgrade to those standards within a fixed timetable (HMIP, 1992). Technical consultants replaced industry in helping HMIP write the Process Guidance Notes.
Industry objected to such exclusion. Industrial leaders demanded greater involvement in the standard setting process and threatened to disrupt IPC (Wheal, 1993; CBI, 1993). Industry's capacity to disrupt was well known to Inspectors at regional and field level (ENDS, 1993). Indeed, some Inspectors were also unhappy with the new approach, particularly those schooled in the way of the Alkali Inspectorate, who had more faith in the practical benefits from collaboration with operators (Coleman, 1992). The cohesion of the policy community was sundering, as the secondary aspects of senior management departed from the long-standing belief systems of industry and some Inspectors.
What is interesting theoretically about this episode, is how policy actors in a position of authority, the senior management supported by the DoE, found it difficult to impose new rules of the game. The arms' length approach soon began to buckle, and eventually collapsed, because IPC required the same exchange of regulatory resources as under the previous air regime. Whilst IPC may have elevated newer beliefs about accountability, it failed to address resource requirements and their distribution. Consequently, older practices based upon the longer-standing beliefs of close negotiation and consensus were to re-emerge. Also the pressures of implementation forced closer operator involvement. The statutory timetable for IPC implementation was ambitious, and a manpower shortage at HMIP exacerbated the difficulty of keeping to schedule (HMIP, 1995). PNA recognises this as a shortage of organisational resources. The poor quality of operator applications for IPC permits compounded Inspector difficulties. Many applicants failed to report their emissions, environmental assessments were cursory, and few operators systematically demonstrated compliance with BATNEEC and BPEO (Smith, 1996). The applications failed to furnish the information Inspectors needed to set BATNEEC standards.
The response from Inspectors was pragmatic: they negotiated standards based on status quo levels, although operators were asked to install effective monitoring regimes and to identify affordable improvements for the future. PNA grounds the street-level move away from official dictat in the organisationally constrained Inspectors continuing to be on the weaker side of an information asymmetry. IPC perpetuates this problem because, like the air regime, it is a technology-based policy instrument. The ACF seems to overlook implementation or assumes it flows automatically from a dominant belief system. It is true that some Inspectors did not believe in the arms' length approach, but the resource based argument seems more robust than crediting it solely to a revolt in beliefs from the street-level. Even if the latter ACF inspired thesis were correct, it would need to explain the factors behind the success of the revolt. However, neither analysis is complete here.
Higher level developments were also putting the arms' length approach under pressure. Deregulatory moves from Government, influenced by industrial lobbying, combined with the street-level problems. John Major's 1993 campaign to cut red tape singled out IPC for criticism (DTI, 1994). His Deregulatory Task Forces (teams of business leaders) demanded closer industry participation in setting standards. Uniform standards were to be avoided, and more flexible regulation required (Business Deregulation Task Forces, 1994). Once again, industrial pollution policy was swept up into a higher level, general deregulation campaign, and HMIP responded accordingly. The Cabinet had the authority to intervene and bring HMIP's approach more into line with its own deregulatory beliefs. Top-down and bottom-up pressures eventually forced HMIP to scrap the arms' length policy on 24th May 1993 (ENDS, 1993b), and a policy community of industry and the regulator could coalesce once again.
Another high level development in 1996 amalgamated HMIP, the National Rivers Authority and local authority waste regulators into the Environment Agency. The Agency has been slow to unify and IPC has operated much as it did under HMIP. IPC is more formal than the air regime it replaced. Companies have to provide documentation and monitoring returns to a public register. The Agency has official statements on regulatory policy. Prosecution, however, remains a device of last resort and is not automatically sought for breaches of (legally-binding) permit standards. Legal action takes time and money to prepare, failure can undermine an individual Inspector's credibility, and the experience can harm ongoing relations with the operator. There are implications for both resources and appreciative systems. Legal action remains at the same level as the 1970s (Table 2). Around 2000 processes continue to be regulated, though IPC obviously regulates more aspects of any one process. Low prosecution levels underscore the re-established rules of the game concerning consensus regulation.
