This study offers a series of reflections on the evolution of think tanks in Europe and the United States. In addition to exploring how these organizations have come to place a higher premium on political advocacy than rigorous policy research, the article raises a series of questions about how the preoccupation of think tanks with their global rankings, and their desire to inundate stakeholders with quick response policy research, can have serious implications for how policymakers formulate public policy. In the end, this study argues that for think tanks to serve the public interest, they need to engage in scientific research that adheres to proper and verifiable academic standards. Otherwise, these organizations will join the growing chorus of voices whose only interest is to serve their own institutional goals and those of their benefactors.
{"title":"From Generation to Generation","authors":"Donald E. Abelson","doi":"10.4000/irpp.672","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.672","url":null,"abstract":"This study offers a series of reflections on the evolution of think tanks in Europe and the United States. In addition to exploring how these organizations have come to place a higher premium on political advocacy than rigorous policy research, the article raises a series of questions about how the preoccupation of think tanks with their global rankings, and their desire to inundate stakeholders with quick response policy research, can have serious implications for how policymakers formulate public policy. In the end, this study argues that for think tanks to serve the public interest, they need to engage in scientific research that adheres to proper and verifiable academic standards. Otherwise, these organizations will join the growing chorus of voices whose only interest is to serve their own institutional goals and those of their benefactors.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46461737","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}
This article investigates the trajectory the EU’s policy on the integration of migrants has followed in approximately 20 years of its existence. Drawing upon neofunctionalist theory, it aims to assess whether the EU’s role in the matter is expanding or stalling. Empirically, this article considers the succession of financial schemes explicitly tackling integration, in light of the fact that they constitute valuable indicators of the direction, breadth and stringency of a given policy. I therefore compare the funds allocated to integration in the 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 multiannual financial frameworks. I find that the process underway is dual: whilst the EU’s role is clearly receding in terms of substantive policy points, it appears to be widening on the procedural side.
{"title":"Where is the EU’s Migrant Integration Policy Heading?","authors":"P. G. V. Wolleghem","doi":"10.4000/irpp.396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.396","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the trajectory the EU’s policy on the integration of migrants has followed in approximately 20 years of its existence. Drawing upon neofunctionalist theory, it aims to assess whether the EU’s role in the matter is expanding or stalling. Empirically, this article considers the succession of financial schemes explicitly tackling integration, in light of the fact that they constitute valuable indicators of the direction, breadth and stringency of a given policy. I therefore compare the funds allocated to integration in the 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 multiannual financial frameworks. I find that the process underway is dual: whilst the EU’s role is clearly receding in terms of substantive policy points, it appears to be widening on the procedural side.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45904414","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}
This article aims to understand what makes member states complement federal healthcare policy beyond the instruments planned by federal policy. We employ a Multiple Streams approach to study how Swiss member states use their discretion in order to complement federal healthcare regulation with the aim of decreasing outpatient healthcare expenditures at the cantonal level. Based on a written survey in the Swiss cantons, we perform a Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), which places a keen emphasis on complex patterns. The method identifies what combinations of determinants make it particularly likely that a canton opts for complementary policy activity. Several configurations prove to foster such activity. While this is important, it is also important to pay attention to the constellations that precisely do not foster complementary policy activity. Our analysis of the cantonal choices on governing outpatient healthcare reveals that party politics in the executive and/or the public administration play a major role in this task, whereas neither organized interests within the medical profession nor individual policy entrepreneurs are crucial. Federalist systems offer opportunities for policy innovations the federal level ultimately may benefit from.
{"title":"Fixing Federal Faults. Complementary Member State Policies in Swiss Health Care Policy","authors":"F. Sager, Christian Rüefli, Eva Thomann","doi":"10.4000/irpp.426","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.426","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to understand what makes member states complement federal healthcare \u0000policy beyond the instruments planned by federal policy. We employ a Multiple Streams approach to study how Swiss member states use their discretion in order to complement federal healthcare regulation with the aim of decreasing outpatient healthcare expenditures at the cantonal level. Based on a written survey in the Swiss cantons, we perform a Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), which places a keen emphasis on complex patterns. The method identifies what combinations of determinants make it particularly likely that a canton opts for complementary policy activity. Several configurations prove to foster such activity. While this is important, it is also important to pay attention to the constellations that precisely do not foster complementary policy activity. Our analysis of the cantonal choices on governing outpatient healthcare reveals that party politics in the executive and/or the public administration play a major role in this task, whereas neither organized interests within the medical profession nor individual policy entrepreneurs are crucial. Federalist systems offer opportunities for policy innovations the federal level ultimately may benefit from.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47863062","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}
This article argues that policy narratives underpin the mechanisms driving policy transfers. It applies the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine the policy narratives of the transfer agent and recipient, involved in the introduction of disaster risk reduction policy to West Africa. The article analyses the narrative setting, character, plot and moral depicted by the actors in their policy narratives and explains how these narrative elements informed the observation of the transfer mechanism of obligation.
