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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 1/8/2019, SPi
Great Policy Successes

Great Policy Successes

Or, A Tale About Why It’s Amazing That Governments Get So Little
Credit for Their Many Everyday and Extraordinary Achievements as
Told by Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Create Space for a Less
Relentlessly Negative View of Our Pivotal Public Institutions
Edited by
MALLORY E. COMPTON
PAUL ‘T HART
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© the several contributors 2019
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2019
Impression: 1
Some rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly
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reprographics rights organization.
This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a
Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0
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Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of this licence
should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019946747
ISBN 978–0–19–884371–9
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Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the case authors who displayed not only zeal and insight in
crafting their case study chapters, but also proved incredibly generous and
responsive to our editorial prodding, which oddly enough often urged them to
be less rather than more explicitly analytical in their approach. They share our
commitment to providing rich, teachable case narratives.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC)
under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
(grant agreement no. 694266). The ERC’s support for the larger Successful Public
Governance (SPG) research programme of which this volume forms a part is grate-
fully acknowledged. This support has also enabled us to publish this book and each of
the individual cases in open access form online. See www.successfulpublicgovernance.
com for further information about SPG’s activities and outputs. We are grateful to the
collegial support we have received from our SPG colleagues.
Each of the case chapters will also appear in abbreviated and modified form at
the Public Impact Observatory website, an initiative from the Centre for Public
Impact (CPI) that brings together hundreds of cases of public policy and public
governance from across the world. We welcome the smooth cooperation with CPI,
which serves to greatly increase the public and professional exposure that these
cases will receive. Consult the observatory at: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.
org/observatory/.
Finally, a ‘companion’ volume devoted exclusively to policy successes in
Australia and New Zealand has been produced in parallel to this global volume.
It has been published as Jo Luetjens, Michael Mintrom, and Paul ‘t Hart (eds),
Successful Public Policy: Lessons From Australia and New Zealand (Canberra:
ANU Press 2019), and it too is an open access publication, with each case
individually downloadable to facilitate inclusion in syllabi and course guides
(see https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/anzsog/successful-public-policy).
The New Zealand economic reform and ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ cases appear in
both volumes. Paul ‘t Hart would like to thank his co-editor for that project,
Michael Mintrom (Australia New Zealand School of Government and Monash
University) and Jo Luetjens (Utrecht University) for their exemplary collabor-
ation. The two projects have fed off each other, and it has been a joy working
on both.
Utrecht
July 2019
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
List of Contributors xiii
1. How to ‘See’ Great Policy Successes: A Field Guide to Spotting

Policy Successes in the Wild 1
Mallory E. Compton and Paul ‘t Hart
2. Brazil’s Bolsa Família Programme 21
Luis Henrique Paiva, Tereza Cristina Cotta, and
Armando Barrientos
3. The Remarkable Healthcare Performance in Singapore 42
M. Ramesh and Azad Singh Bali
4. Cutting the Wait—at Least for a While: The NHS’s Assault on
Waiting Times 63
Adrian Kay
5. The Transformation of UK Tobacco Control 84
Paul Cairney
6. The ‘Social Warfare State’: Americans’ Making of a Civic
Generation 104
Mallory E. Compton
7. The Finnish Comprehensive School: Conflicts, Compromises,
and Institutional Robustness 122
Jaakko Kauko
8. Estonia’s Digital Transformation: Mission Mystique and the
Hiding Hand 143
Rainer Kattel and Ines Mergel
9. Infrastructure Partnership Success in Southern California:
Building and Paying for the Alameda Corridor Rail Project 161
Richard F. Callahan
10. ‘Marvellous Melbourne’: Making the World’s Most Liveable City 180
Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M. Lewis
viii 
11. The Dutch Delta Approach: The Successful Reinvention

of a Policy Success 201
Arwin van Buuren
12. The Copenhagen Metropolitan ‘Finger Plan’: A Robust Urban
Planning Success Based on Collaborative Governance 218
Eva Sørensen and Jacob Torfing
13. The Norwegian Petroleum Fund as Institutionalized Self-Restraint 244
Camilla Bakken Øvald, Bent Sofus Tranøy, and Ketil Raknes
14. New Zealand’s Economic Turnaround: How Public Policy
Innovation Catalysed Economic Growth 264
Michael Mintrom and Madeline Thomas
15. Germany’s Labour Market Policies: How the Sick Man of
Europe Performed a Second Economic Miracle 283
Florian Spohr
16. Healing the Ozone Layer: The Montreal Protocol and the
Lessons and Limits of a Global Governance Success Story 304
Frederike Albrecht and Charles F. Parker
Index of Names 323

General Index 333
List of Figures
7.1 Percentage of days in office of Ministers of Education in the post-war era

(1944–2018) in Finnish governments 128
12.1 Illustration of the 1947 Finger Plan 226
13.1 The market value of the Government Pension Fund Global, 1996–2017 245
13.2 Norwegian voters’ attitudes towards the usage of ‘oil money’ (1997–2013)
(in per cent) 246
13.3 Timeline of the establishment of the Government Petroleum Fund 248
13.4 The net government cash flow from petroleum activities, 1971–2017 249
13.5 Government spending of oil revenue as measured by the structural,
non-oil budget deficit, and the expected real return of the Pension
Fund in billion 2017 kroner 256
15.1 Germany’s and EU unemployment rates, 1998–2016 (percentage
of active population) 285
15.2 Germany’s employment rates, 1998–2016 (percentage of population) 285
List of Tables
1.1 A policy success assessment map 6

3.1 Healthcare expenditures in selected countries 44
3.2 Policy tools in Singapore’s healthcare system 49
4.1 NHS expenditure, 1999–2010 (in GBP bn, real terms using 2015 prices) 66
5.1 A shift of policy towards comprehensive tobacco control 91
9.1 Policy success assessment map applied to the Alameda Corridor 175
10.1 Key changes and elections in Melbourne City and Victorian State
governments, 1981–2001 186
11.1 Assessing the success of the Dutch Delta approach 205
List of Contributors
Frederike Albrecht is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Security, Strategy and

Leadership at the Swedish Defence University, researcher at the Department of Earth
Sciences, and research fellow at the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science,
Sweden.
Azad Singh Bali is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Armando Barrientos is Professor in Poverty and Social Justice at the Global Development
Institute at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
Emma Blomkamp is an Honorary Fellow at The University of Melbourne and Co-Design

and Evaluation Lead at strategic design consultancy Paper Giant, Australia.
Paul Cairney is Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of Stirling, Scotland.
Richard F. Callahan is a Professor in the School of Management at the University of San
Francisco, United States.
Mallory E. Compton is a postdoctoral researcher with the School of Governance at Utrecht
University, Netherlands.
Tereza Cristina Cotta is a permanent civil servant from the Brazilian Ministry of Economy.
Paul ‘t Hart is Professor of Public Administration at Utrecht University and Associate
Dean of the Netherlands School of Public Administration (NSOB) in The Hague.
Rainer Kattel is Professor of Innovation and Public Governance at the Institute for
Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London, and Research Professor at
Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Tech-
nology, Estonia.
Jaakko Kauko is Professor of Education Policy at the Faculty of Education and Culture,
Tampere University, Finland.
Adrian Kay is Professor of Government in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the
Australian National University.
Jenny M. Lewis is Professor of Public Policy in the School of Social and Political Sciences at
The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Ines Mergel is full Professor of Public Administration in the Department of Politics and
Public Administration at the University of Konstanz, Germany.
Michael Mintrom is Professor of Public Sector Management at Monash University,
Australia.
xiv   
Camilla Bakken Øvald is Assistant Professor at Kristiania College, Norway.

