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Abstract: Earlier conceptual studies suggest that policy bubbles differ from the more common pattern of policy overreaction due to their sustained, self-reinforcing nature, which results in prolonged overinvestment. Although the best way to analyze this phenomenon is through rigorous empirical investigation, such future endeavors require a guiding theory. This article lays the groundwork for a potential theory of policy bubbles by differentiating between micro-level causes, such as cognitive, emotional, and social network factors influencing individual behavior (e.g., whether a person’s friends are connected to one another), and macro-level causes, including institutional and ideational factors, as well as social network dynamics at the aggregate level, such as links density or segregation patterns. A similar distinction is made here between micro- and macro-level positive feedback processes, which may evolve independently, interact with one another, and exhaust themselves during the emergence of policy bubbles and in the lock-in stage. This stage is conceived here as a prolonged conflict between policy entrepreneurs who advance distorted or accurate policy images. This conflict at times involves the use of sheer power in authoritarian regimes, while in democratic ones it often entails strategic action by policy entrepreneurs via mutual reinforcement between policy overproduction and various forms of capture—constitutional, technological, cultural, and informational. These mechanisms are used by policy entrepreneurs to block bureaucratic drift, coalition drift, and drift of accountability forums that may lead to a decline in policy overproduction. If this theory results in conclusions that offer sufficient generalizations, it may have a place alongside the major theories of the policy process. PubDate: 2025-04-13
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Abstract: This research note explores how policymaking can manage the spill-over effects of digital and social infrastructures to support social cohesion, particularly in "left-behind places" (LBPs). While digitalization is often seen as a tool to reduce regional disparities, its implementation frequently neglects the critical role of social infrastructure, risking the reinforcement of existing inequalities. By synthesizing insights from urban development, governance, and digital inclusion literature, this research develops a conceptual policy-infrastructure framework that categorizes spatial and aspatial interventions. Examples such as digital health platforms and public libraries highlight the need to balance standardized digital solutions with localized, context-sensitive strategies. The findings emphasize the importance of flexible, participatory policymaking and stakeholder coordination to align digital initiatives with social infrastructure, fostering equitable and inclusive development across diverse regions. PubDate: 2025-03-21
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Abstract: The use of mini-publics to enable some citizens to feed policy recommendations into public policy processes is gaining popularity. However, assessing whether and to what extent mini-publics have policy impact is extremely challenging due to the complexity of policy processes. We make the case for a new approach to analysing mini-public policy impact with respect to an analysis of the journeys made by each mini-public recommendation, with a view to developing a better understanding of their influence within the specific policy context in which they operate. We propose that employing a ‘filtration’ lens enables a consideration of not only which recommendations are accepted, rejected or ignored by public authorities, but whether they are reconceptualised. We develop a framework that enables the classification of the recommendations and their policy journeys and apply it to the Citizens’ Assembly on Social Care, commissioned by select committees in the House of Commons. Through analysis of the grey literature around the case we were able to establish the type of journey each recommendation had undergone. This provided us with nuanced analysis of what was filtered out, where, how, by whom, and why. We therefore believe the framework is a significant addition to the toolkit of those researching mini-publics. PubDate: 2025-03-12
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Abstract: This study employs Cultural Theory to study perceptions and conflicting worldviews of key actor groups in EU forest policy. Forests are central to different human demands for ecosystem services such as biomass, biodiversity, and climate mitigation. Tradeoffs occur between these ecosystem services, involving the necessity to set priorities. Related to increasing uncertainties inter alia caused by climate change, polarized perspectives prevail in the multi-level EU policy system regarding which evidence, whose attribution, and what optimal governance and management strategies are to be chosen for forests. At the core of these perspectives lie conflicting worldviews related to cultural biases of what is real and right. Through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with a diverse set of forest policy actors from the EU and member state level, the research delves into their perceptions of EU forest policy, including perceived problems, preferred solutions, and assigned responsibilities, using a Cultural Theory lens. Our analysis distinguishes three groups of actors aligned with distinct elements of Cultural Theory worldviews while acknowledging the nuanced nature of these divisions. Our analysis invites readers to navigate the complexities of EU forest policy, unraveling worldviews and actor perspectives in pursuing informed policy decisions, and may eventually facilitate improved dialogue among actors considering these heterogeneous worldviews. PubDate: 2025-03-06