BATNEEC standards and process improvements bubble up from site-level negotiations held in private. Negotiations characteristically involve Inspectors cajoling voluntary improvements from operators rather than any systematic appraisal of BATNEEC (see also Fineman, 1997). BATNEEC has evolved into more an organising device for the micro-politics and resource interdependencies of site-level negotiation than an unbending template. On the surface, policy output is transparent, but it is the product of bargaining reminiscent of the earlier air regime. It indicates a persistent policy community in this sector built on continued resource interdependence and agreed rules of the game: the close negotiation of flexible, site-specific standards. Mutual benefits arise from the Agency keeping IPC tasks manageable, thanks to industry co-operation, and from industry having influence over the pace and direction of improvements.
Scope for public participation is limited. The public register is open only during office hours. Opportunities to comment upon IPC applications are limited, as is notification that the application has been made. Such limited procedures further constrain the limited organisation resources of citizens. Recent public controversy over the burning of chemical-waste derived fuel in cement kilns has highlighted some of these weaknesses and strained public trust (House of Commons Environment Committee, 1997). An exclusive policy community of sorts persists. Transparency may mean that controversies like the cement kilns case challenge the stability of the policy sector more frequently than in the past. But as we saw in the 1970s, advocates of change are disadvantaged structurally in shaping pollution improvements compared to the members of the policy community.
5: Conclusions
How well do PNA and the ACF explain the origins of policy change and the sources of stability? Table 1 finds both contributing to explanation, but even non-paradigmatic change like IPC can involve exogenous factors. PNA and ACF conceptual limitations are born out empirically: neither framework explains the origins of external factors, such as the rise of deregulatory ideology or the institutionalisation of European environmental policy. I do not think this a failure of either PNA or the ACF. All units of analysis have their boundaries and tools appropriate for their study. The IPC case identifies aspects of the ACF and PNA which provide tools to help us understand the relationships, actions and consequences of actors interacting with the milieu of external factors. That said, the analysis does find the policy mechanisms behind change to be more untidy than either PNA or the ACF suggest, and that a sector subject to change can exhibit important stabilising tendencies. Mapping a policy network or identifying competing advocacy coalitions can be a slippery task which in itself cannot explain change and stability.
Change did not occur because the industrial air pollution policy network opened up into a fluid issue network. The cement kilns controversy reminds us that an exclusive policy community persists. Nor was IPC the open, long-term competition between secondary or policy core beliefs alone, in which policy-oriented learning was automatically implemented. The ACF underplays the importance of policy implementation. Policy sovereigns can exercise non-decision making power, then act when the lesson converges with their priorities or when other factors force them. IPC exhibited both. Humdrum sectors like industrial pollution can be swept up for the application of higher level political initiatives or become the focus of broader shifts in societal concerns.
Those aspects of PNA and the ACF contributing to policy analysis are their core analytical approaches to processes of contrasting beliefs (defined broadly) and resource interdependence. The PNA framework does pay attention to beliefs as well as resources, through the policy network appreciative system and a challenging exogenous belief or ideology, but this seems too bipolar a conceptualisation in the light of the IPC case. The variety of beliefs joining the fray fluctuated over time. The ACF pays more elaborate attention to beliefs, although its belief system construct and coalitions of policy core beliefs prove over-elaborate for the IPC case. Not all the different beliefs derived from the sector, not all of them had a sustained presence in the sector, and they did not clearly line up into coalitions along lines of policy core belief. Nevertheless, it is to the ACF's advantage that it points us toward the co-evolution between multiple contrasting beliefs within and without policy networks, but defined more broadly and including interests and prior commitments all seeking to influence policy.
However, beliefs alone can be as insufficient in establishing policy change as they are in maintaining policy stability. The policy process was not equally open to all actors. Resource interdependencies can crucially facilitate or constrain access and influence, as PNA identifies in the IPC case. This core analytical emphasis on resource interdependence seems to explain the resilience of the air pollution policy community. Some resource interdependencies remain unaltered, though other resources, such as authoritative political support, can and do alter over time. IPC suggests the availability and distribution of resources pertinent to any policy initiative strongly influences concrete outcomes.
