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Abstract: Abstract This article examines the potential contribution of the diaspora to development in Cameroon. It illuminates the role of institutional dynamics within the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA). Drawing on the concept of problem compatibility, this research demonstrates that problem recognition does not occur solely as a result of the work of policy entrepreneurs or problem brokers. It also depends on the institutional context within which the problem arises. Data demonstrate that the shock of the economic crisis and its repercussions in Cameroon required innovative sources of development financing, particularly capitalizing on resources from the diaspora, otherwise known as the diaspora option. This led in part to the modification of the "appreciative system" of its network on diaspora policy. Moreover, the heterogeneity of this network has reframed the view of the diaspora, long considered a threat to the stability and security of the country. This analysis, based on interviews with fifteen government officials, experts, and professionals, highlights the institutional processes that drive the problem stream. PubDate: 2023-03-18
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Abstract: Abstract This paper contributes to two recently identified gaps in policy design literature. First, an approach to measuring understudied specific on-the-ground measures, namely policy settings and calibrations, is developed, with particular attention to “calibration flexibility.” Second, with this better understanding of policy design, an emerging policy design causal mechanism perspective can be further elaborated upon. On-the-ground measures of the same policy instrument—Research of Excellence Centers programs are compared across six different countries. Introduced in many OECD countries in the 1990s, Centers of Excellence were implemented with the goal of reversing the trend of “brain drain” and retaining highly mobile scholars. A theory-building process tracing approach is adopted in order to identify first- and second-order mechanisms related to pursuit of the broad policy goals of retaining and attracting scientific talent along with improving research capacity. PubDate: 2023-03-18
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Abstract: Abstract Some policy scholars insist that any policy change is difficult to achieve, while others argue that large change occurs more frequently than we imagine. The work of Baumgartner and Jones reconciles these arguments, suggesting that the extent to which large public policy changes can take place depends on the ability of decision makers to conduct wide-ranging and varied information searches. The more open policy makers are to a diversity of information, the more likely it is that profound change will occur. Given human limitations in cognitive capacity, policy makers cannot simultaneously undertake multiple broad information searches. At any given time, however, such searches occur on a small number of policy topics, and produce significant changes on those topics, while the status quo prevails on the others. As important as this hypothesis is for policy studies, it has not been the object of significant empirical testing, especially outside the US Congress. This article fills this gap through a comprehensive analysis of Canadian federal government regulatory change from 1998 to 2019. We find that Baumgartner and Jones theory is largely corroborated in the Canadian context. PubDate: 2023-03-18
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Abstract: Abstract With Supreme and Constitutional courts or tribunals playing an increasingly significant role in shaping extractive policies in Latin America, scholars should turn their attention to the impacts of judicial decisions on policy processes. This phenomenon is of considerable interest to scholars of policy integration, as constitutional interpretations by the courts have the potential to reframe policy issues and address the effects of policy fragmentation. In this paper, we investigate the influence of high courts on the creation of integrative spaces that seek to convey a commitment to guaranteeing constitutional rights. Our study focuses on Colombia, Ecuador, and Guatemala where we analyze the role of high courts in initiating policy integration processes. First, it contributes to the processual approach to policy integration by highlighting the role of the courts in initiating policy integration processes. In doing so, we depart from the usual focus on integration as a design of governments, instead highlighting how governments and other actors react to integration mandates issued by the courts. Furthermore, we contribute to current debates on how high courts enhance the State’s responses to social conflicts by protecting constitutional rights, identifying the conditions under which judicial decisions can produce effective policy integration. Our research is based on the analysis of court documents gray literature and semi-structured interviews conducted with key informants and country experts. The findings underscore the importance of goal compatibility between high courts and dominant actors within policy subsystems, in mobilizing the resources required to form and operate integrative spaces. Applicable enforcement mechanisms and conflict expansion by policy challengers complete the conditions that allow court decisions to produce effective policy integration. Finally, the strategic and contextual nature of actors’ engagement in integration processes suggests that policy integration is no panacea for tackling complex issues and improving policy delivery. PubDate: 2023-03-18
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Abstract: Abstract Researchers in public policy and public administration agree that policy integration is a process. Nevertheless, scholars have given limited attention to political aspects that facilitate or impede integration. This paper aims at filling that gap, by looking at how different theories of the policy process can help in explaining the process of policy integration as shaped by policy subsystems. By building on insights from theories of the policy process, we develop pathways regarding adoption and implementation in policy integration that account for the politicization and the role of actors and subsystems in the policy process. Our main argument is that policy integration is in permanent political tension with the sectoral logic of policymaking, which predominantly happens between actors in subsystems. Policy integration is, thus, not a single moment when those tensions are solved once and for all, but a political process that requires deliberate efforts to overcome the pull toward sector-specific problem definition, policymaking, implementation, and evaluation. PubDate: 2023-03-01