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Abstract: The production of state legibility has been a prolific subject of study. However, most works have not paid much attention to the quotidian labor of the street-level bureaucrats that implement legibility projects at a local level. The aim of this article is to explore the implementation of a social registry system at a local level to understand how frontline workers make the population legible. Instead of taking legibility as an object of evaluation or critique, we pay close attention to the inner workings of bureaucracies at the instances in which the sociomaterial conditions of the population are translated into data. Drawing from qualitative research in Peruvian municipalities, we describe the operations of an algorithmic system that classifies the population for the distribution of welfare. We observed how under-resourced bureaucrats were constrained by regulations and technologies of the system. Paradoxically, to make the system work for their local realities, the bureaucrats had to bend the rules and find workarounds. From this perspective, the making of legibility looks less like a top-down exercise of bureaucratic compliance or a story of domination over the population. Instead, we find actors attempting to maintain a delicate balance between inadequate legal rules, scarce resources, and sociopolitical demands. PubDate: 2025-02-15
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Abstract: Environmental taxation is often lauded as an effective tool for changing consumer behavior, but it can also trigger substantial psychological resistance, especially among disproportionately affected groups, such as the Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community, potentially creating a broad anti-environmental backlash. In the current study we provide novel empirical evidence for the psychological mechanisms that can drive such reactance and its potential long-term persistence. In 2021, Israel introduced a tax on single-use plastics, only to swiftly retract it amidst vehement political opposition and a change in government. We conducted six rounds of surveys within the Haredi population, known for its heavy use of single-use plastics. Immediately after the tax’s enactment, we found a substantial decrease in “pro-climate” positions. Regression analysis showed this change to be primarily driven by a sense of victimization—being unfairly singled out by the tax for political, rather than environmental, reasons. The economic burden of the tax played a lesser role. Two years after the tax was repealed, however, the decrease in “pro-climate” positions persisted, despite a decrease in sense of victimhood. These findings shed light on the potential negative and enduring psychological and political consequences of environmental taxation. They underscore the importance of addressing underlying grievances to foster genuine engagement with climate-related issues. PubDate: 2025-02-15
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Abstract: With growing interest in more formalized applications of scientific evidence to policy, there are concerns about what evidence is selected and applied, and for what purpose. We present an initial argument that scale of evidence could be used in policy decisions in ways that can usefully predict effectiveness of policy interventions. This is valuable given that, as we show using a survey of of 251 policymakers, there is no single type of evidence (e.g., RCTs, systematic reviews, surveys) that is "best" to all policymakers or all policy domains. By simply rating the "level" of studies' size and scope used to inform policies, we show how high levels of evidence were more strongly associated with better (i.e., intended) outcomes across 82 policies. The rate of policies achieving intended outcomes ranged from 38%, when no evidence was available prior to the policy, to 78%, when large-scale evidence existed prior to implementation. Though these findings are encouraging, this piece is largely meant to argue for, not universally validate, a simple approach to assess evidence appropriately when making policy decisions. Instead, we argue that using this approach in combination with other ratings may better serve applications of evidence to achieve better outcomes for populations. PubDate: 2025-02-09
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Abstract: Policy experimentation has been proposed as a key strategy for coping with increasingly complex policy challenges. Despite considerable academic discussion on public policy experiments, there is a lack of systematic analyses of the political dimensions of policy experimentation. In this paper, we advance the understanding of politics of experimentation by analysing how policy actors’ perceptions of blame avoidance and credit claiming influence experimental policymaking. As a theoretical contribution, we outline expectations about how the mechanisms of blame avoidance and credit claiming can influence policymakers’ attitudes towards experiments and which contextual factors are likely to shape these dynamics. In the empirical part, we probe the plausibility of the theoretical propositions by using a comparative case study of Estonia and Finland. We draw upon policy documents and semi-structured interviews conducted with 66 public officials in Estonia and Finland in 2022–2023. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that the mechanisms of blame avoidance and credit claiming play a significant role in politicians’ decisions to launch large-scale policy experiments. Our study also shows that these impacts are mediated by contextual factors like the urgency of policy problems, expected media reactions, public trust, and cumulative experience with policy experimentation. PubDate: 2025-02-09