Luis Henrique Paiva is a permanent civil servant from the Brazilian Ministry of Economy.
Charles F. Parker is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Govern-
ment and serves as the vice-chair of the board for the Centre of Natural Hazards and
Disaster Science at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Ketil Raknes is a PhD-candidate at Kristiania University College, Norway.
M. Ramesh is Professor of Public Policy and UNESCO Chair on Social Policy Design in
Asia at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
Eva Sørensen is a Professor with the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde
University, Denmark.
Florian Spohr is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Comparative Politics at the Ruhr
University Bochum, Germany.
Madeline Thomas is a research officer and research coordinator at the Australia and New
Zealand School of Government.
Jacob Torfing is Professor in Politics and Institutions in the Department of Social Sciences
and Business, Roskilde University, Denmark.
Bent Sofus Tranøy is Professor of Political Science at Inland Norway University of Applied
Sciences and Kristiania University College, Norway.
Arwin van Buuren is Professor at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology
of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands.
1
How to ‘See’ Great Policy Successes
A Field Guide to Spotting Policy Successes in the Wild
Mallory E. Compton and Paul ‘t Hart
Shifting Focus
For those wanting to know how public policy is made and how it evolves from
aspirations and ideas to tangible social outcomes, the 1970s produced some classic
accounts, which became established in academic curriculums and part of the
canon of academic research world-wide. The two best known works from this
era are Pressman and Wildavsky’s Implementation (whose iconic epic subtitle
inspired ours) and Peter Hall’s Great Planning Disasters (the inspiration for our
book’s main title). Pressman and Wildavsky wrote a book-length intensive case
study revealing how a federal employment promotion policy, which was launched
with a great sense of urgency and momentum, played out on the ground with very
limited effect in Oakland, California. Hall presented gripping accounts of public
policy failures from around the Anglosphere: ‘positive’ planning disasters (plan-
ning projects that ran into cost escalation, underperformance, withdrawal of
political support, or unintended consequences so big as to completely dwarf the
intended aims), and ‘negative’ planning disasters (instances where plans made in
response to pressing public problems never got off the drawing board due to
political stalemate).
Taken together, these studies were emblematic of an era in which the alleged
‘ungovernability’ of Western societies and their welfare states was a dominant
theme (Crozier et al. 1975; Rose 1979; Offe 1984). Having seized a much more
prominent role in public life following the Second World War, Western govern-
ments were ambitious to achieve planned change, but internal complexities and
vagaries of democratic political decision-making often thwarted those ambitions.
Generations of public policy and public administration students were steeped in
pessimistic diagnoses from these classic studies. Waves of similar studies in the
1990s (Butler et al. 1994; Bovens and ‘t Hart 1996; Gray and ‘t Hart 1998) and the
2010s (Allern and Pollack 2012; Crewe and King 2013; Light 2014; Schuck 2014;
Oppermann and Spencer 2016) followed. These works further imply that govern-
ments are up to no good, incompetent, politically paralysed, and/or chronically
risk overreach much of the time (e.g. Scott 1998; Schuck 2014).
2   
And yet in many parts of the world, across many public policy domains, the
bulk of public projects, programmes, and services perform not so badly at all, and
sometimes even quite successfully (Goderis 2015). These realities are chronically
underexposed and understudied. Major policy accomplishments, striking
performance in difficult circumstances, and thousands of taken-for-granted
everyday forms of effective public value creation by and through governments
are not deemed newsworthy. They cannot be exploited for political gain by
oppositions and critics of incumbent office-holders. Curiously, academic students
of public policy have had almost nothing to say about them (cf. Bovens et al.
2001; McConnell 2010; Moore 2013), despite vigorous calls to recognize the
major and often hidden and unacknowledged contributions of governments to
successes claimed by and widely attributed to now revered companies like Google
(Mazzucato 2013).
We cannot properly ‘see’, let alone recognize and explain, variations in gov-
ernment performance when media, political, and academic discourses alike are
saturated with accounts of their shortcomings and failures but remain nearly
silent on their achievements. Negative language dominates: public and academic
discourse about government, politics, and public policy is dominated by disap-
pointment, incompetence, failure, unintended consequences, alienation, corrup-
tion, disenchantment, and crisis (Hay 2007). On the contrary, the manner in
which we look at, talk about, think, evaluate, and emotionally relate to public
institutions risks creating self-fulfilling prophecies. The current ascent of ‘anti-
system’ populists speaks volumes, and the message is hardly reassuring. The
‘declinist’ discourse of the current age has permeated our thinking about govern-
ment and public policy. It prevents us from seeing, acknowledging, and learning
from past and present instances of highly effective and highly valued public
policymaking.
With this book we want to shift the focus. We aim to infuse the agenda for
teaching, research, and dialogue on public policymaking with food for thought
about what goes well. We do this through a series of close-up, in-depth case study
accounts of the genesis and evolution of stand-out public policy accomplishments,
across a range of countries, sectors, and challenges. With these accounts, we
engage with the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical challenges which
have plagued and constrained researchers seeking to evaluate, explain, and design
successful public policy.
There are many ways to ‘get at’ these questions. Existing conceptual and
comparative studies of public policy success (Bovens et al. 2001; Patashnik 2008;
McConnell 2010) suggest that achieving success entails two major tasks. One
entails craft work: devising, adopting, and implementing programmes and reforms
that have a meaningful impact on the public issues giving rise to their existence.
The other entails political work: forming and maintaining coalitions of stake-
holders to persuasively propagate these programmes. This political work extends
  ‘’    3
to nurturing and protecting elite and public perceptions of the policy’s/pro-

gramme’s ideology, intent, instruments, implementation, and impact during the
often long and tenuous road from ideas to outcomes. Success must be experienced
and actively communicated, or it will go unnoticed and underappreciated. In this
volume, we aim to shed light on how these two fundamental tasks—programme and
process design; and coalition-building and reputation management—are taken up
and carried out in instances of highly successful public policymaking.
Following in the footsteps of Pressman and Wildavsky and Hall, this volume
contains in-depth case studies of prominent instances of public policymaking and
planning from around the world. By offering insight into occurrences of policy
success across varied contexts, these case studies are designed to increase aware-
ness that government and public policy actually work remarkably well, at least
some of the time, and that we can learn from these practices. Before we get into
these cases, however, it is necessary to equip readers of this book and future
researchers of policy success with a guide on how to go about identifying and
analysing instances of policy success. The chief purpose of this chapter is to offer
researchers, policy-makers, and students a field guide to spotting great policy
successes in the real world—in the wild—so that we can begin to analyse how they
came about and what might be learned from them.
How Do We Know a ‘Great Policy Success’ When We See One?
Policy successes are, like policy failures, in the eye of the beholder. They are not
mere facts but stories. Undoubtedly ‘events’—real impacts on real people—are a
necessary condition for their occurrence. But in the end, policy successes do not so
much occur as they are made. To claim that a public policy, programme, or project
X is a ‘success’ is effectively an act of interpretation, indeed of framing. To say this
in a public capacity and in a public forum makes it an inherently political act: it
amounts to giving a strong vote of confidence to certain acts and practices of
governance. In effect it singles them out, elevates them, validates them.
For such an act to be consequential, it needs to stick: others must be convinced
of its truth and they need to emulate it. The claim ‘X is a success’ needs to become
a more widely accepted and shared narrative. When it does, it becomes performa-
tive: X looks better and better because so many say so, so often. When the
narrative endures, X becomes enshrined in society’s collective memory through
repeated retelling and other rituals. Examples of the latter include the conferral of
awards on people or organizations associated with X, who then subsequently get
invitations to come before captive audiences to spread the word; the high place
that X occupies in rankings; the favourable judgements of X by official arbiters of
public value in a society, such as audit agencies or watchdog bodies, not to
mention the court of public opinion. Once they have achieved prominence,
4   
success tales—no matter how selective and biased critics and soft voices may claim
them to be (see Schram and Soss 2001)—come to serve as important artefacts in
the construction of self-images and reputational claims of the policy-makers,
governments, agencies, and societal stakeholders that credibly claim authorship
of their making and preservation (Van Assche et al. 2012).
We must tread carefully in this treacherous terrain. Somehow, we need to arrive
at a transparent and widely applicable conceptualization of ‘policy success’ to be
deployed throughout this volume, and a basic set of research tools allowing us to
spot and characterize the ‘successes’ which will be studied in detail throughout this
book. To get there, we propose that policy assessment is necessarily a multi-
dimensional, multi-perspectivist, and political process. At the most basic level we
distinguish between two dimensions of assessment. First, the programmatic
performance of a policy: success is essentially about designing smart programmes
that will really have an impact on the issues they are supposed to tackle, while
delivering those programmes in a manner to produce social outcomes that are
valuable. There is also the political legitimacy of a policy: success is the extent to
which both the social outcomes of policy interventions and also the manner in
which they are achieved are seen as appropriate by relevant stakeholders and
accountability forums in view of the systemic values in which they are embedded
(Fischer 1995; Hough et al. 2010).
The relation between these two dimensions of policy evaluation is not straight-
forward. There can be (and often are) asymmetries: politically popular policies are
not necessarily programmatically effective or efficient, and vice versa. Moreover,
there is rarely one shared normative and informational basis upon which all actors
in the governance processes assess performance, legitimacy, and endurance
(Bovens et al. 2001). Many factors influence beliefs and practices through which
people form judgements about governance. Heterogeneous stakeholders have
varied vantage points, values, and interests with regard to a policy, and thus
may experience and assess it differently. An appeal to ‘the facts’ does not neces-
sarily help settle these differences. In fact, like policymaking, policy evaluation
occurs in a context of multiple, often competing, cultural and political frames and
narratives, each of which privileges some facts and considerations over others
(Hajer and Wagenaar 2003). It is inherently political in its approach and impli-
cations, no matter how deep the espoused commitment to scientific rigour of
many of its practitioners. This is not something we can get around; it is something
we have to acknowledge and be mindful of without sliding into thinking that it is
all and only political, and that therefore ‘anything goes’ when it comes assessing
the success or otherwise of a policy (Bovens et al. 2006).
Building upon Bovens and ‘t Hart’s programmatic–political dichotomy,
McConnell (2010) added a third perspective, process success, to produce a
three-dimensional assessment map. We have adapted this three-dimensional
assessment for our purposes (see also Newman 2014) and added an
  ‘’    5
additional—temporal—dimension. Assessing policy success in this volume thus