{"title":"Storytelling and Policy Transfer","authors":"Titilayo Soremi","doi":"10.4000/irpp.485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.485","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that policy narratives underpin the mechanisms driving policy transfers. It applies the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine the policy narratives of the transfer agent and recipient, involved in the introduction of disaster risk reduction policy to West Africa. The article analyses the narrative setting, character, plot and moral depicted by the actors in their policy narratives and explains how these narrative elements informed the observation of the transfer mechanism of obligation.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48956511","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}
This paper examines how the European Commission interprets and applies the participatory norm in practice according to constructed strategic contexts. By taking a historical comparative approach and focusing on two examples it shows how, following the Maastricht ‘crisis’ (1992-1998), the participatory norm in the form of debate and dialogue referred simply to a restricted discussion of Single Market rights (DD1). This was a rather limited, one-phased technical discussion on a single issue with an attendant conception of the public as single-issue ratifiers of already existing policies. In contrast, the aftermath of the Constitutional ‘crisis’ (2005-09) led to a conception of debate and dialogue as ‘open-ended’ (DD2); that is, a reflexive wide-ranging amorphous discussion on various and almost randomly chosen topics. DD2 assumed a public of able political discussants, of reflexive and skilful deliberators. What DD1, DD2 and their respective publics show is that when the participatory norm is applied, neither the form of debate and dialogue nor the publics are necessarily defined through universal democratic principles of political involvement and entitlements but rather in terms of expediency and contingent abilities to meet the needs of the European Commission’s strategic agenda at any one time.
{"title":"Single-issue Ratifiers or Political Deliberators?","authors":"S. Pukallus","doi":"10.4000/IRPP.293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/IRPP.293","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how the European Commission interprets and applies the participatory norm in practice according to constructed strategic contexts. By taking a historical comparative approach and focusing on two examples it shows how, following the Maastricht ‘crisis’ (1992-1998), the participatory norm in the form of debate and dialogue referred simply to a restricted discussion of Single Market rights (DD1). This was a rather limited, one-phased technical discussion on a single issue with an attendant conception of the public as single-issue ratifiers of already existing policies. In contrast, the aftermath of the Constitutional ‘crisis’ (2005-09) led to a conception of debate and dialogue as ‘open-ended’ (DD2); that is, a reflexive wide-ranging amorphous discussion on various and almost randomly chosen topics. DD2 assumed a public of able political discussants, of reflexive and skilful deliberators. What DD1, DD2 and their respective publics show is that when the participatory norm is applied, neither the form of debate and dialogue nor the publics are necessarily defined through universal democratic principles of political involvement and entitlements but rather in terms of expediency and contingent abilities to meet the needs of the European Commission’s strategic agenda at any one time.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48468211","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}
Policy overreaction is a policy that imposes objective and/or perceived social costs without producing offsetting objective and/or perceived benefits. It is therefore an objective fact and, at the same time, a matter of interpretation. Policy scholars tend to view this duality as a problematic ontological issue and to categorize such policies as errors of commission or omission. This article builds on (i)the aforementioned duality and (ii)a recent conceptual turn whereby this concept is re-entering the policy lexicon as a type of deliberate policy choice. This may be motivated by, among other factors, political executives’ desire to pander to public opinion, appear informed to voters, and signal extremity. The article assigns specific policy overreaction responses to two dimensions: the scale of policy in terms of objective costs and benefits, and public perceptions of policy. The derived policy taxonomy highlights four distinct empirical categories, which are elaborated and exemplified here, as well as a set of hypotheses about differing patterns of politics and governance associated with the design of these policy choices. These distinctions should facilitate a more systematic empirical test of strategic policy overreaction as a risky policy investment.
{"title":"Strategic Policy Overreaction as a Risky Policy Investment","authors":"M. Maor","doi":"10.4000/IRPP.277","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/IRPP.277","url":null,"abstract":"Policy overreaction is a policy that imposes objective and/or perceived social costs without producing offsetting objective and/or perceived benefits. It is therefore an objective fact and, at the same time, a matter of interpretation. Policy scholars tend to view this duality as a problematic ontological issue and to categorize such policies as errors of commission or omission. This article builds on (i)the aforementioned duality and (ii)a recent conceptual turn whereby this concept is re-entering the policy lexicon as a type of deliberate policy choice. This may be motivated by, among other factors, political executives’ desire to pander to public opinion, appear informed to voters, and signal extremity. The article assigns specific policy overreaction responses to two dimensions: the scale of policy in terms of objective costs and benefits, and public perceptions of policy. The derived policy taxonomy highlights four distinct empirical categories, which are elaborated and exemplified here, as well as a set of hypotheses about differing patterns of politics and governance associated with the design of these policy choices. These distinctions should facilitate a more systematic empirical test of strategic policy overreaction as a risky policy investment.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49274224","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}
In recent years work on policy design and instrument choice has advanced towards a better understanding of the nature of policy mixes, their dimensions, and the trade-offs between choices of tools, as well as the identification of basic design criteria such as coherence, consistency and congruence among policy elements. However, most of this work has ignored the temporal dimension of mixes or has studied this only as an important contextual variable affecting instrument choices, for example, highlighting the manner in which tools and mixes often evolve in unexpected or unintended ways as they age. This ignores the important issue of the intentional sequencing of tools as part of a mix design, either in terms of controlling spillovers which emerge as implementation proceeds, ratcheting up (or down) specific tool effects like stringency of implementation and public consultation as time passes. This article reviews existing work on the unintentional sequencing of policy activity as well as the lessons which can be derived from the few works existing on the subject of intentional sequencing. In so doing, it helps define a research agenda on the subject with the expectation that this research can improve the resilience and robustness of policies over time.