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Abstract: Abstract Most scholars conceive policy integration (PI) as a top-down process steered by governmental bodies and consider the formulation stage to be the decisive step for achieving PI. Adopting a different stance, this article hypothesizes that PI can also occur throughout the implementation stage thanks to “integration entrepreneurs” who are able and willing to bring together policies that were designed in silos. I test this hypothesis by analyzing the evolution of federal legislation intended to curb urban sprawl in Switzerland over four decades (1980–2020) and investigate three major urban renewal projects that concretely reduced urban sprawl in the cities of Zurich, Bern and Geneva. In line with my hypothesis, these urban renewal projects succeeded thanks to an ex post integration of several policies that occurred during the implementation stage. This integrative process was an unintended outcome of the transformation of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) from a federal government institution into a state-owned company. Since then, the SBB has become an “integration entrepreneur” who brings together three federal policies that were previously poorly integrated: the spatial planning policy, the railway policy and the agglomeration policy. Case study evidence thus shows that PI can also happen unintentionally, namely through coordination mechanisms that were not foreseen by policymakers at the formulation stage. This finding challenges the top-down sequential approach of the policy process that is dominant among PI studies and calls for more research on the role and the strategies of “integration entrepreneurs” throughout the implementation stage. PubDate: 2023-02-20
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Abstract: Abstract Scholars and practitioners agree that dealing with complex policy problems poses a challenge of policy integration. In other words, we need to understand how to integrate new problems into existing policies and create linkages between existing policy systems. Up to now, the scientific literature has focused on policy integration predominantly from a policy design perspective. This special issue puts the focus on political aspects of the policy integration process. The papers examine the politics of policy integration from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The results underline the importance of issue salience, political leadership, actor consultation and policy implementation for the political process toward more policy integration. PubDate: 2023-02-09
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Abstract: Abstract This article asks why public officials perceive some interest groups as influential for policy outcomes. Theoretically, we rely on resource exchange and behavioral approaches. Perceived influence of interest groups does not only follow from the policy capacities they bring to the table; it also relates to the extent to which public officials consider groups as policy insiders. Both effects are assumed to be conditional on advocacy salience, i.e., the number of stakeholders mobilized in each legislative proposal. We rely on a new dataset of 103 prominent interest groups involved in 28 legislative proposals passed between 2015 and 2016 at the European Union level. Our findings show that interest groups associated with high analytical and political capacities are perceived as more influential for final policy outcomes than other groups with less policy capacities. Yet, in policy issues with high advocacy salience, interest groups characterized by higher ‘insiderness’ are perceived as more influential among public officials. PubDate: 2023-02-04
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Abstract: Relevance to practice is an open issue for scholars in public policy and public administration. One major problem is the need to produce knowledge that can guide practitioners designing and implementing public interventions in specific contexts. This article claims that investigating the causal mechanisms of policy programs—i.e., modeling why and how they produce outcomes—can contribute to such knowledge. In this regard, mechanisms offer essential information to guide practitioners when replicating, adjusting, and designing interventions. Unfortunately, not all models of mechanisms can inform practice. The article proposes a strategy for design research and practice inspired by reverse engineering: selecting successful programs, causal modeling, assessing the target context, and designing. Scholars should model mechanisms by identifying the program and non-program elements that contribute to the outcome of interest and abstracting their causal powers. Practitioners can use these models, diagnose their target context, and adjust designs to deal with context-specific problems. The proposed research agenda may enhance orientation to practice and offer a middle ground between the search for abstract, general relationships, and single-case analyses. PubDate: 2023-02-01
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Abstract: Abstract Researchers agree on the importance of policy integration in the analysis of responses to complex problems, yet they often use this concept to indicate integrated policy programmes (IPPs) as opposed to policy integration in practice (as performed by actors). Describing how IPPs are reshaped, while they are being implemented opens new research venues in the study of the policy integration process and its effects. This article theorises the ‘(in)congruent implementation' of IPPs and illustrates its theoretical contribution with the case study of the local implementation of the national ‘Security Decree' in the Italian cities of Bologna and Pesaro. The paper makes a theoretical contribution to the study of the political aspects of policy integration. In particular, it suggests that three factors—the misalignment of state and local policy frames, the incommensurability of different subsystems’ interests, and local politicians’ risk avoidance strategies—might be led to the process of reframing national integrative intentions from the bottom up. PubDate: 2023-01-12 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09488-w