involves checking cases against the following four criteria families:
Programmatic assessment—This dimension reflects the focus of ‘classic’ evalu-
ation research on policy goals, the theory of change underpinning it, and the
selection of the policy instruments it deploys—all culminating in judgements
about the degree to which a policy achieves valuable social impacts.
Process assessment—The focus here is on how the processes of policy design,
decision-making, and delivery are organized and managed, and whether these
processes contribute to both its technical problem-solving capacity (effectiveness
and efficiency) and to its social appropriateness, and in particular the sense of
procedural justice among key stakeholders and the wider public (Van den Bos
et al. 2014).
Political assessment—This dimension assesses the degree to which policy-
makers and agencies involved in driving and delivering the policy are able to
build and maintain supportive political coalitions, and the degree to which policy-
makers’ association with the policy enhances their reputations. In other words, it
examines both the political requirements for policy success and the distribution of
political costs/benefits among the actors involved in it.
Endurance assessment—The fourth dimension adds a temporal perspective. We
surmise that the success or otherwise of a public policy, programme, or project
should be assessed not through a one-off snapshot but as a multi-shot sequence or
episodic film ascertaining how its performance and legitimacy develop over time.
Contexts change, unintended consequences emerge, surprises are thrown at
history: robustly successful policies are those that adapt to these dynamics through
institutional learning and flexible adaptation in programme (re)design and delivery,
and through political astuteness in safeguarding supporting coalitions and main-
taining public reputation and legitimacy.
Taking these dimensions into account, we propose the following definition of a
(‘great’) policy success:
A policy is a complete success to the extent that (a) it demonstrably creates widely
valued social outcomes; through (b) design, decision-making, and delivery pro-
cesses that enhance both its problem-solving capacity and its political legitimacy;
and (c) sustains this performance for a considerable period of time, even in the
face of changing circumstances.
Table 1.1 presents an assessment framework that integrates these building blocks.
Articulating specific elements of each dimension of success—programmatic, pro-
cess, political, endurance—in unambiguous and conceptually distinct terms, this
framework lends a structure to both contemporaneous evaluation and dynamic
consideration of policy developments over time. All contributing authors have
drawn upon it in analysing their case studies in this volume.
6   
Table 1.1 A policy success assessment map
Programmatic assessment: Process assessment: Political assessment:

Purposeful and valued Thoughtful and fair Stakeholder and public
action policymaking practices legitimacy for the policy
• A well-developed and • The policy process • A relatively broad and deep

empirically feasible public allows for robust political coalition supports
value proposition and deliberation about the policy’s value
theory of change (in terms thoughtful proposition, instruments
of ends–means consideration of: the and current results
relationships) underpins relevant values and • Association with the policy
the policy interests; the hierarchy enhances the political
• Achievement of (or of goals and objectives; capital of the responsible
considerable momentum contextual constraints; policy-makers
towards) the policy’s the (mix of ) policy
instruments; and the • Association with the policy
intended and/or other enhances the organizational
beneficial social outcomes institutional
arrangements and reputation of the relevant
• Costs/benefits associated capacities necessary for public agencies
with the policy are effective policy
distributed equitably in implementation
society
• Stakeholders
overwhelmingly
experience the making
and/or the delivery of
policy as just and fair
Temporal Assessment
• Endurance of the policy’s value proposition (i.e. the proposed ‘high-level’ ends–means
relationships underpinning its rationale and design, combined with the flexible
adaptation of its ‘on-the-ground’ and ‘programmatic’ features to changing circumstances
and in relation to performance feedback).
• Degree to which the policy’s programmatic, process, and political performance is
maintained over time.
• Degree to which the policy confers legitimacy on the broader political system.
Studying Policy Success: Methodological Considerations
Now that we have a working method of ‘seeing’ policy success in operational

terms, the next step is to apply the concept in studying governance and public
policymaking. Before we do so, however, it is important to point out that there are
range of methods which researchers have employed in this task. These efforts can
be grouped into three types of approach.
At the macro-level, studies of overall government performance usually take the
form of cross-national and cross-regional comparison of indicators published in
large datasets. Some researchers focus on the inputs and throughput side of
government. A prominent example is the Quality of Government dataset that
captures cross-national difference in the trustworthiness, reliability, impartiality,
  ‘’    7
incorruptibility, and competence of public institutions (Rothstein 2011). Of more

direct relevance from a policy success point of view are datasets and balanced
scorecard exercises focusing on aggregate governance outputs, outcomes, and
productivity in specific domains of government activity, performed and propa-
gated by e.g. the World Bank, the OECD, and many national audit offices and
government think tanks (Goderis 2015).
At the meso-level, social problems, policy domain, and programme evaluation
specialists regularly examine populations of cases to identify cases and areas of
high performance. For example, common areas of focus include crime prevention
programmes, adult literacy programmes, refugee settlement programmes, and
early childhood education programmes. With this method, scholars examine
‘what works’ and assess whether these programmes or key features of them can
be replicated and transferred to other contexts (e.g. Light 2002; Isaacs 2008;
Lundin et al. 2015; Blunch 2017; Weisburd et al. 2017).
Finally, at the micro-level, researchers probe deeply into the context, design,
decision-making, implementation, reception, assessment, and evolution of single
or a limited number of policies or programmes. Both Hall’s and Pressman and
Wildavsky’s seminal studies are examples of micro-level studies.
Each of these three approaches has a distinctive set of potential strengths and
weaknesses. Macro studies offer a view of the big picture, with a helicopter
perspective of linkages between governance activities and social outcomes. They
lend insight into the social and economic consequences of institutional design and
the effect of public spending patterns. This approach generally offers little or no
insight into what occurs in the ‘black box’ in which these linkages take shape.
Meso-level studies, on the other hand, drill down to the level of programmes and
come closer to establishing the nature of the links between their inputs, through-
puts, outputs, and outcomes. Structured and focused comparative case designs
which control for institutional and contextual factors can yield richer pictures of
‘what works’. A limitation of these population-level comparisons is the conse-
quence of parsimony, which limits the depth of attention paid to context, chance,
choice, communication, cooperation, and conflict within each unit in the sample.
As a result, it often proves difficult for meso-level studies to convincingly answer
why things work well or not so well.
The latter is the main potential strength of micro-level, single, or low-n case
study designs. This approach offers the greatest leverage in opening the black box,
and examining the stakeholder interests, institutional arrangements, power rela-
tionships, leadership and decision-making processes, and the realities of front-line
service delivery involved. This gives analysts in this tradition a better shot at
reconstructing the constellations of factors and social mechanisms that are at
work in producing policy successes. The chief limitation of micro studies of policy
success lies in the limited possibilities for controlled hypothesis testing and the
impossibility of empirically generalizing their findings. This volume is set in the
8   
micro tradition. We hope to deliver on its potential strengths while responsibly

navigating not only its inherent limitations but also its methodological challenges.
Case Selection
Conceptual definition of the outcome of interest—policy success—is just the start

