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Abstract: Abstract This study examines spatially dynamic diffusion processes of local policy adoption among municipal governments. Using city-level climate action plans (CAPs) adopted in the Southern California region during 2000-2018 as a study frame, our analysis unpacks spatial variations in the effects of geographic neighbors and regional leaders on local policy diffusion processes. We first argue that both factors will spur CAP diffusion among city governments. We then develop a novel hypothesis of a spatial moderating effect between these two influences. Specifically, we theorize that adjacent neighboring diffusion effects will be less prominent in the areas with nearby regional innovators, while neighboring effects will be more prominent in the absence of regional policy leadership. To examine this, we first use traditional event history and logistic regression analyses. We then investigate inter-city diffusion dynamics in greater detail with a novel geographically weighted regression (GWR) method that unravels regional variations in local diffusion effects. Our aggregate analysis finds that both geographic neighbors and regional leaders drive the diffusion of local CAP adoptions. The novel application of GWR further shows marked spatial variations within the region, suggesting that neighboring proximity-driven diffusion effects are muted by the influence of regional leaders. By spatially unpacking the effect of geographic proximity and regional leadership in policy diffusion, this study enhances our understanding of dynamic and varied diffusion processes. PubDate: 2023-12-01
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Abstract: Abstract In all Western countries, the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 encountered some resistance. To overcome vaccine inertia and hesitancy, governments have used a variety of strategies and policy instruments. These instruments can be placed on a 'ladder of intrusiveness', starting from voluntary tools based on simple information and persuasion, through material incentives and disincentives of varying nature and magnitude, to highly coercive tools, such as lockdown for the unvaccinated and the introduction of the vaccination mandate. Italy's experience during the vaccination campaign against Covid provides an ideal observational point for starting to investigate this issue: not only was Italy among the top countries with the highest percentage of people vaccinated at the beginning of 2022, but—at least compared to other European countries—it was also one of the countries that had gradually introduced the most intrusive measures to increase vaccination compliance. In the article the different steps of the ‘intrusiveness ladder’ are presented, providing examples from various countries, and then tested on the Italian Covid-19 vaccination campaign between 2021 and the first months of 2022. For each phase of the campaign, the instrument mixes adopted by the Italian government are described, as well as the contextual conditions that led to their adoption. In the final section, an assessment of the composition and evolution of the Italian vaccination strategy is provided, based on the following criteria: legitimacy, feasibility, effectiveness, internal consistency and strategic coherence. Conclusions highlight the pragmatic approach adopted by the Italian government and underline the effects—both positive and negative—of scaling up the intrusiveness ladder. PubDate: 2023-12-01
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Abstract: Abstract How are integrated policies implemented' In this paper we analyze two policies in Latin America aimed at securing integral care to children to show how the process of integration takes place over time. We study the process through which an ‘idea’ framed both the problem definition and the design features of the integrated policy over time; how the institutional arrangement continuously shaped the operation of the information flows, budget allocation and the relations among the organizations involved, and the role interests of different coalitions had on launching the strategy and, later, in keeping it integrated. We explain the design of care policies in Chile and Uruguay as integrated strategies, as they aligned several instruments from different sectors (health, education, and social development) to target children according to their specific, evolving needs. Based on official records, recent research and first-hand accounts of specialists and public officials, we conduct a comparative analysis of their implementation processes. We argue that their contrasting trajectories are not explained by differences in the policies’ design, but by variations in their policy regimes: how institutional arrangements, ideas and interests interacted with the policy to keep it integrated during the implementation. By doing so, we offer a more nuanced understanding of the forces that integrate or disintegrate a policy during their implementation. We employ a comparative case study approach for analyzing two integrated care policies for children in Chile and Uruguay, both testing existing theoretical conjectures about policy regimes and developing new ones about their role in implementing integrated policies and their adaptation over time. PubDate: 2023-12-01
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Abstract: Abstract Firms often oppose costly public policy reforms—but under what conditions may they come to support such reforms' Previous scholarship has taken a predominantly static approach to the analysis of business positions. Here, we advance a dynamic theory of change in business policy positions that explains how business may shift from opposing to supporting new regulation over the course of multiple rounds of policymaking. We identify three sets of drivers and causal mechanisms behind business repositioning related to political, policy, and market change. We argue that political mechanisms can shift opposition to “strategic support” for reform, whereas policy and market mechanisms may shift opposition or strategic support toward “sincere support.” We examine the reconfiguration of business interests and policy positions in the context of three decades of US climate politics, focusing on the oil and gas, electricity, and auto sectors. Our dynamic theory of business positions moves beyond the dualism that views business as either opposing or supporting public interest regulation. We thus advance our understanding of why initial business opposition can incrementally turn into strategic or sincere support for policy reform. PubDate: 2023-11-16