{"title":"Procedural Policy Tools and the Temporal Dimensions of Policy Design","authors":"Michael Howlett","doi":"10.4000/IRPP.310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/IRPP.310","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years work on policy design and instrument choice has advanced towards a better understanding of the nature of policy mixes, their dimensions, and the trade-offs between choices of tools, as well as the identification of basic design criteria such as coherence, consistency and congruence among policy elements. However, most of this work has ignored the temporal dimension of mixes or has studied this only as an important contextual variable affecting instrument choices, for example, highlighting the manner in which tools and mixes often evolve in unexpected or unintended ways as they age. This ignores the important issue of the intentional sequencing of tools as part of a mix design, either in terms of controlling spillovers which emerge as implementation proceeds, ratcheting up (or down) specific tool effects like stringency of implementation and public consultation as time passes. This article reviews existing work on the unintentional sequencing of policy activity as well as the lessons which can be derived from the few works existing on the subject of intentional sequencing. In so doing, it helps define a research agenda on the subject with the expectation that this research can improve the resilience and robustness of policies over time.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49100773","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}
Do democracies perform better than more autocratic political systems? Most existing literature focuses on single issues, such as maintaining the peace, avoiding famines, or promoting stable economic growth. The key to policy success for all these and other issues is adaptive policymaking in complex, dynamic environments. Relying on theory and empirical tests from policy process studies, we focus on extreme policy punctuations as indicators of maladaptive policymaking. We conceive of a continuum from the most open democracies to the most closed authoritarian systems, with intermediate forms of less open democracies, hybrid regimes, and less closed authoritarian systems. Based on a review of the existing literature, we extract four factors that seem to affect maladaptive and hence more punctuated policymaking: friction imposed by formal rules and informal norms on the policymaking process, the absence of incentives to address problems, centralization in policymaking, and lack of diversity in channels of information. Many of these factors cluster, so it is difficult to discern their specific effects, but our approach allows a start at doing so.
{"title":"Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Policy Punctuations","authors":"B. Jones, Derek A. Epp, F. Baumgartner","doi":"10.4000/IRPP.318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/IRPP.318","url":null,"abstract":"Do democracies perform better than more autocratic political systems? Most existing literature focuses on single issues, such as maintaining the peace, avoiding famines, or promoting stable economic growth. The key to policy success for all these and other issues is adaptive policymaking in complex, dynamic environments. Relying on theory and empirical tests from policy process studies, we focus on extreme policy punctuations as indicators of maladaptive policymaking. We conceive of a continuum from the most open democracies to the most closed authoritarian systems, with intermediate forms of less open democracies, hybrid regimes, and less closed authoritarian systems. Based on a review of the existing literature, we extract four factors that seem to affect maladaptive and hence more punctuated policymaking: friction imposed by formal rules and informal norms on the policymaking process, the absence of incentives to address problems, centralization in policymaking, and lack of diversity in channels of information. Many of these factors cluster, so it is difficult to discern their specific effects, but our approach allows a start at doing so.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44163140","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}
{"title":"Editor’s Note","authors":"Claudio M. Radaelli","doi":"10.4000/irpp.360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.360","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48688128","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 conceptual distance between the sovereign state and the global domain of policy making and administration is narrowing, challenging the prevailing methodological nationalism. The rise of global policy and transnational administration necessitates new conversations for traditional, often domestically focused, public policy and public administration studies. By expanding our analytical, theoretical, conceptual, and even our pedagogical approaches to include the kaleidoscope of global governance actors, levels of analysis, sectors, and concepts, not only is our policy research enhanced and deepened, but our ability to engage this complexity is enhanced.
{"title":"Beyond the State: Global Policy and Transnational Administration","authors":"K. Moloney, D. Stone","doi":"10.4000/IRPP.344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/IRPP.344","url":null,"abstract":"The conceptual distance between the sovereign state and the global domain of policy making and administration is narrowing, challenging the prevailing methodological nationalism. The rise of global policy and transnational administration necessitates new conversations for traditional, often domestically focused, public policy and public administration studies. By expanding our analytical, theoretical, conceptual, and even our pedagogical approaches to include the kaleidoscope of global governance actors, levels of analysis, sectors, and concepts, not only is our policy research enhanced and deepened, but our ability to engage this complexity is enhanced.","PeriodicalId":33409,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45698710","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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