Policy analysis in Thailand during these turbulent times (COVID-19) is based mainly on expert opinion expressed under a highly centralised and non-democratic political system. However, the government’s claim of scientific rationality shows that political reasons are at play behind the scenes. Moreover, this policy domain does not interact well with the social domain as it is missing the social, contextual and experiential constructions of policy problems and solutions. Scientists are less sensitive to the social mood and fears and are thus unable to cope effectively with the psychological impact of the crisis. The static governmental mechanism also fails to work well with existing organic and flexible governance practices at a local level. This article thus suggests the importance of underscoring the need for efforts to decentralise and re-democratise political systems and suggests the practice of ‘safety participation’ to better articulate and integrate the essential relationships between science, politics and citizens.
{"title":"Coping with COVID-19 in a non-democratic system: Policy lessons from Thailand’s centralised government","authors":"P. Boossabong, Pobsook Chamchong","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1382","url":null,"abstract":"Policy analysis in Thailand during these turbulent times (COVID-19) is based mainly on expert opinion expressed under a highly centralised and non-democratic political system. However, the government’s claim of scientific rationality shows that political reasons are at play behind the scenes. Moreover, this policy domain does not interact well with the social domain as it is missing the social, contextual and experiential constructions of policy problems and solutions. Scientists are less sensitive to the social mood and fears and are thus unable to cope effectively with the psychological impact of the crisis. The static governmental mechanism also fails to work well with existing organic and flexible governance practices at a local level. This article thus suggests the importance of underscoring the need for efforts to decentralise and re-democratise political systems and suggests the practice of ‘safety participation’ to better articulate and integrate the essential relationships between science, politics and citizens.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41863968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pilot projects are often used to test innovations; however, pilot projects, viewed as tools, are rarely addressed as an object for research. This paper, in which pilot projects are viewed as public policy instruments producing specific effects, addresses the research question: how does the use of multidisciplinary pilot projects as experimentation and implementation instruments reshape modes of public governance in the Belgian health sector in a context of transition and ongoing devolution? An ethnographic study was conducted, focusing on the specific case of the Belgian joint plan, “Integrated Care for Better Health”, which targets chronic patients and was intended to initiate a major transition from a fragmented to an integrated care system for chronic patients. The analysis concerns the specific implementation modalities designed by the authorities, which consisted of the launch of pilot projects involving professionals in the field coming from different sectors in an iterative and incremental co-creation process. This choice caused new vertical interdependences to emerge between the levels of the health care system, transforming the roles of both the authorities and hands-on professionals involved; it also denoted a transition towards a more negotiated governance, in the course of which several types of knowledge and evidence have been mobilised.
{"title":"Reshaping health care governance using pilot projects as public policy implementation instruments","authors":"M. Winter","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1422","url":null,"abstract":"Pilot projects are often used to test innovations; however, pilot projects, viewed as tools, are rarely addressed as an object for research. This paper, in which pilot projects are viewed as public policy instruments producing specific effects, addresses the research question: how does the use of multidisciplinary pilot projects as experimentation and implementation instruments reshape modes of public governance in the Belgian health sector in a context of transition and ongoing devolution? An ethnographic study was conducted, focusing on the specific case of the Belgian joint plan, “Integrated Care for Better Health”, which targets chronic patients and was intended to initiate a major transition from a fragmented to an integrated care system for chronic patients. The analysis concerns the specific implementation modalities designed by the authorities, which consisted of the launch of pilot projects involving professionals in the field coming from different sectors in an iterative and incremental co-creation process. This choice caused new vertical interdependences to emerge between the levels of the health care system, transforming the roles of both the authorities and hands-on professionals involved; it also denoted a transition towards a more negotiated governance, in the course of which several types of knowledge and evidence have been mobilised.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70242891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The institutionalization of the role of ministerial advisers in most parliamentary democracies has transformed what was once a pas de deux between ministers and senior civil servants into a menage a trois. This article assesses the impact of ministerial advisers on the contest of policy ideas. It makes a theoretical case for paying closer attention to this issue than has thus far been the case, and assesses civil servants’ perceptions of advisers’ influence on contestability. The core conclusion, which is at variance with much of the scholarship on ministerial advisers, is that advisers pose a greater threat to policy contestability than to civil service impartiality.