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Abstract: Abstract Scholars have spent decades arguing that policy entrepreneurs, change agents who work individually and in groups to influence the policy process, can be crucial in introducing policy innovation and spurring policy change. How to identify policy entrepreneurs empirically has received less attention. This oversight is consequential because scholars trying to understand when policy entrepreneurs emerge, and why, and what makes them more or less successful, need to be able to identify these change agents reliably and accurately. This paper explores the ways policy entrepreneurs are currently identified and highlights issues with current approaches. We introduce a new technique for eliciting and distinguishing policy entrepreneurs, coupling automated and manual analysis of local news media and a survey of policy entrepreneur candidates. We apply this technique to the empirical case of unconventional oil and gas drilling in Pennsylvania and derive some tentative results concerning factors which increase entrepreneurial efficacy. PubDate: 2023-11-06
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Abstract: Abstract The “policy subsystem” has long been a key concept in our understanding of how policies on a given topic are produced. However, we know much less about policymaking in nascent policy subsystems. This article draws on the theories of agenda-setting and venue shopping to argue that the similarity and convergence of policy subsystems’ agendas across different institutional venues and over time are features that distinguish more nascent policy subsystems from their more established, mature counterparts. In simple terms, policy venues’ agendas converge when policy actors begin to discuss the same issues and instruments instead of talking past one another. The article illustrates this argument using textual data on Germany’s emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy: print media debates, parliamentary debates, and a government consultation from the period between November 2017 and November 2019. The insights from our analysis show that actors emphasize somewhat different policy issues and instruments related to AI in different venues. Nevertheless, the longitudinal analysis suggests that the debate does seem to converge across different venues, which indicates the formation of a subsystem-specific policy agenda regarding AI. PubDate: 2023-10-21
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Abstract: Abstract While prior studies have examined various factors that affect immigration policymaking across Europe, little attention has been paid to the impact of the gender structure within parliament. It has been found that female parliamentarians are more concerned with the interests of women, children, and other marginalized groups than their male colleagues. Consequently, they are more likely to prioritize the rights of immigrants who represent an important social minority in European settings. Leveraging a panel data set spanning 26 European states from 2007 to 2019, the paper shows that an increase in the share of women parliamentarians is indeed associated with the liberalization of immigration policy. The results remain significant when employing historical female enrollment as an instrumental variable. Notably, the growth of the right-wing parties (including mainstream and radical right parties) in parliament would undercut the positive impact of female parliamentarians. The paper sheds some light on European immigration policymaking and female political representation. PubDate: 2023-10-18
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Abstract: Abstract Studies concerning nonlinear political dynamics, such as regime change, focus on macro-level structural factors and political agency. Tipping points are pitched mainly at these levels, and scholars therefore devote less attention to meso-level factors. To bridge this gap, this article develops a verbal model focusing on the collapse of mechanisms that sustain mythical state institutions as drivers of such dynamics. A mythical institution enjoys a reputation for power and influence among the public based on widespread and persistent stereotypical beliefs that embody a collectivity’s sense of origin and tradition, high performance and stability, and/or vision and mission. The argument advanced here is that nonlinear political dynamics may occur when the collapse of such mechanisms reflects on the unquestioned legitimacy that the mythical state institution enjoys, creating massive embarrassment for the regime because its mythical institution’s status requires government intervention to prevent believers from “fleeing” and/or revolting. This, in turn, undermines or debunks this institution’s myth, thereby generating high levels of anxiety, fear, anger, or other (mixes of) emotions. Which emotional process dominates depends on which reaction is stronger at the moment in question. When the level reaches an affective tipping point, citizens begin to update their evaluations and consider new information. This leads to behavioral convergence (e.g., mass protest, mass emigration, violence), which is in turn accelerated when the regime’s counter-response is publicly perceived as ineffective, thus highlighting the irreversibility of this process. This argument is illustrated herein by examining the 1989 collapse of East Germany’s emigration restrictions system. PubDate: 2023-09-01 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09474-2