of the battle for valid inference. With defined concepts in hand, a researcher
must next choose an appropriate sample from which to draw conclusions. If the
first lesson in any undergraduate research methods course is that ‘correlation is
not causation’, the second is sure to be in the spirit of ‘thou shalt not select on
the dependent variable’. Though criteria for sample selection vary across the
quantitative–qualitative divide (Mahoney and Goertz 2006), it is agreed that
‘the cases you choose affect the answers you get’ (Geddes 2003). The message is
hammered into the minds of young scholars that, for well understood reasons,
selecting cases based on the value of the dependent variable can profoundly bias
statistical findings, fouling generalization and average effect estimation (Heckman
1976). And yet, how a researcher selects their cases should be principally driven by
the research question. Case selection should be a deliberate and well-considered
procedure tailored to the specific research question at hand and type of explan-
ation sought (Brady and Collier 2010; King et al. 1994). There are defensible
reasons to violate the dependent variable rule and select only or mostly ‘positive’
cases (Brady and Collier 2010). In this multiple-cases project, we are not seeking
causal explanation or formal comparison. Nor do we endeavour to arrive at
universal (or even external) generalizability or estimation of average effects, let
alone aim to identify (probabilistic) empirical regularities. We are, instead, inter-
ested in documenting, understanding, and problematizing the actors, contexts,
ideas, and institutions that interact to produce the outcome of (intrinsic and
theoretical) value: successful public policy. Our case selection decisions were
made with that chief goal in mind.
Our main concern was that each case be identified as a ‘great policy success’ by
expert scholars in the relevant policy domain along more than one but preferably
all of the four success dimensions distinguished above: procedural, programmatic,
political, and endurance assessment. Complete success on all four dimensions is
unusual; these are the truly exceptional accomplishments. We sought cases of seen
successes, which are not only successful (which we might posit is a more common
condition than is popularly acknowledged), but also recognized as such. To find
these gems, we as editors consulted with experts and academics in a range of
policy domains (environmental, public works or infrastructure, social welfare,
healthcare, technology, and economic policy) to identify cases meeting our criteria
for ‘policy success’. In the event of disagreement between experts on a case’s level
of success, the case was removed from our long list.
  ‘’    9
We also paid attention to both the policy domain and diversity of national
institutional context in finalizing our set of cases. Though our sample is quasi-
homogeneous in terms of the ‘dependent variable’ (success), we explicitly aimed
for variation in the factors which might play an important explanatory role—
including, but not limited to problem types policy sectors/subsystems, nature and
strength of political institutions, levels of economic development, and adminis-
trative capacity (Bovens et al. 2001; Lodge and Wegrich 2014). Because this
research project is primarily pedagogical and exploratory rather than explanatory
and predictive, we do not test hypotheses or conclude with any certainty about the
causes of success. Our aim is to bring to life cases of unusual policy success and get
readers to consider (a) the dimensions along which each case is most and
somewhat less successful; (b) how and why success was achieved in each of
these instances, taking into account the context in which they arose and evolved,
and the roles of particular institutions, actors, and practices in bringing them
about.
Temporal Complexity
In assessing policy outcomes, what you see often depends upon when you look,
and with what kind of temporal perspective in mind. With the passing of time,
public and political perceptions of the processes and outcomes of a public can
shift. A case in point is the construction of the Sydney Opera House (1954–73).
During the conflict-ridden and traumatic implementation phase of this highly
adventurous architectural project, it was considered a major fiasco. Construction
took ten years longer than initially planned and the costs exploded from the 1954
tender of 7 million A$ to well over 100 million A$ upon completion in 1973.
Significantly, the architect had walked out midcourse following a series of con-
frontations with the minister of public works whose party had won the New South
Wales election that year promising to rein in the ‘out of control’ Opera House
project. Not surprisingly, Hall dutifully included the Opera House project in his
Great Planning Disasters, published in 1981.
This perspective of failure was short-lived, however. During the 1980s the
unique design of the Opera House became a global architectural icon and tourist
attraction. Its growing fame and the cash it generated eclipsed the original budget
overruns, political controversies, and functional limitations of the building com-
plex. The fact that most of the building costs had not come from the public purse
but from a series of designated public lotteries, long wilfully overlooked in the
political debate, made a comeback. Over time, the weight accorded to ‘project
management’ criteria—where success is defined as delivery according to specifi-
cations, on time and within budget—receded. The dominant evaluative lens
became strategic, macro-economic, and symbolic.
10   
This is an example of how policy assessment can be fundamentally shaped by

variation in time horizons and the realization of various policy effects over time.
Policy objectives may vary in temporal scope (in economic policy planning, a
differentiation between short-term, medium-term, and long-term policies is
quite common) and temporal quality (unique/non-recurrent versus permanent/
iterative policies). This affects the timing and nature of assessments of their effects.
Policy-makers are in fact continuously vacillating between different time horizons
in setting priorities, allocating budgets, and making decisions. At the same time,
many elected officials and others subject to the vagaries of the electoral cycle will
be predisposed to judge policy proposals or feedback about past policies first and
foremost in terms of their short-term political implications.
Short-term effects are also more easily registered than long-term effects,
which are likely to become intertwined with other phenomena in complex and
often unintended ways. Moreover, short-term and long-term effects may in
some cases be at odds with one another, the latter reversing or neutralizing
the former. In general, the longer the time frame used for the assessment of
policy outcomes, the bigger the scope for controversy about their meaning and
evaluation is likely to be. Similarly, the processes and outcomes of one-off
policies (such as the construction of a building, the security measures surround-
ing a global summit conference, or the response to a natural disaster) tend to be
more easily grasped than those of policies with iterative objectives which are
constantly being renegotiated and adapted by different participants and in the
face of changing circumstances (such as urban planning strategies, fiscal and
monetary policies, or social security policies). In evaluating efforts to signifi-
cantly change the behaviour of large numbers of people (such as reducing
smoking, drunk driving, or domestic violence) in particular, a limited time
frame is inappropriate because it neglects both the severity of the initial admin-
istrative problems and the possibility of learning by doing. For example, US
president Franklin Roosevelt’s resettlement programme for black agricultural
labourers failed to meet its short-term political objectives, yet it had the latent
effect of generating a black middle class which later would become the backbone
of the civil rights movement (Salomon 1979).
Conversely, consider the example of the American energy policy, which shows
yet another way in which time horizons can considerably change the evaluation of
outcomes. In many respects this policy was very successful in the 1960s. Through
price controls, allocation schemes, and the non-inclusion of external costs, con-
sumers were provided with inexpensive petroleum products. But seen from
the perspective of what happened in the next decade, the picture became less
sanguine: ‘These benefits created incentives to rely on the automobile for trans-
portation, and oil and natural gas for heating, while ignoring mass transit and
coal. The success of one policy has now led to the realisation of its harmful
consequences: a nation shackled to oil and natural gas and unprepared to pay
  ‘’    11
the real costs that such dependence demands, i.e. subservience to foreign
producers and the costs they impose’ (Ingram and Mann 1980: 14).
And then there is what Wildavsky so aptly called the paradox of time: past
successes lead to future failures. To illustrate this, he provides the example of
the ironies of achieving success in public healthcare which come to haunt policy-
makers a decade or so later. The essay’s title reflects the sense of despair
policy-makers may feel when they understand the paradox of time. It is called
Doing better, feeling worse: ‘As life expectancy increases and as formerly disabling
diseases are conquered, medicine is faced with an older population those disabil-
ities are more difficult to defeat. The cost of cure is higher, both because the easier
ills have already been dealt with, and because the patients to be treated are older.
Each increment of knowledge is harder won; each improvement in health is more
expensive. Thus, time converts one decade’s achievements into the next decade’s
dilemmas’ (Wildavsky 1987: 283).
There is no hard and fast, universally applicable way of dealing with temporal
complexity in policy evaluation. Overall, however, analysts are probably best off if
they consciously employ both short-term and long-term perspectives, and empir-
ically examine if and how the (mix of) criteria which policy-makers, stakeholders,
and the public employed to ascertain the performance of a policy changed over
time in the case they study. This is the principal reason for including an endurance
dimension in the policy assessment framework depicted in Table 1.1.
Outline of This Volume
Since the mid-1990s there has been a strong interest in tracking ‘good/best’
practices with an aim towards customizing and transplanting them to other
contexts. The literature on policy transfer shows that this has met with limited
success. Much of this work lacks a systematic analysis of the constructed, poten-
tially contested, and dynamic nature of these ‘best practices’. Nor has it drilled
down deeply and methodically into the roles of chance and choice, structure and
agency, institutions and people, politics and professions in producing these
performances.
In this volume, we try to address both these limitations by offering a series of
grounded, in-depth, and reflective case studies. It features cases deliberately
chosen to cover a broad range of issues and policy sectors. These include cases
of different modes (from top-down central steering to open, deliberative, and
collaborative processes) and levels (from urban to the global) of governance.
Though somewhat skewed to countries consistently ranking among the best
governed in the world, the volume includes cases of federal and unitary, parlia-
mentary and presidential, and Westminster and consensual systems of govern-
ment. Short descriptions of the fifteen cases are included here.
12   
Great policy successes: cases in this volume
Brazil’s Bolsa Família scheme—How Brazil built the world’s largest conditional
cash transfer scheme to lift millions out of extreme poverty.
Remarkable healthcare in Singapore—How policies have been continuously
calibrated to adapt to new challenges while keeping costs low in Singapore.
Cutting waiting times in the NHS—How classic top-down political leadership
and judicious policy analysis got Britain’s revered but monolithic National
Health Service to process its millions of clients much more quickly.
The transformation of UK tobacco control—How the UK designed and imple-
mented innovative policies which framed tobacco as a health concern to
successfully build support around the initially unpopular tobacco ban.
The GI Bill—How the United States provided social support to soldiers return-
ing from the Second World War to ensure macro-economic security, and had
the unintended consequence of building social capital.
Finland’s education system—How a small nation on Europe’s northern per-
iphery built a school system that became a global brand in ‘how to do public
education’.
Estonia’s digital transformation—How a post-communist state forged a global
reputation as a leader in digital government.
The Alameda rail corridor project—How through balanced governance and a
creative financing arrangement a tangled web of rail lines was transformed into
a single corridor that relieved traffic congestion and reduced air and water
pollution in the Los Angeles region.
‘Marvellous Melbourne’—How the once staid and struggling state capital of
Victoria, Australia, transformed itself into a cosmopolitan metropolis named
‘The World’s Most Liveable City’ six times in a row (from 2011 to 2017) by The
Economist’s Intelligence Unit.
The new Dutch Delta strategy—How a nation in which two-thirds of the
population live below the current sea level secures its future by reinventing
its famed water management strategy so as to enable proactive and creative
adaptation to the effects of climate change.
Copenhagen’s Five Finger Plan—How the Danish capital successfully avoided
urban sprawl and overly dense and chaotic urbanization through early adop-
tion and sustained adaptation of a comprehensive urban planning regime.
Norway’s Petroleum Fund—How Norway’s policy-makers purposefully
dodged the bullet of the ‘resource curse’ and channelled its oil revenues into
what has become the world’s biggest national pension fund.
  ‘’    13
New Zealand’s economic turnaround—How a country at the brink of economic

