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Salami tactics and the implementation of large-scale public projects

Markus Hinterleitner (KPM Center for Public Management, University of Bern)

Announcements for large-scale public projects typically provide politicians with opportunities to soak up some of the limelight. However, subsequent implementation phases of these projects often prove bumpy. In his article “Salami tactics and the implementation of large-scale public projects” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Markus Hinterleitner shows that when public projects’ costs outrun projected budgets and deadlines are unlikely to be met, politicians turn to a blame management strategy that has been widely neglected in the literature on policy implementation: the stepwise announcement of delays and cost-overruns, commonly known as ‘salami tactics’. Markus shows that the application of salami tactics has prominently featured in two large-scale public projects beset by a multitude of implementation issues, the Berlin Brandenburg Airport in Germany and the Swiss National Exposition Expo.02. While such tactics appear popular among reputation-sensitive politicians, as they allow the latter to portion blame into smaller, less damaging parts, Markus cautions that these strategies can have detrimental effects. He argues that by “delaying the revelation of a project’s real benefit-cost ratio (BCR), salami tactics prevent adaptations and readjustments in the early stages of the implementation phase that could save public resources.”

JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY – CALL FOR SPECIAL ISSUES

Dear colleagues:

We are happy to announce two calls for proposals for special issues of the Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP).

1. Call for Special Issue proposals – deadline: 30 November 2019

This is our regular call for Special Issues. Twice every year, in the spring and in the fall, we invite proposals for Special Issues and select up to two proposals. The fall-deadline for submitting your proposal is 30 November 2019. Make sure to consult the JEPP webpage for further particulars: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/journal-european-public-policy-special-issues/

2. Call for Special Issue proposal on ‘Public Policy Responses to Climate Change’ – deadline: 15 December 2019

JEPP invites proposals for a Special Issue on public policy responses to the challenges of climate change. We are open to innovative ideas on the shape and content of the SI, but wish to emphasise that we hope for a Special Issue that both draws on state-of-the-art academic scholarship, in the JEPP tradition, but also speaks to a much wider audience concerned with how to deal with the climate crisis facing the world today. In a nutshell, what do we academics know and how might it be of use? When preparing your proposal, please follow the regular Special Issue guidelines: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/journal-european-public-policy-special-issues/

Note that the deadline for this particular call is 15 December 2019.

Please feel free to get in touch with us, the journal editors, Jeremy Richardson and Berthold Rittberger, if you have any queries.