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Abstract: Abstract Emergency policies are among the most challenging policies that policy makers have to deal with, because of their extreme seriousness, the lack of time, and the high uncertainties that are involved. Policy analyses have demonstrated that good structural and organizational strategies are important, but not sufficient, to systematically guarantee a high level of resiliency in response processes. Some scholars have therefore suggested the need to verify whether individual cognitive and relational mechanisms can contribute to explaining the different levels of resiliency that emerge in emergency response processes. From such a perspective, this article presents the findings of a research that was aimed at testing whether emotional mechanisms matter. The affect infusion model was used to provide the analytical framework that was considered to identify the evidence necessary for the empirical research, and the ‘most similar system design’ was applied to select and compare two couples of emergency response processes with similar contextual, structural and organizational features, but different levels of resiliency. The empirical research was conducted from April 2020 to February 2021, through periods of job shadowing and semi-structured interviews with personnel from the public and private organizations involved in the response processes. The research has substantially corroborated the hypothesis and has highlighted that, despite very similar contextual, structural and organizational conditions, a negative emotional mechanism, triggered by fear and anxiety, was pervasive among managers involved in the two lower-resiliency emergency response processes, while a positive emotional mechanism, triggered by pride, was dominant among managers involved in the two lower-resiliency processes. PubDate: 2023-09-01 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09480-4
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Abstract: Abstract Despite the abundant scholarship on sociopolitical embeddedness of expertise, its relation to emotions remains understudied. The paper fills this gap by discussing how public framings of expertise work against the inclusion of emotional contexts, affecting what kind of professional knowledge dominates in a public debate. The analysis of the Czech public debate on birth care shows that while midwives embrace emotional contexts of birthing and integrate them as an essential part of their professional expertise, obstetricians see these contexts as troubling their expertise. This professional difference is sustained by the public framing of expertise in the media, favoring obstetricians’ expertise over midwives’. The analysis shows that public framing of expertise outweighs evidential work done by midwives and legal advisors and impacts how emotional contexts are understood in the debate. Rather than referring to feelings and personal experience of the body, the “emotional” becomes a discursive label to delegitimize professional opinion. The results raise thus important questions about how the public framing of expertise impacts whether emotional context and experiences of bodily harm are seen as relevant in policy debates and policy regulations. PubDate: 2023-09-01 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-022-09471-5
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Abstract: Abstract Can street-level workers from an ethnic minority in a divided society act as policy entrepreneurs and affect policy design' How their shared values with the homogeneous local government play a role in enabling policy entrepreneurship' Active representation refers to bureaucrats promoting the interests of the clients with whom they share the same characteristics or background. The assumption is that the behaviour of the bureaucrats—rather than their background, per se—affects citizens’ responses. However, in such cases, although they are active, street-level workers are fighting to change outcomes within institutions established by others. With regard to Arab social workers in Israel, we provide a new perspective on how ethnic minority street-level workers in a divided society may go beyond active representation in an attempt to directly influence policy design as entrepreneurs. We also identify the conditions that drive policy entrepreneurship and the strategies used to accomplish these goals. PubDate: 2023-08-18 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09513-6
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Abstract: Abstract In evolving democracies, top-down approaches to response and recovery in disaster governance remain predominant. Taking the case of Nepal, this research explains how Nepal’s disaster governance has been accentuating different degrees of monocentric and polycentric configurations post-2015. Polycentricity is defined as a governance configuration where a combination of small, medium, and large-scale autonomous units coexists that are interdependent in making rules, developing policies, and implementing them within a specified scale of governance. Based on confidential interviews (n = 23) and policy documents (n = 48) analysis, the study shows how disaster governance has been taking shape in Nepal, after the 2015 earthquake and with the ongoing federalisation process. This research found that in Nepal, there is a polycentric configuration at and across the national and provincial levels, whilst higher degrees of monocentric characteristics are still prominent at the municipal level. Further, our findings suggest subtle conflicts (or conflicts of interest) between the newly elected municipal representatives and the existing bureaucracy. Such tensions have arisen due to the drive and enthusiasm of the political leaders to bring transformative changes at the municipal level in quick succession. The article concludes that polycentric governance configurations in Nepal are rather becoming complex—complementing and inciting competition between various actors. PubDate: 2023-07-07 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09510-9
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Abstract: Abstract Scholars contend that presidents exert some influence over the implementation of national policy. Yet, prior research has overlooked the importance of local context, specifically socio-political conditions, and how it can shape an agency’s response to executive-level guidance. We examine the effect of local context on county-level immigration removals by ICE agents from 2013 through 2018. We predict local removals starting with the Secure Communities program, continuing under Obama’s two-year Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), and up through Trump’s zero-tolerance policies. Obama-era executive guidance, which advised agents to target only dangerous criminal immigrants, did lead to a significant national decline in total removals. However, conservative localities continued to remove large numbers, even during PEP. Notably, the difference between conservative and liberal communities was largest for non-criminal immigrant removals. Despite Obama’s guidance to focus on dangerous immigrants, ICE agents continued to remove undocumented immigrants without criminal records from conservative U.S. counties. Our analysis indicates street-level agents are most responsive to chief-executive direction in the absence of local-level opposition to top-down demands. PubDate: 2023-06-10 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09511-8