collapse in the 1980s transformed its fortunes through a radical, consistent,
and impactful suite of reform strategies.
Germany’s labour market reforms—How Europe’s biggest but notoriously rigid
and sluggish post-reunification economy was lifted into the economic power-
house it has since become.
The Montreal Protocol—How the world managed to negotiate and implement
a global regulatory regime that helped the stratospheric ozone layer recover
from the damage sustained by decades’ worth of ozone depleting substances.
These case studies provide readers with an insight into ‘how successful the policy
really was’ and ‘how success happened’ in each of these instances. We ask
readers—as we did our fellow researchers when we commissioned the case
studies—to consider the following guiding questions when working their way
through each case:
1. What is this case about and to what extent can it be assessed as a ‘great
policy success’ (in terms of the definition and the assessment above)?
2. What was the social, political, and institutional context in which the policy
(programme, project, initiative) was developed?
3. What specific challenges was it seeking to tackle, and what if any specific
aims did it seek to achieve?
4. Who were the policy’s main drivers and stewards, and how did they raise
and maintain support for the policy?
5. How did the policy design process—the progression from ambitions and
ideas to plans and instruments—unfold, and what (f )actors shaped it most?
6. How did the political decision-making process leading up to its adoption—
the progression from proposals (bills, proposals) to commitments (laws,
budgets)—unfold, and what (f )actors shaped it most?
7. How did the implementation process unfold, and what (f )actors shaped
it most?
8. How did the legitimacy of the policy—the political and public support
garnered—unfold, and what (f )actors shaped it most?
9. How did changes over time in the operating or political context (such as
government turnover, fiscal positions, critical incidents) affect:
a. the policy’s central features
b. levels of popular support, or perceived legitimacy?
14   
10. What, overall, can policy analysts and policy actors (of different ilk) learn
from this instance of policy success?
a. How likely is this case to remain a ‘success’ in the future? What are
potential future problems with this policy case, or a similar class of cases?
b. What unique factors may limit how broadly the lessons from this case
can be applied (in terms of political, social, or economic context, or
policy domain, etc.)?
The authors of the case studies you are about to read have all worked with these
conceptual tools. That said, authors have come to this project with their own
preconceptions, and they have relied on textual and human sources in their
research that are part of the political fray of the case at hand. We advise readers
therefore not to take any of the labels and interpretations concerning a policy’s
alleged ‘great success’ and its key drivers for granted, but to constantly question
what frames—and whose frames—are at work here and examine by what evidence
they are underpinned.
Exploring Policy Successes: Pointers about

the Landscape Ahead
While providing a detailed template for assessing the success or otherwise of a

policy, we do not offer a similarly general framework to explain policy success. No
such framework currently exists, and it is unlikely that one singular framework
will ever be able to do so comprehensively, given the number of (f )actors involved
and the complexity of their interactions (see also McConnell 2010). General
frameworks of public policymaking which do exist are either primarily descriptive
or are designed to explain the content and timing of policies or the occurrence of
policy stability and change over time (Weible and Sabatier 2017). Progress in
explaining policy success is more likely to occur through middle-range theories
focused on explaining the presence and absence of policy success in specific
clusters of cases, such as particular types of governance challenges and policy
domains (Bovens et al. 2001; Patashnik 2008) or in particular jurisdictions (Light
2002; Scott 2014).
It may be possible to treat our fifteen cases as such a cluster and use pattern-
finding techniques such as Process-Tracing and Qualitative Comparative Analysis
to tease out configurations of factors that may explain common or different
outcomes. This will be a complicated endeavour given the limited size of our
sample and the profound temporal, sectoral, institutional, and contextual differ-
ences between the cases. In keeping with the purpose and design of this volume,
we will not venture down this path. Instead we draw upon the case studies as well
as existing research to offer a few themes for classroom discussion and,
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Photographic
investigations of faint nebulae
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Title: Photographic investigations of faint nebulae
Author: Edwin Hubble
Release date: September 15, 2023 [eBook #71654]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1920
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

PHOTOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATIONS OF FAINT NEBULAE ***
PHOTOGRAPHIC
INVESTIGATIONS
OF FAINT NEBULAE
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY

NEW YORK
THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON
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THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY

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The University of Chicago
Publications of the Yerkes

Observatory
VOLUME IV PART II
PHOTOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATIONS
OF FAINT NEBULAE
BY
EDWIN P. HUBBLE
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Copyright 1920 By
The University of Chicago
All Rights Reserved

Published January 1920
Composed and Printed By

The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois. U.S.A.
PHOTOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATIONS
OF FAINT NEBULAE [1]
By Edwin P. Hubble
The study of nebulae is essentially a photographic problem for cameras of