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Abstract: Abstract Research on policy integration has become an important part of public policy scholarship by analyzing how policymakers create linkages between policy subsystems to deal with complex policy problems. To develop this research program further, it is crucial to know how policy integration relates to broader theoretical and methodological developments in the field of public policy studies. This article reviews the empirical literature on policy integration in the last 10 years focusing on concepts, theories, research design, and methods, drawing upon a sample of 413 articles. Results show no systematic patterns in how these four dimensions combine in policy integration research. Above all, stages and theories of the policy process appear to be incorporated in policy integration studies only to a very limited extent. These findings point to four new directions for policy integration research: (1) Striking a balance between conceptual richness and consolidation regarding “policy integration”; (2) An increased focus on the evaluation of integrated policies; (3) More attention to actor-oriented and explanatory theories; (4) The potential for combining qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. PubDate: 2023-01-09 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09489-9
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Abstract: Abstract The role of the parliamentary arena and members of parliament (MPs) therein for both mainstreaming and cross-sectoral policy integration is largely unknown. Studying the case of Switzerland, this paper analyzes the integration of the biodiversity issue into policies of 20 different policy sectors over a period of 19 years to assess how two specific actor attributes—issue and sector specialization—increase the chances of MPs of engaging in both biodiversity mainstreaming and its cross-sectoral integration. The results based on a comprehensive collection of political documents from the parliamentary arena, and multilevel regression models show that an increase in MPs' sector specialization is associated with both a decrease in mainstreaming and a decrease in cross-sectoral integration activities. By contrast, an increase in issue specialization typically translates into biodiversity-related activity in a larger number of sectors. In the parliamentary arena, therefore, it is primarily a small group of “issue specialists” who take responsibility for the integration of crosscutting issues, such as biodiversity, into critical sectoral policies. PubDate: 2023-01-09 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09490-2
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Abstract: Abstract This article explores the role of participation by indigenous peoples in Latin America in the political process of Environmental Policy Integration (EPI). Although the benefits of participation have been largely taken for granted, this article shows that participation makes the policy integration process even more complex. By selecting two cases of clean energy infrastructure projects (a wind power plant and a natural gas pipeline) in Mexico, whose policy processes included an indigenous consultation, this article traces the competing problem definitions in public policy debates and the resulting policy frame in relation to sustainable development. The goal is to assess the ways that indigenous consultation functions as a procedural EPI instrument aimed at boosting participation from a public that is largely composed by indigenous communities in the decision-making stage. This article contributes to the existing literature on policy integration in two ways: (1) it explores the role of participation by non-state actors in the policy integration process, especially in highly politicized policy areas such as energy and the environment, and (2) it identifies the limitations of applicability of policy integration literature, particularly in contexts where state–society interactions are radically different compared to Western countries, including Latin American countries inhabited by indigenous groups. PubDate: 2022-12-19 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09487-x
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Abstract: Abstract The many varieties of ambiguity shape the prospects in lower-income countries to establish viable poverty-alleviation programs, appropriately target the poor, and reduce deprivations of families applying for or participating in such programs. Ambiguity can be both a problem and an asset, potentially serving pro-poor purposes but often manipulable to drain benefits away from the poor. The distinctive functions of the decision process, as outlined in the classic policy sciences framework, are applied to cash transfers, pro-poor price subsidies, guaranteed unconditional employment, affirmative action, and resource access for the poor. The guidance for adapting these programs depends heavily on the appraisal function. This article contributes both the diagnosis of how ambiguity can undermine or contribute to the soundness of the poverty-alleviation program selection processes, and how to address these issues. It also demonstrates the utility of the classic policy sciences framework in identifying an extremely broad range of relevant considerations. PubDate: 2022-12-14 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09486-y
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Abstract: Abstract This study offers insights into the institutional arrangements established to coordinate policies aiming at the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Drawing on the literature on policy design, we highlight institutional arrangements as elements of policy design spaces and contend that they fall into four categories that either stress the political or problem orientation of this activity: optimal, technical, political, and sub-optimal. We use original data on 44 major economies and greenhouse gas-emitting countries to test this expectation. These data capture various properties of national coordination arrangements, including the types of coordination instruments in place, the degree of hierarchy, the lead government agency responsible for coordination, and the scope of cross-sectoral policy coordination. The dataset also captures the degree to which non-state actors are involved in coordination and whether coordination processes are supported by scientific knowledge. Using cluster analysis, we show that the institutional arrangements for the horizontal coordination of climate policy do indeed fall into the four above-mentioned categories. The cluster analysis further reveals that a fifth, hybrid category exists. Interestingly, the political orientation dominates in the institutional arrangements for the horizontal coordination of climate change mitigation, whereas the problem orientation is more important in the arrangements for the horizontal coordination of climate change adaptation. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09484-0