{"title":"From ménage à trois back to pas de deux? Ministerial advisers, civil servants and the contest of policy ideas","authors":"Richard Shaw, C. Eichbaum","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1502","url":null,"abstract":"The institutionalization of the role of ministerial advisers in most parliamentary democracies has transformed what was once a pas de deux between ministers and senior civil servants into a menage a trois. This article assesses the impact of ministerial advisers on the contest of policy ideas. It makes a theoretical case for paying closer attention to this issue than has thus far been the case, and assesses civil servants’ perceptions of advisers’ influence on contestability. The core conclusion, which is at variance with much of the scholarship on ministerial advisers, is that advisers pose a greater threat to policy contestability than to civil service impartiality.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45546721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The essence of policy conflicts remains largely underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically. We explore policy conflict and explain its cognitive and behavioral characteristics using data from a survey administered to policy actors involved in oil and gas politics in Colorado, USA. The analysis begins with a description of the cognitive and behavioral characteristics of policy actors and then combines them into a single index to depict varying intensities of conflict. Cognitive characteristics are comprised of three dimensions: disagreement on public policy, perceived threats from opponents, and an unwillingness to compromise. Behavioral characteristics include engagement by policy actors in a range of activities, from mobilizing opponents to providing information to the media. Ordered Logit models are used to associate the attributes of policy actors with cognitive and behavioral characteristics and an index of conflict intensity that combines these two characteristics. The conclusion offers questions and recommendations for future research.
{"title":"Connecting Cognitive and Behavioral Characteristics of Policy Conflict in Oil and Gas Politics","authors":"C. Weible, Tanya Heikkila","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1312","url":null,"abstract":"The essence of policy conflicts remains largely underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically. We explore policy conflict and explain its cognitive and behavioral characteristics using data from a survey administered to policy actors involved in oil and gas politics in Colorado, USA. The analysis begins with a description of the cognitive and behavioral characteristics of policy actors and then combines them into a single index to depict varying intensities of conflict. Cognitive characteristics are comprised of three dimensions: disagreement on public policy, perceived threats from opponents, and an unwillingness to compromise. Behavioral characteristics include engagement by policy actors in a range of activities, from mobilizing opponents to providing information to the media. Ordered Logit models are used to associate the attributes of policy actors with cognitive and behavioral characteristics and an index of conflict intensity that combines these two characteristics. The conclusion offers questions and recommendations for future research.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48005618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The recent ideational turn in political science and public administration implies that ideas matter. Ideas are an essential explanatory concept for understanding policy changes and decision-making processes. The aim of the paper is to specify how ideas matter as a variable in public policy research, providing students and scholars of public policy with a stock take of the current state-of-the-art literature on ideas in political science and public administration. The paper first identifies three approaches to ideas as a variable in the policy process. It then discusses where ideas come from and the dynamics and drivers of ideational change to shed light on the ideational mechanisms underpinning policy processes. Furthermore, it taps into different research methods that can be used to study ideas. Finally, the paper concludes with five lessons for future research endeavours on the study of ideas in public policy.
{"title":"How ideas matter in public policy: a review of concepts, mechanisms, and methods","authors":"Marij Swinkels","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1343","url":null,"abstract":"The recent ideational turn in political science and public administration implies that ideas matter. Ideas are an essential explanatory concept for understanding policy changes and decision-making processes. The aim of the paper is to specify how ideas matter as a variable in public policy research, providing students and scholars of public policy with a stock take of the current state-of-the-art literature on ideas in political science and public administration. The paper first identifies three approaches to ideas as a variable in the policy process. It then discusses where ideas come from and the dynamics and drivers of ideational change to shed light on the ideational mechanisms underpinning policy processes. Furthermore, it taps into different research methods that can be used to study ideas. Finally, the paper concludes with five lessons for future research endeavours on the study of ideas in public policy.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48728026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vertical coordination is a significant problem in many if not most countries. These problems are exacerbated in policy implementation related to issues that cut across jurisdictional borders. This paper compares policy implementation in the field of climate change, a quintessential example of such cross-cutting issues. In the context of CO2 emissions reduction policies, the Peter Parker principle states that vertical coordination presupposes not just central government control but also its responsibility. Our contribution to that argument is that the divorce between regulatory authority and formal jurisdiction challenges the principle. The present paper studies how these issues play out in two different types of institutional contexts; those of Germany and Sweden.