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Abstract: The application of the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to authoritarian contexts exposes a fundamental tension: its core assumptions of fluid participation and organized anarchy clash with the rigid hierarchies of centralized regimes. Through a systematic review of 191 articles published in Chinese journals from 2005 to 2022, we uncover key differences between MSF’s underlying assumptions and the realities of China’s centralized bureaucracy. The findings highlight the need for context-specific adaptations, such as recognizing the orchestrated problem stream, the prominence of internal consensus-building, and the dominant role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These modifications reflect China’s state-centric governance system, which contrasts with the MSF’s expectations of fluid participation and bottom-up policy entrepreneurship. Our analysis reveals the challenges and opportunities of applying theoretical frameworks across different political systems, emphasizing the importance of critically examining assumptions and developing context-sensitive suppositions. Furthermore, we identify potential avenues for refining the MSF based on insights from China’s policymaking dynamics, such as the impact of leadership signaling and policy entanglements in state-centric systems. This study contributes to the advancement of policy theories by demonstrating the value of cross-contextual applications and adaptations, while also shedding light on the distinctive features of policymaking in China’s authoritarian regime. PubDate: 2025-01-24
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Abstract: Theories of the policy process understand the dynamics of policymaking as the result of the interaction of structural and agency variables. While these theories tend to conceptualize structural variables in a careful manner, agency (i.e. the actions of individual agents, like policy entrepreneurs, policy leaders, policy brokers, and policy experts) is left as a residual piece in the puzzle of the causality of change and stability. This treatment of agency leaves room for conceptual overlaps, analytical confusion and empirical shortcomings that can complicate the life of the empirical researcher and, most importantly, hinder the ability of theories of the policy process to fully address the drivers of variation in policy dynamics. Drawing on Merton’s concept of function, this article presents a novel theorization of agency in the policy process. We start from the assumption that agency functions are a necessary component through which policy dynamics evolve. We then theorise that agency can fulfil four main functions – steering, innovation, intermediation and intelligence – that need to be performed, by individual agents, in any policy process through four patterns of action – leadership, entrepreneurship, brokerage and knowledge accumulation – and we provide a roadmap for operationalising and measuring these concepts. We then demonstrate what can be achieved in terms of analytical clarity and potential theoretical leverage by applying this novel conceptualisation to two major policy process theories: the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). PubDate: 2025-01-11
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Abstract: This paper analyses policy integration in the field of urban policies. Specifically, the policy framework on sustainable urban development promoted by various international organisations is analysed as an exemplar combining multi-sectoriality in its substantive dimension (policy goals in different policy subsystems) and integration in its procedural dimension (integration between policy actions across policy subsystems involved). It is assumed that urban policies often take the form of multi-level policy mixes, and that integration involves a process of collective action between different policy subsystems. Based on the literature on policy integration and actor-centred institutionalism frameworks, it is postulated that in the absence of clear indications about the integrated strategy and policy integration capacities in the policy frame, the collective action dilemmas that this strategy entails in local projects will prevail, reducing the possibility of policy integration. The implementation of the urban dimension of the European Union's cohesion policy in Spain between 1994 and 2013 is analysed a total of 82 urban projects, where the integrated strategy is a central element but understood as multi-sectorial objectives rather than a complementarity between policy subsystems. Empirical results show a high level of diversity of objectives across policy sectors and a very low level of integration; specifically, a curvilinear pattern in the relationship between these two aspects. The results highlight the need to include policy instruments and capacities in the policy frame to address the collective action dilemmas that policy integration implies, especially if the policy frame calls for a broad multi-sectorial agenda across different policy subsystems. PubDate: 2025-01-06
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Abstract: Industrial policy has regained political attention due to the challenges associated with global market integration, technological changes, and the need for sustainable transformation. However, the lack of a consistent understanding of industrial policy hampers systematic comparisons. This paper develops a novel concept of industrial policy portfolios that captures different dimensions of industrial policy outputs across countries and over time. We illustrate this approach by comparing the policy dynamics in the United States and Germany over the last four decades and show that despite similar dynamics of policy growth, the countries display pronounced variation in the areas and instruments they prioritized. PubDate: 2024-12-07