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Abstract: In public consultations, policymakers give stakeholders access to the policymaking process in exchange for technical or political information. Our article proposes to analyze not only the policy positions, but the emotional content of consultation contributions. In our descriptive study, we explore two conjectures: First, citizens contributions to public consultations display more emotions than contributions by corporate actors, and second, contributions mentioning concrete policies display more emotions than contributions referring to the abstract policy framework. We use dictionary-based sentiment coding to analyze ~ 7300 contributions to the consultation of German electricity grid construction planning. Our analysis shows that citizens’ contributions contain more emotional terms, especially voicing fear. Moreover, if contributions refer to a specific power line, they contain less joy, but more fear and sadness. Thus, we show a way to conceptualize and measure the link between public policies and the emotions they trigger. PubDate: 2023-05-14 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09508-3
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Abstract: Abstract This paper analyzes shaming attempts in the European Parliament (EP) over a long period. Drawing on existing literature on shaming and stigmatization in International Relations, as well as on studies on blame avoidance (Public administration), this paper explores the extent to which (and how) shaming attempts were used in day-to-day European policymaking. The paper first shows how the word ‘shame’ has been employed by key policymakers in different policy areas. Data analyzed include EP speech acts (mainly debates) from 1994 to 2014. The second part of the paper consists of an interpretative and contextualizing qualitative analysis, exploring in-depth social and economic policy areas. This paper shows that, in these policy areas, shaming attempts have often served as an ideological tool, or have become entangled in turf wars between supranational institutions and Member States. The in-depth study also illustrates the circumstances under which shaming attempts have led to compliance, non-compliance or shame backlashes. PubDate: 2023-05-12 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09501-w
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Abstract: Abstract The paradigmatic shift from traditional flood defense toward integrated flood risk management has widened the sectors and policies affected and has spurred a growing interest of scholars to understand cross-sectoral flood policy integration. In this paper we argue that the cross-sectoral goal relationship—ranging from complementary to conflictual policy goals—is a useful conceptual framework to understand (1) the policy integration challenge at hands and (2) in particular the unfolding policy integration from a processual perspective. For our empirical analysis we identify three policy subsystems that are highly important for sectoral interplay in flood risk management: agriculture, hydropower generation, and spatial planning. Using Austria as a case study we illustrate the goal relationships and sectoral policy integration challenges in each of these fields of interaction. Based on 45 expert interviews in the selected policy sectors we provide useful insights into the current processes of flood policy integration. The empirical findings from our case studies show that sectoral goal relationships and the nature of the policy integration challenge drive flood policy integration. More pronounced land use conflicts are more strongly reflected in different actor interests, policy frames, policy goals, and the choice of policy instruments. Sectoral goal relationships are an important factor to explain the unfolding policy integration process. Complementary policy goals result in rather informal, harmonious integrative negotiations on strengthening synergies by using soft policy instruments. On the contrary, conflictual policy goals lead to more formal negotiations among the affected sectors relying on hard, regulative instruments. PubDate: 2023-04-21 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09503-8
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Abstract: Abstract While receiving more attention in the policy sciences in recent years, much remains unknown about policy conflicts. This research analyzes 48 in-depth qualitative interviews of people involved in, or familiar with, conflicts associated with shale oil and gas (aka “fracking”) policy proposals and decisions across 15 U.S. states. We ask the question: how do policy actors characterize policy conflicts' To guide interviews and data collection for this study, we rely on the Policy Conflict Framework (PCF). The PCF highlights how policy settings serve as the sources of conflict; the characteristics of policy conflict across settings, between policy actors, and over time; and the varying outcomes. Insights derived from interviews include that policy conflicts are far more complicated to portray than depicted in the literature, individuals shape and understand conflict through emotions and narratives, any descriptions of policy conflicts must account for time and their evolutionary nature, and conflicts involve diverse strategies of winning and mitigation. The conclusion links these findings to the literature to advance knowledge about policy conflict. PubDate: 2023-04-14 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09502-9
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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 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09500-x
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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 DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09498-2
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