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Abstract: Abstract Contributing a new South American case study, this paper seeks to advance the research agenda on processes of policy integration by developing a better understanding of how nascent subsystems become integrated into mature ones and the role that changing beliefs of advocacy coalitions play in fostering policy integration. The paper examines environmental policy integration in Uruguay’s forestry sector since the 1990s and is based on an inductive qualitative analysis of policy documents, sector reports, parliament hearings and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. This demonstrates that environmental policy integration has increased continuously since the 1990s, accelerating particularly during the 2000s. We can derive three insights that specifically address this path of integration: a change in the policy beliefs of the dominant advocacy coalition, international salience of the minority coalition`s beliefs and participatory policy processes that foster interactions between opposing coalitions. Despite this, the two advocacy coalitions have crystallized with fundamentally different deep core beliefs about what a sustainable forestry sector should be. While one coalition argues that commercial tree plantations are sufficiently regulated in environmental terms, the other coalition maintains that the way that the pulp industry has developed in Uruguay is fundamentally unsustainable and therefore seeks to change the forestry sector as a whole. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09485-z
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Abstract: Abstract Plastic pollution has reached a crisis point due to ineffective waste management, an over-reliance on single-use plastic items and a lack of suitable plastic alternatives. The COVID-19 Pandemic has seen a dramatic increase in the use of single-use plastics including ‘COVID waste’ in the form of items specifically intended to help stop the spread of disease. Many governments have utilised COVID-19 as a window of opportunity to reverse, postpone or remove plastic policies off agendas ostensibly in order to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. In this paper, we use novel methods of social media analysis relating to three regions (USA, Mexico and Australia) to suggest that health and hygiene were not the only reasons governments utilised this window of opportunity to change plastic policies. Beyond the influence of social media on the plastics agenda, our results highlight the potential of social media as a tool to analyse public reactions to government decisions that can be influenced by industry pressure and a broader political agenda, while not necessarily following responses to consumer behaviour. PubDate: 2022-11-15 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09479-x
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Abstract: Abstract Trust in government is considered a prominent factor for enhancing public compliance with government policies and instructions. The Coronavirus pandemic demonstrates the crucial role public compliance with governmentally issued health guidelines has in mitigating the pandemic. However, the mechanism explaining the trust-compliance association, particularly in regard to health-behavior compliance, is unclear. This article develops a new theoretical model, the Mediated Trust Model (MTM), for explaining the relationship between trust in government and public compliance with health instructions. The model extends the classic Health Belief Model for predicting health behavior by claiming that the perceptions regarding the instructions' costs, benefits and one's ability to perform them are affected by trust in government and mediate the trust-compliance association. The MTM was tested in four cross-sectional studies performed during the first 20 months of the Coronavirus pandemic in Israel on 3732 participants, for various health instructions. Implications for public health literature, policy compliance theory and policy makers are discussed. PubDate: 2022-11-15 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09481-3
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Abstract: Abstract This work demonstrates the expanding methodological approaches to the study of transnational policy transfer and combines the quantitative methods of SNA and the generation of sociograms with qualitative processes of iterative validation with key informants. The work maps and then critiques the differences in domestic policy networks and transfer policy networks. Transfer networks are distinct from domestic operational networks, yet each is interrelated and retains shared interests. Diagnosing and plotting the structure, density and complexity of actor relations in one domestic policy network provides insight into the challenges that another jurisdiction may face to effectively adopt and implement a similar policy once it progresses through transfer. An important contribution of this work is how SNA more explicitly highlights the connection of transnational policy transfer structures to key nodes in domestic networks and the dual role these actors play in the very differently configured domestic (operational) and transfer networks. In this case, we see how transnational policy transfer is both strengthened and constrained by its network relations with domestic policy systems. While actors effectively interact in the exchange of information and share ideas to support policy transfer, network analysis would also suggest a distinctly different network of actors is required to achieve effective adoption and local implementation. PubDate: 2022-10-25 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09477-z
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