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Abstract: This review commentary offers reflections on some of the key themes of Douglas Torgerson’s refreshing, perceptive and timely study of the work of Harold Lasswell, The Policy Sciences of Harold Lasswell: Contextual Orientation and the Critical Dimension. The commentary attempts to connect those themes to our present with the aim of making a very small contribution to the work demanded by the challenge posed by Torgerson in the final pages of his book – the pursuit of a ‘strategic developmental construct’ inspired by ‘the critical agenda’. To that end, the commentary examines ideas of the future instantiated in the recent United Nations ‘Summit of the Future’, and concludes by reflecting on possible political risks posed by different styles of hermeneutic method. PubDate: 2024-11-26
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Abstract: In The Policy Sciences of Harold Lasswell, Douglas Torgerson offers a timely interpretation of Harold Lasswell as a progenitor of critical policy studies and champion of radical democracy. In this essay, we consider several concepts central to Torgerson’s interpretation of Lasswell, including “latent,” “manifest,” and “context,” in order to call attention to the hermeneutic labor required to produce any image of a “stable” Lasswell. We investigate two lesser-known aspects of Lasswell’s career – his teaching at the Chicago Workers School and his NBC radio program Human Nature in Action – to illustrate the degree to which Lasswell’s democratic commitments often blended liberal and elitist tendencies, in sometimes uneasy fashion. We ultimately suggest that despite (or perhaps because of) Lasswell’s irreducible complexities, if not inconsistencies, he remains uniquely relevant to understanding our current era in which propaganda and insecurity remain central concerns. PubDate: 2024-11-25
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Abstract: In policy diffusion research, considerable focus has been placed on the mechanisms and motivations underlying diffusion, yet there is a notable dearth of analysis linking the diffusion process with policy outcomes. This prompts an important inquiry: Who fares better in terms of policy outcomes—the pioneer or the late mover' Our study investigates China’s River Chief System policy and classifies cities as either pioneers, followers, or laggards according to their position in the diffusion process. Our quantitative analysis of 142 cities indicates that pioneers achieve the most favorable policy outcomes, while laggards are associated with the least favorable results. Further examination of the political incentives driving pioneer advantage suggests that pioneers are driven by political aspirations, followers are driven by political signaling, and laggards are driven by political pressure. This research deepens understanding of policy diffusion by elucidating the interplay between diffusion sequence and policy outcomes, and offers significant insights for policymakers aiming to formulate effective diffusion strategies. PubDate: 2024-11-24
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Abstract: In the Policy Sciences of Harold Lasswell, Douglas Torgerson asks an important question–whether the logic of policy sciences can inspire democratic hope for social betterment. His response is refreshing and psychoanalytically-informed optimism, whereas a jurisprudential detour of the NHS’s legacy as the most important application of policy sciences in another discipline calls for agnosticism. Revisiting the application of policy sciences in international law suggests that the very logic of policy sciences, under the influence of a defective form of naturalism, disables its potential for inclusive democracy. PubDate: 2024-11-21
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Abstract: Coalitions that engage in political advocacy are constituted by organisations, which are made up of individuals and organisational subunits. Comparing the coalitions formed by organisations to the those formed by their constituent parts provides a means of examining the extent to which their coalition memberships are aligned. This paper applies inferential network clustering methods to survey data collected from organisations engaging in Irish climate change politics and to X (formerly twitter) data extracted from both the primary accounts of these organisations and the accounts of the individuals and subunits affiliated with them. Analysis of the survey-based organisation-level policy network finds evidence of an outsider coalition, formed by non-governmental organisations, labour unions and left-leaning political parties, and an insider coalition formed by the two main political parties in government, energy sector organisations, business and agricultural interests, scientific organisations, and government bodies. An analysis of the X-based account-level endorsement network finds evidence for a nested coalition structure wherein there are multiple distinct communities, which largely align with the organisation-level coalitions. Most interestingly, the largest and most active community is formed by accounts affiliated with the organisations with agricultural interests—the sector most opposed to ambitious climate action in Ireland. The results show how the somewhat disjoint behaviours of formal organisations and their affiliates give rise to nested coalitions, which can only be identified by disaggregating organisations by their constituent parts. PubDate: 2024-11-20
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