{"title":"Putting the Peter Parker Principle into Practice","authors":"M. Nagel, J. Pierre","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1123","url":null,"abstract":"Vertical coordination is a significant problem in many if not most countries. These problems are exacerbated in policy implementation related to issues that cut across jurisdictional borders. This paper compares policy implementation in the field of climate change, a quintessential example of such cross-cutting issues. In the context of CO2 emissions reduction policies, the Peter Parker principle states that vertical coordination presupposes not just central government control but also its responsibility. Our contribution to that argument is that the divorce between regulatory authority and formal jurisdiction challenges the principle. The present paper studies how these issues play out in two different types of institutional contexts; those of Germany and Sweden.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45833395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Educational systems around the world have undergone major reforms since the 1980s, with largely disappointing results. The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons behind the lackluster results with the purpose of devising ways to address them. Analysis in the paper is based on the understanding that the education sector is characterized by distinct functional imperatives that need to be addressed in policy responses that must involve a wide array of actors to be effective. In this view, education policy is fundamentally about establishing a governance structure to ensure that all the essential functions necessary to achieve the chosen policy goals are performed. Accordingly, the paper proposes a governance framework for education comprising political and operational functions, which it then applies to education policy reforms in the Philippines since the 1970s. The analysis finds that the reforms have focused on financing and decentralization issues while overlooking many other critical governance functions. The lackluster results are unsurprising given that the sector has been beset by many problems unrelated to centralized bureaucratic administration and which have been left unattended. The conclusions regarding the importance of comprehensive governance to emerge from this study are relevant not only for understanding education policy reforms in the Philippines and elsewhere but will also help develop a fuller understanding of the functioning of the education sector in general.
{"title":"Bringing Governance Back into Education Reforms","authors":"Kidjie Saguin, M. Ramesh","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1057","url":null,"abstract":"Educational systems around the world have undergone major reforms since the 1980s, with largely disappointing results. The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons behind the lackluster results with the purpose of devising ways to address them. Analysis in the paper is based on the understanding that the education sector is characterized by distinct functional imperatives that need to be addressed in policy responses that must involve a wide array of actors to be effective. In this view, education policy is fundamentally about establishing a governance structure to ensure that all the essential functions necessary to achieve the chosen policy goals are performed. Accordingly, the paper proposes a governance framework for education comprising political and operational functions, which it then applies to education policy reforms in the Philippines since the 1970s. The analysis finds that the reforms have focused on financing and decentralization issues while overlooking many other critical governance functions. The lackluster results are unsurprising given that the sector has been beset by many problems unrelated to centralized bureaucratic administration and which have been left unattended. The conclusions regarding the importance of comprehensive governance to emerge from this study are relevant not only for understanding education policy reforms in the Philippines and elsewhere but will also help develop a fuller understanding of the functioning of the education sector in general.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42631878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vouchers are "instruments of public action" (Lascoumes, Le Gales, 2004) with a paradoxical scientific reputation. They have been more widely studied in the English-speaking world than in France, in spite of their widespread use there, particularly within local governments. The reinvention and the transformation of vouchers into a political science object can be dated precisely. Milton Friedman, one of the fathers of the neoliberalism has relaunched the use of vouchers and tried to implement it in the public services, especially in the field of education (Friedman, 1955, 1962). He imagined a deregulated system where parents would be free to choose their children's school using a "school-voucher". He assumed that, as a targeted subsidy provided directly to families, vouchers would enable them to choose the school for their children, whether public of private, provided it follows the minimal standards requirements approved by the federal state. In France, this tool appeared in the 1990s in a politically neoliberal context largely inspired by the Anglo-American model. It then became an ubiquitous tool of public policy in the sense of Lester Salamon (Salamon, 2001), a trade-off dispositive between the stakeholders of public action and, finally, a sustainable institutional innovation.