Overall, it seems a more parsimonious application of PNA and the ACF core analytical devices, of policy resources and beliefs (broadly defined), can contribute fruitfully to explaining elements of policy change and stability. Analysis cannot afford to ignore the shifting beliefs advocated in sectors or impinging upon sectors over time. Nor can analysis ignore the resource interdependencies which enable some beliefs to become policy practice whilst excluding others. The interplay of resources and beliefs suggest it is analytically important to appreciate the structure and agency-oriented approaches driving PNA and the ACF. It suggests another dimension to the dialectics of policy change: just as interaction between networks and external factors forms one dimension, so interaction between beliefs and resources is another related dimension.
Acknowledgements. Many thanks to the anonymous referees and A. Jordan for helpful comments.
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Table 1: Policy networks, advocacy coalitions and IPC
Explanatory factor
Policy networks
Advocacy coalitions
Unit of analysis Policy is conceived within policy networks. Policy is conceived within a sub-system of advocacy coalitions. A low-level policy community is subject to higher-level intervention. Some street-level practices prove resilient.
Methodology Policy networks must be identified empirically. Policy sub-systems must be identified empirically. Some policy actors come and go with varying affect, and sometimes from outside the policy sector. Nonetheless, a core network of actors persists throughout.
Policy mechanism Policy networks mediate external influences. Advocacy coalitions compete to influence a policy broker. Pressure for change had a number of sources. Change was triggered by an external sovereign actor. Continued importance of policy community resources privileges members' influence. They mediate and interpret external factors.
Core analytical device Analysis emphasises resource interdependencies. Analysis emphasises belief systems. Whilst different beliefs about good regulation exist, the distribution and relevance of resources influences practice.
Determining influence on outcomes Policy outcomes are influenced by networks of policy actors. Policy outcomes are influenced by competition between advocacy coalitions. The beliefs of politically resourced actors have influenced high-level policy change, whilst policy outcome has ultimately been shaped by an unchanged regulator-industry resource interdependency in the implementation phase.
Sources of significant change Exogenous factors open networks and bring forth policy change. Exogenous factors realign beliefs and generate change. Policy change was driven by external factors, though the policy community has been able to shape change.
Sources of stability Resource interdependence between policy actors. A dominant belief system. Stability returned primarily because of a continued resource interdependency, and a return to belief in the benefits of closer co-operation has followed.
Table 2: Record of regulatory activity
Inspection visits
Processes subject to public complaint
Administrative warnings to operators
Source: HSE, HMIP and Environment Agency Annual Reports.
*these figures are for total number of complaints not processes subject to complaint.


It really was so engrossing, it is sad to see it go.
The 2015 World Championship snooker final was not the Steve Davis v Dennis Taylor final of 1985 and its 18.5 million television viewers, but then that much-vaunted classic never attained the high standard of this modern epic. 30 years after the 'black ball final' came the 'ball-run' final.
For enjoyment, quality and a serene sense of the feel-good factor, Stuart 'Ball-run' Bingham's awe-inspiring 18-15 win over Shaun Murphy will live long in the memory for its bloody brilliance. It deserves to give snooker greater recognition as a sport that can twist, contort and torment the senses like no other.
This was the night when Bingham looked into the abyss, especially at 15-15 when he was bleeding frames and all seemed lost, and found his vocation in life smiling right back at him. Twenty years a snooker professional, man and boy, making ends meet with few trophies to show for it, two ranking events to be precise over the past four years, but the Cinderella story came true for this late developer at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
At 38, Bingham is the oldest winner since Ray Reardon, then 45, in 1978. He is the oldest first-time champion since Walter Donaldson in 1947, back in a era when they played safety with safety in mind.
'Ball-run' Bingham, an honest, smiling, sometimes teary and largely unassuming bloke from Basildon in Essex who looks like a henchman from The Untouchables, and appears to be dedicated to his sport like no other person alive, was left clutching the famous old pot after 17 days in spring. A period of the year when grown men become living ghosts, their faces turning whiter than the cue ball in such hushed, delicate, darkened environs.