wide angle and reflectors of large focal ratio. The photographic plate presents a
definite and permanent record beside which visual observations lose most of
their significance. Perhaps the one field left for the older method is the
measurement of sharp nuclei deeply enshrouded in nebulosity. New nebulae are
now but rarely seen in the sky, although an hour’s exposure made at random
with a large reflector has more than an even chance of adding several small
faint objects to the rapidly growing list of those already known. About 17,000
have already been catalogued, and the estimates of those within reach of
existing instruments, based on the ratio of those previously known to those new
in various fields, lie around 150,000.
Extremely little is known of the nature of nebulae, and no significant
classification has yet been suggested; not even a precise definition has been
formulated. The essential features are that they are situated outside our solar
system, that they present sensible surfaces, and that they should be unresolved
into separate stars. Even then an exception must be granted for possible
gaseous nebulae which appear stellar in the telescope, but whose true nature is
revealed by the spectroscope. It may well be that they differ in kind and do not
form a unidirectional sequence of evolution. Some at least of the great diffuse
nebulosities, connected as they are with even naked-eye stars, lie within our
stellar system; while others, the great spirals, with their enormous radial
velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our system. The
planetaries, gaseous but well defined, are probably within our sidereal system,
but at vast distances from the earth.
In addition to these classes are the numberless small, faint nebulae, vague
markings on the photographic plate, whose very forms are indistinct. They may
give gaseous spectra, or continuous; they may be planetaries or spirals, or they
may belong to a different class entirely. They may even be clusters and not
nebulae at all. These questions await their answers for instruments more
powerful than those we now possess.
Our present hope is to study them statistically, but until motions, either radial
or transverse, have been detected we must content ourselves with the problem
of their distribution. The first step is to make a systematic survey with powerful
telescopes. Fath made a beginning by photographing each of the Kapteyn fields
within reach of the Mount Wilson 60-inch reflector with uniform exposures of one
hour. He discovered more than eight hundred new nebulae, and confirmed the
fact that the small nebulae avoid the Milky Way. This last is vital in its bearing on
the question of whether or not these objects belong to our system. A survey with
long exposures suggests itself, analogous to that of Kapteyn, but based on the
Milky Way rather than on the equator. The writer attempted such a program with
the Yerkes 24-inch reflector, giving two-hour exposures. Little progress was
made, but one fact stood out, namely, that in the fields of galactic latitude -60°
nebulae were very scarce when compared to the numbers met with in galactic
latitude +60°.
The tendency of small nebulae to gather in clusters has been known for
some time. Stratonoff’s map of the distribution of faint nebulae in the Northern
Hemisphere shows it very plainly. Max Wolf’s more detailed study of the ecliptic
regions with the 16-inch Bruce camera and the 30-inch reflector demonstrates
that within these larger regions of the sky where nebulae tend to congregate
there are points of accumulation about which the clustering is more marked. He
measured the positions of more than four thousand new nebulae, and devised a
classification which, while admittedly formal, offers an excellent scheme for
temporary filing until a significant system shall be constructed.
The present paper has to do with certain clusters of small, faint nebulae
which the writer found during the years 1914 to 1916 while photographing with
the 24-inch reflector of the Yerkes Observatory. From about 1000 uncatalogued
objects, 512 in 7 well-defined clusters were chosen for measurement. Known
nebulae in the clusters numbered 76; hence there were, in all, some 588
objects, or an average of 84 per cluster. The fields are as given in Table I.
The problem of measuring and reducing accurate positions of objects at a
considerable distance from the center of plates taken with a reflector of so large
a focal ratio, 1:4, presented serious difficulties. The area covered by each plate
is a square of some 110´ to the side. With the full aperture the stellar images are
sensibly round only within 5′ of the optical center of the plate. From there
outward the coma becomes more and more prominent, distorting the images
first into an oval, and finally, near the edge of the plate, into the shape of an
arrow, while the point about which the images build up becomes more and more
eccentric. For images of various sizes this point will be at various distances from
the centers of figure, and at 40′ from the center will fall very nearly at the point of
the arrow. This introduces at once an overwhelming magnitude-error, masking
whatever distortion of the field may exist.
TABLE I
Center (1875.0) Number
Field
α δ Known New Total
I 1ʰ 0ᵐ 30ˢ +31° 44′ 21 57 78
II 1 42 20 32 0 3 81 84
III 11 3 54 29 27 8 178 186
IV 13 37 10 56 21 21 52 73
V 14 57 10 23 47 3 49 52
VI 17 11 22 43 50 5 43 48
VII 23 14 16 7 27 15 52 67
Total 76 512 588
If very faint stellar images could be used for reference, this error could be
largely reduced. It was necessary, however, to use stars from the catalogues of
the Astronomische Gesellschaft for reference, and with the long exposures
required for the faint nebulae the images of these stars were very large. At the
edge of the plate, for instance, the arrow-shaped image of a star of the ninth
magnitude would often be fully a minute of arc in length.
It seemed inadvisable to make an exhaustive study of this magnitude-error,
whence the alternatives were to use a restricted portion of the field or to sacrifice
accuracy in the reduced positions. The second of these evils was chosen. The
positions of the optical centers of images at various distances from the center of
the field were determined empirically. Pairs of plates of a region were taken with
apertures of 9 inches and with the full 24 inches and were compared in the Zeiss
“blink” comparator. With the smaller aperture, and hence the smaller focal ratio,
the images near the edge of the plates were sensibly round and small.
Superimposed on the 24-inch images, they indicated where the wires should be
set in measuring the larger distorted images. Trials were then made, measuring
positions of A.G. stars all over the 24-inch plates, until a kind of technique was
acquired. Judged by the aims in view and the results obtained, this empirical
scheme fully justified itself.
At least two plates of each field were taken. In any case the two best plates
were put on the “blink” comparator, and only those objects clearly nebulous on
both plates were marked. The better plate was then placed on a Gaertner
measuring machine. The nebulae and all the A.G. stars fainter than the seventh
magnitude were measured in X and Y with the same screw. After an interval of a
day or two the plate was remeasured. Settings were read to 0.01 mm,
corresponding to about 0.87" on the scale of the plate. The two measures of a
nebula differed but seldom in this unit, and if faint reference stars could have
been used, a higher degree of accuracy could have been maintained throughout
the work.
In order to orient the plate, two stars were selected with as large a difference
in right ascension and as small a difference in declination as possible. The
difference in X was then computed in millimeters, assuming a scale-value of
87.4″ per mm. The plate was placed in the measuring machine with the meridian
roughly perpendicular to the screw, and adjusted with the tangent slow-motion
until the setting on the two stars gave the computed difference to the limit of
accuracy of the settings. This method reduced the constant of orientation of the
plate to an almost negligible quantity.
Turner’s method (The Observatory, 16, 373, 1893) was used as the basis for
reducing the measures. The six plate-constants for each field were determined
from the five or six A.G. stars most symmetrically distributed about the optical
center, and graphs were constructed from which the values of Y-Y₀ and X-X₀
were corrected. The Δα and Δδ were then added directly to the α₀ and δ₀ of the
assumed center, and final corrections to the positions were read from graphs
constructed from Turner’s formulae. Any A.G. stars not included in the
determination of plate-constants furnished checks.
Since the distribution of the stars was about the same as that of the nebulae,
it was hoped that the reduced positions of the latter would be of the same order
of accuracy as those of the stars. For the 62 A.G. stars on the seven plates
measured, the average difference from the A.G. positions was 1.0″ in either co-
ordinate. The settings on the nebulae could be made with greater precision than
on the stars, hence these results justify placing the accuracy of the nebular
positions at about 2.0″ in either co-ordinate, except for such as were near the
edge of the plates.
The positions are given for the epoch of the A.G. catalogues, 1875.0. Two of
the N.G.C. nebulae had been measured by Lorenz from photographs made at
Heidelberg. A comparison of his measures with the present measures shows the
same second of arc in declination and the same tenth of a second of time in
right ascension. The agreement is perfect to the last units used in the present
paper, but as the nebulae, N.G.C. 7619 and 7626, are situated near the center
of the plate, they cannot serve as a test of the accuracy of those near the edge.
In several cases comparisons could be made with positions from visual
measures, as given in the Strassburg Annals, Vols. III and IV. Here the
agreement is not so good.
In one case, on the same night, positions of four objects were measured with
reference to a certain star, which was, in turn, tied up to an A.G. star some
distance away. The objects are given as N.G.C. 3550, 3552, 3554, and a nova
which is designated as K₁₂. The photograph shows N.G.C. 3550 and 3554
properly placed with reference to the star, both in distance and in position-angle;
there is nothing at all in the place given for N.G.C. 3552; K₁₂ is properly placed
from the star, but is in the N.G.C. position for No. 3552. The position of the
reference star is given as about 17″ too small in declination. K₁₂ is clearly
N.G.C. 3552, and evidently the fourth object does not exist in the published
position. As these objects were all in the same field of view in the telescope, one
is at a loss to account for the discrepancy. A list of the comparisons is given in
Table II.
The descriptions indicate form, brightness, and size, and occasionally the
location of a neighboring star. Wolf’s classification was used. It is, as he
remarks, wholly empirical and probably without physical significance, yet it offers
the best available system of filing away data, and will later be of great service
when a significant order is established. One class was interpolated between g
and h, and was designated g0. Brightness was estimated in the order B, pB, pF,
F, vF, eF, eeF, and eeeF. The range is from Herschel’s Class II down to the limit
of the plates. For several of the fields diameters were estimated to the nearest
5″. Otherwise the size was given in the order L, pL, pS, cS, S, vS, eS.
The classification given in Table III is illustrated in Plate III, copied from
Wolf’s engraving in Band III, No. 5, of the Publicationen des Astrophysikalischen
Instituts Königstuhl-Heidelberg. The most striking feature is the great
predominance of the classes e and f. These two classes form a continuous
sequence from the brightest in the list to the very limits of the plates, where they
are but mere faint markings on the films. Eleven are clearly spirals, and the
spindles are unexpectedly common. These results are typical.
The frequency of the classes e and f may merely be a way of stating that the
scale of the telescope is too small to show the ordinary structure, but it must be
remembered that many members of these classes are pretty large and bright
and that the gradation in the series is apparently continuous. As far as
telescopes of moderate focal length are concerned, the predominant form of
nebulae as we know them at present is not the spiral, but is this same “e, f”
class, described as round or nearly so, brightening more or less gradually
toward the center, and devoid of detail. The brightest of the class are probably
Messier 60 and N.G.C. 3379. Their spectrum, as derived from objective-prism
plates, is continuous, and is probably of the same type as those of the spirals
and the globular clusters. A detailed study on an adequate scale of the brighter
members of the class will throw considerable light on the problem of the small
nebulae.
TABLE II
Hubble minus Strassburg
N.G.C. Δα Δδ
379 0ˢ.0 +3″
380 +0.1 +3
Hubble minus Strassburg
N.G.C. Δα Δδ
382 +0.2 +1
383 +0.1 0
384 +0.1 +1
385 +0.1 +2
386 -0.2 -2
387 +0.2 +3
3550[2] +0.5 +24
3552 +0.1 +19
3554 -0.2 +15
3558 -0.3 -1
6329 -0.3 +3
6332 -0.3 +6
6336 +0.1 +8
7586 +0.2 +1
7608 -0.3 +6
7611 -0.2 -1
7612 [3] 0.0 +2
7617 +0.1 +1
7619 [4] +0.1 -1
7623[5] 0.0 +1
7626[6] -0.2 -2
TABLE III
Distribution of Varieties or Classes of
Nebulae in the Seven Clusters or Fields
Field
Class
I II III IV V VI VII Total
a 1 1
c 1 1 1 3
d 1 33 1 6 41
e 27 39 109 41 27 21 20 284
f 33 35 17 19 8 12 21 145
g 7 3 4 12 5 7 38
g₀ 5 8 3 1 17
h 2 2 2 10 1 1 4 22
Field
Class
I II III IV V VI VII Total
h₀ 3 2 4 1 2 2 14
i 1 2 3
k 1 2 3
n 1 1
q 1 2 3
r 2 2
v 1 1
w 1 4 2 7
irreg 1 2 3
Messier 60 has a spiral as a very near neighbor—H III 44. The contrast in the
two classes is well shown; so also in the case of N.G.C. 3379 mentioned above.
Here there is a group of three fairly bright nebulae: N.G.C. 3379, a globular
nebula of class e; 3389, an open spiral; and 3384, which might be called a
spindle, except that the wings flare out from the nucleus.
The three irregular forms are N.G.C. nebulae and are commented upon in
the descriptions accompanying the positions.
Very little can be said concerning the surface-brightness of these objects. It
is independent of the distance so long as the angular diameter is sensibly
greater than that of a faint star. The photographic plate therefore records the
absolute surface-brightness of the nebulae. High luminosity is a comparatively
rare attribute and there is some relation between luminosity and absolute size;
that is to say, the brighter usually have the greater angular diameter. Since it is
hard to conceive of a relation between distance and absolute brightness, the fact
that the faint nebulae are usually the smaller can be interpreted only in the light
of a relation between luminosity and absolute size.
The clustering of the nebulae here recorded is very pronounced. In the
center of Field III there are some 75 nebulae scattered over an area equal to
that subtended by the full moon.[7] In order to examine the distribution of the
different sizes, diameters were plotted against frequencies. The small scale of
the plates renders the number of smallest diameters very uncertain. Nebulae
less than 10″ in diameter might easily be mistaken for stars and overlooked,
especially if they are at some distance from the center of the field. The curves
resemble probability-curves, as one would expect for random distribution in a
cluster at a definite distance.
TABLE IV
Distribution According to Size
of the Nebulae in Three Fields
Field Wolf’s Field
Diameter
I II III in Perseus
5″ 3
10 7 38 5 34
15 27 67 12 52
20 25 42 18 26
25 6 19 10 6
30 5 9 4 2
35 3 2 4 1
40 4 5 4 2
45 1 3 3
50 1 3
60 3
90 1
Exposures of two hours gave all of the nebulae recorded. Five-hour
exposures brightened the images somewhat, but revealed no new ones. The
conclusion would seem to be that the limits of the clusters had been reached.
This, however, is uncertain, for the longer exposures gave relatively few stars
which were not on the plates of shorter exposures. As a matter of fact, the 24-
inch reflector at this altitude seems to have a maximum working efficiency at
slightly over two hours. Save for very exceptionally clear and steady skies, the
longer exposures add much labor for negligibly greater results. The diameters of
the faintest stars near the center of the field, with the full aperture, fine sky, and
an hour’s exposure, which are of about magnitude 17.5, are about 2.0″. Longer
exposures are apparently subject to change of focus, differential refraction, and
other disturbances which tend to increase the size of the images unduly, and
hence to spread the total light over a larger area. The result is that the value of p
in the reciprocity equation Itᵖ = iTᵖ does not remain constant throughout the
exposure, but varies, beyond a certain value of T, depending on the adjustments
of the telescope, the position of the field, and the condition of the sky. However,
the effect should be more noticeable on the stars than on nebulae which present
surfaces.
Fig. 1.—Distribution of size in Wolf’s
Nebel Listen Nos. 3 to 14
I have plotted Wolf’s lists of nebulae, Nos. 3-14, in the same manner,
converting estimates of size into seconds of arc according to his table. These
lists were made from plates taken with the 16-inch (41 cm) Bruce camera, of
focal length 203 cm, of the Heidelberg Observatory. The curves (Fig. 1) take the
same form, save that for most the maximum frequency is for diameters between
20″ and 25″. One of his lists was made from plates taken with the 30-inch
reflector at Königstuhl. It is of a field in Perseus, α = 3ᵸ12ᵐ, δ = +41° 6′.
Diameters of the 124 Wolf nebulae and five others were measured from plates
taken with the Yerkes 24-inch reflector. This plot (Fig. 2) gives a maximum for
diameters around 15″, and the longer focus of Wolf’s 30-inch apparently does
not add to the number of small nebulae distinguishable on the plates made with
the shorter telescope.
TABLE V
Wolf’s Nebel Listen Nos. 3-14
Diameter
List
4″ 6″ 15″ 25″ 60″ 200″ >200″
3 205 322 291 280 195 36 6
4 1 69 153 19 6 1
Diameter
List
4″ 6″ 15″ 25″ 60″ 200″ >200″
5 6 99 106 23 1 3
6 14 114 72 2 2 1
7 9 103 156 35 4 12
8 80 372 243 34 3
9 48 174 160 19
10 3 31 26 2
11 13 60 19 1
12 14 61 162 27 10
13 20 61 26 3
14 3 160 296 43 1 1
The evidence, while far from conclusive, appears to indicate the existence of
actual clusters of these small nebulae in the sky. If this is true, it is natural to
suppose them physically connected, as is the case in star-clusters. It is not
possible to form a conception of this state of affairs until some idea of their
distance is acquired. Suppose them to be extra-sidereal and perhaps we see
clusters of galaxies; suppose them within our system, their nature becomes a
mystery.
Fig. 2.—Distribution of size of nebulae in Wolf’s Perseus

