Convergence and Divergence in the Policy Process

Comparing Cannabis Control: Convergence and Divergence in England & Wales and the Netherlands DAVID BREWSTER THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, CARDIFF UNIVERSITY APRIL 2015 ii i Acknowledgements In conducting a study of what seemed like an impossible magnitude I have become indebted to many individuals who have supported and inspired me in many different ways. First and foremost, I would like to thank my two supervisors, Professor Gordon Hughes and Professor Trevor Jones, who have provided countless hours of their time in supervision. I am truly grateful for their constant support, critical insights and belief in me which not only benefitted the thesis, but also contributed towards my personal development as an academic and an intellectual. I must also acknowledge other individuals working within the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University and in particular those of the Centre for Crime, Law and Justice. I am especially thankful to Adam Edwards and Rachel Swann whose expertise, commitment and energy never failed to inspire and reassure. To my family and friends, who have been a constant bedrock of support, a shoulder to rest upon, and an ear to unload my worries and angst, you have been beyond compare. My mother is worthy of special praise, for despite living the other side of the world, no-one has been closer in being there when it was needed most. The PhD would not have been possible without the participation of individuals in England & Wales and the Netherlands to which I am hugely indebted. My thanks in particular go to Dr. Ronald van Steden for allowing me to stay and work at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam whilst conducting fieldwork in the Netherlands, and to all those who were of tremendous help throughout the fieldwork process. Last but certainly not least, in looking back at how I even departed on this path there is one individual who is worthy of a special acknowledgement. To Mr. Neil Smith, who ignited the sociological imagination, thank you sir. ii Abstract This thesis explores the nature and extent of convergence and divergence in cannabis control in England & Wales and the Netherlands through an examination of the policy-making process. Over the past couple of decades a number of sociological theories of crime control have pointed towards converging tendencies in the growth of ‘punitiveness’ across advanced Western countries. One of the most influential accounts put forth has been David Garland’s The Culture of Control which suggests that the transition to late-modernity has brought with it new and reconstructed risks and threats, and ambivalent strategies of responding to issues of crime and security. However, despite the usefulness of such bodies of work which attempted to map the ‘master patterns’ of crime control, there is a need to empirically examine how a culture of control unfolds across different national and subnational spheres. An under-examined area of criminological research is the very nature of policy development and negotiation, with tendencies to read off policy outcomes without a deeper exploration of how such responses come into being and unfold across different national and subnational spaces. The area of drugs policy, and specifically regarding cannabis, provided an interesting focus in which to test and build upon The Culture of Control, and particularly so in England & Wales and the Netherlands who have traditionally exhibited differences in their approaches to cannabis policy. Recent policy changes regarding cannabis suggest a toughening of approaches in both jurisdictions, with the reclassification from Class C to Class B in England & Wales in 2009, and the modifications to the ‘coffeeshop’ gedoogbeleid (‘tolerance policy’) in the Netherlands in 2012/13. A thematic analysis was conducted on empirical data from ‘elite’ semi-structured interviews (n=62) as well as key policy documents. The findings suggest that there have been convergent patterns in the way in which problems and policy alternatives have been constructed and molded to fit particular political agendas which shifted policy in a more repressive direction; but there are crucial differences in institutional and political cultures which still generate significant points of divergence across and within these jurisdictions. Consequentially, although ‘contrasts in tolerance’ may not be as marked as once described before (Downes 1988), there are still key components of the policy process in the Netherlands which more readily enable resistance against overly punitive policy movements, and foster the potential for a more pragmatic approach towards cannabis control. iii Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Exploring Explanations of Contemporary Crime Control .............................................................. 1 1.2 The Culture of Control .................................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Beyond the Culture of Control ...................................................................................................... 6 1.4 The Challenge of Cannabis Control ............................................................................................... 9 1.5 Framing the Research ................................................................................................................. 11 1.6 Outline of the Thesis ................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter II: The Socio-Political Context in England & Wales and the Netherlands .................. 16 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 16 2.2 England & Wales ......................................................................................................................... 16 2.2.1 Political Characteristics of the United Kingdom and the Growth of the ‘Welfare State’ ................... 16 2.2.2 Rise of the Political Right .................................................................................................................... 19 2.2.3 The Reinvention of the Political Left .................................................................................................. 20 2.2.4 The ‘United’ Kingdom and Welsh Devolution .................................................................................... 21 2.3 The Netherlands .......................................................................................................................... 23 2.3.1 Political Characteristics of the Netherlands and the ‘Politics of Accommodation’ ............................ 23 2.3.2 The Collapse of the Zuilen .................................................................................................................. 27 2.3.3 Post-Pillar Politics ............................................................................................................................... 28 2.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 33 Chapter III: Crime and Cannabis Control in England & Wales and the Netherlands ............... 34 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 34 3.2 The Governance of Drugs from Above........................................................................................ 34 3.3 England & Wales ......................................................................................................................... 38 3.3.1 A Penal-Welfare Approach to Illicit Drugs Control? ........................................................................... 38 3.3.2 The Shift to ‘Schizoid’ Drug Control Policies ....................................................................................... 44 3.4 The Netherlands .......................................................................................................................... 50 3.4.1 Dutch Tolerance and the Ideal of ‘Resocialisation’ ............................................................................ 50 3.4.2 The ‘Crisis in Penal-Welfarism’ and Drugs Control ............................................................................. 56 3.4.3 The Emergence of ‘Schizoid’ Crime and Drug Control Policies ........................................................... 58 3.5 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter IV: Methodology ......................................................................................................... 68 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 68 4.2 Research Aim, Objectives and Questions ................................................................................... 68 iv 4.3 Research Strategy ....................................................................................................................... 70 4.3.1 Towards a Critical Realist Framework in Comparative Research ....................................................... 70 4.3.2 An ‘Adaptive’ Approach to the Theory-Method

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