There are no characters in the game has become the default setting from critics of snooker amid a generation of rapidly dwindling attention spans and a theme of what have you done for me lately. Snooker in Britain has become a victim of a time in which we live, a relic of the Raj that thrived on four terrestrial TV channels four decades ago, but has been shamefully relegated to the sporting subconscious.
Bingham has spades of character, courage and ability even if I wouldn't hold my breath about a nomination for BBC's British Sports Personality, but that is a hoary old argument best left for another day.
"Winner, winner, chicken dinner," said Bingham before going on to name every person he has come across in a speech normally delivered by Oscar winners. Chas 'n Dave couldn't have put it better themselves when the Great British public was going Snooker Loopy after the '85 final. Best male in a lead role also goes to him for the Bingham Supremacy.
After a Bank Holiday weekend that spawned the technical excellence of Floyd Mayweather winning boxing's richest bout without actually fighting and the tactical supremacy of Chelsea lifting the Premier League title without appearing to play any football, it was left to two largely unheralded English blokes who aren't exactly gym bunnies battling amid the mental marathon of this slightly eccentric game.
Snooker is a sport that leaves the two main protagonists somewhat cruelly confronting self-doubt and wrestling with impending images of glory or despair as the twilight zone approaches late on a Monday night. It also reminds us why professional sport is such a gripping and ripping spectacle in its rawest form.
"The snooker is intolerably tense on @BBCTwo— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) May 4, 2015"
At 50-1, Bingham was not quite the 150-1 outsider Bradford's Joe Johnson was he lifted the world title against Steve Davis in 1986, but then Joe never had to confront Ronnie O'Sullivan, Judd Trump and Murphy - three titans of the sport - to realise his lifetime ambition.
The champ's walk-on music was surely selected by a snooker soothsayer. "Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. One moment. Would you capture it, or just let it slip?"
"Congratulations to Stuart Bingham this morning great final last night ,enjoy the feeling snooker champ— Nigel Mansell CBE (@nigelmansell) May 5, 2015"
Bingham has spent the past fortnight bounding out to Eminem's Lose Yourself prior to matches. It was the nearest he came to losing himself. These days of his life will be recalled as a moment in time when he found himself.
As a world champion, he will travel the world over the next 12 months. He plays in every event. He wants to play in more events. "He loves snooker more than life itself," commented Murphy.
Mark Allen once accused Bingham of lacking bottle before he proceeded to flummox the Nothern Irish player on his way to winning win his first ranking trophy aged 35 at the Australian Open in 2011.
"No point in replying to everyone individually so I'll tweet it!! I said @Stuart__Bingham had no bottle 4 years ago!! I was wrong!! So what?!— Mark Allen (@pistol147) May 4, 2015"
Allen was left out of the gratitude speech, but Bingham later made a point of thanking him for inspiring his flowering.
Bingham lifted the Shanghai Masters earlier this season, but one did fear for him leading 15-12 when he began to miss. At one point, you feared he might drown in the dawning of the moment.
Murphy, Masters champion and 2005 world winner, drew level at 15-15 before Bingham gleaned 42 points in fouls from a remarkable 31st frame running for over an hour that tipped the balance of his power in his favour after his fellow Englishman had missed a makeable yellow.
" "At 15-15 I thought my chance was gone, my arm felt like someone else's and nerves sort of got to me," said Bingham. "We had a marathon 31st frame and I sort of pinched it on the colours and from then on I played pretty solid. It's just unreal, I can't believe I'm the 2015 world champion. I'm going to be the same person. I'm going to be playing in all the tournaments, and hopefully I'll be a good role model being a world champion." "
Bingham joins Ken Doherty as the only player to win the world title at amateur and professional level. Like Andy Murray, he is a sportsman who does not need to win again from here on in.
It was arguably the finest world championship since snooker became a mainstream television sport in the 1970s with a record 86 centuries made. Bingham contributed of 10 of them, four in the final, including a 145 to share the highest break with Neil Robertson. It produced more than an air of romanticism with its winner and a value much higher than taking all blacks with reds. Or the £300,000 Bingham trousered as winner.
