Both approaches contain widely differing views on the character of the implementation process. Top-downers understand implementation as “the carrying out of a basic policy decision” (Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983, 20). In this view, implementation is an apolitical, administrative process. Power ultimately rests with central decision-makers, who define clear policy objectives and are capable of hierarchically guiding the process of putting these objectives into practice. Bottom-up scholars reject the idea of hierarchical guidance. In their view, it is impossible to formulate statutes with unequivocal policy goals and to control the implementation process from top to bottom. Instead, the model suggests that implementers always have a large amount of discretion. Rather than considering implementation an apolitical process of following orders “from above,” bottom-uppers hold that the implementation process is eminently political and that policies are even shaped to a decisive extent at this level. Hence, policies are not so much determined by the statutes emanating from governments and parliaments but by the largely autonomous political decisions of the actors directly involved in policy delivery. The focus thus lies on the decentral-problem-solving of local actors rather than on hierarchical guidance.