{"title":"The Spread of Vouchers among French Local Government: When Private Companies Reshape the Meaning of a Tool","authors":"Arnaud Lacheret","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1088","url":null,"abstract":"Vouchers are \"instruments of public action\" (Lascoumes, Le Gales, 2004) with a paradoxical scientific reputation. They have been more widely studied in the English-speaking world than in France, in spite of their widespread use there, particularly within local governments. The reinvention and the transformation of vouchers into a political science object can be dated precisely. Milton Friedman, one of the fathers of the neoliberalism has relaunched the use of vouchers and tried to implement it in the public services, especially in the field of education (Friedman, 1955, 1962). He imagined a deregulated system where parents would be free to choose their children's school using a \"school-voucher\". He assumed that, as a targeted subsidy provided directly to families, vouchers would enable them to choose the school for their children, whether public of private, provided it follows the minimal standards requirements approved by the federal state. In France, this tool appeared in the 1990s in a politically neoliberal context largely inspired by the Anglo-American model. It then became an ubiquitous tool of public policy in the sense of Lester Salamon (Salamon, 2001), a trade-off dispositive between the stakeholders of public action and, finally, a sustainable institutional innovation.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44343286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peter deLeon stood on the shoulders of a giant, Harold Lasswell, one of the truly great political scientists of the 20th century. In turn, Peter was a giant, and supported the work of many graduate students and scholars, not to mention making major conceptual and theoretical contributions to a discipline. Thus, I thought it appropriate to begin this tribute with Harold Lasswell, who argued for a science of policy whereby its practitioners would provide sound knowledge in and of policy making....
{"title":"Tribute to Peter deLeon","authors":"Edella Schlager","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1223","url":null,"abstract":"Peter deLeon stood on the shoulders of a giant, Harold Lasswell, one of the truly great political scientists of the 20th century. In turn, Peter was a giant, and supported the work of many graduate students and scholars, not to mention making major conceptual and theoretical contributions to a discipline. Thus, I thought it appropriate to begin this tribute with Harold Lasswell, who argued for a science of policy whereby its practitioners would provide sound knowledge in and of policy making....","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46720262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article addresses the production of indicators as policy instruments in European public policy. It discusses the relevant literature on sociology of quantification and European public policy and applies this theoretical framework to the case of European judicial administration policy. Presenting the historical and institutional premises to the creation of two projects of judicial performance assessment by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, as well as their methodology, the article argues that the selection of indicators is a litmus test of debates over the strategies and institutional goals of the organisations proposing them. Connecting the previous analysis with the use of these instruments in the policy-making sphere, the article points out that evaluation tools in European policy, rather than serving merely as informative tools, produce empowerment side-effects in the policy arena for the organisations that developed them. In European judicial policy, indicators provide a sufficiently loose framework to solve vertical and horizontal cooperation problems at the international level, determine policy goals through the selection of areas of measurement and evaluation, and provide proof to influence local and national policy-makers over reforms either through lesson-drawing, persuasion or conditionality.
{"title":"Legitimising EU Governance through Performance Assessment Instruments","authors":"Bartolomeo Cappellina","doi":"10.4000/irpp.1023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1023","url":null,"abstract":"The article addresses the production of indicators as policy instruments in European public policy. It discusses the relevant literature on sociology of quantification and European public policy and applies this theoretical framework to the case of European judicial administration policy. Presenting the historical and institutional premises to the creation of two projects of judicial performance assessment by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, as well as their methodology, the article argues that the selection of indicators is a litmus test of debates over the strategies and institutional goals of the organisations proposing them. Connecting the previous analysis with the use of these instruments in the policy-making sphere, the article points out that evaluation tools in European policy, rather than serving merely as informative tools, produce empowerment side-effects in the policy arena for the organisations that developed them. In European judicial policy, indicators provide a sufficiently loose framework to solve vertical and horizontal cooperation problems at the international level, determine policy goals through the selection of areas of measurement and evaluation, and provide proof to influence local and national policy-makers over reforms either through lesson-drawing, persuasion or conditionality.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43943026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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