" "Any kids growing up wanting to play, just stick at it. Lots of hard work, practice and self belief, things like this can happen," said Bingham. "
Like Andy Murray at Wimbledon in 2013 or Stuart Bingham in 2015, don't listen to detractors. Confront self-doubt. Don't run from it. Embrace it. Like Bingham, think of life as your own little snooker hall. Avoid the noise.
And if opportunity doesn't knock, build your own door.


text:
Stories from Friday, January 15, 2010
911 Commission defers search for new director (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
During their meeting Thursday, Jan. 14, Saline County 911 Commission members decided not to pursue a search for a new director at this time, following the termination of Pam Teague's employment in that position. After President John Fletcher's suggestion of possible places to advertise the need for a new director, member Jesse Coslet said, "I don't feel the need to, yet, increase more (work) load dealing with that, right now. ...
Sweet Springs school board recognized for service (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
During the Sweet Springs Board of Education meeting Wednesday evening, Jan. 13, Superintendent Boyd Jones thanked board members for their "hard, often thankless work," and presented them with a framed sheet bearing an expression of his thanks as a token of his appreciation in recognition of School Board Recognition week, which begins Sunday, Jan. 24...
Little legs get a workout at annual Mega Motor Mania (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
Prep Hoops Round-up: Lady 'Hounds prevail in I-70 opener (High School Sports ~ 01/15/10)
SWEET SPRINGS -- The Sweet Springs girls' basketball team had four players score in double figures Tuesday as it opened its I-70 Conference schedule with a 50-29 home win over Wellington-Napoleon. The Lady Greyhounds controlled the inside in what head coach Boyd Jones described as "a very physical game," seniors Kristin Jones and Rachel Thornton each hitting two shots during the first period to open with a 13-4 advantage...
MHS basketball: Owls stoned by Rock Bridge (High School Sports ~ 01/15/10)
SEDALIA -- Not since Rock Bridge left the NCMC in 2003 has the Marshall boys' basketball team beaten the mid-Missouri Class 5 power. Seldom have the Owls even hung in late against Rock Bridge, which reached the Show-Me Showdown a year ago before finishing third in the state. Marshall's 79-36 loss to the eight-ranked Bruins in Wednesday's round-robin contest of the Smith-Cotton Classic at Sedalia has been more typical...
MVC basketball: Vikings' win streak reaches five (College Sports ~ 01/15/10)
One of the Heart of America Conference's top playmakers came through in the clutch for the Missouri Valley College men's basketball team again Thursday. Senior Bryant Porter, second in the league with 3.9 assists per game, fed senior J.D. Devault in the paint for the winning shot in the closing seconds of the Vikings' 65-63 home win over Avila. Valley's fifth straight win had been in jeopardy after it blew a 16-point second-half lead...
Malta Bend basketball: Pilot Grove wrecks Tigers (High School Sports ~ 01/15/10)
PILOT GROVE -- The Malta Bend boys' and girls' basketball teams returned to action for the first time since the Christmas break the same way they began the season, against league-leading Pilot Grove -- the defending CCAA champions. The outcome was similar to that of November, Pilot Grove winning both contests easily...
Valley dedicates gym to Redford (College Sports ~ 01/15/10)
Former Missouri Valley College men's basketball coach Grover C. Redford was honored Thursday during the Vikings' Heart of America Conference doubleheader against Avila. The gymnasium inside the Burns Athletic Center is now named for Redford, who guided Valley in more than 300 games over 15 years between 1956 and 1971, taking his team to the NAIA National Tournament in 1961...
Newscope: Marshall City Council to meet Jan. 19 (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
The Marshall City Council will meet Tuesday, Jan. 19, at 5:15 p.m. in the council chambers at the City Office Building. On the agenda are the approval of a liquor license and the authorization of a contract between the city and Bank of America. After the meeting, the council will adjourn into executive session to discuss personnel matters. The public is welcome to attend the council's regular session...