and three Yerkes fields
The question of nebular distances is of first importance, for it is in terms of
this quantity that the various dimensions may be expressed. The dark
nebulosities, by their very nature, and the great diffuse clouds, some obviously
connected with even naked-eye stars, may safely be considered as galactic, and
this view is in accord with their low radial velocities with reference to our system.
The planetaries have repeatedly been measured for proper motion, with
negligible results. Taking a value of 40 km/sec. for the average radial velocity,
and an assumed lower limit of 0.02″ for the average annual proper motion, a
tentative lower limit for the average distance of the largest, and hence probably
the nearest, is found to be about 2000 light-years. There is thus no reason on
this ground for placing them outside our system, especially in view of their
decidedly systematic galactic distribution.
Rotation of these nebulae, as detected by the spectroscope, furnishes a
means of relating mass and average density with distance. Assume an axis
perpendicular to the line of sight, the mass as concentrated in the nucleus and
the individual distant particles as rotating in equilibrium; let α be the radius, P the
period of rotation, M the mass, and suppose the rotation to be circular. Then
α³/P²M = C, a constant.
Let the unit of distance be the light-year (LY); of time, the year; of mass, that
of the sun (S), then C, as computed from the earth-sun system, is about 4 ×
10⁻¹⁵.
Let
α = the angular radius in seconds of arc

d = the distance in light-years
ρ = the density in terms of earth’s atmosphere at
sea-level
v = the linear velocity of rotation in km/sec.
Then the following relations hold:
(1) M = 3.4 × 10⁻⁴ dαv²