In Print: Stories in today's print and e-edition January 15 (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
Interesting news and features published in our print edition and e-edition January 15. On page 2: Anthony Pycke and Lora Banks announce their wedding. Birth announcements for Andrew Lewis Beumer, Sinjin Wayne Staley and Grayson Alexander Gross...
3 public meetings at schools this week, 3 next week to get input on bond issue (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
The Marshall school board scheduled three public meetings this week to provide information and seek community feedback about the proposed new elementary school project. A bond issue will be on the April ballot and the board must settle on final ballot language at its Jan. 25 meeting...
Norman Ruff (Obituary ~ 01/15/10)
Norman Ruff, 75, died on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010. A celebration of life service will be held at 1 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 18, at Cantlon Otterness Funeral Home in Buffalo, with Brother Claire Reed and Pastor Tim Haupt officiating. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer's Association and left with the funeral home...
Betty J. Leimkuehler (Obituary ~ 01/15/10)
Betty J. Leimkuehler, 81, of rural Gilliam, died Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, at Fitzgibbon Hospital in Marshall. Memorial services will be held at a later date. Memorials are suggested to Salem Evangelical Church or Salem Evangelical Church Cemetery in care of Weiker Funeral Home in Slater...
Rosa Venita Gabert (Obituary ~ 01/15/10)
Rosa Venita Gabert, 82, of Marshall, died Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010, at Mar-Saline Manor in Marshall. Funeral services will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, at Southside Assembly of God in Marshall, with Rev. Cliff Cato and William W. Harlow officiating. ...
Lance Thomas Edwards (Obituary ~ 01/15/10)
Lance Thomas Edwards, 25, of Concordia, died Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, at his home. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, at Campbell-Lewis Chapel in Concordia, with William W. Harlow officiating. Burial will be in Fairview Cemetery in Sweet Springs. Visitation will be from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Friday at Campbell-Lewis Funeral Home in Concordia. Memorials are suggested to the Epilepsy Foundation. An online guestbook is available at www.campbell-lewis.com...
Doris M. Draffen (Obituary ~ 01/15/10)
Doris M. Draffen, 89, of Slater, died Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010, at Fitzgibbon Hospital in Marshall. Funeral services will be held Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, at 11 a.m. at Slater Presbyterian Church with Rev. Pam Sebastian officiating. Bethany Weiker, organist, will play "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Burial will be in Slater City Cemetery. ...
Census official meets with area officials, stresses importance of participation (Local News ~ 01/15/10)
Saline County Commissioners and other area government officials met with Joseph St. George of the U.S. Census Bureau office in Kansas City Thursday morning, Jan 14. Evonne and Merle Trelow of Mount Leonard, Beverly and Herb Richtermeyer of Grand Pass, Diana Dickey of Arrow Rock, John Bakert of Miami and Richard Clause of Nelson were all present to represent their communities...
Scoreboard for Thursday, Jan. 14 (High School Sports ~ 01/15/10)
Area high school basketball scores for Thursday, Jan. 14

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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My RCA50LPW162yx4 developed a gray stripe ( the picture is still great but shaded in that area) about 2" wide along the top of the picture. I thought the bulb was failing ,and I replaced it. While doing so the lamp compartment looked dusty, so I held a vac near the opening to remove some of it . After replacing the bulb and turning on the set ,the stripe had gone from the top ,but is now a larger section at a diagonal. I'm hoping that it is some type of dust or dirt , because it moved ,if so how do I clean the mirrors or wheel .
I'm moving this post to the correct spot.
I just took the back off of my set. After removing the color wheel , I can clearly see the mirrors in the light tunnel have collapsed.
If you have some pictures, that would be awesome to see so other people will be able to troubleshoot their televisions too. -- also, the easiest and quickest way to fix this is with a new light engine since it'll come with the light tunnel, new color wheel, and DMD board. You'll then have extra components to keep the TV running for a very long time.
It sounds like you need to completely clean the back of you Tv free of mold & dust. Because it sound like you probably just moved dust around, thus still not solving you problem.
Here are some instructions on the proper way to do it. Good luck.