(2) ρ = 1.4 × 10⁻⁶ (v/dα)²
(3) P = 9.15 dα/v
The velocity of escape for the nebula is proportional to α/ρ and hence to v.
This follows from the assumption that the particles are rotating in equilibrium,
and therefore the factor of proportionality is the ratio between parabolic and
circular velocity, that is, 1.4, and is independent of the distance. The value of v
for those nebulae so far observed is small, ranging from 5 to 10 km. Hence, if
the assumptions held only approximately, the velocity of escape would be small
and of the same order as that for the earth. Since these nebulae are composed
of the lightest gases, it follows that at any save very low temperatures the
molecules would escape at a very rapid rate. Certainly the nebulae would
dissipate if the temperatures were of the order of that of our own atmosphere.
TABLE VI
d Diameter Mass Period Density
10 LY 0.001 LY 1.2S 1.5×10² year 1.8×10⁻⁷ρ
10² 0.01 12. 1.5×10³ 1.8×10⁻⁹
10³ 0.1 120. 1.5×10⁴ 1.8×10⁻¹¹
10⁴ 1.0 1200. 1.5×10⁵ 1.8×10⁻¹³
For an assumed typical planetary nebula, 20″ in diameter, rotating with a

velocity of 6 km at 10″ from the perpendicular axis, Table VI has been
constructed from formulae (1)-(3), expressing the order of magnitude of
dimensions in terms of distance.
The velocity of escape would be about 8.4 km per second, whatever the
distance.
Spectroscopic rotation of spirals furnishes an analogous set of formulae, and
here the inclination of the axis may be roughly determined from the ratio of the
two diameters of the nebulae. Let β be the semi-minor axis, then the formulae
will be:
(4) M = 3.4 × 10⁻⁴ dαv²

α v ²
(5) ρ = 1.4 × × 10¹² in suns per cu. LY, or
β dα
α v ²
= 2.8 × × 10⁻⁶ in atmospheres
β dα
(6) P = 9.15 dα
v
The spirals form a continuous series from the great nebula of Andromeda to
the limit of resolution, the smaller ones being much the more numerous.
Considering them to be scattered at random as regards distance and size, some
conception may be formed of their dimensions from the data at hand. The
average radial velocity of those so far observed is about 400 km, while the
proper motion is negligible. Putting the annual proper motion at 0.05″, the lower
limit of the average distance is found to be about 7500 light-years. If they are
within our sidereal system, then, as they are most numerous in the direction of
its minor axis, the dimensions of our system must be much greater than is
commonly supposed.
The observations point to very large values for the rotational components of
velocity, although the necessarily small scale of the instruments employed in
their study renders the measuring difficult. Pease has determined the velocity of
rotation for N.G.C. 4594 with some degree of accuracy. At 120″ from the nucleus
it amounts to 300 km and varies linearly with the distance outward. V. M. Slipher
reports that for the Andromeda nebula the angular rotation is fastest near the
nucleus, and that this type of rotation promises to be the more common.
Assume a typical spiral 400″ in diameter, with the ratio of the axes of figure
as β/α = 0.1, and with rotation perpendicular to the line of sight at a velocity of,
say, 200 km at the periphery. These figures are apparently not very different
from the average of the two dozen brighter spirals. Table VII gives the
dimensions in terms of distance.
The velocity of escape is 280 km/sec.
At the lower limit of average distance of spirals the typical nebulae would be
fifteen light-years in diameter, forty-five million times as massive as our sun, and
3 × 10¹³ as dense as our atmosphere. On the other hand, if the typical spiral
nebula is placed at a suitable distance, its dimensions assume the same order
of magnitude as those of our own stellar system.
The conception of our galaxy set forth by Eddington in his book Stellar
Movements and the Structure of the Universe is that the Milky Way forms a ring
around a central, slightly flattened cluster. This ring is supposed to rotate in
equilibrium so that the stars may remain concentrated in the configurations they
now form. Assuming the ratio of the two radii as one to five, and using
Eddington’s figures of 2000 parsecs for the distance of the Milky Way, and 10⁹
suns as the mass of the inner cluster, the period and density may be computed
and compared with those of the typical nebula placed at a distance such as will
make the diameter the same as that of our system. The results are given in
Table VIII.
TABLE VII
d α Mass Period Density
10² 10⁻¹ 2.7 × 10⁵ 9 × 10² 1.4 × 10⁹ suns per cu. LY
10⁴ 10¹ 2.7 × 10⁷ 9 × 10⁴ 1.4 × 10⁵
10⁵ 10² 2.7 × 10⁸ 9 × 10⁵ 1.4 × 10³
10⁶ 10³ 2.7 × 10⁹ 9 × 10⁶ 1.4 × 10¹
TABLE VIII
Distance Radius Mass Period Density
Nebula 6 × 10⁶ LY 6 × 10³ LY 1.6 × 10¹⁰ S 5.4 × 10⁷ year 5.6 × 10⁻¹
Galaxy 6 × 10³ 10⁹ 2.5 × 10⁸ 1.2 × 10⁻²
The velocities of escape would be about 280 km for the nebula and 170 km
for the galaxy. Considering the problematic nature of the data, the agreement is
such as to lend some color to the hypothesis that the spirals are stellar systems
at distances to be measured often in millions of light-years. The computations by
O. H. Truman[8] and by R. K. Young and W. E. Harper[9] of the motion of our
system with respect to the spirals, based on the radial velocities of the spirals,
are another and stronger argument for the hypothesis.
The principal objection lies in their apparently systematic distribution with
respect to the Milky Way. The matter is usually stated in the form that “spirals
avoid the Milky Way.” There are less than 300 nebulae known to be spiral in
form. The greatest of them all is just on the border. It is suggested that the
spirals seem to follow the distribution of the small faint nebulae. If this is true, the
most that can be definitely stated is that they tend to cluster in certain regions of
the sky, in one of which the north pole of the galaxy is located.
As the small nebulae and the spirals inhabit the same regions of the sky, it is
probable that the order of distance of the two classes is the same. Classes e, f,
may even turn out to be spirals themselves. This, however, is a question for
large instruments, and is outside the scope of the present paper.
TABLE IX
Field I of Nebulae
(1875.0)
No. Class Description
α δ

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Great Policy Successes Mallory E.

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1.1 A policy success assessment map 6

Frederike Albrecht is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Security, Strategy and

Emma Blomkamp is an Honorary Fellow at The University of Melbourne and Co-Design

xiv   

Camilla Bakken Øvald is Assistant Professor at Kristiania College, Norway.

2   

  ‘’    3

to nurturing and protecting elite and public perceptions of the policy’s/pro-

How Do We Know a ‘Great Policy Success’ When We See One?

4   

  ‘’    5

additional—temporal—dimension. Assessing policy success in this volume thus

6   

Table 1.1 A policy success assessment map

Programmatic assessment: Process assessment: Political assessment:

• A well-developed and • The policy process • A relatively broad and deep

Studying Policy Success: Methodological Considerations

Now that we have a working method of ‘seeing’ policy success in operational

  ‘’    7

incorruptibility, and competence of public institutions (Rothstein 2011). Of more

8   

micro tradition. We hope to deliver on its potential strengths while responsibly

Conceptual deﬁnition of the outcome of interest—policy success—is just the start

  ‘’    9

10   

This is an example of how policy assessment can be fundamentally shaped by

  ‘’    11

Outline of This Volume

12   

Great policy successes: cases in this volume

  ‘’    13

New Zealand’s economic turnaround—How a country at the brink of economic

14   

Exploring Policy Successes: Pointers about

While providing a detailed template for assessing the success or otherwise of a

Title: Photographic investigations of faint nebulae

Author: Edwin Hubble

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Original publication: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1920

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